Embodiment for the Rest of Us – Season 3, Episode 6: Neathery Falchuk
Thursday, July 20, 2023
Chavonne (she/her) and Jenn (she/her) interviewed Neathery Falchuk (they/them) about their embodiment journey.
Neathery Falchuk (they/them) is a queer, trans and non-binary, white Latinx, fat, and neurodivergent therapist, licensed clinical social worker and supervisor, certified group psychotherapist, certified Body Trust® provider, and certified meditation teacher. Neathery is the founder of Ample and Rooted, an inclusive psychotherapy, consulting, and training practice specializing in working with eating disorders, body liberation, sex and sexuality, gender, relationship concerns, trauma, mindfulness, grief and loss, and substance use. Neathery is a past President of Central Texas Eating Disorder Specialists, past board member of Austin Group Psychotherapy Society and former chair of the DEI Committee, past board member of the Association for Size Diversity and Health, and currently serves on the program committee for Project HEAL. Neathery lives in Austin, TX with their wife and enjoys hiking, meditation, sipping coffee on patios, and starting and never finishing books.
Ample + Rooted, as an inclusive therapy practice, cultivates a safe and welcoming space of compassion and connection. At Ample + Rooted, we believe it is our birthright to inhabit, trust and honor our physical and emotional selves without shame. We believe in cultivating a healing home for the whole you and that this healing and belonging is profoundly vital in creating a more equitable and just world. We believe compassion, pleasure and embodiment lead the way toward healing and liberation.
The practice is rooted in Health at Every Size®, Body Trust®, fat-positive, sex-positive, LGBTQ+ affirming, harm reduction, trauma-responsive, culturally responsive, and anti-oppressive frameworks.
For more information, please visit: www.ampleandrooted.com and follow us on IG: @ampleandrooted
Content Warning: discussion of privilege, discussion of diet culture, discussion of fatphobia, discussion of racism, discussion of mental health, discussion of death of a family member
Trigger Warnings: None for this episode
A few highlights:
5:46: Neathery shares their understanding of embodiment and their own embodiment journey
21:33: Neathery discusses how the pandemic affected their embodiment practices
52:25: Neathery shares their understanding of “the rest of us” and how they are a part of that, as well as their privileges
1:07:49: Neathery discusses how their work with Ample + Rooted Foundations has influenced their own relationship with embodiment
1:24:48: Neathery shares how their work with the Ample + Rooted Gathering Space has enhanced their embodiment within our field and the changes, revolutions, and evolutions they are working on making
1:40:43: Neathery discusses how listeners can make a difference based on this conversation
1:43:10 Neathery shares where to be found and what’s next for them
Links from this episode:
Music: “Bees and Bumblebees (Abeilles et Bourdons), Op. 562” by Eugène Dédé through the Creative Commons License
Please follow us on social media:
Twitter: @embodimentus
Instagram: @embodimentfortherestofus
Captions
EFTROU Season 3 Episode 6 is 1 hour, 48 minutes, and 12 seconds long. (1:48:12)
Chavonne: Hello there! I’m Chavonne McClay (she/her).
Jenn: And I’m Jenn Jackson (she/her).
Chavonne: This is Season 3 of Embodiment for the Rest of Us. A podcast series exploring topics and intersections that exist in fat, queer, and disability liberation!
Jenn: In this show, we interview those with lived experience and professionals alike to learn how they are affecting radical change and how we can all make this world a safer and more welcoming place for all humans who are historically and currently marginalized and should be centered, listened to, and supported.
Chavonne: Captions and content warnings are provided in the show notes for each episode, including specific time stamps, so that you can skip triggering content any time that feels supportive to you! This podcast is a representation of our co-host and guest experiences and may not be reflective of yours. These conversations are not medical advice, and are not a substitute for mental health or nutrition support.
Jenn: In addition, the conversations held here are not exhaustive in their scope or depth. These topics, these perspectives are not complete and are always in process. These are just highlights! Just like posts on social media, individual articles, or any other podcast, this is just a snapshot of the full picture.
Chavonne: We are always interested in any feedback on this process if something needs to be addressed. You can email us at Listener@EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs.com.
[1:36]
(J): Welcome to Season 3 Episode 6 of the Embodiment for the Rest of Us podcast. In today’s episode, we chat with one of our favorite human beings on planet earth – Neathery Falchuk! They are an incredible mentor, creator, space holder, liberationist, and human being.
(C): Neathery Falchuk (they/them) is a queer, trans and non-binary, white Latinx, fat, and neurodivergent therapist, licensed clinical social worker and supervisor, certified group psychotherapist, certified Body Trust® provider, and certified meditation teacher. Neathery is the founder of Ample and Rooted, an inclusive psychotherapy, consulting, and training practice specializing in working with eating disorders, body liberation, sex and sexuality, gender, relationship concerns, trauma, mindfulness, grief and loss, and substance use. Neathery is a past President of Central Texas Eating Disorder Specialists, past board member of Austin Group Psychotherapy Society and former chair of the DEI Committee, past board member of the Association for Size Diversity and Health, and currently serves on the program committee for Project HEAL. Neathery lives in Austin, TX with their wife and enjoys hiking, meditation, sipping coffee on patios, and starting and never finishing books.
(J): Ample + Rooted, as an inclusive therapy practice, cultivates a safe and welcoming space of compassion and connection. At Ample + Rooted, we believe it is our birthright to inhabit, trust and honor our physical and emotional selves without shame. We believe in cultivating a healing home for the whole you and that this healing and belonging is profoundly vital in creating a more equitable and just world. We believe compassion, pleasure and embodiment lead the way toward healing and liberation.
(C): The practice is rooted in Health at Every Size®, Body Trust®, fat-positive, sex-positive, LGBTQ+ affirming, harm reduction, trauma-responsive, culturally responsive, and anti-oppressive frameworks. For more information, please visit: www.ampleandrooted.com and follow us on IG: @ampleandrooted
(J): Thank you so much for being here with us dear listeners! This season just keeps expanding and blowing our minds. We hope you’re getting as much as we are from these conversations!
[4:06]
Jenn:
We are absolutely freaking out at having one of our favorite humans and mentors and all-around badass human beings here with us today. We’re so pumped to have you with us, Neathery Falchuck, they/them, joining us from Austin, Texas, someone whose eating disorders training program really changed things for both of us, for Chavonne and I. You can hear it shifting in real time in our first two seasons of the podcast. I, for sure, can.
Chavonne:
Yes.
Jenn:
If you’re paying attention to that, you can just hear that lovely evolution. There is so much generative space to be shared here today, folks. And how are you doing today, Neathery?
Neathery:
Thank you for having me!
Chavonne:
Yay!
Neathery:
I am so thrilled. I love the two of you so much.
Jenn:
We love you.
Chavonne:
We love you.
Neathery:
And I just know we’re going to have an amazing time. We already are in our warmup chat. And I’m doing well. I’m in Austin, Texas in March at the time of this recording, so it is kicking up allergy season as we were talking about, and that might come through in my nasalness or watery eyes.
But other than that, I’m really excited to be here and get into whatever it is that we happen to get into, and I’m just so thrilled to spend an afternoon with you two.
Chavonne:
Yay. We’re so excited. Oh, we’re so excited, YEAH.
Jenn:
Yeah. I’ve been perma-smiling since I hit record. I can’t stop.
Chavonne:
I know. My cheeks hurt. My cheeks hurt.
Neathery:
Me too. I’m Like, “Ouchie.”
Jenn:
Yeah. A little bit of ouch. In my face embodiment, a little bit of ouch.
Chavonne:
Yeah, yeah.
Neathery:
Face embodiment? Love that.
Jenn:
Thank you.
[5:46]
Chavonne:
It’s very true. I like it.
As we start this conversation about being present too and in our bodies, I’d love to start with asking a centering question about the themes of our podcast and how they occur to you. Can you share with us what embodiment means to you and what has your embodiment journey been like, if you would like to share?
Neathery:
Yeah. Oh, Chavonne, even just the way you asked that question, I was like, “Oh, it’s time for a breath for me.” Like, “Oh.”
Chavonne:
Ah, yeah. Jenn wrote those questions. Jenn writes all the questions.
Jenn:
And I love my questions.
Neathery:
Amazing question. And the cadence and tone you took was just like, “Ah, so soothing.” I loved it. Thank you.
Chavonne:
Thank you.
Jenn:
She has a great podcast voice.
Neathery:
Yes.
Chavonne:
Oh, stop it. Thank you.
Jenn:
It’s amazing.
Chavonne:
Thank you. Oh, sorry. Going back to the SNL skit where Ana Gasteyer’s just, “Ah, ah.”
Neathery:
Yes! Oh my gosh.
Chavonne:
Love it.
Neathery:
Classic SNL. Where has it gone? I love it.
Chavonne:
Yes, yes, yes. I know.
Jenn:
I love it. That’s a great question.
Chavonne:
Okay, sorry, we want to know.
Neathery:
But back to embodiment. This is embodiment to me, being able to just be in the moment. And one thing I do notice that I’ve had to change my own understanding of embodiment, but also in just working with clients and colleagues about embodiment does not equate to pleasure, doesn’t equate to, it feels good all the time. And I think we get stuck in that sense of, oh no, if I’m embodied, that means it has to feel good.
And really, to me, embodiment is being awake to what is alive in you, what’s here right now, what’s coming up, what’s arising, what’s not arising. And a lot of the time, it can be really painful. It can be wonderful. It could be filled with laughter and joy, and it could also be nothing. It could just be neutral.
Jenn:
Wow. I got chills when you said that.
Chavonne:
Same.
Jenn:
Really good vagus nerve-level chills. “Awake to what is alive in you,” I felt my body’s response in that. That’s actually something that has been trained in this podcast. I have this really specific response that I really only get here. It’s just starting to pop up in other areas of my life. But it’s been here.
And awake to what is alive in you?
Chavonne:
Wow.
Jenn:
I have actually never connected that idea. It’s a very obvious idea, but I just haven’t played with that in my mind, that aliveness is when we are embodied. We can’t be embodied at any other time than when we’re alive. That’s very interesting. Just on a whole scale, but also, I often hear this described as what we’re present to, but I can see that it’s when we’re awake to the aliveness. I could even think of heartbreak, a very embodied reality. We talked about that with one of our previous guests, Michelle Phillips, about how heartbreak is literally in the body.
And so that could be very… That’s aliveness too. Grief is aliveness. Feeling pain is being alive. So I can really hear the… It’s giving me chills just to talk about it. It’s so cool. But there’s just this kind of flow of being alive that I could hear from what you were saying, which was oh, I just got chills everywhere. It feels so good.
Neathery:
Absolutely.
Jenn:
Thanks for the chills.
Neathery:
I love that you’re having that experience. Ugh, it’s contagious. I can feel it too. I’m like, “Oh yeah,” that aliveness and it is so dynamic, the process of embodiment. I mean, it’s just not a, you’ve arrived and that’s it. It’s not a, check the box and you’re done.
It is throughout the whole course of our life, and gosh, from just this time last year, this time yesterday, my own sense of embodiment has changed. I got a new fidget toy that I got to show y’all, and that has changed a little bit of embodiment for me today. I’m feeling a little bit more… My dopamine is activated, so I feel a little bit more energized and excited because I got a new fidgety thing, and I’m allowing myself to fidget, which is something that I have had to untrain and stop masking the sense, the need for fidget.
I allow my chair to be one that actually rocks with me because I love to rock instead of just try to be still and not move because some old white dude said you had to do that. I don’t know. But allowing myself to flow and evolve is my own embodiment process.
And I’m excited to see what my embodiment journey continues to be. Jenn knows this from a little share not too long ago, but I don’t know if you shared with Chavonne, but I’m going to share now and share with the podcast. At the time that this is scheduled to drop, I will have a one-month-old baby.
Chavonne:
What?
Neathery:
Yes! My wife is pregnant.
Jenn:
I forgot to tell you!
Chavonne:
You didn’t tell me? Dammit. Sorry.
Neathery:
This is better, this is better.
Chavonne:
Oh my gosh! This is so good. Did you say your wife is pregnant?
Neathery:
Yes. My wife is pregnant.
Chavonne:
Aw, congratulations.
Neathery:
Thank you.
Chavonne:
Ah, that’s so great.
Neathery:
That has changed-
Chavonne:
Everything.
Neathery:
Every cell in my being.
Chavonne:
Everything, yes. Yes.
Neathery:
And it’s just like, “Wow. Okay.” More dynamic shifts, more embodiment shifts, and I have no clue what’s to come. I have an idea, but as soon as that little nugget comes out into the world, it’s even a different kind of experience of embodiment and one that’s filled with immense joy, of course, and one that’s challenging in we’re queer parents. I don’t have legal rights to this child yet. I won’t have legal rights until I adopt this child.
And I think it’s everywhere, but for sure in Texas, I have to have a home study where a social worker comes to our house, I’ll have two social workers, and has to approve that I’m a fit person, fit house, to adopt my own child. So I’m alive to that embodiment as well of my righteous anger of just how fucked up it is that that’s something that we have to even deal with.
Chavonne:
First of all, I have a lot of things to say, but first of all, congratulations. I’m so excited for you.
Neathery:
Thank you.
Jenn:
This is better. I’m glad I forgot.
Chavonne:
This is. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this.
Jenn:
I’m sorry!
Chavonne:
We talk every day every day, every day.
Jenn:
Okay. We talk every day, I have no idea how I forgot. Oh, well, I do know. ADHD.
Chavonne:
I feel like there’s been two days of not texting each other since we met.
Jenn:
Accurate.
Chavonne:
And that was because one of us was sick. I don’t even know. But I’m so excited. It’s everything you say. It’s a joy. And there is grief. And I think there’s the embodiment of the grief of becoming a parent. It’s a beautiful thing. Love my children to death. But man, there are some things that I really, I grieve not having anymore. And that’s just coming home to it.
And I think it’s bullshit. I just have to say it. I mean, everybody already knows that I think it’s bullshit. But a friend of mine, my son’s best friend’s parents are women. And it’s just bullshit, the bullshit that they had to go through and the one who had to adopt, she was like, “If I didn’t want this kid, I wouldn’t be doing all the shit that you’re making me do.” And it’s not fair that me and my husband got drunk one night and we have a baby. That’s just bullshit. That’s bullshit.
Neathery:
Right. It is.
Chavonne:
That’s not really what happened, if you’re listening, Baby Bug, but maybe it was for Baby B. I think it was for Baby B, and not Baby Bug.
But I’m so happy for you. And you’re right. It changes everything and you’ll never be the same again. But I’m so excited. I’m so excited.
Neathery:
Thank you!
Chavonne:
Is your wife feeling okay?
Neathery:
Yes.
Chavonne:
So she’s in the second trimester at this point?
Neathery:
She is.
Chavonne:
Okay, okay.
Neathery:
Look at that math. Whew. Yes.
Jenn:
I couldn’t do it. Good for you.
Chavonne:
The cells remember. The cells remember.
Neathery:
The cells! They do remember.
Chavonne:
Trauma for me, but some people really love pregnancy. I hated every second, but I hope it’s going well for her.
Neathery:
Yes. Thankfully, second trimester is much better.
Chavonne:
That’s the golden one.
Neathery:
The first one was really rough, and she does have a little bit of nerves entering into the third. So we’ll see. I mean, yeah, I think that’s a really great noticing that I’m coming into right now is oh, she and I haven’t talked that much about her own embodiment and my embodiment right now. We’re in this super busy, ordering all this stuff, putting things on a registry, taking classes, going to a million doctor’s appointments, and I’m just noticing we both need a little bit of intentional time to check in with our own embodiment and what’s coming up for both of us in a deep way.
We do it in a more like, “Are you good? I’m good. Here’s what I’m worried about. Okay, cool. Me too.” But in a slower, more intentional way.
Chavonne:
Yeah. And I’m also really sitting with the idea that even though we live in this patriarchal, misogynistic, capitalist society, there’s so little focus that’s given to the non-birth giver in the relationship if you are having a baby biologically. So I hope that you’re taking time for your embodiment around that as well.
Neathery:
Thank you. Yes. Yeah, it is definitely a challenge. The emphasis is on a gender binary, heteronormative standard where most of the things are like, “Mom and dad,” and, “This is what dads do,” and it is certainly exclusionary and isolating in many ways. And I have had to check my own fear of taking up space of, “Oh, but my wife is going through this tremendous, absolutely bonkers thing that bodies do,” which is what? There’s a human in there? And that doesn’t… My own experience matters, period. Yes. It doesn’t have to be in comparison to, “Well, she’s developing this life and is going to do a whole birth, and I’m just here not having to worry about peeing in the middle of the night 5,000 times.” But I have an experience and it does matter.
Chavonne:
Absolutely.
Neathery:
So thank you for naming that.
Chavonne:
Absolutely. Oh, I’m so excited. I hope everything goes beautifully and safely.
Neathery:
Thank you.
Chavonne:
I’m very excited for you. Congratulations.
Neathery:
Thank you.
Jenn:
Will you please send us your registry? Please?
Chavonne:
Please. Yes.
Neathery:
Oh my gosh.
Chavonne:
Please, yes.
Jenn:
Please? Okay.
Chavonne:
Yeah, yeah.
Neathery:
Okay.
Jenn:
That’s actually it. I’m just basking in this and I’m just like, I just feel like, “Please send me your registry.”
Chavonne:
I know!
Jenn:
I really need that. Please.
Neathery:
I will. This is a huge process just in general already, asking for help and support of like, “Okay, I’ll send you our registry.”
Jenn:
Yeah, yeah.
Chavonne:
Yeah.
Neathery:
You want to send us food? Great.
Chavonne:
Great.
Neathery:
Here’s everything. Yes, I will take the help.
Jenn:
Okay, good because I’m going to have a future conversation with you about that too. Okay.
I want you to take up space. I love the embodied ask that this process presents you with and I want to participate. I have a really strong embodied feeling that’s like, “Please send it to me.”
Chavonne:
Yes. I love it. Love it.
Neathery:
And that, ugh, goodness. Just being able to share that with y’all, and the true, I feel the genuine offer of care and support and to receive that, I feel closer, even though y’all are just a state away, but I can feel that, and that is something that I don’t know why I’ve rejected that so long. Part of the embodiment, my own experience is like, “I don’t need anything. I got it. I can handle this. Don’t worry about me. We’re good.” But how distancing that has been to my relationships. So thank you for letting me practice this right now in live time.
Jenn:
Of course.
Chavonne:
Oh, yes.
Jenn:
And as I was saying before I started recording, my theme in therapy this year is accepting help. So the more that I learn to accept it, the more I want to offer it, which has been one of my favorite things about it because it felt very selfish to me in the past, to even think about going down this path, but it becomes very reciprocal. It’s very beautiful in that way.
Offering help, receiving help and vice versa is such an embodied, connected experience. So just thank you for that. And I really mean that. Send it to me. I can’t wait. I can’t wait to see it. I can’t wait to choose. Okay.
Chavonne:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Although I never want to do it, I’m like, “I’m just buying you diapers. That’s what you really need.” But I will look at your registry! Those things are fucking expensive.
Jenn:
They are!
Chavonne:
Ridiculous.
Neathery:
They are.
Jenn:
They really are.
Chavonne:
When one of my sisters got pregnant, I was like, “I’m not buying you anything. I’m just sending you diapers once a month for a while.” She’s like, “Okay.” And she didn’t get it until it started. She’s like, “Thank you.”
Neathery:
Yes.
Chavonne:
That’s what you need, trust me.
Neathery:
Those will be extremely handy, yes.
Jenn:
Yes.
Chavonne:
So expensive. Ugh, so expensive.
Jenn:
Yes. It’s like eating and other embodied things. Diapers are going to be something you’re presented with, getting to interact with over and over and over throughout every single day for quite some time.
Neathery:
Oh yeah, for a long time.
Chavonne:
Ugh. Long time.
Jenn:
Yes.
Chavonne:
Still going on, yes.
Jenn:
And that’s embodied too. We get to help the little kiddo be embodied by helping them take care of their needs and that they feel safe and clean and all of that stuff. It’s such an embodied thing.
Neathery:
Oh my goodness. It is.
Chavonne:
You know, it’s funny. And then I want to come back to you, Neathery, but something you said Jenn, and maybe we’ll end up talking about a little bit more, is you said as you’re getting more embodied and asking for help, you offer more help, but for me, I actually offer less help the more I ask for help, because I have to make sure that it’s something that I’m really capable of giving. I have to be really intentional. “I’m going to offer you this, and if you say yes, I can do it without killing myself to do it.”
So it feels really embodied for me to not offer as much as I used to, not be that over-giver.
Jenn:
Oh, challenge number one. I love it because I have trouble saying no, and I avoided having that conversation.
Chavonne:
Oh, I know.
Jenn:
And I had the, “Oh, what about receiving help?” one first. Shout out to my therapist. My therapist knows. I said, “So this is what I’m avoiding, and I really don’t want to do it right now, but we have to talk about it at some point.”
Chavonne:
So great, so great.
Jenn:
So very well-received. I do say no more than I ever have, but also, you’re right. I’m like, “Oh, I found another way to say yes.” Of course I did. Of course I did.
Neathery:
Whew. That was amazing right there.
Jenn:
So challenge accepted because I’m going to talk about that more with my therapist. Thank you.
Chavonne:
Dig into it. I love it.
Neathery:
It’s a great check, for sure, offering help as a way of not saying no. Oh, I have to sit with that. That’s like, “Wow.” I do that.
Jenn:
Yeah. I do it before anyone can say anything. That’s how fast I do it. I’m like, “Oh, you know what I could do?” And it’s like, “Why? Why did you say that, Jenn?”
I don’t have that voice that says why until later. Usually in the act of doing it, I’m like, “Why did I do this? I just offered this.”
Chavonne:
Yeah, I don’t have time for this. I don’t have the energy for this.
Jenn:
No one asked. No one asked for this.
Chavonne:
Yeah.
[21:33]
Jenn:
I just offered it. Yeah, I love a challenge, so thank you. I love it. Yeah/.
As a human being, how has this ongoing pandemic affected your embodiment practices in ways that challenge your process? Has there been anything that feels like it connects you further? And what lights you up about your work and when are you feeling the most embodied?
So acknowledge that this is four questions in one, so please let me know if you need me to repeat any part of this.
Neathery:
Yeah. The pandemic? Wow.
The pandemic, aside from the trauma, the collective trauma, the immense clusterfuck that it has been and continues to be, was with everyone, I believe, we all had this experience of just a hard stop, must isolate, stay inside. And that allowed me to realize how much shit I was doing that I didn’t need to be doing. Like wow, I was doing way too much, going here, going there, doing this thing, doing that thing, both professionally and personally and maintaining contact with things that weren’t really serving me or lighting me up.
And I was able to just really be more insulated, just me, my wife, our two dogs, two cats, and just realize like, okay, what matters? What do I want to be experiencing in this life?
I also had… My pandemic years were, I think, true to embodiment, both the duality of joy and pain. I got married on Zoom.
Chavonne:
Wow.
Jenn:
Wait, I forgot that!
Neathery:
Yeah! We were supposed to have an in-person wedding in 2020, but we did it on Zoom, which was an experience, and I’m so glad that we didn’t delay it and it was just the experience. We welcomed it and had a wonderful Zoom wedding.
And then a couple of weeks after we got married, I lost my nephew tragically.
Chavonne:
Oh, I’m sorry.
Neathery:
Thank you, yeah. It was two just very polar opposite experiences and I realized what I needed was to be doing less, to really feel the fullness of my life was to be doing less. I think I was just in this always running, always running, always doing survival skill that was very, very rooted in survival, and to just do less, be with myself more, be with people more intentionally and actually be with them instead of thinking in my head, “Well, I’ve got these other 5,000 things to do,” and to just feel.
I think part of the staying busy all the time is to not feel as much. And I felt, I felt a lot. I did nothing for a long time. Just grieved, loved. That was such a very mindfuck experience. Thank you for be having an explicit podcast because there’s no other way of saying it, of getting married to someone I deeply love and then losing someone I deeply love.
So that, to me, is what I’m taking away from the pandemic is just like this shit, this life shit, is not guaranteed. We don’t know when it’s over, and so why are we doing things that don’t bring us joy?
Chavonne:
I completely agree. The duality of the pandemic has been a mindfuck, to say the least. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah.
Jenn:
I could hear your grief in in recounting that and this piece that you said, I actually realized I wrote it twice, so it clearly had an impact on me. I just realized I just wrote it and then I wrote it again.
Neathery:
Oh. What did I say?
Jenn:
“To feel the fullness of my life, I needed to do less, be with myself more and be with people more intentionally.” Oh, it gave me chills again. You’re giving me lots of chills, lots of feelings from my body in response to this conversation.
This space, I’m actually underlining it. I wrote it twice and I’m underlining it. “And staying busy to not feel as much,” that’s why I don’t say no. So I was like, “Oh, that called me out unintentionally, but here I am, being called out again.”
Chavonne:
Called in!
Jenn:
Yeah. Called in with love. It doesn’t feel bad.
Chavonne:
With love. It’s always with love.
Jenn:
It’s so much love.
Neathery:
So much love.
Chavonne:
So much love.
Jenn:
Yeah. My body responded first. My mind is sort of catching up, when I was noticing I wrote it down more than once, but my body felt that first because I already wrote this asterisks on the side, just on the side of all of it, and I circled it a bunch of times.
Neathery:
Oh, I see it.
Jenn:
I was like… To everyone listening, I’m showing them my lovely purple notebook with me underlining and circling it a bunch of times. It’s sitting in my body. I don’t even know if I have more words for that yet, but it’s just sitting there and that feels really nice. I’m not sure it’s something is sat in that… It’s under my ribs. It’s not in my chest space, but it’s like under my ribs, sort of in the middle of my body. There is this feeling of lightness there that is very… I don’t know if I’ve ever been aware of that particular sensation, but it just popped in as you were talking about that.
So I know that’s something for me to write down, which I’ve already written down. But I mean, to play around with those words more and see what’s in that.
Neathery:
The lightness. Is there any other feeling or texture to it?
Jenn:
That’s a great question. It feels a little flighty, like what we would describe butterflies in our stomach as, but it’s in a different part of my body. It’s not in anywhere near my stomach. It’s like it’s actually right behind my liver, if I was thinking about the anatomy of where it is. Behind that, I have a butterfly lightness kind of feeling, which I am currently interpreting that as excitement to connect with more, to explore more, to…
It’s making me very fidgety. I don’t know if you noticed, I was just fidgeting with my headphones. It’s making me fidgety, so it also has… But it’s not like an adrenaline kind of fidgetiness. It’s just an explorative kind, which I have recently learned is about norepinephrine because norepinephrine and dopamine are in this loop playing with each other and keeping each other around. The fidgetiness is actually from the norepinephrine side, and I’m just starting to be curious. Is that something in my body I’m learning to be embodied about? I know that information in my brain, but it’s just making me curious.
Neathery:
I love that connection. Thanks for sharing.
Jenn:
You’re welcome. I’m sure that… Of course, I put a nerdy thing in there, but that cements it for me. Now I have something to play with and journal with and talk about with myself, even if that’s not what this is. But it’s just making me curious because I’ve never felt something, well, it’s kind of fading now, but I’ve never felt something in that space.
Chavonne:
That’s awesome though.
I’ve been thinking about this and you’re speaking about this is really coming up for me, if we need to ask this new question. The pandemic’s not over. I think it’s more endemic than pandemic, but it’s still there. So as the world is opening up more, as people are getting more social, as people are leaving the house, how has your process been staying intentional still? I’m struggling with this. Staying intentional still with who you’re spending time with and how you’re spending your time, especially with the baby on the way, but how has that changed? Has it changed for you or what’s your process been like?
Neathery:
Oh, this one is challenging.
Chavonne:
Yeah.
Neathery:
It is…
Neathery:
It’s challenging. It is a level of negotiating, a level of consent that I’m learning. Some relationships, we’re not equipped to rise to that level, so to speak. There are many times where I’ve had people let us know, “Hey, I was exposed, or I’m feeling sniffly, so maybe we shouldn’t hang out.” And I mean, obviously the pandemic slash endemic, that’s a absolute accurate term. And this whole time we’ve been doing I F, and it’s been, goodness, when did we start fertility stuff? It’s been a couple of years now. So we’ve just been more protective over our bodies. And I have some autoimmune stuff where it’s unclear what would really happen if I got sick. I still have yet to have covid. My wife had covid, but I didn’t end up getting it. We were in the same house. I’m like, huh, worries about that.
Chavonne:
My husband. Yeah.
Neathery:
Did you end up having Covid?
Chavonne:
So he’s had it twice. He’s the only one. The rest of us have had it once. And he was the only one that got it. Yeah.
Neathery:
It’s so fascinating, truly. And because it’s so unpredictable, we are just being more cautious, lots of masking, lots of talking to people about our comfort, lots of hard conversations when people are not transparent about where they’ve been or that they were just exposed to Covid and now they’re around us. And it’s been challenging to just try to navigate these new agreements that we have when other people don’t hold our same values in that way. They’re not living this life in fertility or having a pregnant person. And so I get that they’re not as aware of what we’re holding. So we have been slow to come out of our house, and now we’re just back in it nesting and ready to welcome a new little human.
But it’s a tough one. I’ve had to turn down a few speaking things because I didn’t want to be in a large crowd, or I’ve been like, Nope, if you want me there, I need to be on virtual. So it’s been really clarifying too of my own limits and boundaries of this is what works for me and this is what doesn’t. And not trying to bend to fit and contort myself to make something happen. If it’s not comfortable for me or my family, which I’m not unaware to the fact that I’m able to do this because I’m thinking of my wife, an unborn child. But when it’s just me, it’s harder to actually be like, oh no, I have boundaries. It’s just me. Now I have other people to protect. It’s a little bit easier. So it’s really just getting clear on what matters to myself and my family, and letting things be as they need to be, and not being afraid to say no. And to turn down, not just work events, but also social events and just knowing that it’ll all be okay.
Chavonne:
That sounds quite embodied. Absolutely.
Jenn:
Extremely.
Chavonne:
Maintaining those boundaries. Sorry, go ahead, Jenn.
Jenn:
Yeah. Oh, I’m sorry. I was just saying extremely. I can also hear the taking up space element of saying, “no, we are very covid cautious in my house.” My partner never wants to bring something like that to my parents who live across the street. And we have a protocol to get into our bubble. Because there was a brief moment early on where someone almost came into our bubble, but if we hadn’t tested, they would’ve brought Covid into our bubble. It did happen once. And so we’re like, okay, so this is what we do from now on is we are always going to check.
And it has felt very safe and very secure. It helps us feel like we can take up space in our own house, which was feeling hard to access earlier on in the pandemic. That’s harder to explain, but it felt like almost isolating within the house itself until we had this, because now we feel free in this whole house. And also my parents are literally across the street. I could see them out the window. But to just be able to go back and forth and feel that everyone is safe. And so I was really resonating with that and realizing that this is an area in which I say no very clearly. And I ask for what I need very clearly. [inaudible].
Chavonne:
You made us test just so she could come to our house. Yeah.
Jenn:
So we could have a game day.
Chavonne:
We’re very good at it. Yeah.
Jenn:
We’re even considering an outing to a mystery dinner theater in May, summertime. And we may be able to get the whole thing and have all of us test because this theater actually keeps a covid safe protocol to this day. And so we feel safe with them, and then we can feel safe with each other and it’s a four course meal and stuff. I mean, what a thing to go out into the world as an eating experience like that. But we’re saying no to doing it in ways that don’t make us feel comfortable. And so thank you, Chavonne, for your understanding and we have such a consent driven relation. When you were saying that, you said negotiation and consent, and I was like, Ooh, I love that about Chavonne. We can talk about anything.
Chavonne:
We really do.
Jenn:
So I mean, probably to a fault, sorry. For all the information is something we say to each other.
Chavonne:
I texted for an hour about something you definitely didn’t need to know about. Yeah.
Jenn:
So I was just feeling really grateful for you Chavonne, and I appreciate that perspective and that language, just the way you said that I could never say something like this, Neathery. Negotiation and consent in some relationships, they just were not up to this challenge. The relationship wasn’t up to the challenge. I thought that was such a beautiful way of talking about the connected embodiment between people, that it is a continuous, ongoing consenting negotiation relationship. And then when it’s not, it’s not. But there’s a lot of choice there. There’s a lot of agency autonomy stuff we could talk about there that I found it very affirming. I feel really grateful, Chavonne, that I have my work bestie soulmate, where we were like that immediately. And we just continue to show each other what we could already tell without having heard it yet.
So I just love hearing that, and it was not feeling like a surprise at all, Neathery. That is something in which you intentionally choose to navigate that way. And I also felt really inspired by that because I just wouldn’t have phrased it that way to myself, but it’s making me feel really grateful for those kinds of connections. That’s real stuff. That’s the anti cluster mindfuck stuff, right, where it’s like, okay, it’s a cluster and a mindfuck out there but here in this relationship, we can have safety and security because we communicate about it and we do it in this onward going rolling basis. That’s beautiful to me. What an embodied conversation topic to have in the duality. I love that you said that, Chavonne, the duality of the pandemic, endemic.
Chavonne:
Yeah. Yeah.
Neathery:
And it was just a beautiful-
Chavonne:
Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Neathery:
Sorry. No, go ahead, Chavonne, please.
Chavonne:
I was going to say, it’s a really loving thing to say. Some relationships just weren’t up to, it wasn’t like a, you did this, I did this, blah, blah, blah. It’s just like, this just wasn’t available for us. I really appreciate that. It’s just a really compassionate way of looking at it for all the people involved in that relationship. Absolutely.
Jenn:
Yes. Oh, well said. Yes.
Neathery:
Absolutely. Yeah. It’s different. We all hold different tolerance of risk. We have different bodies that need different things, and that’s okay. And just witnessing the compassion and gratitude y’all have for each other, which I just love watching y’all in your love story. It’s so beautiful.
Jenn:
We do love each other so much.
Chavonne:
Yes, we do so much.
Neathery:
I feel it via Zoom, and I love it. And it’s a great reminder that embodiment isn’t an individual experience. That we are all, we hold collective embodiment. That is certainly missing from this conversation. That it’s a lot about yes, it’s just my individual embodiment. But no, we are all one.
Jenn:
Yes.
Chavonne:
Ooh, yes. Collective embodiment. Oh, oh, I got chills on that one. That was-
Jenn:
Me too
Chavonne:
Huge. And all the relationships that mean so much to me, that has to be a part of it. Absolutely. Wow. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
Jenn:
Wow. Why haven’t we thought of that? That’s interesting to know that. That’s very interesting to me. And of course, Neathery, you’re the one who brought it here. That’s not surprising at all.
Chavonne:
Of course. Yeah. Of course.
Jenn:
That there is your collective space holding. And at the beginning I was like generative space, because you taught me that term. And that’s one of my favorite things. The collective nature of generating things together that shift things for everyone in the collective space is of keen interest to me since our group with you, keen interest. I don’t know why we haven’t thought of that. So Chavonne, you’re like, should this be an interview question? Yes. I love it. Also, where we’ve gotten-
Chavonne:
It’s kicked up. Yeah.
Jenn:
I was an immediate yes already. But what I’ve realized is there are many levels to the embodiment conversation. And I don’t mean concentric circles and stuff because we could do that with individual versus collective. But I mean, within the same person, I can feel my embodiment. I can feel your embodiment. I could feel another’s embodiment. I could feel our shared embodiment together. It was like my perma smile earlier that I paused to adjust because I was like, ow, my face, I love this. But ow. But just feeling the energy of each other and how our energy can influence each other. When we talk about collective embodiment, that word that you’ve been saying, another intentional pops in there where not just intentional, but our own embodiment, but in our shared collective embodiment in space is so important to me. And I haven’t really traveled very far down intro expecting about that. So I wrote it in my journal color. So I put color journaling. So I wrote that down because I was like collect and I wrote it really big, collective embodiment.
Neathery:
Yes.
Jenn:
Yeah. I want to shout that from the rooftops. This one of my favorite things. Yes. Collective.
Neathery:
Yes. Yes. I love that.
Chavonne:
I love that too.
Neathery:
What would it mean, or what would life look like, right? This is one of those generative questions. I feel dreamy talking about it. What would our world look like if we woke up knowing our embodiment was all tied together and we centered those most impacted, most vulnerable, first and foremost?
Chavonne:
Whoa.
Neathery:
Hello.
Chavonne:
Wow.
Neathery:
Right. Because is there true embodiment if there’s ongoing harm and violence still happening every day to black bodies, brown bodies, fat bodies, disabled bodies, older bodies…
Chavonne:
Trans bodies. Yes.
Neathery:
Trans bodies.
Chavonne:
All the bodies, yes.
Neathery:
Oh yes. My body. All the bodies.
Chavonne:
All the bodies. Yeah. Yeah.
Neathery:
All the bodies.
Chavonne:
Yeah.
Jenn:
I feel that one in my stomach.
Chavonne:
You want to go forever, and then this would happen, and then this needs to happen. It feels very generative, like you said. What about your stomach, Jenn?
Jenn:
I feel it in my stomach. I feel generative stuff in my stomach. Just like I feel hunger. I think that it’s a feeling of hunger for the topic. It’s a different stomach feeling, but it’s just an active, I mean, the stomach is a sensory organ. It is susceptible too. Emotional change and whatever’s going on with my body right now in response to this conversation. So that makes sense to me. And this kind of reminds me of the miracle question that you might ask in a therapy session, right.
Chavonne:
I thought about it just-
Jenn:
If we woke up and there was a miracle that was like, we’re collective. We all get it. What might happen? I think it would be kinder. I think it would be more compassionate. I think it for sure would be intentionally, purposefully slower. I think it would be full of exchange information, goods for services, less capitalistic and more connected and inclusive. And that’s just my first sort of starting to imagine about that.
Okay. Now the feeling of my stomach went away. So that’s the feeling like I was trying to find words to express whatever that was, that I can just, oh, there’s another word there. It’s a body word. My body’s saying it, but I don’t know what it is. The picture that I’m getting is of a grassy hill where half of it is in shade and half of it is in the sun. And people are naturally flowing from the shady to sunny space, depending on what they need. That’s the picture that I have.
Chavonne:
I love that.
Jenn:
The stomach feeling.
Chavonne:
Oh, love that. Yeah. That’s beautiful.
Jenn:
In my body image work, I have realized that I want to consider images, ideations, any kind of message from the body. What if I just say what it is? I don’t necessarily have to translate it for myself or others, but that’s just what I’m picturing. That’s what my body is picturing. What if we have choice of who’s in the shade and who’s in the sun? Everyone has choice. And it’s an endless grassy hill because there is no limit to this exchange. I think that’s what I can imagine. Ooh, I’m getting chill. That’s what I can imagine in that space.
Chavonne:
I love that.
Neathery:
I love that.
Jenn:
So fucking cool. What a great question. Love it.
Chavonne:
So good. So good.
Jenn:
Oh my God.
Neathery:
I love Jenn that you-
Jenn:
I live Jenn too.
Neathery:
I love Jenn. We love Jen.
Chavonne:
You should. That’s very embody, Jenn. I love it.
Neathery:
I love Jen.
Chavonne:
I loved it.
Neathery:
That’s amazing.
Jenn:
What a great pensive moment. I just wanted to participate. Okay. Sorry, I’ll stop.
Neathery:
The way that you communicate what is happening in your body mind and I just saw you for a moment trying to grasp for words to make it make sense to others. And I saw you let that go and just let the metaphor and imagery be. And I could bring tears to my eyes because that you, and just how you communicate what’s happening inside you is so fucking powerful. And you don’t have to mask and make things with words that are what makes more sense, because you make sense. What you just shared was so powerful. And I felt it in my body. And maybe I interpreted a little differently than what you meant, but I still got it.
Jenn:
Yeah, that’s okay.
Neathery:
That’s you. And I love that. And I don’t want you to ever change because I love that.
Jenn:
Thank you.
Chavonne:
Yeah, absolutely agree.
Jenn:
You too of all people have seen me change that in real time. It’s one of my favorite things that I got in community with you, Neathery and with you Chavonne and with everyone else who was in our cohort. I understand what I mean. And that’s going to be okay with me. In my embodiment, if I keep that from myself I can’t be embodied. I’m just in my word space.
Chavonne:
Oof. Ooh. Yeah. Go ahead to dance for a second. Okay.
Jenn:
Felt good.
Chavonne:
That was good.
Jenn:
Deeply felt.
Chavonne:
Yeah.
Jenn:
Deeply felt.
Chavonne:
Yeah. Ooh.
Jenn:
Ooh. Thank you.
Neathery:
What are you feeling, Chavonne?
Chavonne:
I almost said sternum. Maybe that is it. Yeah. I don’t know anatomy. I’m not a dietician. It’s like in my sternum a little bit below. Just a heaviness, but not in a bad way. It was just like a sit with this, hold this, hold this right here for a minute before you let things disperse throughout your body. It just kind of made itself known. That was really heavy, in a good way, in the best way. Yeah. Woo. The word.
Jenn:
You affirmed the fucking shit out of me, so thank you.
Chavonne:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jenn:
I had to have some chocolate caramels.
Chavonne:
Is that your way of…
Jenn:
That was what I had to do. I felt very compelled.
Chavonne:
Hey. Yes. I mean, chocolate is affirming for me all the time.
Neathery:
Oh yeah.
Jenn:
Oh, my body always gives a resounding yes to chocolate, yes.
Chavonne:
Yes. Yes.
Jenn:
And it’s not chocolate peanut butter, Chavonne. It’s just chocolate caramel. Would you eat that? Would you eat caramel?
Chavonne:
I mean, is it more chocolate than caramel or more caramel than chocolate?
Jenn:
It’s more caramel than chocolate.
Chavonne:
No.
Neathery:
Okay. No.
Jenn:
This is an adult Lunchable kind of thing. It has apples and these little pretzel nuggets, and it has milk chocolate. I mean, if I made this, I would make this dark chocolate. So I had more chocolate flavor.
Chavonne:
Of course, of course.
Neathery:
You’re not a chocolate peanut butter fan?
Chavonne:
I’m not a chocolate with anything fan. But chocolate and peanut butter is the-
Neathery:
Worst of the worst?
Chavonne:
It’s horrify and I can smell it from a mile away. The taste of it makes me nauseous. The smell of it makes me nauseous. I mean, everybody in my life loves it. I know very few people who don’t like it, so it’s disgusting. But I live for peanut butter and I live for chocolate. Just never-
Neathery:
Separate.
Chavonne:
Never the two [inaudible] me, yeah.
Jenn:
We love her anyway, Neathery.
Chavonne:
This is why she ask me, huh?
Neathery:
Yes.
Chavonne:
What’d you say? What’d you say?
Jenn:
We love you anyway.
Chavonne:
That sounds right. That’s appropriate. Yeah. Yeah.
Jenn:
But that’s important, right? I don’t eat chocolate and peanut butter together in your presence or before I see you because I know that makes you feel nauseous.
Chavonne:
My husband does it all the time. My kid does it all the time. And he’s a messy child. So I’ve definitely had it smeared on me. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m not going to vomit on you. I just can’t eat it myself. Yeah.
Jenn:
I know. But I am intentional about it.
Chavonne:
Thank you, my darling.
Jenn:
I think it’s important.
Chavonne:
You don’t have to be.
Jenn:
I know I don’t have to be, but I think it’s important because I can have it any time. I don’t have to have it in those times.
Neathery:
Just when you’re with Chavonne, only eat chocolate and peanut peanut butter.
Only chocolate and peanut butter. Just Reeses just coming out of her pore. She’s had so much issues with me.
Jenn:
And it’s like when you have really good garlic bread, which I did have last night. This morning, I was like, oh, wow. Doesn’t matter how much you brush your teeth and you’ve taken a shower, which I had done, it doesn’t matter.
Neathery:
It’s still there.
Jenn:
Coming from my pores.
Chavonne:
That’s the good garlic bread. That’s the good [inaudible]. I want it to come out of my pores. I really do.
Jenn:
I’ve never had garlic bread like this. Yeah. It’s so good.
Chavonne:
Oh yeah. My husband likes this onion. I call it onion salad. This is such a diversion. It doesn’t matter. He eats the salad. But I call onion salad. It’s not, it just feels like it’s only onion because that’s all I can smell them for the rest of the day.
Neathery:
I’m just imagining a pile of onions.
Chavonne:
That’s what it smells like to me. But it’s salt, onions salad.
Jenn:
My partner would not like that. I can have any amount of garlic because he would have the same amount of garlic, but it can’t be onion.
Chavonne:
Yeah. Okay.
Jenn:
I can’t.
Chavonne:
I don’t like raw onion but I like cooked onion. Sorry.
Jenn:
Oh, me too. However stinky it is, I probably really like it, especially if it makes me stinky apparently. I really seem to those things.
Chavonne:
Yeah. I feel like we all have a random thing we can eat. Fruit and onion is my dad’s, he could eat onion like an apple.
Neathery:
Wow.
Jenn:
So does my dad. My dad has eaten a red onion in front of me like it’s an apple.
Chavonne:
That’s me and belle peppers. I eat bell peppers like apples.
Jenn:
I can do that.
Chavonne:
Bring them on. Neathery, this is such a diversion. I love it.
Jenn:
No, [inaudible] embodied conversation.
Chavonne:
My mom is tomatoes. Yeah. My mom is tomatoes. What’s yours, Neathery?
Neathery:
Ooh. Like a vegetable that you can eat like a fruit?
Chavonne:
Yeah.
Jenn:
Just dive into it.
Chavonne:
That you just love.
Neathery:
I’m a cucumber.
Chavonne:
Yes. I love cucumber.
Jenn:
I’m equally bell pepper and cucumber.
Chavonne:
I have to change my answer. I eat cucumbers like pickles.
Jenn:
Yeah. I love it. I just take one of those English cucumbers and I peel off the plastic and I just eat it.
Chavonne:
Yeah, same. Love it.
Jenn:
I feel very French even though it’s a cucumber. I have no idea, I’ve never been to France but do they walk around with baguettes? I don’t know but it feels like that’s my version of that.
Neathery:
I love that. [inaudible].
Chavonne:
A great answer. Yeah.
Neathery:
Next time I have a cucumber, I’m going to think of you, Jenn, pretending that you’re in Paris with a baguette but it’s a cucumber.
Chavonne:
A cucumber in your beret, with your beret.
Jenn:
My partner has a beret. I’m totally taking a picture.
Chavonne:
Please do.
Jenn:
I have a cucumber and I’m probably going to eat it today or tomorrow and I’m going to send you both a picture because I have all the tools.
Chavonne:
Love it.
Jenn:
I’m going to do it.
Chavonne:
I love it.
Jenn:
Maybe it’s just my brain, but this doesn’t feel like a diversion. I’m like, Ooh, this is so embodied because I was telling you how I pictured myself in France and we were just talking about it.
Chavonne:
We ran with our vegetable talk. I love it. Okay, I’m going to pivot.
Jenn:
Good job.
[52:25]
Chavonne:
Thank you. To the second part of our podcast title, what does the rest of us mean to you? How do you identify within the rest of us? We’d also love for you to share your pronouns here and name your privileged identities and context.
Neathery:
Yeah. First of all, what an amazing podcast name. I just love this embodiment for the rest of us. Amazing.
Chavonne:
Thank you.
Neathery:
And so my pronouns are they/them. And some privileged identities I hold are, I’m white and financially secure. I am in my 30s and I have a master’s degree of education. I’m married and generally able-bodied. I have some body stuff coming up these days, but generally still able-bodied. And in the context of the rest of us, my other identities I hold are, I’m queer, trans, non-binary. I’m fat. I fluctuate from small to mid-fat, near divergent, Latinx. So my mom is Mexican and my dad is white. And I don’t come from generational wealth, but I’m married into it. And so that’s another liminal space where I don’t have that lived experience of having generational wealth. But I do have access to it in some ways that I’m still working with the feelings with that.
So I feel like the rest of us are those of us probably most of the people listening who are not in that [inaudible] white, older male and older white female category. The people the books were written by and for, right. Anyone else? So the majority of people, it’s the rest of us. Not the 1%, the 99%. And my goodness, we have so much to experience together around embodiment for all. And I think when we were talking earlier about collective embodiment and just what does that really mean and feel like when it’s been so disconnected and disembodied for centuries, what does this look like in practice? Embodiment for the rest of us? And I think you asked a different question in there, but now I’m forgetting that second part of the question.
Chavonne:
I think you did…
Jenn:
No, you did all.
Chavonne:
Yeah. You answered everything.
Jenn:
You remembered?
Chavonne:
That was fantastic. Yeah, you did. You said what the rest of us meant to you, how you identified pronouns, privileges. That was perfect. Thank you. I love the way that you broke down how you land on both privilege side and rest of us sides. So thank you. I really, I love this question because you never know, I mean, there are some things that are… Trying not to sound ableist, I was going to say visible, but that’s not exactly what I’m trying to say. So I don’t want to be ableist in any way with that. But things that are more salient, right. So some…
Chavonne:
Versus, and people don’t. So some of us see them.
Neathery:
Yes.
Chavonne:
Trying not to say sea, sorry. It’s salient for people, but you never know exactly what people are going to name as their identities and their rest of us ness. So I love this question. It’s one of my favorite questions. Yeah, yeah.
Neathery:
It’s a way of actually knowing each other, right? Because we can’t always assume identities that are being held just by what I now I’m trying to play that.
Chavonne:
What is in front of you..
Neathery:
Yeah, exactly. Great. What’s in front of you you. What’s there. And to take it to more like, yeah, we have to make it explicit because not everyone can literally see. Right. So we have to say, this is who I am and this is what some people might be able to see if they have access to sight.
And here’s more of me that you still can’t see with access to sites.
Chavonne:
Absolutely.
Neathery:
And here’s some different parts of myself, like that generational wealth piece. That’s something newer. I haven’t had to you know experience that just because I’ve only been with my wife six years. So it’s like a newer thing that I’m like, oh, this is different, yep. This is not something I’ve had access to. And it has made a difference in my life in many ways. And there’s still probably so much more of my own history and identities that I’m still settling into as we, I think traverse along our own embodiment journeys. There’s just more and more we have access to, the more we settle into it. There’s a lot of unknown as well, which is exciting. I feel that flutter and also like that terror of, oh my God.
Chavonne:
Yeah.
Neathery:
What’s in there?
Jenn:
Yeah,
Neathery:
What’s Happening?
Chavonne:
And thinking about the journey. I think it’s Ty [inaudible], and it might be Nikki Haggett. I will figure out which one when I put it in the show notes. But the idea that it’s not always the same one that’s the most prominent for you. Like, ive been the flow, this is what’s most important to me and part of my identity now versus this six weeks down, six months down the line, etcetera, etcetera. So it’s just really sitting with me with what you just said. Yeah.
Jenn:
Ooh. And you just said a word that you said earlier and you pinged something for me. So you just said unknown when you were talking about embodiment and a journey with and around and through embodiment and all of that. You also mentioned the word unknown, which I thought was very interesting and I have not made that connection before. And then here into this, and you just said there’s a terror there, right? There’s like a real fear, anxiety, terror, space about the unknown. And that is not a comfortable feeling. It sits in the realm of pain in a lot of cases.
The unknown, the things that we can’t even detect within ourselves until we arrive at that experience moment, context, whatever kind of place it has in our journey or places it has. So much of the embodiment conversation is about what we know. There’s a whole, how would I phrase this? There’s even things we don’t know are things we know. I know I am blank. I know that I am not a plastic surgeon. I know that I do not know how to speak French. I do not, but I know that. I know that for sure. I know that I don’t know how to speak French, but there’s the things we don’t know that we don’t know. A double don’t know that collapsing of that. That’s the true unknown. I haven’t even imagined it yet. I can’t contemplate it because I have no concept of it. In talking about embodiment, something that’s becoming more and more clear to me.
Although I did not have words for that. I just had a feeling for that. But when you said that, it was like, yeah, there’s unknown things that both us, the whole us body mind will need to face. But I don’t know what it’s going to be. I don’t know how I need to be prepared. The part of me that desperately needs to be prepared so that I can feel comfortable, cannot touch that space. They’re always going to be at odds because the unknown is the unknown. I have no control over that. It’s going to come when it comes. And that feels like the organic side, even without intention side of embodiment that I’m just sort of placing and noting for myself right now is incredibly important to our embodiment journeys. But earlier when you said, what texture does that have in your body? I love that Freaking love that question.
I love that The unknown has no texture. It’s nebulous. It takes up a, it’s not just unknown in quality, it’s unknown in quantity. How much space is it going to take up? I have no idea. Right. Life events. You know, were mentioning that earlier when deeply loving spaces, when there is such joy and such grief, the joy is planned for, it had to be adjusted because of the pandemic, and yet it was still planned for the plan adjusted. But the next part that was unknown. Ooh, that’s giving me like, yes, very cold chills is what I’m feeling right now. That unknown it because it’s an all-encompassing, because it’s so unknown when it happens. It’s just making me want to engage with some of my least favorite words on the planet. Surprise. I don’t like them.
Chavonne:
Same.
Jenn:
They pull me out of embodiment so quickly and I have to almost force myself back into my body. I love a surprise where someone’s like, I would love to show you something and I want to talk to you about it, and I can return it if it’s a thing. Or would you be up for something that might be full of sweating? Just any kind of clue. Right? I would be up for something very sweaty, but in August or September I’m going to say, no, I’m not up for anything sweaty. Right.
Chavonne:
No, no.
Jenn:
But how can we care for each other collectively when we’ve had experiences with those unknowns, I think makes it more collective. Yes. I hope I’m making sense. I don’t know if I Am.
Chavonne:
You are.
Jenn:
Because I’m actually feeling it more in my body than even in the words. But the unknown is the collective.
Or it’s at least that’s where the collective gets generated when we have community, when someone else has experienced grief, we may really want that connection and that collaboration with, well, what did you do? What did you think about? Just, there’s something in that unknown and collective that is just, I don’t know. I want to grab it from the air, but it’s not there. I just something, it’s journal topic for me. But that, that’s incredible. And I think it was the time you said it the second time that it actually landed in my body. Because I heard it the first time, but I felt it the Second.
Chavonne:
Yeah, totally. Completely agree. I hadn’t even seen it that way. Wow. That’s really powerful. Thank you. Both of you. That’s really sitting heavily in a good way.
Neathery:
Yeah. The unknown is the collective. Yeah. Because we are like, we don’t know what it’s going to be like when we’re with each other. Right. We’re all whole humans doing human things and how do we negotiate, again, the word negotiate and cultivate intentionality, checking in with each other, more consent, more attunement to each other. Like Jen, you not having peanut butter and chocolate before you meet with Chavonne is the sweetest thing I have heard. What a great friend.
Chavonne:
You are a great friend.
Jenn:
I hate nausea. I don’t ever want to, cause, so I’ve had nausea since I was a little kid, so I don’t ever want to give anyone else nausea, even if it’s not a big deal. I’m not causing someone else’s nausea. I’m never going to do that.
Neathery:
You are tuned though to chavonne like that, that imagine more of that.
Jenn:
Yeah.
Chavonne:
My husband isn’t [inaudible]
Jenn:
Just have him take a listen.
Chavonne:
It’s fine.
Neathery:
Hello, husband.
Chavonne:
I eat sherbet, he’s allergic to it. It’s fine. Oh, yeah. But give me a kiss. I’m not kissing you for the rest of the night.
Jenn:
That’s how we navigate these foods. My partner and I. He said, this is your last kiss. You know that, right? I’m like, I do. I’ll see you tomorrow. Come on over. I’m very aware. And there was something in what you just said, oh gosh. Where there is an aspect of almost hyper monitoring that can come in a process of getting more embodied, trying to be intentional about that. The unknown makes me want to release some of that.
Because I want to be more connected. And any time I’m going to get tighter and more constricted about that, I’m not going to be able to be open and evolving with my fellow human. And no matter what happens with our strange climate change stuff going on, what’s happening, and so such a hard thing, what’s happening with legislation about people who are trans and their trans bodies and what kind of choices some old white man or woman thinks that they should have and collective groups with a ton of power that it makes me yearn for the collective more and more and more as that happens. So I really appreciate you tuning us into that. Because I’m just realizing that I’m holding myself rather gently because it feels like I want to tune into that and it’s feeling more important maybe than ever. Definitely in my lifetime.
Neathery:
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Chavonne:
Absolutely.
Neathery:
It is so invigorating to be with community, to not be alone, to feel like, oh, we’re all shouldering this together. I can relax a little.
Jenn:
Yeah. Yeah. You don’t have to do it alone.
Chavonne:
And what a gift that is.
Jenn:
And it’s, for some reason that brings up the difference between solitude and loneliness. I feel like we can have solitude in a collective, but we’re very lonely without it.
Chavonne:
Absolutely. 100%. Wow. Yeah. Absolutely. Wow. I hadn’t thought. Yeah.
[1:07:49]
Jenn:
Yeah. I have a feeling my brain is going to keep stewing about this in my body because I keep going, oh shit, oh shit, in my head a lot coming up around that, which is this generative sort of place we’ve landed. Yes. We just took a lovely little bio break here and our recording time, and we’re back with questions, including talking about some specific things in your life, Neathery, some which we participated in, which I want to ask about and talk about. How has your work with ample and rooted foundations, which is your cohort based eating disorder training in a collective, how has that changed and challenged your own relationship with your embodiment? What learning and unlearning feels like? It was only possible because of the space you hold with and for your fellow clinicians, or colleagues.
Neathery:
Oh, powerful question. Thank you. I love that. Well,
Jenn:
I love it.
Chavonne:
You wrote it. You should.
Jenn:
I love it.
Neathery:
It’s amazing. And my goodness, this foundation’s journey. So this first originated as an idea for in-person training here for therapists in Austin, and then the pandemic happened. Whoa. There’s a theme, right? Life changes with the pandemic, and we pivoted to Zoom. I had never used Zoom before, and so I was like, okay, we’re going to figure this out. And thus opened the world for the most amazing fucking experience I could have ever dreamed of, which is connecting with amazing humans. The two of you just values aligned people from all over, that I never would’ve been able to meet if we didn’t have the Zoom component. So that has been just like, wow, beyond dreams that I had for myself and for this experience of being able to just have these harder conversations, really see people grow and learn. And for myself to grow and learn, one facilitating group in person, a training experience is very different than online.
I’ve had to really figure out Zoom, still learning all of the Zoom things and being embodied when we can only see a little bit of ourselves when we have different wifi situations, when there’s like some interruption and not when we all want to talk at the same time. But Zoom, you can’t do that. So it’s a little different. It’s a little adjusting. So there’s some technical and logistic skills that I’ve learned and unlearned, and I’d say for myself, it’s really the embodiment of holding space isn’t just allowing myself to be part of the process and not quote the expert, which some people want me to be that role. Want me to just say, here’s exactly how you do things. And I have some idea, some info, but really it’s a co-creating experience.
The conversations we’ve had, have been life-changing, right? Jen, some of the questions that you’ve had, shalan, the questions that you’ve brought in are experiences that we’ve had together have truly changed my life in helping me think of things in deeper newer ways. Helping myself stay in my seat and act more values aligned in the moment. So that embodiment piece, I feel, again, that awareness of what’s alive in us and just knowing when we’re getting disconnected, disembodied and being able to tend to ourselves, tend to each other. That’s a huge thing I’ve learned is I have these amazing ideas, thanks to my neuro diversity, my divergent brain, yay. I want to cram all of the things in one hour.
Chavonne:
Awesome.
Neathery:
And that’s not going to happen. So how can I just drop the expectation of what I have, of what this thing should be, quote, and how can we just co-create it together? And that’s going to be different for every session. Every group is different. And allowing it to be fluid. Something that has been helpful for me in my own unlearning is really divesting from perfection and not having something to have to be, this is the final product. This is perfect, this is done. And just offering what I have at that time, knowing it’s never going to be done. It’s impossible. And in fact, it can only continue to get better, be more expansive with growth, with feedback, with trial and error.
That’s something that we’re still experiencing in this cohort experience. Should we have a mixed cohort or should we have affinity based only cohorts for the entire training program? That’s something that we’re currently exploring. How do we do that? How do we actually make this really that generative space for all involved? And that’s the word that keeps coming to me. The question, how do we, and to know that I don’t have to have the answers that we can figure that out together, but I would not be able to figure it out if I hadn’t just started.
Chavonne:
One thing I really appreciated about, I mean, I appreciated a lot of things about that training, but one thing I really appreciated was that you were so open. I learned a lot from you, but that you were also open to feedback. And you don’t get that a lot in these spaces. I think it’s getting better, but I think it’s just so important. If you’re working with people who do the same work as you, to be open to feedback to this might not work. This really worked. I just really appreciated being in that space with you. For sure.
Jenn:
Yeah. Thank you.
Chavonne:
And I’m sitting with the idea of affinity based groups. I was like, so you could be in a bunch of different ones. I’m just sitting, how would you, I understand why you’re like, how, yeah. That’s just a really interesting question. Yeah.
Neathery:
Yeah, no, and that’s exactly where we are of like, well, how do we do that? Right, right.
Chavonne:
Yeah, this week I’m going to go to Fat Group. Next week I’m going to go to a black group.
Neathery:
Right, because you’re all of that at the same time, so it’s hard to like, siphon it out.
Chavonne:
It. Yeah. It’s just really interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
Jenn:
And that’s okay. That solidified something for me. The foundations group was so much of the unknown, including from week to week because the topics were so diverse and vast and just however interlinked they have been, there was an element of those conversations that were just in this context of being the conversation that was very special because it was so unknown. Even with looking at the same resources and knowing what to expect about the content, the element of the conversation was so unknown, it kept that collective feeling. So I now understand what I said earlier, even though I did understand it at the time, I’m just really living in the remembering that experience that was like that and I, like this mixed or affinity based, it’s also playing with that other, how to be affinity based without being exclusionary is how I think I’m hearing that kind of play out. That’s a good question. I don’t know. But when you said like, oh, I’ll be in this one this weekend, I was like, Ooh.
It’s like co cohorts within the cohort where there is the, what we did, what do we do in ours? We did some that was in our affinity group as part of the larger group. That was special time to be.
Chavonne:
Yeah. We made lifelong friends in ours, so.
Jenn:
Seriously, and they [inaudible]
Chavonne:
These are attached to us forever. Yeah.
Jenn:
And they will be our guest later this season. I mean, because we’re serious. They’re going to do everything with us now. It was all of it was special. And that was a deepening to the collective element that I value so much as a person experiencing and being embodied in the presence of other people doing the same thing.
I love how it’s always playful. You, I don’t know if you would say this about yourself Neathery, but a thing that I really got from that group is how the topic can be one of the toughest you could ever imagine. And there is still a playful element room for uncomfortable laughter, right? Room for connectedness. Even in the ways that we deal with things that are really uncomfortable at its heart is flexible, expansive, playful. I was just, as we were just talking about it again, I was remembering what that felt like and it felt like place.
Chavonne:
Yeah, It did. And I want to mirror copy, agree with what Jen said at the beginning, how, I don’t know how.
Neathery:
I love it.
Chavonne:
How much it changed us. Because I think we started it two weeks before we put our first episode out. Or am I on wrong years, or No, it was two weeks before our first episode went out, so correct. We meant we recorded three before, maybe like this. Well, I don’t remember what our schedule was like. We were doing different things back then, but.
Jenn:
I think we’d only recorded one interview and then our play, we’d only recorded one interview.
Chavonne:
Wow, okay, Alicia?
Jenn:
Yeah, and maybe, I don’t think we’d recorded with Nikki yet, so I think just one.
Chavonne:
I don’t think we had. So it was just like Jen said, it was really fascinating to, and heartening and educational and inspiring, etcetera, etcetera, to watch our own process as we were working through the training together. Yeah, it was a great, I get, I don’t want, I always say I don’t want to speak for Jim, but I’m going to speak for, it’s fine. We speak for each other all the time.
Jenn:
You know you can speak for me?
Chavonne:
Why am I saying that? Because I’m going to anyway, but..
Jenn:
We share our agency in this way. Do it. Yes.
Chavonne:
I think it helped our podcast, our relationship as a unit of creating this podcast really solidify what we were intending to do with this podcast too. So I really, really appreciate that space.
Jenn:
Yes, Solidified and clarified. There was a new clarity and grounding and foundation as we, because the foundation’s training was about us as people. Yes. Us, the clinicians and us, the clinicians supporting other people. I’ve actually never experienced other training like that where I got to consider my own examples inside of the context of each conversation. It didn’t have to be client examples, it didn’t have to be colleagues, supervision, examples. It could be us. Yes. Yes. And there’s something very solidifying and clarifying. We got to workshop our own humanity.
Neathery:
Oh my God.
Jenn:
Oh my God. I did a real, I gave you whole body chills. But we did, don’t you think, so we got [inaudible]
Chavonne:
I’m going to send you the transcript for this. You can just put it on your website, your testimonials.
Jenn:
Right, oh my God.
Chavonne:
Something just said, I was like, this is good. I should be typing this out right now.
Jenn:
Doesn’t that feel like what it was like? Yes. Work shopping. Yes. As soon as I said that, I was like, that’s it. That’s what my body’s trying to say.
Chavonne:
Yeah.
Neathery:
We’re shopping in your own humanity.
Chavonne:
And I really felt, I don’t want to say pressure, but I guess it is. I really felt the pressure to really make it my own because I’d made the decision to close my practice like four weeks after this started. Actually, I think I’d already already made the decision. Yeah, I’d already made the decision before you started. Because I was like, can I still come? I already gave you all this. I already made this plan. So it really helped me kind of, I mean I, it’s don’t want to say it’s easier because it’s definitely not easier to do it with clients, but it’s not as personal to do it with clients. And it really made it come home for myself in a way that I don’t think would’ve happened for me if I were still seeing clients by the end of that training. So that was really cool.
Neathery:
Yeah. Oh, this is so powerful. I’m receiving this. Thank you for sharing how…
Chavonne:
Thank you.
Neathery:
The ripple effects of our time together have led you to hear and I just, I’m so fucking grateful to have been a part of it. It’s truly so nourishing and affirming. I’m feeling all of that.
Chavonne:
Thank you. I feel all that too.
Jenn:
We love the shit out of you.
Chavonne:
And we were so excited. I was like, do we have to wait until the podcast is over to interview or wait until the training’s over to interview? Right. We’re like, fine.
Neathery:
No, this was perfect timing. I love this.
Chavonne:
Yes, absolutely.
Jenn:
The timing of this feels exactly right to me because I can reflect on this in a different way with the space as well.
Chavonne:
Yeah.
Jenn:
Yeah. Can I ask a question, and this is not to create any friction, but how do you feel your training mirrors or differs from Body Trust? Because I know that’s something that you’re really involved with as well. If that’s not too frictiony of a question, would you just say No.
Neathery:
No. It’s not Frictiony at all. Yeah. So I’ve trained with the folks at Center for Body Trust. [inaudible] And Dana, and Sirius. Now they have brought on Sirius Bonner. Yeah. And I don’t see it as a competition.
Chavonne:
Good. That’s Great.
Neathery:
I really don’t. I see us as extremely complimentary and they take.
Neathery:
And they founded Body Trust, the concept, and have a whole method to that exploration. Amazing! I highly recommend the training. I did it, I definitely recommend it. And I see the work that we are doing in foundations is taking that and really applying it to eating disorder treatment, and the ways that we exist in bodies. So I see it as both, and that is a question I come across a lot. So first of all, Wow! People are considering our training and body trust training. I’m like, “Wow! That’s your choice? Me and Hillary and Dana and Sirius.” I’ll always say, “take their training, do it.” And it’s not an either or. It’s what do you have space for at this time? What is the desire?
Our foundation’s training is really comprehensive and how to work with eating disorders? Part of that obviously is working with the body and some of the modules incorporate some body trust tenants, body liberation stuff. And if you want to take that further, then that would be Center for Body Trust and all of their amazing offerings. So certainly no friction. I know they support and are certainly really encouraging of the work I’m doing. And they just had me at their current certification program.
Chavonne:
Nice.
Neathery:
A panel that they were doing. That’s what it’s called. What’s word? A panel. So they’re amazing. Like amazing, amazing. So that’s the way that I distinguish it, is body trust is more about the techniques of working with body stories and how to do that in session and with yourself too. And then our program is a little more expansive of eating disorder work as well.
Chavonne:
Cool. I honestly didn’t know.
Jenn:
Me neither.
Chavonne:
I am really appreciative of knowing the differences and. What is it when we’re in school? Similarities and differences. It’s fine.
Jenn:
Yeah.
Chavonne:
Back in elementary. I’m trying to think of the words, I can’t think of it. Compare and contrast. Okay.
Neathery:
There you go.
Chavonne:
It’s in my head somewhere. So thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you.
Neathery:
Thank you for the question.
[1:24:48]
Chavonne:
How has your experience with the Ample + Rooted gathering space for clinicians enhanced your embodiment within our field and the changes, revolutions and evolutions, love that Jenn, that you’re working on making?
Jenn:
Thank you.
Chavonne:
What have you found that we can learn and unlearn from each other surrounding the stereotypes of social workers, the pressures of performing as a clinician, and your support of people being as embodied as they recommend for clients?
Neathery:
These questions, you all. So helpful.
Chavonne:
Jenn. It’s all Jenn.
Jenn:
Thank you. Shout out to Fonne who’s going to hear this. Yes. We love my questions, Fonne we’re we’re going to joke about that so much. Thank you.
Chavonne:
Jenn does write the best questions though.
Jenn:
I have so much fun. I just turn on good music and I just flow and it feels really, great.
Chavonne:
Its so fun. Because I couldn’t do it and every time I get a moment, these are amazing. This is nothing that would’ve come out of my hands, so I love it.
Neathery:
Well, the Ample + Root gathering space is our online home for folks who are aligned with our mission of body liberation for all. And that is a free place. So I am part of what we’re wanting to do and navigate in living within capitalism. It’s very hard to make the changes we do want to make while still having to pay bills and live life. So in addition to paid trainings, so in addition to foundations, we have a monthly membership of the community where there’s webinars and consultation. We have a free area that is the gathering space and it’s, to me, I kind of think of it as a lounge where we’re all just kind of hanging out, bopping around virtually from all over. It’s amazing. That is something that is just so cool and how it impacts my embodiment is I feel like even just talking about it, my posture gets a little bit taller.
I feel so proud of all of the people who are in our gathering space, my team for leading these amazing conversations. And just… The last call we had, the theme was on food allergies, IBS and food restriction. And to talk about that in such a nuanced and affirming way of people’s lived experience, because there are things that happen with bodies. We have to adjust our food intake. And then there’s the additional layer of trying to cope with life and all of the stigma and isms. And that might come out in disordered eating. So the in between, again, that liminal space of doing what your body needs while also challenging the parts of us that are coping and it hurts us at the same time. So it’s just like, wow, these conversations that we have are just powerful. And people have been so courageous and brave in bringing their own lived experience and their own body stories.
This kind of consultation, this kind of training community. I don’t know it exists anywhere else, that it’s truly hair centered, collective care centered. We’re encouraging each other, forming connections and we have a call next week and the gathering call and I’m so looking forward to it. We have a call tomorrow, our community circle, and that’s again our membership community. And I leave these calls just feeling so excited and invigorated and supported. The work that we do with clients, the work that we do in podcasts. So even if you’re not client facing, can be really isolating and it’s like… Where am I? Who are my people? Where are my people? And it’s just knowing that there’s others out there and feeling that connection and being able to post, Hey, anyone have resources for fat erotica? And there’s like five or more people here.
Jenn:
I love that. I love that one.
Neathery:
Yes. I live for this. So that is what is so exciting and I just love it. In my chest I feel that. My heart is flowing and I feel that warmth in my belly. Just all of these amazing people just trying to make this world more affirming for all bodies. It’s so inspiring.
Chavonne:
That is wonderful. That is such an important space. It really, really is. Yeah. Thank you for creating that and maintaining that.
Jenn:
Yeah, thank you. I’m obsessed with it. Obsessed. I’ve changed my schedule. I’m going to continue to change my schedule and you’re the last, I think it was the alumni community circle from the foundations group to have… There were a lot of people from my cohort, but there were also people from other cohorts, including cohort one where you switch from in-person to online. Just hearing the unknowns that happen. Unknown is my theme of the day I guess.
Chavonne:
Yeah, it is.
Jenn:
They’re just talking about what was unknown and what is now known and how they’re both embodied really struck me from that conversation. That’s also when I learned about this baby coming and that I forgot to tell you. And it was such a cool… It’s amazing with time and space how collective care does not shift. I mean, it doesn’t go away. It does shift. It molds, it changes, it evolves, but it doesn’t go away. Time doesn’t diminish it. That was very noticeable to me in that session and the whole gathering space and the topics that are in the gathering space. I don’t see those anywhere else. I might see a one-off salon series in the summer where it’s like six webinars taught by different people, but that’s the only thing that comes close. But this is year round all the time. So plugging this because I am obsessed with it. I’m serious. It’s so good.
Neathery:
Thank you.
Chavonne:
I have to be honest, I’ve not visited and I will be there and it’s nothing about the group. It was one of those, I read the email and then my brain never ever came back to it, so I just wrote it with a big star, but look it up and I will definitely be getting involved for sure.
Neathery:
Absolutely.
Chavonne:
I wouldn’t have known that your wife was having a baby and look at all the things I’ve missed.
Neathery:
Well, and that’s like the other part of embodiment is again, the dynamic nature of it where sometimes you have the capacity and sometimes you don’t. And sometimes it’s a fit for you and sometimes it’s not. And it’s like, okay, and of course please come because I have missed you.
Chavonne:
Yes.
Neathery:
And there was a time for Jenn, as you mentioned, you’d rearranged your schedule where it had been some time that we had been together, but as soon as we’re back on Zoom, it’s like, oh my gosh, I know these people. I love these people. This is amazing. And that’s something different as well. The intentionality of the space is that it’s ongoing, that yes, the foundation’s training has a start and end, and yet the container. There’s a different container. The alumni piece. These other… Our community and our gathering options is that there is no ending, because these are lifelong topics. These are lifelong relationships. And we need time and space to really be with… What is it that we’re processing? I learned this in one module, or I learned this in a webinar three years ago, but what does it actually mean now? And also, wow, this work is hard. How can we talk to people who also believe the values I hold and not just say, “oh, what are you doing? What do you mean you can be fat?” How many consultation groups have we gone to where people just don’t get it?
Chavonne:
Yeah, absolutely.
Neathery:
It’s so nice to be with people who are just right there with you. You don’t have to explain it.
Chavonne:
That is everything.
Jenn:
That gave a gentleness to something I was constricted about in my chest. There was just some gentleness. And when you said sometimes we have the capacity and sometimes we don’t. In response to Chavonne wanting to get acquainted with the gathering space, I want to tell you that when you say that I believe you, and that’s a really hard thing for me to believe.
Chavonne:
Yes.
Jenn:
When it is said, it’s actually thrown around a lot in supervision and groups and connected spaces. And I rarely believe it. It does not land over here for me is like, oh, sure. If I don’t have capacity, you’re going to understand and I want you to know that I always believe you. First of all, you’ve, you’ve demonstrated that to me for 10 straight months. So of course. And also there’s something in your embodiment, there’s something in your journey that is so true for you about that. It’s really palpable over here to be.
Neathery:
Thank you.
Jenn:
I’ve never thought that about anyone else saying that, so I just really wanted to tell you because, I want that feeling to be cultivated in some way in myself and around me. It nurtures me. I look for that. So I wanted to say it out loud so it’s a little more solidified for me because it’s so important. I mean, really, it’s a hard thing to believe in the medical industrial complex, the wellness industrial complex, cisheteronormativity, capitalism. I could go on. I don’t believe that.
So that’s how clearly distinct you are from those spaces, which is very important to me. When I say mentor, I really believe that. I’m like, I want to consider what Neathery said is a very common thing for me to think. I don’t resist it. Right? I don’t have to use some neurodivergent terms. I don’t have RSD. I Don’t have PDA, so I don’t have this rejection sensitivity dysphoria where I feel rejected by new and hard information coming from you. I just take it and I don’t feel the persistent drive for autonomy because I refuse to use the previous definition of PDA. I don’t feel this need to rebel in an inner rebellious teen way in a, “no, I’m the one in charge of me.” No sort of way that. That’s a very special gift that you have. I don’t feel those feelings, so I just trust it.
Chavonne:
100 percent. Just like Jenn said, I felt all this shame. I should have done this. And I was like, “no, I didn’t have the capacity.” I took seven months off social media and its totality, right after we finished that group. I did nothing. Because I decided it was my year of rest. I didn’t have the space and now…
Jenn:
You needed it.
Chavonne:
I just talked about, I really did! We’re not in all cells of my being. And then that’s what we talked about earlier as we’re coming into a place of there’s more space, there’s more expansion, there’s more availability, physically, emotionally, all the ways in terms of the pandemic, endemic, so such and so forth. Now it’s about exploring what I have space for, just like we all have to do. So I really actually felt it, when you said I didn’t have space, I was like, oh, you’re right. I don’t have to feel ashamed about this. I just didn’t have the space. So thank you.
Jenn:
Exactly.
Chavonne:
I really appreciate that. Yeah. I really, really appreciate that.
Neathery:
Thank you. Oh, this is medicine you all. Thank you.
Jenn:
You’re so welcome. You know what I just remembered when we had a conversation about ability, we were talking about that in one of our modules and we played with the nuances of capability versus capacity. And I’m just remembering that right now and how…
Chavonne:
I forgot about…
Jenn:
I want to go revisit my notes about that. I’m wondering what’s in there. I can’t remember what I got out of that. I just remember we were like, “there’s a difference between are you capable and do you currently in this moment have the capacity?” And those two things are misunderstood or misconstrued or are sometimes intentionally considered the same when they’re not. We could talk about lots of examples of that in our world. It has had such an impact on me. I’m just realizing it’s the same feeling. The feeling I had then is the feeling I have now in that I’m like, they are different. Yes, they are.
Chavonne:
Yeah.
Jenn:
It’s a very…
Chavonne:
Hot damn in my head. When you said that I was like, “oh yeah.”
Jenn:
Hot damn. Yeah. Neathery would you like to come back and have a deeper dive conversation with us in the future where we really go into more stuff? Because we want to have you back.
Neathery:
Hell yeah!
Jenn:
Right now in this moment. And I was like, I want to talk about this again. I want to think about it. I want to process about it. I want to come back and talk about specifically this part of things. Because for all the things that oppress and suppress this very specific kind of distinction, it’s not just this one, but similar ilk, kind of distinctions of what we say versus what other people expect when they go right against each other. It feels so important just about being supportive people to supportive people. Much less embodiment. I was like, “this is my moment is what I thought.” This is it.
Chavonne:
This is it.
Jenn:
Ask. Okay.
Neathery:
The answer is yes. I love this.
Chavonne:
We’ll be in touch. Nine months. In nine months. Just kidding.
Jenn:
Yeah, we will. It’ll be for season four. We’ll let you know in the fall as we talked about that other person earlier, and we’ll be recording in 2024. Okay. Because we plan ahead about this. I’m trying to plan ahead more in other ways.
Chavonne:
Look about planning.
Neathery:
This is amazing.
Jenn:
We have evolved a lot. The space we give ourselves, we keep making real-time adjustments. We adjusted in this season in real time. Let’s do this, let’s move this, let’s do this. To make it work for us because this is the conversation we want to have. So it most certainly should work for us and we should have the capability and capacity. We’ve been playing with that.
Chavonne:
So now I was going to say, we need to make sure we have our capacity and not just capability. So cool.
Jenn:
And we intentionally took the last part of last year off and we both did it about everything.
Chavonne:
Everything! And we will do it again. Absolutely.
Jenn:
I think we’re going to do it again.
Chavonne:
For the rest of my life. Yeah.
Jenn:
I was like, you can speak for me. You don’t need, don’t worry. You can speak. We could do this… It was one of the most incredible things I’ve experienced as an adult who works for themselves that it can be intentional to have complete space.
Neathery:
And you cultivated that both of you.
Chavonne:
Yeah.
Neathery:
You took that space for yourself. That’s amazing.
Jenn:
There’s more breath in 2023 because of that space. And I’ve never gone into a year with more breath. I usually go in less than the year before. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced that. Maybe as a kid. Because I probably didn’t think about that. I was just naturally doing it. But as an adult, I don’t think so.
Neathery:
Yeah.
[1:40:43]
Jenn:
Yes, yes, yes. They said yes. Thank you so much for being here with us Neathery. What do you think we can all do to make a difference with what we learned and got present to today in this conversation?
Neathery:
Well, thank you all for having me. This is so thrilling. My mouth, face embodiment, as you mentioned, Jenn is definitely sore from all of the smiling and laughing. But it’s Love it. I would say what? And it could be however it feels nourishing for someone. Maybe it is journaling, maybe it’s just pausing, maybe it’s reflecting, maybe it’s talking about this to somebody. But what is alive in you right now? And that is the first thing I would say is, get current with what it’s like to be you at this moment. And what do you want? What do you need? That’s what’s coming up for me right now, is getting clear about what you want and need and cultivating your own embodiment. And maybe sharing that with someone and having that the leaning towards our collective sense of embodiment.
Chavonne:
Oh, I love get current. That felt… That sat so nicely. It just brought me down in like a, oh, let’s just sit and feel like that was really powerful.
Jenn:
Yeah. I wrote down, “dang.” With a lot of a’s.
Neathery:
Hot damn.
Chavonne:
Yeah. Hot damn. I don’t know what made me say that.
Neathery:
I love it.
Jenn:
I can’t remember who said Holy Toledo with us. Was it you?
Chavonne:
It’s me? It’s me trying not swear in front of my kids. I say Holy Toledo all the time. I went to Pilates a few days ago and I was like, holy Toledo. And someone just laughed so hard. They couldn’t even do anything next to me. I was just like, oh. Although my kids swear, because they have parents who do. But I do try to say, holy Toledo, I don’t know why Holy Toledo was the thing I say now. And the kids couldn’t say else from us and holy Toledo.
Jenn:
It’s so cute.
Chavonne:
Sorry.
Jenn:
I love them. I don’t want this to ever change. I adore it. Okay. I love cussing as much as I love anything used in the place of cussing.
Chavonne:
Yes.
Jenn:
I love them.
[1:43:10]
Chavonne:
Holy Toledo, thank you so much for being here with us as we finish up this episode today. What would you like everyone listening to know about what you’re up to and how they can find you? What direction do you see your career and or work taking in the future?
Neathery:
Oh, well. Everyone can join us in the gathering space. Chavonne meet you there.
Jenn:
Yeah.
Neathery:
And no pressure for anyone listening, but that is a great way to connect with lots of other people. There is no cost to join, so it’s my entryway of, it’s not a scam. Not trying to pull one over. It’s literally just a place to hang out with other people who are aligned with body liberation and wanting to make radical change. So that’s a great place to start. If you’re interested in more in-depth training. We’ve always got our foundations program going on. It opens up twice a year. The next one will be opening up in July/August, still working out those dates because of a baby. So that’s where I’m headed next, is parenthood and exploring that embodiment and raising…. Body liberated babies. And what that means if it’s a whole new depth of life and probably work as well. Work in our work, but work in the space of, we are parenthood. Fat parenthood, transparent hood, and really just queering the family and I just am so excited and can’t wait to meet my kiddo.
So that’s where I see it heading is doing what we’re doing. And for me, stepping into trusting whatever shape this work needs to take and not having to be the one to do it all. I really trust that this is building its own kind of energy, its own life, and that I don’t have to be the director of it anymore. Of the sense of like, oh, here’s what we’ll do here. These amazing people are forming connections within the gathering space, asking each other questions, meeting each other in consults if they’re local to each other, forming connections. It’s just so amazing and exciting. One thing that is missing that I want to really do is in-person stuff. Some kind of in-person gatherings, maybe it’s called a retreat. I don’t know if that’s what it’s going to be called, but a place for people who can make it to actually be with each other in person. Because I want to hug y’all in person.
Chavonne:
Jenn and I are getting on a plane.
Jenn:
Yeah. We need Austin plans.
Chavonne:
I haven’t been to Austin in so long and I actually really like it. It would be fun.
Neathery:
Anytime. You are welcome. Yes.
Jenn:
Austin In the fall is spectacular.
Chavonne:
It is, yes. It really is.
Jenn:
Spectacular.
Neathery:
This might just solidify some plans then.
Chavonne:
Okay.
Jenn:
Fall Austin Energy.
Neathery:
Yes.
Jenn:
Oh my gosh, this was so amazing.
Chavonne:
My face hurt so much. I’ve been smiling so much.
Jenn:
It’s still happening.
Chavonne:
I keep yawning because my face is trying to stretch itself out. Like stop.
Jenn:
You’re the best. We really love the shit out of you.
Chavonne:
We really do.
Neathery:
I love the shit out of you too. Thank you for the invitation. Thank you all for the gift of your presence and for the amazing podcast you’re putting out into the world.
Chavonne:
Thank you. Thank you.
Neathery:
Love it. And love you all.
Chavonne:
Love you. Can’t Wait to have you back.
Neathery:
Absolutely.
Jenn:
Exactly.
Chavonne:
Thank you.
Neathery:
Thank you both.
Jenn: Thank you for listening to Season 3 of the Embodiment for the Rest of Us podcast. Episodes will be published every two weeks-ish (let’s be real!) wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also find the podcast at our website, EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs.com.
Chavonne: And follow us on social media, on both Twitter @EmbodimentUs and on Instagram @EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs. We look forward to being with you again next time in this evolving conversation.