How do we find spiritual belonging and healing in a world filled with loneliness, uncertainty, and division? In this special episode of Compass: Finding Spirituality in the Everyday, host Ryan Dunn is joined by Dori Grinenko Baker and Anna Del Castillo for a heartfelt conversation about tapping into the “deep wells” of soulful practice, community connection, and personal ritual.
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Explore practical and inspiring ways to nurture your spirit—whether through grounding in nature, joyful body movement, morning meditation, or holy listening circles. Learn how simple practices can support mental health, combat isolation, and create bridges across divides. Dori and Anna share research-backed insights, accessible spiritual tools, and moving stories from their work with the intergenerational collective Our Own Deep Wells, empowering you to find meaning and belonging wherever you are on your spiritual journey.
Dori Grinenko Baker calls herself a Spy for Hope. She is a writer, facilitator, and thought-leader who is passionate about helping people find meaning and live into their purpose. She’s done a lot of educating around faith formation in young people. Her book Girl/Friend Theology is a treasure for ministry practitioners and widely shared in educational settings. Dori is a co-host of the "Live to Tell" podcast.
Together, they help guide Our Own Deep Wells, a growing diverse and intergenerational collective from across religious and spiritual traditions. They create resources and gatherings that work to provide care and support to the world, with special emphasis on young adults, community organizers, and social change leaders. Anna is the Executive Director and Dori is the Chief Visionary Officer.
Episode Notes:
Our guests referenced a 2024 Surgeon General's report called "Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation".
Anna helps produce and recommends the "Soulful Parenting" podcast. It is available on Spotify.
Our guests also recommend Dr. Lisa Miller's book, The Spiritual Child.
In this episode:
[00:00] "Exploring Everyday Spiritual Practices"
[04:23] Soulful Practices for Well-Being
[07:58] Grounding Meditation and Ancestral Reflection
[10:31] "Creating Inclusive Well-being Practices"
[15:11] College Proctor's Unexpected Ministry Journey
[18:10] Soulful Practices: Reflection and Connection
[20:42] "Infusing Soulful Practices in Workplaces"
[25:53] "Activism for Peace: A Personal Journey"
[27:36] Creating Spaces for Unity
[31:10] Empowering Community Through Connection
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This episode posted on May 14, 2025
Episode Transcript:
Ryan Dunn [00:00:03]:
Welcome to Compass, finding spirituality in the everyday. My name is Ryan Dunn. In this episode, I'm joined by Dori Grinenko Baker and Anna Del Castillo for a heartfelt exploration of soulful practices and the deep wells of community connection and healing that we can each tap into, especially in uncertain times. Anna and Dori share personal rituals like grounding in nature and joyful body movement and discuss how simple acts such as morning meditation, holy listening, and gathering in circles can combat loneliness, support mental health, and foster belonging across divides. Whether you're looking for inspiration to begin your own soulful practices or insights on building deeper relationships in your life, this conversation is a warm invitation to discover or draw from your own deep wells. If you appreciate conversations like this, we'd appreciate it if you hit the subscribe button on your podcast listening platform. And if you've already done that, then drop us a rating or review. A quick one is great.
Ryan Dunn [00:01:14]:
You can just say that you like Compass and appreciate what it does. Thanks so much. Our guests here now are Dori Grinenko Baker and Anna Del Castillo. Dori calls herself a spy for hope. She is a writer, facilitator, and thought leader who is passionate about helping people find meaning and live into their purpose. She's done a lot of educating around faith formation and young people, including inspiring yours truly in, seminary class a couple decades ago, which we didn't really discover until we reconnected for this podcast episode. And I'll tell you, her book, Girlfriend Theology, is a treasure for ministry practitioners and is widely shared in educational settings. Anna Del Castillo is a healer who is innovating at the intersection of justice, politics, and healing.
Ryan Dunn [00:02:06]:
Anna served in the Biden Harris administration as the deputy director of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility for the White House. And together, Anna and Dory help guide our own Deep Wells, a growing, diverse, and intergenerational collective from across religious and spiritual traditions. They help create resources and gatherings that work to provide care and support to the world with a special emphasis on young adults, community organizers, and social change leaders. Anna is the executive director, and Dory is the chief visionary officer. So there's a lot for us to talk about and explore here with Anna and Dory, but let's get to the conversations here on Compass. We have just rolled through a soulful centering practice, feeling grounded and drawing ourselves into this space. So Dory and Anna, thank you so much for being here on the Compass podcast. I'll start with this question.
Ryan Dunn [00:03:08]:
Maybe this is a little leading as we've just gone through the soulful practice, but how goes it with your soul today? Dori, let's start with you.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:03:14]:
Wow. These are difficult times to be grounded. And so I feel that my soul is good. I had some, time in the dirt this morning with my plants, and so I'm grounded. And it's a constant effort to stay soulful. Effort's not the right word. Constant intention and intention.
Anna Del Castillo [00:03:42]:
Well, it's so good to be here with you, Ryan and Dory. And how is it with my soul today? I have just arrived to our virtual podcast space from a one mile run. I was like, I just gotta get a quick one in. And DC, where I live, Washington, DC, is just vibrant green right now. It's that moment in spring where things are coming alive, and it's just this, like, mysterious green color that almost feels otherworldly. And so I'm feeling very grounded from time outside and the changing season, but just echoing so much of what Dory said of trying to stay centered in times that that feel very uncertain.
Ryan Dunn [00:04:23]:
Before I could even hit the record button, Dory said, well, we need to we need to do a centering practice. Like, let's just pause down and concentrate on our souls for a moment. And you started our own deep wells with the expectations of of drawing people into social or I'm sorry, soulful practices for the purposes of bringing about healing and a sense of connection with one another and a greater well-being through that connection. So with that in mind, Anna, you talked about running and maybe that's a soulful practice for you, but is there or are there soulful practices that you personally invest in regularly that have impacted your emotional well-being? And Anna, may maybe we'll just pick up with you. Maybe running is it.
Anna Del Castillo [00:05:10]:
Yes. Running is definitely a soulful practice for me. Running feels connected to a series of soulful practices that I call joyful body movement. So I love to do physical fitness classes with friends. I love to do yoga with folks in the park, but, really, I view the gift of moving my body as a soulful practice that helps me to balance my cortisol levels, to help me connect with how my body is feeling, help me connect with breath. So those are some soulful practices that I do on the daily and love, but I've just started doing morning meditation with
Ryan Dunn [00:05:46]:
my partner.
Anna Del Castillo [00:05:46]:
So we we did it to be partner. So we we did it to be accountability buddies because it's, like, first thing in the morning. Sometimes, you know, 06:50AM, we're rolling out of bed, going to sit on the living room
Ryan Dunn [00:05:59]:
floor, and just investing in ten minutes.
Anna Del Castillo [00:05:59]:
It's a ten minute timer where we just sit and breathe together, and It's a ten minute timer where we just sit and breathe together, and we've done it now for one week. So shouting at us for this little goal, and it it has really made such a difference in how my day starts.
Ryan Dunn [00:06:14]:
Within that meditation practice, is there a way that you keep your mind centered or or present?
Anna Del Castillo [00:06:20]:
It's I mean, I will say starting a meditation practice after many months of taking a break, it is hard to keep the mind centered. And I have just been really trying to have a lot of compassion of when I kind of see my brain already going to my first Google Calendar invite. I just say a little mantra, which is be here
Ryan Dunn [00:06:40]:
now.
Anna Del Castillo [00:06:41]:
So if I'm sitting on that pillow and thinking about what I wanna have for breakfast, I just gently say, be here now. And, that has been really helpful of just having, like, a couple of words to center me back in the present moment. And I actually get a lot of my mantras from Dory Baker, who who I view as the queen of having some gentle mantras to just recenter and refocus.
Ryan Dunn [00:07:05]:
Dory, is that something that you're purposeful in developing, or do they just kinda come out of you, these mantras?
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:07:10]:
Both and. Both and. Yes and. My social practice, runs the gamut of many different many different practices, but the one that starts me almost every day whenever possible is to get outside barefoot early. And to see the sun, I actually, open my windows so that I'm seeing the sun without filter for the first few moments of the day because I know that resets my serotonin levels. These are also practical, they're also physiological so some might wonder what makes it a biohack and what makes it a spiritual practice. And for me the difference is, very subtle and it's really just being mindful that we're connected to something more than ourselves. So when I go outside barefoot, I am, connecting to the Earth.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:07:58]:
I'm literally feeling the you know, my body is benefiting from the electromagnetic charge of the Earth beneath my bare feet. And I'm also looking up into the sky and remembering my ancestors, my wise and loving ancestors who mostly, came from across the Atlantic Ocean as far as I know, and I am welcoming in into my, worldview, that that cloud of witnesses. Those people who have gifted my DNA, my biological DNA, but also I ask for their help in restoring and repairing some of the damage that's been done by those settlers who came, from Northern Europe onto the land where I live, which is the land of the Monacan people. And so, you know, I also I turned to my left and I turned to my right and I honored the Monacan people whose land I'm on. And I honored the people in the city to the right of me, which was a major market for the slave trade. And I remember their connectedness to my neighbors today. And that little practice, like, sometimes it's five minutes, sometimes it's ten, sometimes it's thirty seconds. Mhmm.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:09:12]:
But that sets my day off into a way of realizing that I any work for justice I do today is flowing through, it's flowing through me. It's not about me.
Ryan Dunn [00:09:23]:
Mhmm.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:09:24]:
And it also relieves me from the burden of getting it right. Right? Yeah. Because I won't always get it right. So it's, you know, it's just a way of setting my intention.
Ryan Dunn [00:09:33]:
Mhmm. We gathered here here, quote, unquote, within this space, this proverbial space, for the purpose of talking about soulful practices. I hear words like cortisol and biohacking. These are sciencey type terms, right? Can you talk a little bit about the relationship between these soulful practices and how that might affect our, our physical being is kind of these, dual entities that, many of us assume that we are?
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:10:07]:
Well, I'll start, and then I'll let you finish. How's that?
Anna Del Castillo [00:10:09]:
Sounds great.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:10:10]:
I'll say. We started RND Wells because we were alarmed by the mental health epidemic, especially as it was affecting is affecting young people. And I've spent my career focusing on vocation and helping young people come alive to purpose. Ryan, you were in a class of mine.
Ryan Dunn [00:10:30]:
Way back. Yep.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:10:31]:
And, I just realized that if people can't get out of bed in the morning, literally, if the anxiety and the depression is immobilizing, then trying to find meaning and purpose is is not gonna happen. Right? And so I just kind of backed up and looked at, brain research that shows that skillful practices mitigate anxiety and depression. And this is coming from the work of neuropsychologist Lisa D Miller, The Awakened Mind. And she also has a book about, parenting, awaken awakening the spiritual gifts of children, spiritual practices and children, her words are spiritual and we just changed that to to the word soulful because we thought it was a bigger on ramp, more accessible to people who might have been harmed by spiritual traditions or religious traditions. So we're holding both of those things at the same time. Brain research shows those of us with a spiritual tradition that we're at home with, maybe we fought with it, maybe we've broken up with it, maybe we we reconciled with it. We shouldn't be the only ones who have access to these life saving practices. So that's what we're about at R and D Wells is to try to create easier on ramps and access points for people who, for a very good reason, may have broken pathways to the spiritual traditions of their parents and grandparents generations.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:11:59]:
Mhmm.
Anna Del Castillo [00:12:00]:
Yeah. Just to pick up from there, we do use doctor Lisa Miller's research, and we also really lean on the surgeon general's, work. So the previous surgeon general did a lot of research on the epidemic of loneliness, and I live here in Washington DC and used to work in the federal government. And I had the chance to actually hear Vivek speak about this epidemic of loneliness. And he spoke to a room full of, federal government leaders about how important it is to have community and how important it is to take seriously our mental health, especially when it comes to how we gather with folks. And so just I encourage everyone to read, that report that came out. I think it was in 2024. But that's something that we feel as humans, you know.
Anna Del Castillo [00:12:52]:
I'm I'm not a scientist. I didn't go to medical school, but I do know that something changes in my body when I'm sitting in circle with people who are holding space for me. And I think that we're starting to see a lot of public health research coming out about the importance of having grounded community, of being with people. And so we view that as a soulful practice of sitting in circle. For some folks, it might be, no. I'm just gonna go, you know, grab some coffee with a friend, and we're gonna talk about reality TV. That's that's cool. We are encouraging people to take a more soulful orientation to gathering, to go a little bit deeper, but we just know that it is so important for humans to be together.
Anna Del Castillo [00:13:37]:
And, that to me really rang true when I read the surgeon general's report.
Ryan Dunn [00:13:42]:
We're starting our own deep wells for each of you a reaction to a felt loneliness in your own lives?
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:13:51]:
That's a really good question. I think a lot about the value of my own individual social practices, but that is so magnified when I share it with a friend, even as simple as Anna doing that morning meditation with her partner, having an accountability buddy. Yes. We all suffer from loneliness, and my life is spread around the nation. I have beautiful people all across the country, but I don't always have people in my backyard or right across the street. So the pandemic changed that for a lot of us. And after the pandemic, I started having fire pits in my backyard. I don't need a very big excuse at all.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:14:27]:
It could be a new moon. It could be, all souls day. But I will call people up, and I might invite seven and two might show, and that is exactly who's supposed to be there. But there is something like I like Anna said, there is research to back this up, but I don't know the research. I I don't need the research. I feel it in my body. Mhmm. The morning after I've had a few women or or men or people of all ages around my fire pit, I'm I'm better.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:14:55]:
I'm better. I'm more available to be of some good in the world. My actual, my, you know, my nervous system is more settled and I'm less reactive and more able to respond with love and and spaciousness.
Anna Del Castillo [00:15:11]:
I was just gonna say to that question, I think I came into our own deep wells really by the ushering of creator that led me to meet Dory Baker at a time when I was a proctor at Harvard University, which is a kind of fancy name for a residential assistant. So I was in grad school, and I was doing research and living on campus supporting a group of twenty five 18 year olds, you know, 18 to 20 year olds who were in their first year of college. And what I didn't realize was that that position was actually going to become my ministry. You know, I was in divinity school studying how to be a chaplain. I was studying racial justice and healing, how to do spiritual care work. And I was meeting with so many young adults who were really struggling and who I think were leaving home for the first time, and they were given permission to talk about their loneliness or the ways that they viewed their body or the ways that they were getting language for the first time to understand their family trauma and their lineage. And I was sitting with them in these tiny little dorm rooms, and I was like, wow. They need more support.
Anna Del Castillo [00:16:23]:
And our training is to refer them to mental health services at Harvard, which, of course, I did. That's such a beautiful place for them to get the care that they need, but there weren't enough counselors and therapists to support them.
Ryan Dunn [00:16:37]:
So they
Anna Del Castillo [00:16:37]:
were like, okay, Anna. Like, I you know, in four months, I can go have this appointment, but what do I do on the day to day? And it goes back to what Dory said of how do we help people to get out of bed in the morning? Because the truth is most people don't have a therapist that's working with them every single day. You know, that's that's a great resource, but people need tools to really understand what is emerging and what is surfacing for them, especially in those, you know, in that age from 18 to 21. Those are that's times when you're like, okay. I'm on my own for the first time. I didn't even know I could ask these questions, and I don't have anyone to really sit with me, and just witness me. So that is around the time that I met Dory, and we just had this shared vision and shared desire to provide more support.
Ryan Dunn [00:17:23]:
So, Anna, I'm curious. In in those conversations then, how do you bridge going from somebody saying I'm feeling a little isolated, alienated, or lonely to, inviting them into a a new soulful practice that that maybe completely, for lack of a better way of putting it, foreign to them or uncomfortable for them?
Anna Del Castillo [00:17:45]:
Yeah. That's a great question. And that's something we think about a lot. And I think Dory has taught me so much about how to be really inclusive in soulful practices. So, you know, I was raised in a very Christian household. I'm a preacher's kid. I, you know, was very, very involved with the United Methodist Church. And, I wasn't sitting in that dorm room saying, hey, can we pray together? Or, like, let me teach you the Lord's prayer.
Anna Del Castillo [00:18:10]:
You know, no shame to doing that, but but I think our invitations to soulful practices and I when I was doing that work, I didn't even really have the language of soulful practices, but it was, okay, let's let me listen to you. Like, tell can let's ask that question again. I just want you to sit with that question and then inviting them to just pause and reflect for sixty seconds on a question and have someone just do holy listening with them, which is a practice that I would love for Dory to to talk about. And then other things like, okay. I'm I'm gonna give you a couple of journaling prompts. Can you do those before the next time that we meet? Or it sounds like you really wanna talk to your friend about this. Can y'all schedule a time in the next week to go for a walk around the river and just like talk tell her how you're feeling or like tell her about this feeling that you've just shared with me. So those three practices journaling, grabbing a friend to go for a walk in nature, and doing walk in nature, and doing holy listening, like, those are soulful practices that, are very simple and are not tied to any particular religion.
Anna Del Castillo [00:19:13]:
You know, it's just invitational. It's something anyways, Dori, I would love for you to talk about holy listening because it has changed my life.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:19:24]:
That's so sweet. Thank you. I also will just add that, Anna's example of the dorm room is a great one. What we're trying to equip people to do is like whenever they hold the mic and that's a metaphor, whenever they have the opportunity, whenever they're facilitating anything, these are spaces where the mindfulness movement has already crossed the super highway, right? We already know that a moment of you know deep breathing together, we can do that in a science classroom for all you know for all intents anywhere. So what we're trying to do is broaden that movement and make it more inclusive of all the world's traditions so that we're representing, you know, and we're tethering these traditions to their context by by writing about them in ways ways that come from the people who are from those contexts, right? Whether that's Jewish or Muslim or Christian or earth based traditions. But the idea is there's a whole lot more out there than just breathing together. So if you're facilitating a freshman orientation, you can do a solo practice. That might have to do with mingling around the room and touching base with a group of two people or three people and answering a question that just brings your body to life.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:20:42]:
You know a simple question like, tell me about the best vacation you ever went on in your life or what's your favorite food from your family of origin. Like those things get our, get our bodies, our life force rises to the surface and we can be soulful with one another and then move back into, okay, what is the work that we have to do here? But, we're really excited about looking for places in on campuses, in in boardrooms, on, on, on in corporations where we can infuse the day with little social practices. In Christian Christian language that would be prayer without ceasing and in Christian language it would be the priesthood of all believers. But we're seeking to make those two, invitations more inclusive. Like what does it what does it look like to lead a soulful moment? In the midst of a tragedy, in the midst of I mean this was way back. I remember when the Boston Marathon, explosions happened. I remember thinking what would it be like if the young people there had some practices in their back pockets so while the ENTs are doing their work, there are chaplain movement chapels chaplains leading folks in practices that can calm us and make us be available for the next moment. So there's lots of good work on movement chaplaincy going on, and we've been learning from our colleagues in those spaces about how to just do these how to equip people so these practices are at their fingertips.
Ryan Dunn [00:22:10]:
Are there practices that you have noticed that are conducive to bringing people together from maybe across polarized spaces?
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:22:20]:
Yeah. So we'll talk about holy listening, and then I'll I'll let Anna tell a few stories about when we've seen that happen. So holy listening is a practice that, you know, just goes way way back to Methodist roots for me and some of the work that I did in my early early part of my career but you know just opening someone to tell a story about a time when And as we listen to that person for just two minutes, I've done this in the midst of, worship on a Sunday morning right in the middle of my sermon. I've stopped the sermon. It was Pentecost and I just said, okay, for two minutes turn to someone and tell a story about a time when fill in the blank what you want to that story to be about, set a timer and when you're listening you are only listening and I usually say listen as if you may see the holy one, show up in the face of the person that you're listening to. Like, allow yourself to be surprised or just pretend even. You can't get yourself to that place. Pretend that the holy one is gonna be better for you for a moment or with you for a moment and then you take turns.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:23:25]:
So each one gets to listen and each one gets to speak. And in that example of doing that on a Sunday morning in the middle of worship, someone came up to me afterwards and said they had been paired with, they paired themselves with a person whose baptism they had been present at. It was an older person and a younger person. And that person was the younger person was about to be confirmed. And they had these two minutes together, these four minutes together that changed the trajectory of the next few weeks for them. And so there's always just this possibility that, you know, two minutes of holy listening to someone can change a life. That we expand. That's a very easy, you know, simple practice, but we also have some deep dive practices and one of those is theological reflection around shared story.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:24:11]:
And we did that recently and I'll let Anna tell that story because that was a moment when, all the politics that are alive in our bodies got brought into the room and we got to dive deep.
Anna Del Castillo [00:24:22]:
Mhmm. Yeah. So this practice, and you can find this on our website, but it's called Live to Tell. And it is a soulful practice that Dory really birthed into the world, but it is, it kind of takes holy listening into a deeper practice where you have someone share a story that they've prepared. It's usually, you know, a two to three minute read about, a different topic. Difficulty. And that person gets the opportunity to read a story in a circle of people. And the first step of that live model is to listen.
Anna Del Castillo [00:25:04]:
And so folks just listen. They take it in. But I've done live before. And as a storyteller, it's so sacred to have a circle just listen to you with no expectations, no fixing things, no trying to give you advice, but just listening. And then we've moved through some other steps of theological reflection, surfacing questions that come up for folks, surfacing emotions and feelings. But in this particular time, we were leading a retreat at beautiful Lake Tahoe, and this was a very intergenerational group from across The United States. So we had I think our our elder was in their seventies, and our youngest person was 22. And most of the folks there didn't know each other, so they were kinda coming by invitation of Dory and Anna, sort of us bringing our people together.
Anna Del Castillo [00:25:53]:
And one of my dear friends who I've met in, in my own activist journey here in Washington, DC, she and I have done a lot of work together on calling for peace in Gaza and calling for an end of violence there. And she is a young Jewish woman, and she read her story of her own personal loss and and also the loss that has come the loss and the gain that has come from her activism. And she read this story and it was very clear that she has been pushing for peace in Gaza and an end of violence, and and really holding the Israeli government accountable. And so reading a story like that and as facilitators, you never know how that's gonna land in a room because people had very different thoughts about Israel Palestine. And and we didn't even know everyone's view on on what's happening there. But we do know that that's a very divisive, can be a very divisive topic. And by the end of this person going through the live model, we had people in tears. We had mamas, like, mothering this person.
Anna Del Castillo [00:26:57]:
We had someone who was like, I'm ordering a cake to celebrate your brave decision. And we really did. That night, we had a party, a celebration party to celebrate this person and the brave decision that they had made. And so, I mean, I just have chills thinking about what that room felt like because that could happen in a way that wasn't a soulfully led practice and it could have divided a room. It could have led people to end relationships. It could have caused a lot of harm, but we really saw that soulful practice bringing this intergenerational group together in a way that was healing, I wanna say for all of us, but really healing for the person who shared her story.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:27:36]:
That group was also, racially diverse and religiously diverse. And so what happened on that day, you know, we were not far out from the encampments on campuses last spring. We were in July, you know, everything's still literally on it is still on fire in many of our realities. Right? We weren't far out from all of that but in this space that was carefully created and tended soulfully, there was just a little more room made for us to show up for each other. No matter what we how we've been raised, right, to show up in that moment. There was a little more spaciousness and so that's what we wanna see more of happen. And we believe these deeper dives when people can be together for two days, sharing social practices, we kinda feel like that's what the world needs right now. That we need to be sharing across our deep traditions that have so much wisdom and so much ancient, reservoir, I mean deep wells.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:28:37]:
But how can we not draw only from our own, but make space to draw mutually from one another's and receive that beautiful flow that was happening in that space that day? There's one other thing that happened in that retreat that was similarly, like, a bridging moment. I'm gonna let Anna talk about that one too.
Anna Del Castillo [00:28:56]:
Yeah. We we love to story tell, Ryan. So we're gonna tell you another story.
Ryan Dunn [00:28:59]:
Bring
Anna Del Castillo [00:28:59]:
it. So this practice I love, and I know that you've had the incredible Tamisha Helms on your podcast before. They are a dear friend of ours and also the theologian in residence for our own deep wells. And Tamise, in collaboration with, the poet Nick George, who's also a member of our collective, created a soulful practice, and methodology called mixtape, rest mixtape. And so I won't go too much into it because folks can just listen to your other
Ryan Dunn [00:29:28]:
podcast episodes. Link in the show notes. We got it.
Anna Del Castillo [00:29:31]:
Yeah. That's pretty sure. But what is so beautiful or what was so beautiful about this practice, at Tahoe was that you had two black teachers and facilitators talking about hip hop and the history of chattel slavery in The United States Of America to a room conversation like this. This is the first time that I've actually sat down and listened to the lyrics of Kendrick Lamar or or have been asked a question about my relationship to hip hop or my knowledge of hip hop. And so, you know, I've done a lot of inclusion and equity trainings. And I've never seen something as as like inviting in as that practice where you saw older white folks being invited into this conversation about our shared experience of the grief. And and shared experience of the grief and and and, like, detriments of the history of our country. And so that to me felt so healing and unifying and just beautiful.
Anna Del Castillo [00:30:41]:
So, Dory, I don't know if I missed anything on that beautiful mix tape day, but you feel free to fill in.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:30:46]:
I think you got it. It reversed the commute that we're accustomed to making, and that is a joy to behold and be part of a cultural commute.
Ryan Dunn [00:30:56]:
Sounds like this is a organized event. How might people who are wanting to have this kind of sharing or listening experience, how might you imagine they initiate something like this organically?
Anna Del Castillo [00:31:10]:
I'll take that one because Cool. I mean, obviously, our own deep wells, we are here for everyone. You can we always share resources. We want folks to get connected with us because our collective of practitioners and facilitators feel really passionate about making sure that people know that they can do this too. Like, they I think people just need a little bit of invitation to say, you've been you know, I'm thinking about my sister. I I told her that I'm a part of a really active women's circle where we meet monthly and, have been supporting each other for four years. She came to one of our retreats and now she's hosting her own women's circle, you know? So I think sometimes people just need to see it and need to be invited to say you are a soulful human being. It doesn't take having a master of divinity or being an ordained minister or having invested thousands of dollars in a spiritual education.
Anna Del Castillo [00:32:03]:
Like, people we we are human beings with so much wisdom. And so I would say to anyone listening, has this sparked any ideas for you of maybe a deeper way that you wanna connect with your neighbor or your friend or your partner? And if you need a thought partner, please contact us. We would love to talk to you, but I just think people need permission to tap into the beautiful wisdom that's already in them.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:32:26]:
Start really small. So, yeah, we have,
Ryan Dunn [00:32:28]:
the Live to Tell
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:32:28]:
podcast, and the book, cast, and the book, Girlfriend Theology, which describe that deep deep dive method. But there are so many little easy ways. I'll tell a quick story. My daughter who lives in LA, she's in her late twenties and was invited to a birthday brunch the other day and you know everybody's around in their own little separate conversations and she dings the glass and says, hey, let's all tell a story about how we know Desi and why we love her. And all of a sudden, I mean, you know, this is Priya Parker magic. Right? All of a sudden, it's changed from a place where we all go away with our own private conversations to this moment where we open our hearts and got a little bit got a little roomier in there. And and we got to celebrate Desi and our love, in a more collective, communal, inclusive way. So this is not rocket science.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:33:21]:
Humans have always known how to do it. It just takes giving people a little bit of, confidence and the nudge. Like, the nudge is our best gift. Right?
Ryan Dunn [00:33:32]:
Mhmm.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:33:33]:
I'm gonna share, Anna had, mentioned earlier mantras. I'm gonna share one other little practice that's just so easy. It's just such an easy on ramp. You know, find something that is gonna happen all through your day. Whether that's when you drink water or when you water in or water out or when you see a bird. I have a mantra. When I see a bird, I say to myself, birds make me happy. And guess what? In that moment of shining a little spotlight and being reminded that birds make me happy, I'm a little happier.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:34:06]:
I'm a little less tied up. I'm a little less, closed and concerned about whatever it was that was bothering me. Be that in my personal life or be that in the world as we, you know, as we see it unraveling before us. So yeah. I love that. I call it tiny arrows of love, but just figure out what your arrow is. It's tied to ancient Christian practice of target prayers where people would pray the Jesus prayer if they woke up anxious in the middle of the night. Lord in your mercy hear my prayer.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:34:37]:
It can be as simple as that or as creative as, as you want it to be with whatever it is that makes you happy or that slows you down. We have a practice called May You Never Thirst that we do collectively when we fill our water bottles in the morning at a retreat or as we sit down to dinner. We share with one another reflection on the gift of clean fresh water and how lucky we are to be receiving it. We turn that into a soulful practice.
Anna Del Castillo [00:35:04]:
Thanks for listing those, Dory. That makes me just wanna drop, drop one or a question that I've been sitting with. And I think, Ryan, this kinda ties up our work in general. Is you know, I live in DC. I'm a young adult in my late twenties. I spend time with a lot of young adults who are just trying to figure it out. Like, we're trying to figure out what we wanna do in the world, what our world is gonna look like. And the question that I'm sitting with that I wanna invite people into through the work that we're doing at our own deep wells is asking, who are you? Like, who are you? Not what do you do? You know, what's your dream job, but who are you? And I think if we can all help each other to answer that question or even just show curiosity by saying, like, hey.
Anna Del Castillo [00:35:53]:
Who are you? We would have a much more beautiful, safe, and flourishing world.
Dori Grinenko Baker [00:36:00]:
That's a great that's great, Anna. Someone actually asked me that at the end of the funeral the other day. They they came up to me and said, who are you? And it was such a beautiful question to be asked. So thank you for underlining that.
Ryan Dunn [00:36:15]:
And for wrapping us up so well. We've talked about the on ramps that people might find into some of these soulful practices. On ramp to get to know more about what Anna and Dory are up to would be the our own Deep Wells website. Correct? Mhmm.
Anna Del Castillo [00:36:31]:
Check us out on Instagram too. We're always sharing fun content. And, yeah, subscribe to our newsletter.
Ryan Dunn [00:36:37]:
Cool. And, Anna, you had mentioned having a podcast. You wanna drop the name of that podcast?
Anna Del Castillo [00:36:42]:
Yeah. So I've been I've been supporting two friends who are putting out a podcast called the Soulful Parenting and Caregiving podcast, and I will also plug an incredible podcast that Dory and our friend Alejandra Salemi are co hosting called the Live to Tell podcast, and you can find both of these on Spotify.
Ryan Dunn [00:37:00]:
Alright. To explore more practices and resources or connect with practitioners, visit the our own deep wells website and discover ways to nurture soulful connection in every part of your life. If you'd like to dive deeper into anything that we've talked about or explore more episodes, be sure to visit our website at umc.org/compass. You'll find episode notes, resources, and a growing library of conversations just as meaningful as this one. We're grateful to the team at United Methodist Communications for making this podcast possible and helping us bring these important stories to you. If you haven't already, please take a moment to subscribe to Compass wherever you get your podcast. And if you found something meaningful here today, we'd really appreciate it if you rated and reviewed the show. It helps others find us and be a part of the conversation too.
Ryan Dunn [00:37:54]:
Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time. Peace.
