Root to Rise: Joyful Clémantine on Daily Gratitude, Forgiveness, and "The Garden State of Mind"
This interview is part of the Root to Rise conversation series hosted by Jacy Cunningham in February 2021, which explores the role wellness plays in activists’ lives as they work to uplift their communities and make history. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity, but you can watch the full conversation below on YouTube.
Jacy
I'm so excited today to invite Joyful Clémantine to our entire world, to our entire community to share her love, to share her light, to share her joy. I haven't seen you in such a long time. I can say that our gatherings, where we met, and how we all came into contact is always an incredible story that I always love to tell. But we'll get into that later. First, introduce yourself. Who are you beyond this story? Because I always know that we want to tell this story. The story is our glory. Beyond your story, who are you?
Joyful
Well, as you find me, I am Joyful Clémantine Wamariya. I am in gratitude right now because we woke up; we have everything we need. We are choosing joy every single day and we're putting that in practice.
I grew up in nine different countries, mostly Eastern Southern Africa. So I feel that I am from everywhere because all those nine countries have people from all over like Mozambique. I see people from Greece, Mozambique, and I see people from all over. You could be in Mozambique, you might as well be in Brazil. In Angola, you might as well be in Brazil. Canada, we're all connected. So I think a little bit about me, I am a child of a creator, and I'm expanding, and I'm here to just share joy that is very much grounded in all of us.
Jacy
I'll share with the community, we had a phone call yesterday, beautiful phone call, okay? We went for two hours and everything that came up was definitely something I wanted to trigger or at least point out in today's conversation. I don't believe that we share enough of the practices that help us sustain our levels of success in the world as it is to society or our levels of success to ourselves, because we all have a different version of what success means. So for you, I just want to get your version. What is your version of success? Because I look at you when I see that you are a best-selling author and in the eyes of society, that's a great thing. That's something to be pedestaled. She's amazing. She's the best author, she's incredible, and I get that. But beyond that, beyond all the accolades and achievements, how are you showing up in the world for yourself? What are the ways in which you are choosing to practice what you preach?
Joyful
Yes. Well, I don't preach. I only share.
Jacy
Practice what you share.
Joyful
I was a public speaker for 13 years, and that was such a beautiful way to be able to connect with my community all over the world. You're speaking about all these accolades and New York Times bestseller, go on. But at the end of the day, for me, it's not only how I am. It's when I am. It's why I am. It's all part of a storytelling. For me, who I am today, it's because of you, it's because of my family, it's because of my friends. It's because of all the people who are adding onto me, at least those I allowed to add on to me. In terms of sharing when we share, that's why we spoke about it. When we share who we are, others want to fuel us, and that's how actually I became.
Joyful
I began by sharing about growing up in my mother's garden with, I think it was with third graders. From what they knew and what their teacher had told them was that I had come from these wars, and poverty, and all these things that really sell in terms of fear. But what I had in me was mostly about really sharing, sharing, sharing food, sharing music, sharing dance, sharing all of these things that brings us to what it is when we choose joy. So beyond all those other things that were present as labels, I am a child of a community of those who share.
Jacy
That's beautiful because I mean, one of the phrases that I often hear in my mind every day is “the village raises the child.” I think that we all have our own village and we've gotten over the years to choose who's a part of that village. We've had great discernment as we've gotten older and gained experiences to know we have to set boundaries within our villages to ensure our own peace. So what we talked about yesterday with a lot about just energetic boundaries, things that we have to create to really center ourselves into a better relationship with ourselves and everything around us.
One of the practices that I shared was the morning marriage practice, or as I call them, the morning vows. Because we always talk about marriage in this society, and the ideas of vows, setting vows, speaking vows to the other person. Saying “I love you” because. But why do we love ourselves? How are we loving ourselves? So once again, coming back to that practice of sustaining our peace and sustaining our success, what's one practice that you do every single day as an acknowledgement that you're here, that you're alive, and that you're well?
Joyful
I have many, and like I shared with you, through Thingy we're able to — it's a platform that we've been working on since March. Yesterday, something that you said, you said, "Let's build a community from our value, the things that we value, the things that we hold dear, so that people can get to know the deeper side of this facade." Right? So that conversation is coming back now to say that the values, when are put into practice, then we become, then people get to know really who we truly are. So one of my favorite practices, actually all my practices, everyone can find at www.thingy.world. All my practices, if you go to my cards, you'll be able to see what shapes me, what holds me.
“One of my favorite practices is actually at night, I have set on my calendar for gratitude and forgiveness. ”
One of my favorite practices is actually at night, I have set on my calendar for gratitude and forgiveness. Gratitude and forgiveness — it began a few years ago where I felt that to be able to look back on what I have experienced, it comes with so much pain, but it comes with so much joy, right? I didn't want to freeze myself in only one angle, either only from a place of gratitude or from a place of forgiveness. So I'm going to marry them. Before I used to write it down, I had a gratitude wall where I just take a sticky note and write what I'm grateful for and stick it wherever I could see it.
Then forgiveness was very more internal, forgiving myself and forgiving those who might not have been kind to me either. Or that I may not be kinder to myself, or those that I was not kind to. That is refreshing. Let me tell you when I don't do it, things go crazy, things go sideways. So setting an alarm clock, every 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock, wherever you are, stack your time as “my forgiveness and gratitude.” If you do that every day, you will see something when you don't do it. It's the simplest thing, but it's also the most gracious thing. So that's one of my practices. How about you? I know that you have several practices.
Jacy
One of my favorites, I would say I do it every single morning, is I write, like I said, my morning vows. That morning love letter is like, it's such a part of my morning. It's so a part of my routine, so a part of my love language to myself. I need affirmations from me to me to remind me of how much love I do have within me sometimes because the well may run dry at times based upon how much I may be pouring out and not pouring in. So for me, that's my morning pour. Okay, I get to pour into my own cup, my own well, and I get to understand what it tastes like. How do I want to be loved today? How am I choosing to love myself today?
So part of that routine as well is movement. Movement is like that's, as I said yesterday, that's how I pay my dues. If God has gifted me with another day, that's my payment. Every single morning, 7:30, I'm on the mat, I'm huffing and puffing. It's become sacred. Every day I acknowledge the sacred nature to arriving upon that mat, and looking down at it, and seeing that sweat drip down, and seeing all that pain, all that doubt, all the many ways in which I tried to defeat myself from within. I see it, and I look at it, and I smile because I know I'm getting things out that need to get out, and important things in the need to be in.
Without that routine, like you said, I already know my day is going to be terrible. I'm like my mind starts running left, right, up, down. I'm like, wait a minute. So I think when it comes to wellness, when it comes to the rise coming from that root, that is the root. The root is your morning. The root is the first words that you say to yourself every morning. The first one that I tried to say often, thank you. Because as simple as it is, it's an invitation into gratitude and acceptance and surrender to what is, not what will be, not what was, but what is today? It's arguably one of the most wonderful practices that I've ever integrated into my life. Now it's become something that I invite others to do as well.
On Thingy, as we discussed, Thingy is all about sharing your daily rituals. Giving people a deeper insight into like, how do you truly stay well? Because we try to hide that stuff. We're like, "Wait a minute no, you can not know how I do me, because if you do, then you'll be able to do you too." No, we're always trying to keep things to ourselves. So the willingness to share is what I admire about you.
Joyful
If Beyonce was able to share with us her routine in the morning, how does she wake up in the morning? How does she take care of herself? How does she go throughout the day? It could be just snaps of five minutes. For example, your love letter, it's that morning you wake up, right? If we give people different, you wake up, you do this, you do this, you do this, done. Everyone is opting to your ways of being, right?
People now just looking at you will be like, "Jacy, you're so amazing." Like, "Oh my goodness, Beyonce is just a goddess." It's like Beyonce is a goddess, but she's also a human right? So with Thingy we are realizing that when we share these little unique moments of interaction toward ourselves and each other, we're able to have this transparency. We're able to fully immerse. This is also beyond breaking labels. With The Girl Who Smiled Beads, as I shared the experience, I dove deep, so intensely, to be able to be like, "That's just who I am. I'm this very, very intense person. I'm this very stuffed person. I shared my words." Now Thingy as a platform and a tool, it's allowing me to be able to say, "Here's how I go about my day. My 3:30 nap, don't disrupt it. I need that nap or otherwise I might destroy you with my words. Let me have my 3:30 nap, okay?"
It's these simple things. Yesterday we said that we have supportive structures, right? All the things that we have that are supporting us and those things are also invisible. So let's bring them forward. Also we have unsupportive structures, right? Our response ability between the supportive and unsupportive structure is to find balance. That balance is creating rituals and routines. Within that routine and creation, what we share is our grounding. It's setting time for love, gratitude, and forgiveness, because those words, transforming them into what transcends us. I wake up, and I make tea, and I drink the tea, right? Taking that tea has an opportunity to set that self-love of gratitude.
“We’re here to be transparent.”
Then I said that way of your love letter to yourself is a reminder of exploration. It's my reminder of how you're treating yourself. So that before I interact with you in any way, I know that, Jacy does this. This is his practice. This is a way of being. So then there's no confusion on your being, that's when I know how to treat you. Because we tend to have all these labels that, of course, going back to what you asked earlier, gives us these accolades without knowing the background. And we're here to be transparent.
Jacy
I think that's so beautiful, we're here to be transparent. I think that's something that we often miss out on in life because society teaches us to create these faces and facades and these masks to show the world so that we can be successful to the world, and not be successful to ourselves. Which is such an odd thing I find in society, where people just sacrifice their peace, their joy, for all of these accolades and all of these achievements that literally don't really mean anything if you're not able to sustain your own version of success. So for me, I think it's very important that we continue discussing what success means because we have a certain homogenized version in America of what success is, the American dream. As George Carlin so aptly put it, you have to be asleep to realize it.
I think the opportunities that we have every single day to keep people a little more attuned to what's in front of them, to what's around them, and what's beneath them is very important to me. That's what we share also, is just this commonality of just connectivity. How can we help the world connect? The beautiful part about it is that we're giving these labels and categories to fit into and to be designated with you're black, you're tall, you're short. You come from that side of the road, I come from this side of the road. We have so much separation, but connectivity is truly where we can find our peace.
As an opportunity to connect the world that we have in front of us, around us, whatever our audience, how do you connect the world? How do you connect your community? How do you connect to people?
“Setting and tuning that mindset, which I called the garden state of mind, we are connected to each other. We are connected to everything.”
Joyful
Well, I'm so grateful that we are coming into that because there's so many ways of connecting. But first thing first, and we spoke about this thing yesterday. Realizing that we are already connected, right? We are already connected through our heartbeat and breath, we're already connected. Setting and tuning that mindset, which I called the garden state of mind, we are connected to each other. We are connected to everything. We are connected to even things that have not yet come into existence. We are connected to the things that have already passed. We are the gift of today. Having that mindset already. Setting that up every day in your tweets, in your Instagram, in whichever world you are expanding in, setting that mindset is really important to me.
Maybe I should say, I'm speaking for myself, setting my mindset in the garden state of mind that I am connected to everyone and everything that gives me the opportunity to be able to see that separatism. It's a choice that I make every day, and it’s a choice that I don't make to be able to be in the opposite, which is the abundance, right? Infinity.
I'm going to read an excerpt. Any of you could find this book from anywhere. It's called “The Girl Who Smiled Beads.” This is Chapter 14. This is a highlight. This was when I was like, what is this book about anyways? What did five years of therapy, and crying and sweating in hot yoga, and doing all these different things to be able to relive my not fun experiences. This is the story of war and what comes after. What may I offer to myself? What may I offer to my nieces, my nephew, my community, to be able to connect deeply to me and themselves to connect to themselves. What I mean by my mother, I mean of course my birth mom. But all the women and men who created that space for me to be who I am.
My mother used to test us, "Go get an orange," she would say at the end of a meal. Then she'd cut down one orange into pieces and watch us. There might be two pieces, there might be four pieces, there might be six pieces. She wanted to be sure we did not take more than our share. The exercise was illogical, you see, to me, we had trees full of oranges in the garden. We could each have our own orange and not that — even our own tree. But if my mother did not cut that one orange into enough pieces for everyone to share, the correct answer to the test was to cut it into more. My mother is radical in her action, if not in her words. Sharing is her philosophy and ideology to encounter what she considered to be emotionally stingy notions of possession or entitlement.
We are never to think “I actually have the orange,” "This orange is mine. I'm giving you what's mine." We are to think, "This orange is ours. We are sharing what's ours." I think back to this often in trying to make sense of the world, how there's people who have so much and people who have so little, and how I fit in with them both. Often, I try to bridge the two worlds to show people, either the people with so much or the people with so little, that everything is yours and everything is not yours. I wish to invite even myself and everyone to think and to practice that boxing ourselves into teeny cubbies based on class, race, ethnicity, religion, anything really, comes from a poverty of mind, a poverty of imagination.
“True survival of the body, the soul, and spirit requires collaboration.”
True survival of the body, the soul, and spirit requires collaboration. You might have time and I might have land. You might have an idea and I might have strength. You might have a tomato and I might have a knife. We need each other. We need to say, "I honor the things that you respect, and I value the things that you cherish. I'm not better than you, you're not better than me." Nobody is better than anybody else. Nobody is who you think at first glance. We need to see beyond the projection we cast into each other. Each of us is so much grander, more nuanced, more extraordinary than anybody thinks.
I can continue on but this is to answer that this is just a symbol. Anything really, you could just turn into this. To truly deeply connect for me, I think back to this example and how we're all here to share this heartbeat, and breath, and everything around us. It sounds a bit crazy, but if we just take whatever you have, an apple, or an orange, or whatever, banana, whatever it is, and you just cut it and you say, "I'm just here to share. I'm here to create, and I'm here to share what I'm creating." The other day, I thought about these other words, and I was sharing with my partner and I said "We take a care of what we share and that begins with self.” That's what you are doing for us. That's how you are sharing with us. That's what Alo Moves is sharing with us. That's what every personal platform is sharing with us. How they are caring, taking care of themselves and then sharing what they are taking care of, and that could be anything. So that's my orange theory from my mother's garden.
Jacy
I love it. I mean, where do we go from there? You know we both share in the same spirit when it comes to trying to share with the world our practices and the things that keep us well, keep us lit, keep us recognizing that we are alive today and not tomorrow, but today. It's very important. Realizing that whatever we have is what we have. Us trying to always get more and more and more, is the reason why our world looks the way that it does. I think we need to share from where we are, not from when we get to a place where we can now, to society, "I could share now." It's like, you can always share. I think that's the opportunity that's inherent in every day, is that it's the opportunity to share and share more because we all have one guarantee in this game: it's going to be over at some point in time in these biological skin suits.
So what are we willing to leave behind? Are we willing to leave behind a legacy of love or a legacy of fear? So you and I both want to leave legacies of love behind. That's why I was so excited to share this with our community, because I know that many of us struggle with trying to understand how to be, how to exist, how to stand in truth. We stand for truth in the world, and we stand for love, and we stand for peace, and we stand for joy. I think expressing that is my everyday mission as is yours. So I'm glad to have shared this joyful and peaceful conversation with our community.
I'll finish with this one last question to you: If you had 24 hours left, okay? If you got a call and they said, "Hey, the world's done tomorrow." Just one call. You're like, "Hello." They're like, "It's over tomorrow, okay?" You're like, "Who is this?" You don't even know where it is. They hang up and you're just sitting there contemplating what to do for them for the rest of your day. What are you to do? Now, given that you have 24 hours left to be alive as this person, as such, what are you to do?
Joyful
Just breathe and thank everyone for sharing this gift of being in this beautiful place called earth. I'll hug all the trees, I'll go to the redwoods and hug the trees so much. I'll smell all the flowers. I'll grab my friend Clemantine and tell her, "Please make me the most delicious food?" Then I'll call some of my musician friends to play music for me, and then dance with them. I'll forget that there's COVID and kiss everyone that I love.
I would just do everything within the radius of 50 feet, wherever you are within 24 hours, just kiss, and hug, and dance. I will hug them all, I'll float. I will immerse myself. Do we get that phone call every day when we get that breath though? In that, a beautiful phone call every day, and that is what I hope Thingy can be. You get a text every morning to say, “Here I am. Thank you, life. Thank you, life. Yes, thank you, life.”
Jacy
I love that, that might be my new tattoo, “Thank you, life.”
Thank you. Thank we as a community for inviting these conversations. I thank Alo Moves for staging these conversations and allowing these platforms to have a deeper meaning behind just movement and sweat. I think the reason why we have these platforms is so much deeper — to utilize them in the beautiful spaces that we can and beautiful ways in which we can is very important to me. What a gorgeous day it is to be alive. I am so thankful with it. Joyful, thank you. Thank you for being who you are and gathering so much joy to continue sustaining your success in the world.