Embodiment for the Rest of Us – Season 4, Episode 11: Nikki Haggett
Thursday, February 20, 2025
Jenn (she/they) and Chavonne (she/her) interviewed Nikki Haggett (they/she) in a deep dive about relating across difference, murmuration as metaphor, and a sacred unmasking.
Content Warning: Discussion of ableism, discussion of medical fatphobia, discussion of the multiple genocides occurring globally,discussion of fascism, mention of childhood sexual abuse
Trigger Warnings: None for this episode
A few highlights:
12:37: Nikki discusses the idea of embodiment while recognizing our own neurodivergence
30:05: Nikki discusses how training to be a Gestalt therapist is impacting their own embodiment
1:20:56: Nikki shares help she helps clients them notice how to stay embodied or even purposefully disembodied
1:33:59: Nikki discusses 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:
BlueSky: @EmbodimentRestOfUs
Instagram: @EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs
CAPTIONS
Season 4 Episode 11 is 1:31:37 (1 hour, 31 minutes, and 37 seconds) long.
Jenn: Welcome to our 4th season of the Embodiment for the Rest of Us podcast, a series exploring topics and intersections that exist in fat, queer, and disability liberation (and beyond!!)! You can consider this an anti-oppressive and generative space full of repair and intention.
Chavonne: In this podcast, 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.
Jenn: 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.
Chavonne: In addition, the conversations held here are not exhaustive in their scope or levels of inquiry. 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.
Jenn: We are always interested in any feedback on this process, especially if you feel something needs to be addressed. We invite you to email us at Listener@EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs.com with any comments, requests, or concerns.
(C): Hello from Season 4 Episode 11 of the Embodiment for the Rest of Us podcast. In today’s episode, we have our last deep dive of the season with our dear friend Nikki Haggett (they/she). Specifically we talk about relating across difference, murmuration as metaphor, and a sacred unmasking.
(J): Nikki Haggett (they/she) is a Certified Body Trust® Provider, Internal Family Systems Practitioner, and Clinical Psychotherapist (in training). She is a white, fat, disabled, and neurodivergent human with a late diagnosis of Autism and ADHD (AuDHD). Nikki seeks to take a relational, neuro-affirming, and body-inclusive approach to her work, while also holding the ways in which her profession is complicit in uploading harmful ideals of normative bodyminds.
(C): They like messy conversations that make space for tangents, deep dives, different perspectives, and “jumping over each other in excitement”. Nikki is a “Derry Girl” – the show is based on her school (if you know you know!). They now live in East London with Ricky, their two awesome neurodivergent kids, and their cat Freya. She is not currently taking on new clients but has plans to open a private practice later in 2025. In the meantime, you can follow her at Instagram.com/NicolaHaggett
(J): Wherever and however you are listening to this today, you are in for lovely brain tickles and journaling ideas as we ponder together. We are so glad you’re here! We hope you and your communities are supported and connected in 2025 so far xx
[3:36]
Chavonne (she/her):
Our final deep dive of the season is today with friend of the podcast, Nicola Nikki Haggett, she/they, who’s joining us from London. We had such a meaningful exploration with you in season one that we had to have you back for a deeper dive, so excited to have you here.
Nikki (they/she):
Yay.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yay. It’s been so long. I’m excited. How are you today and how have you been since… Oh my gosh, since then? What is that, four years ago?
Nikki (they/she):
Three and a half years.
Chavonne (she/her):
Three and a half. Oh my goodness. How have you been since then?
Jenn (she/they):
It was. It was like the summer of 2021. Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh my goodness. Okay. How have been since then?
Nikki (they/she):
Wow. Yeah. I couldn’t believe it was that long ago as well. I think time has done its weird thing of collapsing and also stretching out, but yeah. I guess in this moment you’re finding me… I’m trying to recover from a diagnosis of autistic burnout. Yeah. I’m navigating what that’s meant in terms of a lot of changes for my work and my life. Since I last spoke to you, I was coaching at that time, and I haven’t been coaching. I haven’t really got an online presence, and so in many ways my life has become quite a lot smaller out of necessity. I have been very slowly part-time doing a master’s in clinical psychotherapy. But again, I’ve paused the studying part of that this year to support that recovery. But I’m still doing my clinical work for that. That’s been a shift in the focus of my work and how I do that work. Also trying to be more available for my kids, both of whom have multiple diagnoses of neurodivergence and my aging parents.
Something that I’m with today actually is I haven’t been able to contact them for four days because they haven’t got any power or water or phones in Ireland had these really once in a generation storms. I’m really thinking about the climate crisis and everything that’s been happening in L.A., and of course my mind spirals to the political context and dissent into fascism. Then I’m thinking about Gaza. I think I was noticing, gosh, I’m really dysregulated. But then I was thinking, well, maybe it makes sense. What would it take for me not to be dysregulated?
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. Right.
Nikki (they/she):
Yet how do I, being I guess in this moment, and I’m not the only one trying to figure out what’s the sustainable way to stay connected. For me it’s been in a more local community, family way. It’s not really what’s happened in the last three years, but it’s like where am I today as we catch up? Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
What an embodied answer.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
All that’s swimming right there right now, which is more than enough. It doesn’t have to be more than anything that you said. Right? That’s more than enough.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. First of all, I really hope you get to hear from your parents soon.
Jenn (she/they):
Me too.
Chavonne (she/her):
That must be so hard. But I am definitely… Jenn and I were talking about it before you even came on for the podcast. I was saying it specifically too you, but I don’t even know where to move forward from here. I can’t dissociate from family stuff because everything in the news is terrible and dissociating from news stuff is there’s so many family… That sandwich generation is tough right now. Absolutely. [inaudible]-
Jenn (she/they):
Sandwiched between… Yeah. It’s different to be embodied all sandwiched between this stuff. I actually love that analogy too about it’s like we’re inside of this very compressed sandwich. It’s in a panini press. We’re in there pressed. Can really… That’s even the phrase, right? Pressed.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
I can really feel that. Thank you for sharing that. I was relating on the aging parents note. I was relating around taking care of little ones. I was relating on how can we not be burnt out when there’s so much at us, in front of us? How do we find space to make the world smaller while it’s getting smaller in ways, as you were just describing, that are so intersecting and so related. Gaza, fascism, elections in the United States, fires in Los Angeles, a place I lived for 10 years, so that kicks something up in my body. Just before this. I missed a call from someone who was in my cohort for nutrition from there, and I’m just like, “I wonder if they’re okay.” They are. I looked at the little preview of the message.
Chavonne (she/her):
Good.
Jenn (she/they):
But just there’s so much in and around us, it’s hard… It’s hard to even imagine rest of any kind, much less do it. Just relating on that. Then it also made me very sweaty, so I’m turning on my fan because I also got sweaty just engaging with that and letting myself feel that. Doing some circulating.
Nikki (they/she):
[inaudible] overwhelming. Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah. I always joke-
Nikki (they/she):
[inaudible] a body in and amongst all of this to be-
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah. There’s also really… I’m trying to get myself to listen to that podcast. I think it was you, Nikki, who told me about it, The Telepathy Tapes. Didn’t you tell me about that?
Nikki (they/she):
Oh, yeah. [inaudible]-
Jenn (she/they):
It’s about nonverbal people who are neurodivergent, usually including autistic people and what they’re able to pay attention to and notice that they have not been told about that exists at distances from them physically that they never could have known. The idea of connecting and being in more of a collective feels like a balm right now. I just wrote it down yesterday, like, “Get yourself to listen to one of these and see what it’s like.” Because I started to watch this show on I guess it’d be Peacock called The Traitors, which I’ve never seen before.
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s on my list. Is it good?
Nikki (they/she):
Chavonne.
Chavonne (she/her):
Sorry.
Jenn (she/they):
That makes me want to… I just finished season one, so I’m willing to wait for you. There’s also a UK version apparently, but it’s just reality TV alumni of all kinds. On the second season, there’s going to be a drag queen as well. I don’t know who it is yet. Also just [inaudible]-
Chavonne (she/her):
[inaudible]. Nevermind, sorry. Okay.
Jenn (she/they):
I don’t know. I’m so interested.
Chavonne (she/her):
The drag queen is definitely on a season.
Nikki (they/she):
Did you say Traitors? Traitors. I thought you said Traders. Yeah. No, I know the traitors. Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah, Traitor. They go to Alan Cummings’ Scottish estate, which is like I want to steal from him very much. They do these… They murder each other at night. Then there are people who have been tapped… Murdered, as in they get a letter with a lovely wax seal and they’re like, “You’re dead now.” That’s the extent of the murder.
Chavonne (she/her):
Sorry.
Jenn (she/they):
It’s okay. Then they also banish people every night. But I’ve just realized-
Chavonne (she/her):
That sounds so fun. Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
… after watching the first season that it also kicks up all of the stuff in my body that I’m not particularly enjoying. It’s not-
Nikki (they/she):
[inaudible] watch it. I can’t watch [inaudible] tension and secondhand embarrassment and [inaudible]-
Jenn (she/they):
The secondhand embarrassment on this particular show, the bold things that people say.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh my goodness. This is so fun. Yeah. I can’t wait. I can’t wait. [inaudible]-
Jenn (she/they):
Chavonne, you would love it. I can’t believe… I literally just… I had food poisoning last week, speaking of bodies doing stuff, so I watched it because I was like, “I have to vegetate kind of rest. I have to make myself, so how do I do this?” It was me just binging that show. Just being where we are and how we are and with how things are and are not, and then also what we have to anticipate. It does feel like a lot, and it’s hard to be nuanced I guess is the word that I would use there. It’s easy to be stark and black and white and what’s challenging. Something from our first conversation all that time ago that really stuck out to me in listening back to it again before I made the script for this time was how nuanced we were able to be all with the three of us not really understanding our own neurodivergences in the way we do now at that point-
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh my gosh. Yeah.
[12:37]
Jenn (she/they):
… which was so fascinating. Wow. It was amazing to hear what we were noticing that we didn’t realize was as profound as it actually was at the time. That was one of my favorite parts. Just listening to that again, and also how we all were approaching it differently and noticing different things. We were also really talking about shedding layers at the time and unlearning, so off pressure, off conditioning that were given to us by society we named, the medical industrial complex we named, and also even our families we named. It’s one area I wanted to deep dive with you if we could, about embodiment while recognizing our own neurodivergence. I’m just curious what comes up around this topic? Which I get is a very big question. There’s so many answers to that. Currently, and how do those play together for you, embodiment and neurodivergence?
Nikki (they/she):
Yeah. I think I was thinking about this also about where was I in my… I don’t know. How was I holding embodiment three years ago versus how am I holding it now? I think what stood out to me is I feel like less certain about what I know, and that’s okay. I have more curiosity. Something that you were saying that we all were holding things slightly differently. I think that’s something that’s really important to me is a polyphonic approach, so many voices, holding that when I have this urge to define or pin down what embodiment is for my… Just to notice that that might be for myself and to stay open to many different ways of holding it. But in a broad sense, I’m still holding this idea of embodiment as how we move through the world. How do I move through the world in this unique bodymind?
Bodymind I guess is a shift, those two words together in the way that Margaret Price coined them in the disability justice movement. I’m thinking about how do I move through the world in my bodymind? I guess holding that, there’s many different ways to do that. I’m questioning a lot what I read about embodiment, the books and texts that I still like to dip in a night of, but where does it assume a normative body and your normativity? Where does it collude with saneism? Ableism? These words that we like to use like interception and our connection to our sensations inside our body, and proprioception, our awareness of where our bodies are in space, and extraception, how we’re relating to the environment outside of us and input from there I guess. I’m not really interested in one idea of how that should be.
I think I used to also sometimes think that ways of being in the world that I have where I might be quite hyperverbal, I don’t know what the word is for that, but you know that that’s not embodied. Actually realizing that as I speak, things are moving and shifting. It does feel like an embodied process for me. I guess just that unpeeling bit. Really realizing that we’re all embodied all the time, and it’s just in relationship to what and with what? I guess what gets in the way of that and what nourishes and supports my experience? It’s funny you were talking about this Telepathy Tapes, something that I’ve been spending a lot of time both in my work but also in readings and poetry listening to and learning from my non-speaking autistic kin and really questioning our ideas of perception. Like where one ends and where someone else begins and what’s in between and ideas of co-regulation.
Bringing that into my understanding of embodiment. Like interdependence and where disharmony can be not only okay, but how can I bring it in and normalize it? When I think of disharmony, I think of me and my kiddos. We all have such different sensory experiences, and often we bump up against and in quite jarring ways. We’re little volcanoes setting each other off. Sometimes it’s like, how can we be volcanoes together? I’m more curious and I have more questions. I guess the definition, if there’s a definition, is expanding, but when I come back to it’s really that curiosity about what that process is like and what feels good and what doesn’t feel good. What’s the freedom of choice and agency around that? I guess choice and agency are still words… I think we used those in the last podcast, but they’re still words that come up for me.
Jenn (she/they):
They always come up for me.
Nikki (they/she):
[inaudible] say this, it’s a typical non-vague, very big answer-
Chavonne (she/her):
I love it.
Nikki (they/she):
… that I’ve given, but-
Jenn (she/they):
Well, I wrote down some really specific things that I think are so important that you’re acknowledging, ways in which aspects of being neurodivergent and trying to have access to embodiment, there’s a narrative that it’s not for us. I loved all of these little pinpoints you were noticing about that, about how… You’re talking about interoception, looking inwards and being able to sense. Well, if we just start with a neurotypical normative phrase that’s like, “Just eat fruits and vegetables. Just listen to your body and do what it says,” and we don’t offer any practice, depth, explanation, individuality, anything. It’s not offered. As neurodivergent people, we are so already in touch with those smaller nuances and feelings and ways of noticing.
Even something as simple as, well, hunger is something we often are tuned into more if we’re neurodivergent. We’re tuned into it not just on the physical level that people are often talking about. We’re tuned into it on the emotional level. Hangryness is a very different experience when you’re neurodivergent. It’s something that I’ve really been exploring lately with clients and with myself. It’s not the same. It’s like, “Oh, hangry, but then so that’s an irritation. Then the irritation can balloon into frustration, anger.” I could end up being incredibly mean. It’s not just a joke, hangry. It’s never just as simple as meeting my need of hunger at that moment. I’ve already gone past a regulation point, and so I also, as you were saying before we started recording, sometimes when we interact with other neurodivergent people or people who are not accommodating us or an environment that isn’t, we may have to come down from that.
It’s layers deep. I just thought that was very interesting how you’re just naming pinpoints or layers or levels that are all playing around, looking for harmony. More and more, and you’re reminding me of this, I’m seeing dysregulation as a message of my body asking me for something of a need that is not met. Even that name, window of tolerance. The word tolerance really irritates me. It has nothing to do with the concept of window of tolerance, but I usually call it the window of regulation because it’s like, “Okay, I can see where the window of regulation is once I have my snack, but I’m not in the window of regulation yet.” It’s like I’ve often described it to my own therapist, to clients. I’m like, “It’s like I’m outside the house looking in. I still can’t get in there. I need something else. More time and space. Some warmth from the sun on the windows in case there was ice keeping the window closed so I can open it and just get back inside.”
It takes more than the justs, which is a very shame, blame stigmatizing phrase way of saying things anyway. It’s a hidden shame. Just do this. I’m always like, “Nothing is ever as simple as just,” and you even named disability justice and ableism, saneism. That we do not all have to be a mental health neuro norm either, and that how a lot of these embodiment theories do not sit in a place of accommodating neurodivergent bodyminds. I really liked that. There’s even a book, which I’m actually not recommending right now, it’s called The Divergent Mind, the last name of the author is Nerenberg. But at some point in it they say, “And see, all of this stuff means it’s just so simple to do what everyone else is doing in the world.” I was like, “What is happening in this book?”
Chavonne (she/her):
No.
Jenn (she/they):
I even remember writing it as my review. I was like, “All right, so chapter 10, you lost me.” Because I was like, “Oh, this is so affirming. This is so interesting. Let’s keep normalizing the shit out of this. What do you mean now it’s so simple? You’ve taught me nothing.” Not that it was that particular person or book’s job to teach me, but I was just seeing it as just noticing the neurodivergent mind or bodymind, but they ignored that connection of the conscious thoughts to the body experience and nothing is ever a just. That’s what I was noticing. It wasn’t vague for me. I was like, “This is really honing in on all this stuff for me.”
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah, I agree. It didn’t feel super vague and something that’s coming up for me when you said, correct me if I misheard it or misunderstood it, but that we’re always embodied. It’s just how we’re embodied in relation to other things/people/events. Is that what you-
Jenn (she/they):
I love that.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. That is-
Jenn (she/they):
I love that [inaudible]-
Chavonne (she/her):
That’s my first journal topic is how does somebody show up when I’m with my children? How does it show up when I’m by myself? How does it show up when I’m hangry or we also call it caffeine green in the house? If I haven’t had my coffee yet, that’s the whole thing. I was so mean this morning, so I had to go apologize for my attitude because I didn’t wake up early enough to have coffee before the kids got up. Yeah. It’s not vague. It’s really, really evocative in a really good way. I really [inaudible] with that. Yeah. Really cool.
Nikki (they/she):
Yeah. I think for me it’s like where does it feel like I have choice? Because there are those moments where I can notice and have awareness of my experience more than in others. Then it’s like, “Oh, where is there a little bit of space, a little bit of wiggle room to become more regulated or whatever? But also, where am I expecting something that’s actually pathologizing my own process?”
Chavonne (she/her):
Dang.
Nikki (they/she):
Yeah. Because you talked about how I think so much we assume other people’s experiences, don’t we? I’m really aware of that in my therapy training and really pushing back on assumptions of what other people’s experiences are. With embodiment, they assume of a lack of experiences or a lack of something that’s relational. I think of… Again, with one of my kids, when I’m walking with him in the woods near our house and he’s like… He seems like he’s lost. He’s putting his hand on the moss and that. That’s a relationship he’s in and experiencing and how from the outside it can look like he’s disconnecting from the world because we’re hierarching the human world.
Or where it was assumed for so long that non-speaking or spelling autistic people didn’t have a internal world. I think there’s something about humility and being open to embodiment that maybe for one person is defined by an overwhelming experience of the outside world coming in and maybe less experience of interception. Why would we assume we’re all the same? For others, yeah, interoception being maybe a more primary experience. Then so just realizing that so often when was thinking about embodiment maybe three years ago, and even before that, even though I thought I was challenged, I might’ve somehow been thinking how can I get them more of a certain experience without thinking about… Not that it’s not possible, but-
Nikki (they/she):
Not that it’s not possible, but also being like, why do I think that’s better necessarily?
Chavonne (she/her):
Right.
Nikki (they/she):
It’s not really up to me, you know.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, I hadn’t thought about it that way.
Jenn (she/they):
Wow.
Wow.
Chavonne (she/her):
Journal topic everywhere.
Jenn (she/they):
Totally and so interesting. That made me a little physically nauseous, and that’s okay, I’m just prone to being nauseous anyway. You’re not making me nauseous, Nikki, but just because what I really heard you highlighting there are the ways in which we’ve internalized certainties that are nothing close to certain, and how that keeps us even from connecting to ourselves or feeling like we’re not doing it enough, or that we failed somehow or something like that. Even from obligation, it was all, I was just sort of, I think that’s when my stomach started to go hmm. Was just noticing this societal idea of obligation that we have similar experiences or we have vastly opposite experiences, and that’s what determines how we relate to each other and to ourselves.
And I was like, oh, that’s so yucky. I love the idea of challenging assumptions. I love that the word assume says ass you me. It’s one of my favorite literal sort of reminders to check in. And I don’t know, I find that very powerful. We do assume a lot. We generalize a lot about other people’s experiences. One of my favorite phrases, which is actually something my therapist says to me, that I’ve just noticed. There’s two key moments in my life where people have said something like that, and I’m like, oh, I’m going to remember that phrase. One, is actually a boss of my partner’s, but he always had him on speakerphone so I could hear what his boss was saying. And his boss was like, “Wow, that’s a really good question.” And then he would pause. And so the pause is on, wow, that’s a really good question. Not on, hold on, I need to think about it.
Which is such a genius thing to do. And I was just like, oh, I would love to be told that’s a great question. I would just love, over and over and over, people could just tell me, that’s a great question. Because I ask a ton, a shit ton of questions. I’m always like, Hey, I’m a big question asker. If you don’t want that right now, you got to let me know because I’m just [inaudible].
Nikki (they/she):
Right, right.
Jenn (she/they):
But just the idea that someone can be like, great question, great question. Oh, just even the thought of that makes me feel excited to be my neurodivergent self and to be as loud, and as hyper verbal as I am. And all of the stuff that is my “weirdness”, quote, unquote. Unless weird is wonderful, it’s going to be in quotes for me. I love weirdness. So that-
Nikki (they/she):
[inaudible].
Chavonne (she/her):
Me too.
Jenn (she/they):
Thank you. I love your weirdness. She love both of your weirdness.
Nikki (they/she):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Weird is wonderful. And it’s also a sort of connecting wire or something. It’s such a cool, we can spot each other. In New York, I used to be able to spot other people on the platform. I’m like, look at us. We’re like looking at people in the eyes. We’re seeing what’s happening. Everyone else is staring down at something, but we are available.
Nikki (they/she):
In it.
Jenn (she/they):
It was just, right. There was this one station when you first got into Manhattan on the, I can’t even remember what the stop would be, Delancey, but they have this mosaic of a rainbow trout, which is a New Mexico fish in our rivers. And I’d rarely touch a subway wall, but it was such a cool feeling and I always wanted to interact with it. And I met someone at that subway platform. Some of these people became my very good friends because we were just like, who is that weirdo touching that rainbow trout? And I’m like, it’s me. Who are you? And you get to know each other really fast.
I also would randomly meet people from New Mexico. They were like, it’s from New Mexico. I was like, that’s why I’m staring at it. All that stuff. And the other thing is my current therapist says something, my therapist is very human with me. And they pause and they’ll say, “Well, that’s how I see it. I’m not trying to speak for you.” And that one sentence, I’m not trying to speak for you, has been, at first it would be like, oh, of course. Of course I know. Of course I know that. But then it’s become like, oh, I’m just like, yeah, they don’t speak for me. So do I have a different thought now? It’s like totally generated different responses from me because it holds space for me not to do an internalized conditioned response to myself, or to dismiss even someone giving me permission to not do that, but just sitting in it. So I feel like I’m rambling, but all of that was coming up for me.
Nikki (they/she):
No, I love that. I love that.
Jenn (she/they):
Like, wow. All of this from being embodied all the time. I could go on, I’m going to stop myself right now, but I could go on and on and on about all the different… Yeah, we’re embodied even when we’re asleep. Which is just, I wrote that down. I was like, embodied when we’re asleep. Okay, that’s interesting to me. So we wake up into something or we go to bed with something, or we’re like, last night for example, I’m pretty sure I coughed in my sleep and I remember thinking, oh my gosh, I’m going to wake up my partner, but then I was back asleep. Just thinking about how, if not embodied, how close we are to embodiment while we’re asleep, without that conscious connection, or is it? I mean, who knows? I’m asleep. I don’t know.
Chavonne (she/her):
Right.
Jenn (she/they):
Like you don’t know. Yeah.
Nikki (they/she):
Yeah. There’s so much we don’t know. I think that’s what I find fascinating right now. That’s the place I’m in.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Jenn (she/they):
Yes. And learning all the time and not all of them great things to learn, or that I would’ve necessarily desired that I learned that.
[33:41]
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. I’m like, I didn’t need to know that today. I didn’t really need to know that to go about my day. For sure. Thanks so much. That’s changing everything. Perfect. Perfect. Nikki, you have such a vast experience holding intentional space for other people, and you described it in such an accessible way, you were training to be a Gestalt therapist, which I’m super excited about. So how’s that process tightening or alternatively loosening the embodiment response for you personally, while you space hold for others, and what has surprised you the most in this educational and practical process?
Nikki (they/she):
Yeah, there’s so much in there. I love the question of how it’s tightening or loosening my experience of embodiment, because really, that’s the question that I’ve been holding as I navigate my training. Like, where do I need to tighten in order to make it through certain aspects of that experience. And where is there space to loosen and be open to something different. And for me, it’s been like what supports my movement between those two places because in the beginning, certainly a lot of the time, there’s a lot of tightening for me. There’s been a lot of tightening. Tightening in terms of even traveling to the university. It’s an in-person training, and they make such a point about how this is an in-person training, so you have to be in-person and there’s so much ableism [inaudible], who gets to do this masters and in what way it’s held. And so noticing that even, you know, because I was really reflecting on the fact that since I had my eldest kiddo, who is 13 now.
Jenn (she/they):
Wow.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh my goodness. Okay. Okay.
Nikki (they/she):
He’s 13.
Jenn (she/they):
I remember when he was like 5 or 6. That blows my mind. Wow.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh my gosh. Okay. Wow.
Nikki (they/she):
I haven’t had to get on the underground or the tube much. My life has been more local. Like using the local bus or walking, and that’s such a privilege because I can work from home. But I have actually sometimes accidentally created a life which is less overwhelming in terms of those sensory experiences. So when I was getting on the underground, even with my double headphones, like the noise, the people, the smells, the crampness, and remembering how overwhelming it is just when I’m arriving to start a day of learning. And then in the teaching environment, like how much noise there was, and how they teach things without like a, hand-eye, and how I’m struggling to keep up. So there’s a lot of tightening around. I notice how much I’m just trying to stay in that space.
Can I stay? And what helps me to stay, which is not really… Yeah, it’s quite a tightened experience, I would say. The group process for me is just, it can be a lot for anyone, but I definitely noticed that I have a lot of interpersonal trauma from groups. So that’s a lot of tightening. And then the theory, you know, the theory. Questioning the theory, I made a commitment to myself to stay by my own side, but also I’m out as being autistic` ADHD, which is actually quite risky, I’m realizing. Well, I have been realizing, in a field that certainly here in the UK would like to think that it’s becoming more inclusive, but actually that isn’t really embedded very far. And it’s not embedded very far in many, many areas. But yeah, realizing that the theory, if I’m my usual questioning self, like, oh, when we’re talking about presence, what are we assuming? Or, oh, what does this assume about the cycle of experience, or about dialogue, or about awareness, you know, that I’m like a yes, but person. Naming that. A body scan might not be that accessible for everybody and not if you make us all do it sardines in the room, then I’m going to panic. And then I guess tightening-
Jenn (she/they):
Wow, good point.
Nikki (they/she):
… In the spaces that I hold, I guess, because doing clinical placements, it really varies quite widely depending on where I am. Just noticing the limitations in the environment, the limitations in the policies. Who gets to be offered this low cost therapy or who doesn’t, and who do we assume as the client and who do we assume as a therapist? Me as a trainee, there’s no thought that I might be disabled, that I might be autistic. I’ve had so many experiences where that’s been a real tightening. Like how do I practice in a way that removes some of that? And where am I limited by the place that I’m working at? But also where can I push back and challenge and disrupt to a degree? That’s the tightening. And I guess the loosening… I get excited about-
Jenn (she/they):
Great sigh.
Nikki (they/she):
… It’s a big sigh. I know I was thinking-
Jenn (she/they):
And it’s great. It’s regulating. I love that.
Chavonne (she/her):
It was great. Yeah, I loved it.
Jenn (she/they):
You know, people always joke about animals, like, what do you have to sigh about? I’m like, they’re regulating. They’re not upset. They’re just regulating. All of us mammals do it. We’re like [inaudible].
Nikki (they/she):
[inaudible].
Chavonne (she/her):
I say that to my 4-year-old, I want to be 4 and have no responsibility.
And a big old sigh.
Jenn (she/they):
You’re a permanent toddler. You don’t have to worry about anything.
Chavonne (she/her):
I know.
Jenn (she/they):
While Broccoli is in the background having a really good sleep at his little desk.
Chavonne (she/her):
I’m very jealous. That’s very nice.
Jenn (she/they):
I’m showing him and pointing at him for those that can just see the transcripter here.
Nikki (they/she):
I always think animals are such an invitation to me. Well, our animals that we have around us. But yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Nikki (they/she):
Yeah, I’m just taking a breath as I think about listening. Like, where are the places where my training has helped me to listen, my experience of embodiment. And actually, it has. It really has. I think part of it for me is, while there’s many limitations in the theory, I think for any therapy, theory, it’s grounded in a context, a particular moment in time, a particular part of the world, a particular, you know. So I have to challenge that. But also there are principles within it that if I can hold them broadly, feel really exciting for me. It’s actually given me a language and a way to communicate in the way that I naturally communicate. That piece of, it’s non pathologizing. And so, really curious about what is your experience right now in this moment with me, and what is my experience? What’s mine? What’s yours?
And then what’s unfolding between us in relationship. And that practice of, oh, I get to have my experience. And as a therapist, I get to bring that experience to the relationship. Not the content of it, of course, but I’m thinking like, oh, I’m wondering, I just noticed this is what’s happening for me and this is what’s coming up for me. And I’m really curious about what your experience is. That piece of actually, we can be in that experience. It doesn’t have to be shared. And we can look at what’s happening in relationship together. And the piece for me about, that what’s unfolding between us, often is something that’s happening outside the world for each of us. For me, and for my clients. And we get to practice something different together and see what supports that. And when I can stay open to… One thing I like about Gestalta’s field theory. So it’s always situated in a field, a context.
So the context is always there. My context, your context, which includes all of our history, which includes our identity, which includes all of these pieces. So it feels like it’s already named as opposed to [inaudible]. One of my experiences where, it’s kind of left out, you know. So that has been exciting for me. When I get space to play with some of my peers, when I get to kind of noodle on some of the people who are looking at it through interesting lenses, it feels exciting. And of course, there’s always the both end of the systems and the rules and the regulations, and the ethics often around these fields. And the reason that having a letter after my name is important to work with the people I want to work with, also means I’m complicit as well.
Yeah. And in the spaces that I’ve been in, realizing that in-person work, I really love actually when it’s a supportive environment. Really surprised me because I’ve been so used to kind of withdrawing, for good reason. And I’m so glad that online stuff is available and accessible, and being able to notice where, like with my therapist because I have to be with a Gestalt therapist, we’ve been able to negotiate this flexible arrangement where we walk outside when it’s possible, a city farm. And that really supports me. Noticing that it lends a hand being with the trees and nature. And yes, London noises, they don’t always lend a hand, but it’s a third relationship in the space, can be really supportive. Being able to experience where would I like to change things and tweak things, I think. And actually, where can I unmask with my clients a little bit without the freedom to disclose always. Because in certain placements-
Chavonne (she/her):
You can’t, yeah.
Nikki (they/she):
… I don’t disclose that I’m autistic ADHD. And that sometimes rubs up against me a little bit. But yeah, that’s quite a lot I’ve offered there. And I guess what surprised me to try and keep the surprise bit short, is realizing how much more capacity I have than I did many years ago for relating across difference. And it’s a real privilege to be able to even say that, to say, notice where I needed a lot of safety and I’m not pathologizing that. I needed to retreat, to retreat. That actually now a lot of the time, what surprised me is what can I close myself off from by over-prioritizing safety? And I’m putting that in air quotes because it’s kind of a assumed safety often. What a safe enough for me? And then how can I tolerate rupture and conflict, and then come back and circle around and trust myself to say, to stay with my experience and be open to someone else’s being different
And being in a relationship across that. And just being able to relate across different neurotypes. And again, obviously the responsibility often being necessary from the sort of dominant norm, if you like, to kind of do more of the work to meet me and where I’m at, but where I can receive support from someone without them really fully understanding my experience. And that can still be a really beautiful moment. I think there’s been a lot of loosening, relaxing for me, around risking that. And then also, I still sometimes need to honor my hell no.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Absolutely.
Nikki (they/she):
So yeah, that’s been a surprise to me that when I listen sometimes that’s where the surprise comes, when it’s possible to listen.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. I have so many thoughts. Oh, oh my gosh. Chills. Chills. So the first thought I had, I wrote it down, was this tightening just feels really protective, honestly. So it just has to be, and I was thinking about, talk about cringe, when you were talking about the traitors. Three and a half years ago, I was like, well, I know about neurodivergence, but that’s not me. And I’m like, are you kidding me? I can’t, and I remember Jenn being like, if you’re questioning it, [inaudible].
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah, it feels so obvious now. Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
And I’m like, I can’t go into public spaces without earplugs. I can’t do it. I’m super sensitive to sound. The mall is truly hell on earth for me. It’s so loud, it’s so many people, it smells.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah, that’s my corner place.
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s just the most over stimulating place in the universe for me. So I was just like.
Jenn (she/they):
Even the lights. I mean, we could go on.
Chavonne (she/her):
Every sense is like, no, no, do not. And my youngest doesn’t eat sugar for the most part, just he doesn’t want to. And so he always gets these soft pretzels and they’re at the mall. So I’m like, once a year. I love you and I’m running in and I’m trying to get out as fast as possible. But anyway, so the tightening sounds really protective. And it’s funny when you said sometimes it’s not safe, and I agree with you to disclose or to, yeah, to disclose neurodivergence in the therapy space. I’m like, what? I feel like… I had an employee who I was talking to her about it yesterday about neurodivergence and masking, and how it’s so in her mind’s, kind of her theory. I’m like, please go to grad school and figure this out. But it’s really tied to childhood trauma because if you’re in this unsafe space, I’m going to step back.
I’m going to see what my environment is, and then I’m going to see how I can behave in this. And that’s exactly what masking is. And I’m like, that’s what therapists do. Not all of us. I won’t speak for all of us, but most of us, we sit back and we examine our environment so that we know how to respond to it. Even if it’s someone just telling us what’s going on for you, I’m not going to bring myself into this. I’m just going to hold back. I’m just going to observe. And then I want to see how much of myself I can bring into this room. And that is, yeah, like therapists are so, most of us are so neurodivergent. Like what? I’m like, we have to be to survive in that field.
Jenn (she/they):
And maybe traumatized from what you just did.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, so traumatized. Oh my god. And I’ve had an employee say she was sorry that she couldn’t get her life together. I was like, that’s why we’re all therapists. What are you talking about? We’re all trying to figure out our family shit and the shit that’s going on now, what are you talking about? I’ve like never apologized for that.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah. How to person. Why not have a constant practice space of how to person?
Chavonne (she/her):
I’m like never apologize for that. We’re all trying to figure out our family of origin. It’s okay. But no, and when I think about loosening that embodiment experience, that to me is the unmasking. I’m going to accept, and I struggled with the word unmasking, and again, this employee was talking about it being more of an authentic experience than unmasking because that word doesn’t always click for me. But to me, the way you’re saying it, that surprise. It feels like that embodiment experience is expanding because you are able to hold space for different folks, different perspectives, different experiences. And that feels very unmasked to me. And I love that for you.
Nikki (they/she):
And it’s super risky, isn’t it?
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Nikki (they/she):
That word unmasking because it implies that it’s conscious.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Nikki (they/she):
That you can try to do it. And you know, so much research around. I love this book about autistic masking, which is by Amy Pearson and Kieran Rose, and they connect it to the broader experience of other… they use the word minorities, but that doesn’t really work either. But different ways of masking, which are-
Nikki (they/she):
But you know.
Chavonne (she/her):
Sure.
Nikki (they/she):
Different ways of masking, which have an unconscious element from trauma, from thinking of code switching, think of all the different ways we have to monitor what’s safe to bring, what’s not safe to bring. You know?
Chavonne (she/her):
Mm-hmm.
Nikki (they/she):
And then also the part of it where the piece I’m talking about in listening is, where are the spaces where we are seen in our full humanity and held with that kind of … Which is why it was so important to me to fight to have a supervisor who is autistic, ADHD, gestalt supervisor, and I could only find one in the UK.
Chavonne (she/her):
Wow, yeah.
Nikki (they/she):
They’re hard to find because they’re in Birmingham, which is in the north of England. And I can’t travel in person there all the time. But it was really important in order for me to bring my client work. And also what’s coming up in me, I had to feel that. The ground, the feel between us held an understanding of the double empathy problem, of masking what it is, of differences in communication, of sensory processing, so that I knew I was being seen in this, generous maybe isn’t the word, because it’s not generous just to see me as I am, but seen without everything in the way.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Nikki (they/she):
So that we could then actually talk about where I could do things differently. All that was not in the way. And yeah, the word I’m asking I think is, as you were saying it, Chavonne, I was just thinking of how risky it is in certain spaces. Because when we listen, there’s a risk of people saying, “Oh, they don’t really have a problem, actually.” And there’s a way in which we have to weaponize our trauma and we have to, we’re only seen when we’re really disregulated.
When you think of the diagnostic criteria for autism, for ADHD, it’s really the outward behaviors that might be seen when someone is traumatized, when someone is really not coping.
Jenn (she/they):
Yes, yes.
Nikki (they/she):
I think of this with my kids. And then the way in which you’re only really seen and accommodated if you stay in that edge, and when you have the chance and the space to listen and you are as you are, not neurotypical, where I can info dump and stem and interrupt and bump into, and along with my non-autistic peers who might get frustrated sometimes, but then we come back and we laugh about it, that it’s so precious. But it, for me, it needs that place of knowing that they’re also understanding that that’s very rare and very precious for me.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Nikki (they/she):
I went off on a wiggle there.
Chavonne (she/her):
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Jenn (she/they):
It was a great wiggle.
Chavonne (she/her):
Wow. Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
For some reason, that point too of, it’s not actually generous to hold this kind of space.
Nikki (they/she):
Generous sounds like they’re giving me something that’s like-
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Nikki (they/she):
You know?
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah. It reminds me of the phrase, “Solidarity, not charity,” where people are like, “Look, philanthropy.” And you’re like, “Oh, you’re so generous.” That whole conversation is, oh, it gives me creepy chills, it’s a very weird conversation.
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s that episode of It’s Always Sunny, and Dennis is waiting for people to start clapping for him because he did something nice. He’s like, “Why aren’t you clapping for me?” Sorry, that’s what it made me think of.
Nikki (they/she):
That was wonderful, yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Almost everything back to Bob’s Burgers or It’s Always Sunny.
Jenn (she/they):
I love that show.
Nikki (they/she):
Yes. My supervisor would be horrified, actually.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
I love that show, because they are playing the worst people they could possibly think of, and then see how that plays out in a group of people. It’s horrifying. It’s hilarious and it’s horrifying.
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s so bad. I love that show so much.
Jenn (she/they):
But that one, right? Or where he’s pretending he’s not angry when he is trying to sell his Jeep.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Those are two of my favorite.
Nikki (they/she):
I have no idea what you’re talking about, sorry.
Jenn (she/they):
You would love it, Nikki, it’s very, very funny. It’s also very American humor.
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s very American.
Jenn (she/they):
Mean American humor.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah, yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
But it’s about, it’s very deadpan. However, I mean, it’s very deadpan in the face, but they are actively making fun of pointing out the ridiculousnesses. But really, that person never masks. I love that about that character. He never ever masks. He was like, “Oh, I’m not going to be angry.” Self-denial, lack of self-awareness. And then he gets really angry, but he’s just fully embodied in that. Or he’s like, “I’m the best. I don’t understand why anyone isn’t recognizing I’m the best. Where’s my clapping?” He just doesn’t get it.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Jenn (she/they):
He really doesn’t get it. And the dad-
Chavonne (she/her):
I interrupted, go ahead. I was jumping over myself in excitement.
Jenn (she/they):
The dad is Danny DeVito, and Danny DeVito is hilarious as a deadpan. I’m sure he’s one of the nicest people in the universe, but he plays a horrible person.
Chavonne (she/her):
I needed that.
Jenn (she/they):
So that generosity, “Look at what we’re giving,” it reminds me, in my public health program we had to do mock, “How would you address this issue in this country?” It was in a global health class. And I was appalled because almost every assignment turned in was like, “These people, what they really need are bikes, but what we’re going to do is we’re going to send them our cars that we no longer use,” because we had to find real life programs that were doing things. So this is how it unraveled, how much people in the US especially to other areas of the world were just giving things.
So I name that one because as people were starting to present, I changed my project and I decided that my project would be, I’m going to go find real life pictures of what’s happening to those cars and what kind of roads are they and all of that. And it was just like a pile of cars. We just feel really good about it. And there was a mountain of cars with literal vines. This one happened in Indonesia, but it was literally just vines all over it. Charity doesn’t really reflect on the person that’s being given the support. And what you were talking about was actual genuine support. And that does involve at least some level of compassion, empathy, solidarity, self-awareness of what you’re bringing to the room, relationship, clarity, and unmasking at some level.
So I just thought that was so … It reminded me of my angry bits that are always angry about a degree that I have and what people were actually taught there, was to send the cars, by the way. That was the conclusion of the whole class, not me, but everyone else, was to send the cars. And I’m like, “No, that was not the point of my … No, we should be sending the bikes.”
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
And also only as many bikes as are being requested, because otherwise those are also going to be in a heap. We just need to meet the need.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Chavonne, I couldn’t have said anything better than you said. So you spoke for me. It was just amazing. And it’s so interesting what I’m underlining so far. I’m always curious about what title I’m going to choose. And so I want to just tell you right now before I go to this next question, I have underlined polyphonic, the many voices. That was the first thing that stuck out to me.
Chavonne (she/her):
I love that.
Jenn (she/they):
We are all embodied all the time. Choice I underlined like five times because we kept talking about it. The tightening or loosening. And you specifically said about just trying to stay. The word stay, to stay regulated, to stay in the room, to stay in our emotions, whatever the stay is. Unmasking, of course. Relating across difference. And then hell, no. Right? You said sometimes you’re still needing to honor your hell, no. I was like, “Yes.” Relating across difference and hell, no feel very equal in what I underlined. So I’m just enjoying the flow.
Nikki (they/she):
Yeah. Something that came up there, the hell, no, the hell, no sometimes just is the shutdown, it’s the meltdown. And I had so much anger, but also initially shame. In the first 10 months of my first year of my masters, I had like eight meltdowns at the campus, with such regularity that I hadn’t experienced in a really long time. Experienced a lot of meltdowns, shutdowns when my kids were very little. And I realized there was a lot of overwhelm then, but also in my 20s and other different moments. But that frequency of meltdowns was these times when I had to just leave the room and I just couldn’t stay. And so when I think about choice, when I think about agency, when I’m just working hard to stay, it doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of choice to be open to experience something different. And sometimes that hell, no, just, I have to leave the room and I have to find somewhere quiet. And I had to fight to get access to a quiet room that I could be in to figure out how to find some ground. And it was often just some.
So yeah, there’s just staying. And that word just, it makes it sound simple, doesn’t it? But sometimes what is lost when you’re working so hard just to stay in an environment, and I have a lot of [inaudible], which lets me just stay. But when they talk about, in gestalt they talk about the safe emergency of therapy, which basically often assumes that you can offer too much safety. And I was talking about that a little bit about my own experience, where I noticed where that is for me. But often that analysis assumes safety in places where it’s not. So they’ll assume for the group on the whole, this experience is a safe emergency. Everyone’s going to feel a little bit on their edge, but they might not looking at the one Black student in the room or the one autistic person who, this room isn’t even within that phrase, “The window of tolerance” most of the time. So it’s not a safe emergency, but there’s not much other choice but to try and get through it.
Chavonne (she/her):
Mm-hmm. Wow. Giving up to … Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah, what is lost, what are you giving up?
Chavonne (she/her):
Wow. And in giving that up, it means that you can be that safe emergency for someone in the future. And sometimes I wonder if that’s worth the risk, right? I think we’ve talked about that.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
I don’t know, maybe in the last season we talked a lot about, how do you keep showing up at the expense of yourself? So it has to be that, it sounds like you’re finding that balance, absolutely.
Nikki (they/she):
I’m trying to. Right now I’m in a year’s break because it wasn’t happening. Who knows? But yeah, in fact, having to be in a dialogue with parts of me that are pissed that I am putting myself through this, parts of me that are like, “We swore we’d never do this again.” My experience at Cambridge when in my 20s when I had to leave because I had a breakdown and I didn’t have language or words for what was going on. And then when I put myself back through university in London in ways where I figured out how to do that by not staying on campus, without even knowing the words for it, that I promised myself that I wouldn’t abandon myself again. And yet here I am, I’m trying to do it in this way where I’m like, “Okay, we’re going to tighten because we have to.” Like you said, Chavonne, it’s protective. And there’s so many ways in which we see our clients tighten and they have to tighten, and it’s so protective, and there’s not really much choice not to tighten in so many places.
But then trying to have that balance between, where are the spaces where I get to listen? And maybe that’s not at the course, maybe that’s on a Zoom call with Jan, with walking in the woods and my kid. It’s like I have to remain in a dialogue with that for myself. Is there a point where I’m like, “Actually, no, this isn’t worth it”? And at the moment it feels like it is to get to do, because I love, love, love, love getting to do my therapeutic work. And yeah, you’re right, Chavonne. It’s like I don’t want it to be at the … I don’t know if I can do it to figure out a way. I can see a point in the future where I can create something that might be sustainable and supportive. There are people I’ve seen that are doing that. But if I’m burnt out and I’m not able to care for myself or my kids or my partner or anything, then I have to listen to that, know if it happens.
Jenn (she/they):
Mm-hmm. You know what both of you are reminding me of is, and this comes from someone with a lived experience of ADHD and OCD who describes it that way, and they talk about chaotic discipline as a neurodivergent norm. Chaotic discipline, meaning on any day that we wake up, we are waking up into chaos. We don’t know what our body’s going to do. We don’t know what our nervous system’s going to do. We don’t know what the day is going to bring at us, and we’re probably going to meet it … There’s more than just two, but we tend to oscillate between two, which is the tightening and the loosening of, “Oh, look, I can do everything. Look, I got all this stuff done. I feel good. Even on my breaks, I was doing stuff.” It’s just like, “Oh, look at me go.” I call this seven days’ worth of work in a single hour, where I’m like, “Look at me, I’m all caught up.”
Yesterday I did it. I caught up on my email, which I’ve been having trouble doing since the end of 2024. And just yesterday I just did it in like 10 minutes. I was like, “Look, it’s so simple. Why couldn’t I do this before?” And then today already I have swiped away four emails because I’m already in that other space. I did the tightening, because tightening is masking, and I think that it’s also protective. Like, “Look at me in my little bubble, look what I can do.” And being able to remember that I can do that is also protective, even if it’s an unmasked reality. Maybe now because I understand what that is. I used to not understand what that hour was where I was catching up. I didn’t understand that. And then it’s on the loosening side, this particular person calls it a potato day. I usually call it a vegetable day, where I wake up, it could be any vegetable. Potatoes are delicious, but I like them all. But I wake up and I’m like, “No.”
Chavonne (she/her):
No.
Jenn (she/they):
Because I’m not sick. Because these are the rules of the masks that I used to wear. Like, “Oh, I’m sick, now I’m allowed to stop. I have a dental appointment.” Not calling you out, Chavonne, just naming, “I’m going to have a procedure and I’m going to be on some drugs, and that’s going to be rest.” But it’s not one of those, it’s just like you wake up and you can’t. But sometimes the night before now, now that I understand myself in different ways, sometimes I’m like, “Oh, tomorrow’s probably going to be a vegetable day.” Sometimes I can start to feel it coming. I can never feel the hour of catching up with my email coming. That always, I’m just like, “Wow, look, I’m in it. Okay, I’m going to do it.” It just is like it’s happening, and that’s when I notice. But mostly, sometimes I’ll even start something, start working, start creating, start doing whatever, and I’m like, “No. All of this is a no, I’m not doing any of it.”
And so you were just reminding me, the chaos of, “I don’t know.” I can’t be consistent or reliable about either of those modes. And they’re both very dominant. I have my average days, but those are still very present in a given week. I can even have both in the same day. I’m like, “Wow, I wrote an hour of emails. I can’t do anything else. I am now a vegetable.” Email’s a hard one for me. I’d rather text 1,000 people than write a single email, maybe 2,000 people. But I was just thinking about that as you were saying that. I think it requires so much patience and practice. You were saying practice a lot, Nikki, and that was really sticking with me. To be able to practice and be like, “Yay, that hour of email.”
That was great. I was like, “Oh my gosh, how did I miss this email from December 14th?” There was even stuff in there that I was like, “I didn’t even know this was in here.” Because I was so busy not looking at my email or just doing whatever was current or easy from the top of the box, not going very far down. And the tightening and the loosening is so interesting because it’s a kind of balance, and it’s in a world that is not trying to balance for us. If we were the neuro norm, it would already be trying to balance that for us. But it’s not.
Nikki (they/she):
I wonder about that, though. I do wonder, and I know what you’re saying, because I know the conversations we’ve had, Jen. But the word balance, I think-
Jenn (she/they):
I know, it’s a tough word.
Nikki (they/she):
I’ve picked up on it sometimes. And this is my own thing, where I sometimes find myself, because I like patterns, I noticed a pattern.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Nikki (they/she):
I find myself, we talked about this when we last spoke, I think, not on the podcast, but [inaudible].
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
That’s cool.
Nikki (they/she):
And I don’t have an answer for this, but sometimes I find myself almost imagining some kind of version of, not utopia, but if all of this was gone. I think [inaudible] talks about fugitism, doesn’t he? And the desire to … I have this all the time with my kids. Wanting to take all of us and move us and unschool, and take us all away from all of this horrible environment that’s really not supportive for us. And there’s so much in that. Yes, I want, I want. And sometimes, and I can’t figure out thread of it, it sometimes is tangled in my desire to believe that there’s some kind of balance that can be achieved if I just configure the pieces in the right way.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah,
Nikki (they/she):
And the idea of purity almost is in there. And I didn’t hear that in what you said, Jen.
Jenn (she/they):
No. But even cure.
Chavonne (she/her):
You’re absolutely right.
Jenn (she/they):
Even cure, right? Curing the neuro norm. Yeah.
Nikki (they/she):
How do I stay? How do I not imagine the version of things where we have to be away from everything? How do I also stay and learn how to, what’s that movement between where I need to tighten, but where can I listen and stay with difference and stay with people? And I’m really having to unlearn or sit with my own internalized ableism around wishing I could hold onto the hyper focus more often and not have the wandering off bits.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh my gosh, yes.
Nikki (they/she):
It’s totally valid because I get rewarded for that. And also, many times I’m not rewarded for the drifting off and [inaudible]. And I don’t know what it’s like to be myself, my body mind in a space outside of capitalism.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah. That’s a great point. Yeah, ugh.
Chavonne (she/her):
That’s going to be my noise, ugh. Yeah.
Nikki (they/she):
[inaudible].
Jenn (she/they):
No, I think this is so important.
Chavonne (she/her):
No, it’s so important.
Jenn (she/they):
In an effort to even try to find more loosening, I would say tightening is still a major theme in my life, for example. I work for myself and I’m like, “Why am I doing this with my schedule? It’s completely up to me. No one made me do it.”
Chavonne (she/her):
No one told me but me.
Jenn (she/they):
I’m allowed to say no or be like, “It doesn’t sound like I’m the right person for you.” I’m allowed to do all of this and then I’ll be like, “Where did my lunch hour go?” So I do things in therapy like, “Can we work on me having a lunch hour?” And I think I’ve shown this many times to both of you, but on my planner it’s like, “Did you have a lunch hour every day?” And then I write the weekdays. And I have to go in because sometimes, I looked just a couple weeks ago, it’s like ish, ish, the issues start coming in. We’re like, “Yeah, well, I worked over and did some admin and then I grabbed food, but I was also working at the same time. I did the next thing. So no, I had like 10 minutes that was me not working.”
Chavonne (she/her):
And that would be like, “You should be glad I ate.”
Jenn (she/they):
I know. And sometimes I write things, and no one sees this, my therapist doesn’t make me show them. It’s not like an accountability thing. But I do that just to remind myself, because color coding and checking things works for me. So these last two winters, basically during the major holidays, I have taken a break. The first time I had COVID, and I was like, “How do I even get through to the next year?” But this year I was like, “Oh, that was nice, though.” There were a couple of moments that were nice. I’m totally uncomfortable resting. But even as we were talking about tightening and loosening, there’s also like, what about a little tight, what about a little loose? What about rest that isn’t just being a vegetable? What about rest where I’m so bored I’m irritated, and I start to get up to stuff?
That’s all the stuff, you can’t see this listening to this, but the colorful storage things in the background, those are all things that I did while I was like, “I’m so bored. What am I doing?” But I knew I’d have that moment, so I bought these so I could build them and have them here and store my stuff. And so it’s like the in-between. So I’m noticing today, we’re naming nuance, and then we’re also naming choice and agency, which can become a very black and white thing, which I do not think is a bad thing about choice and agency. Sometimes you have a choice or you don’t, and it’s important to recognize, I don’t need choices right now, just to see it, versus how do I start-
Chavonne (she/her):
… now.
Jenn (she/they):
Right. Just to see it versus how do I start wiggling into a choice area? To be able to call things out for what they are and where they are not, isn’t really loose and it’s not really tight. We could be masked while doing that. We could be unmasked while doing that. We could be expansive, we could be protective, we could be some version of both. I don’t necessarily see those things as… What’s that word? Or mutually exclusive. Right? They can exist.
Nikki (they/she):
Oh, yeah. You’re just making me think of, for me, that process of a murmuration. Like, what’s the shape of my process? I often think of my process right now as quite a jerky process. And what I mean that is I used to make myself wrong in groups, groups that are not fully supportive. So let’s just name that. So maybe this is what my process looks like in those spaces. In order to build myself up, to make the transition from being in this place of like, “I’m just staying here, I’m just staying here. I am trying to keep up,” to bring myself into the conversation, I often have to come right up against this mobilization of impulsivity or an edge of a discomfort, and then I’m blurting and then that’s what puts me to speak.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes. Yes, it is. Mm-hmm.
Nikki (they/she):
And then often there’s a shame or a reeling back where I’m then needing to kind of stay again for a bit. And that’s my process in that space. I have a jerky process. And if I’m trying to make that process smooth, I’m just wishing I was a different person in this moment and I can be curious about, “What does my process look like somewhere else?” And like, “Oh, it’s over here. It’s like this.” And like you said, I often think about if we were to draw the shape or the feeling of that process, what would it look like? We were talking about-
Jenn (she/they):
Chills all over my body.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah, seriously.
Nikki (they/she):
We were talking about non-speaking autistic folks, and one of the poets that I love is Adam Wolfond. And one of my kiddos has a lot of tics with his hands, and Adam Wolfond has tics and he uses sticks and he calls it rallying. And then he talks about I feel with my tics, and there’s something… Often when we look at things through a certain lens, we’re hoping for a smoothness of process or a spectrum that meet the cross or whatever. And choice doesn’t have to mean moving through and in between. And there can be a space in between, but then we might then just dart over somewhere else and then when we zoom out, there might be an overall pattern. And I’ve gone off now in my murmuration.
Jenn (she/they):
I totally…
Chavonne (she/her):
I love doing this.
Jenn (she/they):
So the impulsivity in me totally gets what you’re saying. My impulsive is like, yes, my voice will always shake. I will always feel unsure. I know there’s no clean, not messy way to do this, so I’m just going to make myself do it anyway. And I actually find a lot of relief from guilt and shame in noticing those things after the fact. The ways in which not being regulated sometimes has us catch up later about what really happened. Those moments where impulses like that can come through later. I’m like, “But look, I said something. I was very weepy and I was very shaky and some of those words were very hard to get out of my mouth, but look-”
Nikki (they/she):
That I said something.
Chavonne (she/her):
“… I did something.” Like me in a classroom, any classroom, if it’s a learning environment, I’m like, “Raise the hand. Raise the hand.” I’m a question person. No problem. I got a question. So I always have something to say. Well, how does this affect you personally? Do you feel seen in this? When I’m not sure if anyone else is affected personally or felt seen, that’s really going to happen for me where I’m like, “Am I supposed to go first? Is someone supposed to go first? How do people do in this current moment?”
Even the way as you were with your hands, Nikki, doing a murmuration, I love murmurations, of any kind. Starlings are the best but when I lived in Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, there were pigeons that murmurated. There were so many pigeons, they just murmurated at night, and it was fascinating to me. They always did it over this park in my neighborhood, and I was like, “Pigeons murmurate?” Which has never occurred to me. It was also when I started conversations with other people, “Have you ever seen a baby pigeon? Because I know that they murmurate now and now I’m wondering what the babies look like.” But they’re very cute. They have blue and pink little tuft feathers. They’re so cute. But I didn’t know any of that. Just even my perspective about a city dwelling pigeon, which they’re usually there first, they were there first. Kind of space… I mean, it’s so interesting.
So interesting.
[1:20:56]
Jenn (she/they):
And I love how already in this conversation, all of us are kind of tapping into, well, black and white makes room for the nuance and the nuance makes room for the black and white and then on and on, and we’re just kind of weaving back and forth, it’s so cool. It’s so cool to notice. I also love a pattern. I love a pattern. There’s nothing that makes me feel safer. I’m like, “Oh, that’s because of this.” And I’m like, “Oh, so sad.” My whole body can relax just noticing that. I love that.
And not just because it’s next, but for some reason, this actually reminds me of the next question. That just this in and out flow is reminding me of just even some of the intention and purpose that happens when we are not even consciously doing it. Even that in patterns, and as I was writing this question, it can’t be easy to hold space around this topic, like embodiment, with clients around their bodies that they’ve experienced medical anti-fatness, right? It’d be ableism, sanism, any of these things. And the accompanying medical PTSD and then even beyond that, sometimes it can be much worse than that. How do you encourage those you support to create and hold boundaries while reclaiming, or if it’s the case, newly finding energy around such a topic? In other words, how do you help them notice how to stay embodied or even purposefully disembodied? Which we’ve talked about before when we had you hear the… And today, that tightening and loosening. I’m like, “Yes, all of that is just embodiment.”
Nikki (they/she):
Yeah. Yeah. My current placement… Because it’s been interesting because my agency, I guess, around the choice of focus of my work has shifted. And everyone I work with is still impacted by anti-fatness in some level. One of the placements I work at is with adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse and domestic violence. And so I think we’re having to start really at not holding an agenda or an idea of what becoming more embodied might look like for them. And also something that I’m holding more and more and realizing is how many of the people I work with have undiagnosed neurodivergence. And high, it’s not really considered unless someone has already got a diagnosis.
So really from the beginning, holding a really open… Noticing where I want to kind of read the assessment notes and stay kind of quite narrow, meet people where they’re at. And it was the same when I used to work to purely just focused on body liberation work. Starting with the environment, starting with the room we’re in, not assuming whether we’re going to sit opposite each other, not assuming that we’re going to make eye contact, that’s okay for someone. And noticing the lights and just really being curious to what is their experience sitting here with me. And I guess when you talk about boundaries, I think that starts with boundaries with me and boundaries within the room that we’re in. And so, often, people that I work with very much hold the idea that they’re broken, that they’re the problem and they’ve been harmed in therapeutic spaces in the past or on different programs. And they might be harmed with me. I hope not.
But being really, from the beginning, not assuming trust. Sort of deconstructing the idea that I’m the expert, that I know better than them, and that pacing and that grading of how we do that. So needing to offer enough containment and structure and enough guidance or offering or invitations for me, so that is necessary. But I guess over time, starting to explore what else might be possible for them. And sometimes even connecting to…
So maybe we might notice that I was thinking about even something small with someone I was working with where I noticed that she seemed more unsettled than she normally is in our sessions. And with care starting to raise awareness of what I’m noticing and owning my part in the co-creation of that. Because I think that piece of thinking that you’re the problem, that somehow something’s wrong with you, bringing in like, “Ah, and I’m wondering if something that I was mentioning or bringing in here contributed to that.” And it was because I sat in a different place and the sun was shining in her eyes and she didn’t know how to name that because she hadn’t had experience of her needs being validated in the smallest ways in her experience. And I think it really speaks to with so many people that haven’t been able to name what they need, or “How do we know what we need?” And so sometimes in order to set a boundary, they need to know, “How do I know when something’s not okay?”
And yeah, sometimes that practice starts with small things in the room. Like if I’m asking too many questions, or I’m talking too fast, not making my process wrong, but… Someone else I worked with working up, it took us a long time for her to name that when I close my eyes and I’m talking like I do, she feels abandoned and I’m disconnecting. And then helping her to see that, how would it be helpful if I shared some of my process when that happens without being defensive and naming how, “Oh, when I close my eyes and I’m doing this, it helps me to connect to what I’m feeling inside so that I can stay in contact with you.” And I’m hearing that it looks scary, it brings up something. So maybe we can have a code for that. Like the scary face. She calls it the scary goodbye face. It seems like I’m leaving.
So how do I support them? I guess it’s being relational in the room, sharing, letting them know that I’m here, I’m taking a risk too to the degree that it feels appropriate and supportive, having humility, not assuming their experience. And sometimes, it means having to stay in what seems like the same place for a really long time. And I guess letting them know that I’m here. I’m here for the long haul. So sometimes for some people, it’s very, what looks like slow progress from the outside. Similar to body liberation work for some people. Similar to body liberation work. I think often removing the layers of expectation and pressure that we co-create and that people might come in with around what success looks like. And being open to how things unfold.
Like for some people I work with in body liberation, getting to a place where they could, to their words, tolerate their body and not be in complete distress all of the time was huge for some people. And also, naming the ways in which things are connected. So for me, being able to bring in more understanding of neurodivergence and figuring out ways to bring in that lens to the room without always putting a label on something if it didn’t seem… At certain times, we do put a label on it because it seems like that might be something that they’re open to, would be supportive. But sometimes, just even naming how if the world is a really distressing, confusing place and can be overwhelming, then it might feel really distressing and confusing to be in our body in general. And then it’s hard sometimes to think about imagining being in partnership. And that piece about disembodiment, being dissociated. Something that I love to do with and was really meaningful when someone did it for me.
So for certain clients, I’m thinking of one in particular, they used to always apologize and I notice I do this as well for being distracted or a bit foggy or going off or losing attention. And sometimes in session just noticing like, “Oh, it was the color red over there.” And just staying with it and being with it and being like, “Oh, and what drew you over here?” And having an experience where being distracted or unfocused isn’t a bad thing and that we don’t have to be redirected or come back to the point all the time. I mean, obviously, we also explore ways of how can we contract to interrupt each other if it feels like supportive. So I think getting to play, I think. And that doesn’t happen for a while into the work, but getting to play together and experiment and see where it’s possible to experience something different relationally than we do outside.
And I think those were some really impactful moments for me in my own body liberation experiences. Seeing other people or being with other people and seeing how they didn’t pathologize something or they were curious about something or they were open and interested in something that I would be like really had a lot of shame about myself in a genuine way, not in the kind of way that we all sense somebody bullshitting us. Getting to experience something different in a small moment, I think. Yeah.
[1:33:59]
Chavonne (she/her):
Thank you so much for sharing that. And I think it’s really empowering, I would imagine, for your clients to have such space held for them. So I really want to acknowledge that and validate that. So, thank you. As we wrap up, what are you doing next or excited about in the future? Please tell us what’s going on for you.
Nikki (they/she):
Thank you so much for staying with this meandering with me and noodling and…
Chavonne (she/her):
To read.
Nikki (they/she):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
I love a good noodle.
Chavonne (she/her):
Same.
Nikki (they/she):
I’m really kind of practicing and I can name that it’s hard sometimes. This is really a practice of me trying to stay with how my process is today, even if it feels a little bit meandery or I lost the track. I’m really trusting the listeners to take whatever’s useful and leave what’s not. And thinking about the small things that make a difference and things that are small. I think it’s mostly small things that I’m excited about. I’m excited about… Me and my youngest, who’s 10, have gotten really into our baking. So we have baking on Tuesdays. But we have to move it today. But baking on Tuesdays when he gets home from school.
Chavonne (she/her):
I have a baking buddy and it’s the best. He’s awesome. Yeah, he’s so good.
Nikki (they/she):
Having a few days by the sea with my friend. She’s just in a very blustery… Because I grew up in Derry and Donegal, and we always talk about horizontal rain and wind. But for me, when it’s not a horrible storm like we’ve just had an Ireland, it’s like there’s something very alive about being by the sea and the sounds there and the wind, it just… Yeah, I love that. So I’m excited about a couple of days doing that. I’m always excited about books and nerding out and learning. And one bigger thing, and it’s not really like right now, but I am excited about in a year or two, moving into private practice here in London and seeing where I can collaborate with other folks, trying to do things in a bodymind inclusive way. And a smaller, more sustainable life. I really want to give myself permission to dream small in certain ways.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, yeah, I love that. I really love that. Thank you.
Nikki (they/she):
Thank you so much. Thank you today.
Chavonne (she/her):
Thank you so much for being on here.
Jenn (she/they):
Thank you!
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s been such a joy to see you again after all these years. I know Jenn gets too more often, so I was excited.
Jenn (she/they):
So these are fun. I [inaudible] so much.
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s been great.
Nikki (they/she):
I would meet up with you too, Chavonne, if it was [inaudible]
Chavonne (she/her):
Okay.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah. We had fun.
Chavonne (she/her):
[inaudible]. It would be fun. I could always do some body leveling, I could use that all the time. But no, this has been wonderful and we are just honored to have you here, as always.
Nikki (they/she):
Thank you. [inaudible]
Jenn (she/they):
As always. Thank you.
Nikki (they/she):
As always. Thank you.
Jenn (she/they):
Thank you for your words and just everything you shared and who you are. We love you.
Chavonne (she/her):
Love you. Look at Broccoli’s face.
Nikki (they/she):
Bye.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah, he came for you.
Chavonne (she/her):
I know. He’s the sweetest.
Jenn (she/they):
You say bye. You say bye-bye. Hey.
Chavonne: Thank you for listening to Season 4 of the Embodiment for the Rest of Us podcast. Episodes will be published the first Thursday of every month-ish (in case we need some wiggle room) wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also find all podcast content (including the transcript and show notes) at our website, EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs.com.
Jenn: And follow us on social media, on both Twitter @EmbodimentUs and on Instagram @EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs. We look forward to continuing this evolving and expanding conversation in our next episode.