Embodiment for the Rest of Us – Season 3, Episode 1: Intro Episode
Thursday, May 11, 2023
Chavonne (she/her) and Jenn (she/her) discuss what’s coming up for them, and for you, in Season 3!
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:
39:50: Jenn discusses trichotillomania and dermatillomania
The captions for this episode can be found below.
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:
Website: EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs.com
Twitter: @EmbodimentUs
Instagram: @EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs
Captions
EFTROU Season 3 Episode 1 is 1 hour, 20 minutes, and 03 seconds long. (1:20:03)
Intro
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.
[1:37]
Jenn:
Hello and welcome to our introduction episode of our newest season. Jenn and Chavonne here, and we are ready to just reflect and see where we’ve been, see where we’re going, see what ideas we have, see what’s evolved. We are very much in process today. We don’t even have a script in front of us. Just seeing what has come up for us and what we’d like to chat about with you as we get into a new season. How are you today, Chavonne?
Chavonne:
I am great because I am recording our podcast with my work bestie. I am super excited to be here. We talked about feeling stretched earlier, and I said, “I think I’m just ripped. I don’t even feel stretched. I feel like there’s pieces of me everywhere,” but this is something that always grounds me, so I’m super excited to be here. How about you? How are you today?
Jenn:
Yay. Also stretched and ripped, and I have holes. We’re recording this at the beginning of May, on May the 4th. May the 4th be with you all. Just trying to stay in the present moment and be a human as much as I can, but honestly struggling with that, so it’s a very interesting space to be talking about, embodiment and real life. Embodiment and real life shit. So thank you for asking that back, and, “We’re just feeling it,” is how I would describe what we just said.
Chavonne:
Totally agree.
Jenn:
We’re feeling it. So we do have a general idea of what we’re going to talk about today, so don’t worry. We have an order of things in general, but no script or anything just going from there. So one of the first things, does it feel okay to just jump on in?
Chavonne:
Yeah, let’s just do it.
Jenn:
Okay. So jumping in, the process of the podcast itself and what has shifted for us is on our minds, and the first thing that’s on my mind about this that we were talking before I started recording is the element of rest. So that was your theme for the year 2022, and then I believe it shifted to another word. I’m trying to remember it now. Anyway, we already talked about that in the season.
Chavonne:
I think it was rest.
Jenn:
Was it rest?
Chavonne:
I think it was rest. I think I started with… I thought I knew what it was going to be and I can’t remember what I thought it was. It was discernment or something.
Jenn:
But it switched to rest.
Chavonne:
The universe kept telling me rest, and then it was rest, hardcore. I had no choice.
Jenn:
So we did some big things. We both took the holidays off. The stereotypical American holidays, we took that whole thing off. Thanksgiving through New Year’s, off. So big deal. A big deal for both of us. How does it feel on the other side of that space? And also from a moment where we’re feeling the opposite of that right now, point, counterpoint, how does that feel for you?
Chavonne:
As you were saying it, I was like, “Oh, I can’t wait for Thanksgiving already,” and this is already showing me that I need to find some space in my schedule, because that’s seven months away. All right. Or I can’t even do math, whatever. 5, 6 months. It doesn’t matter.
Jenn:
Some months.
Chavonne:
So already my body’s like, “Oh my gosh. It’s almost time,” and it is not, but I really appreciated this break that we took last year. I think it was absolutely what we both needed in all the ways. But I think that our podcast really benefited from it in that we came back raring to go. So that felt really, really good. I am committed to keep doing that. I think this winter will be a little different, and I’ll explain why when we talk about what’s been changing for both of us. But I am committed to do less work during that season every [inaudible 00:05:30] forever.
Jenn:
Oh, I like that. I like that. Oh gosh, now my brain has gone off into Never Never Land. Oh, I know. So that may happen more this episode. Without a script, my brain may go into Never Never Land a lot.
Chavonne:
Same.
Jenn:
I was just thinking. You said, “Raring to go,” when we got back to the podcast. We had a chance to have space that wasn’t thinking about creating more of this, and we also intentionally had set up who we wanted to talk with this season, already setting up the schedule and having those things available for people to already pick their spots and things like that going into that space. So we got to come into a space of what that might look like, but we didn’t really have a structure for that. We just were pure excitement, and so at the beginning of 2023, we did a lot of things back to back to back to back. Of course we did, right?
Chavonne:
That’s who we are.
Jenn:
We took time off. Of course, we came back and then everything was just back to back. So in thinking about our process and what shifted, something I love about what we’ve done, and you and I always work so well together on this, is we change things as they’re happening. We don’t have to wait till next season to change that. We just change it right now.
Chavonne:
Absolutely.
Jenn:
So we’re not doing things back to back to back anymore. We have a nice schedule of interviews and then publishing, and we can just be in the rhythm of that, and that’s really lovely. Until the interviews are done, and then we’ll just be publishing every other week, and that’ll be really nice. So I love that we’re already playing around with that. This is something that we do because we love having this conversation, so any stress, anxiety, pressure, intensity we can remove from this process, we’re going to remove it.
Chavonne:
Yes.
Jenn:
Because we don’t want it, and so I feel very-
Chavonne:
It keeps us coming back to-
Jenn:
It does.
Chavonne:
… have some freedom. Absolutely.
Jenn:
Yeah. So I love that we have kept access to that because in a capitalistic world, in a patriarchal world, in a, “Let’s produce everything and do everything and never stop,” to intentionally build that rest in feels very much like what we are currently processing about our own embodiment and also what our guests have been processing and how we continue to evolve this.
Chavonne:
Yeah, I completely agree with you, and we’ll talk more about it, but I think that’s something that the pandemic has given a lot of us. So I have talked about Rest is Resistance a lot. I need to read the book again apparently, but it’s-
Jenn:
I do too. I think that book is worth many a read.
Chavonne:
Agreed. Agreed.
Jenn:
I’m looking at it right now. I think I need to read it again.
Chavonne:
But I think that keeping that in mind in this capitalist, patriarchal society that specifically, other countries do, but definitely specifically in the United States that we live within, it’s such a gift and a privilege to be able to create that space for us. And we’re not being paid.
Jenn:
Absolutely.
Chavonne:
We’re doing this out of the love of our hearts so we should continue with the schedule.
Jenn:
No, we pay for this, dear listener.
Chavonne:
We do.
Jenn:
We pay for this.
Chavonne:
All of it.
Jenn:
I guess it’s advertising in a way, but I don’t intend it as that.
Chavonne:
[inaudible 00:08:50].
Jenn:
We want to do this, so we invest in it, but we don’t have to sacrifice ourselves or our own embodiment to invest in this process. And so I love that we’re always checking each other and ourselves on that. That’s not necessarily that it comes easily to me on my own, but you and I do that very well together, so I appreciate that.
Chavonne:
We do. Totally agree.
Jenn:
Yeah. It has a simplicity to it because of the way we talk about it, so I appreciate that.
Chavonne:
Totally.
Jenn:
Other things that have shifted… Oh wait. Do you remember what you were going to say?
Chavonne:
I did. It was the privilege of getting to say, “Okay, we’re going to go a little bit more slowly.” I think that’s such a gift. That was it.
Jenn:
Yeah. And also captions.
Chavonne:
Oh yeah. Thank you. This is what happens when we don’t have a script.
Jenn:
That’s okay.
Chavonne:
I mentioned it like 15 minutes ago and I was like, “Yeah, I’ll remember it.” Yeah, right.
Jenn:
I have some notes. I have some notes. Even if we don’t have… We at least wrote things down.
Chavonne:
Totally. One thing that we decided on was in regard to captioning. So at the beginning, you, Jenn, did all the captioning and then you gave it, and then I said I would take it because I had more time to do it. And then I realized that I hated it. We don’t like it. And then you wouldn’t take it back.
Jenn:
I wouldn’t.
Chavonne:
It’s like, “Are you sure? Are you sure? Do you want to take it back?”
Jenn:
No, thank you.
Chavonne:
“Because you could have it. You could have it.” So one thing we decided to do was use our resources to pay for someone else to do it, and I think that has also brought so much more enjoyment to this process because that was not fun at all.
Jenn:
It’s so important.
Chavonne:
God bless people who can do it.
Jenn:
It’s so important.
Chavonne:
It’s important.
Jenn:
And the end result, we’re so passionate about, but doing it, ugh, not a great thing.
Chavonne:
We’re all about accessibility, but we don’t want to be the one to do the work that it is accessible. So we’re excited that we can still offer that and that we don’t have to do that ourselves. So that has been part of the rest process for us as well.
Jenn:
Yeah. You know what I just realized?
Chavonne:
Huh?
Jenn:
Embodiment for the Rest of Us. The word, “Rest,” is in our podcast name.
Chavonne:
Oh my God.
Jenn:
I’ve never realized that before.
Chavonne:
It’s embodiment for the rest, for us to rest.
Jenn:
Oh, what? Okay, dear listener…
Chavonne:
Okay. Things are happening.
Jenn:
That just blew my mind. Made me slightly teary-eyed. I love that.
Chavonne:
Me too.
Jenn:
So if you have not listened to the first two episodes of this, we’re talking about where this came from. Chavonne had a dream that there’ll be a podcast with this title. And we’ve taken that as a template from then forward, and so for us, it was always Embodiment and the Rest of Us with that word, “For,” in between, but just now, I was just getting, “Embodiment for rest.”
Chavonne:
Yeah.
Jenn:
Rest for-
Chavonne:
Wow.
Jenn:
… us, right?
Chavonne:
Yeah.
Jenn:
“Rest of us,” is the same as, “Rest for us,” to me.
Chavonne:
Yeah. And part of my rest process was getting really embodied into what my body, myself, my being needed, and it was rest. It was so much rest.
Jenn:
How have I never realized that before? I don’t know.
Chavonne:
Same.
Jenn:
We also talked about the word, “Chaos,” a lot earlier, and I was talking about chaos time. Kelly Diels did a recent post, which we will put in the show notes of this because it was a great reminder of the original sources of this, which of course I absolutely cannot remember in this moment, but I’ve read them. And so it was just a great reminder of this concept, which is putting time into every day that that is for chaos. Life is chaotic, so plan for it. Just space that’s dedicated to whatever that is on a given day, excuse me, as a different form of rest. It’s something I’m playing around with. I have days that have rest in my week, but that does not keep my humanity on a day where I can’t stay human because of my schedule or because of my body’s needs or what whatever happens on that day.
And to have that built into every day is something… Again, this is a privileged conversation. I want to name that, but just thinking about that, about how it helps me support other people, it helps me use that privilege for other things, to stay human in the process, not just do everything I can. Before this podcast and maybe into this podcast, doing everything I can has been my MO. Like, “I’m just going to do everything I can. I’m just going to do everything I can,” over and over and over without really thinking about the sacrifice aspect for myself. So this is leaning in that direction.
Chavonne:
Yeah. And I’m thinking, because I’m often thinking about Tricia Hersey and Rest is Resistance, one thing she talks about in her book in terms of people who might not be as privileged as you and I, and finding that space for rest is like, “Why don’t you rest on the train on your way to work or from work?” And so I’m thinking, “I wonder if that’s a way to find that chaos time,” because if I’m in public transit… I lived in Pittsburgh for quite some time, and I would do all the things on my phone. I love public transit. God, I miss not having to-
Jenn:
Me too.
Chavonne:
… drive myself places.
Jenn:
I miss it.
Chavonne:
I miss it so much. Just in the car all the time. But maybe that could be your chaos time. I’m not going to plan anything. I’m not going to plan, “I’m going to respond to these emails. I’m going to read this book.” It’s just like, “I’m just going to do what comes up on this trip,” so I’m just playing with that in my head a little bit, but I love this idea of chaos time. And when we were talking before recording about chaos time when Jenn was explaining it to me and my body was like, “No.”
Jenn:
No.
Chavonne:
“We’re not doing that.”
Jenn:
Absolutely not. This is a threat.
Chavonne:
First of all, how dare you, my current catchphrase. But the first thing that came to mind was, “What if all of my time is chaotic?” And the second thought was… I can’t remember what the second thought was because my head is chaotic. But if I’m thinking that all of my time is chaotic, that’s a sign that I need to hone in and find some space for rest right now. I don’t want to, but I know that that needs to happen.
Jenn:
Yeah, and I love that. Public transportation, it really did… I used to push myself way further than even public transportation could get me back to, and I was living in New York and I had to earn a different income than I do now just to survive.
Chavonne:
For sure.
Jenn:
I did not have the same privileges then that I do now. But actually I think this is really important because chaos time, I was like, “90 minutes at a time or two hours at a time somewhere in the day, that’s a lot of time and that’s a very privileged amount of time, and what else can be played with around that?” is something I’m going to think about Because what if it’s an hour here or an hour there? I’m just thinking of how it can be broken down into smaller pieces. It’s reminding me of… So my partner and I adopted a dog.
Chavonne:
Yay.
Jenn:
I had it in season two, but I may have talked about Broccoli.
Chavonne:
You did.
Jenn:
But it’s been over over a year now, so it’s settled into things. He’s our dog in so many ways, and he’s come a very long way because he did not have a great life before he met us. And just thinking how I naturally stopped using my phone on walks, and he needs a lot of walking. He’s a dog who will not go on his own. You have to walk him, and he needs a lot of those. So that’s something I’ve had to build into my day. So I just want to give myself a little credit here, and just realizing that every time I walk that dog, I do not have my phone with me. I make sure there’s enough time, so if we need some extra time on that walk, I’m not going to be late for something.
I’m already doing that, and it is very recharging for me, very beautiful for me, and I’m the only one with their dog that I see at my local park who is not looking at their phone also. And it’s something that I’ve really started to notice. I’m like, “It’s just me. It’s just me out here. Everyone else has their phone,” and so that, I already am noticing that. I didn’t do it to resist in that space, but just noticing that I’m already doing this. So I’m going to give myself some credit, because I was like, “I don’t have that.”
Chavonne:
Totally.
Jenn:
But I do, and once I realized that I was doing that, I was like, “Okay. So that’s my new agreement with myself. I just will not bring my phone during those times.”
Chavonne:
I love that. I really love that.
Jenn:
It’s just for me.
Chavonne:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Jenn:
I Love that.
Chavonne:
So I’ll be looking at chaos time after this and resisting the urge, but also really encouraging myself to try this soon, for sure. [inaudible 00:15:58].
Jenn:
Yeah. My brain is also saying-
Chavonne:
[inaudible 00:17:37].
Jenn:
… “What about other names for that?” Because I don’t know that that elicits the response from my body that I really want. I used to love that term, but I don’t think that I love the term chaos as an intention anymore. It’s too chaotic naturally, life. This thing called life is too chaotic naturally.
Chavonne:
Totally.
Jenn:
Yeah, I love that. I’m trying to think of anything else for this. What else has shifted? So we were talking about captions earlier and our interest in things being accessible, and I also learned things from other people in the disability-
Chavonne:
[inaudible 00:16:38].
Jenn:
… that I’m learning from all the time. First is image and video description, something that’s important, also known as alt text on Twitter and Instagram and other social media. I’m a little wordy and I’ve made my image descriptions and my video descriptions… If it’s a transcript, that all goes in there. If there’s words on the image, those all goes in there, but I’m a little too complex and I make them too long for comprehension purposes, so something that I’m actively wanting to shift and work on. And we can put a link in the show notes for where I learned this, so one of the people I learned from is Higher Priestess, @hire_priestess on Instagram, and I cannot remember the account on Twitter, but I have another one. It’s an accessibility account that talks about making Twitter or text-based things accessible to people who cannot read or who have any other reading challenges. And also for screen readers, there’s another element, which is when they read hashtags, it’s just a jumble of words together.
They have difficulty with them. So there’s Pascal or upper camel case, which is making sure that each word has a capital letter. So a screen reader will read it as a text in a sentence and make that more clear, and I was just-
Chavonne:
That’s so cool.
Jenn:
… reflecting about how I’d like… I’m always, “What’s the next accessible thing I can add and put on my to-do list?” And I realized that I had not done that with our hashtags. I have done it on social media, but not on our website. I want screen readers to go to any website and be able to read them clearly. There’s also programs where you can run it through and see where it’s reading on your website and what order and the way that you put it and see if everything is jumbled or not. I’ve never done that. But those are two things that I’m working on and very interested in. I want things to be accessible to anyone who’s trying to access them in the ways that they need. So playing with that.
Chavonne:
That’s so, so important. Absolutely.
Jenn:
Always willing to and wanting to learn, so that’s where my learning is. So I’m going to start implementing those.
Chavonne:
I love that. I really do. Thank you for taking that on with our-
Jenn:
Thank you.
Chavonne:
… front-facing media.
Jenn:
Yeah, you’re welcome. I love it. It’s my creative time. I love it so much.
Chavonne:
Love it.
Jenn:
Yeah. That’s the last thing I was thinking of in the process and what’s shifted because everything else we’ve talked about before that I can think of. Anything else for you?
Chavonne:
No, I think that’s all. I really think that that time gave us a lot of space, physically and emotionally, et cetera, to move in that direction in terms of accessibility and how we’re changing the way that we work and the way that we give this podcast out. I really appreciate that and I’m excited for the next one.
Jenn:
So excited. I love learning with you. I love unlearning with you.
Chavonne:
Mm-hmm. Same.
Jenn:
I love processing and integrating and just being evolving humans-
Chavonne:
Yes, absolutely.
Jenn:
… in process, in real time. That’s what this podcast brings out of us and I love it. So the next area we were going to talk about is what we’re up to. Would you like to start us off?
Chavonne:
No, I’d love for you to, but if you want me to, I will.
Jenn:
It’s up to you.
Chavonne:
I want to sit here and just listen. You go. Because you always ask me stuff. You go. I want to know all of the things that are going on for you. I’m so excited. Even though I probably know them all, I’m excited for you to say them again.
Jenn:
Okay, thank you. I am up to a lot of things. I didn’t just take time off in December. I also took the month of April off mostly. I was helping a family member through something and everyone’s okay. Everything’s going great. I’m really glad I got to support.
Chavonne:
Absolutely.
Jenn:
And there are not enough dieticians in the state of New Mexico doing eating disorder work, doing fat liberation work, fat positive work at the very least, much less that, or making things accessible to people. Making things accessible to people in meaningful ways, as well as being affirming in ways that are really important. Especially in the year 2023, the way that legislation is happening in states surrounding our state and on a national level about people’s rights to their bodily autonomy, reproductive autonomy and agency and how those intersect with everything that you can talk about with eating disorders, disordered eating, body image, liberation, everything along those lines. There aren’t enough of us. So I’m on a hunt. I’m on hunt to recruit people to this state to help me do this work. I’m not officially on the hunt yet. I’m just going to be on the hunt. I’m announcing the hunt-
Chavonne:
The pre-hunt.
Jenn:
… but there just needs to be more of us. I’ve already been referring up a storm and filling everyone up and we’re going to need more of us. So I’m excited to continue. I don’t remember if I said this at the end of last season, I don’t think so, but maybe I did. Going to open a group practice. So in other words, not just me. And also, I already mentor students and have had interns, but this will be a chance to see people through all the way to being a dietician and doing it from a liberated space as best as I can get people to do it with me and to support people who are already doing this.
Because honestly, people who are in school now, they’re already learning about this and talking about this in real time, whereas I was unlearning it and then relearning later. So not just having a group practice, but also learning and being in community with other people who have the same interests in supporting people in their lives as they actually are. And none of this cookie cutter stuff. I do not want a cookie cutter practice. That’s all I really know so far, and-
Chavonne:
Which is a huge step. In the work that we do, it’s a huge step.
Jenn:
Yeah. It’s just not really available in this state, and so I’m talking with a lot of people about that. So either the fall of this year or maybe even the spring of next year, I’m not sure how timing will work or when people will get here, but definitely working on that. So I’m very, very excited about that. Doing groups, that’s something that I definitely mentioned at the end of next season, likely to start happening in the fall. But I love group work. It’s something that I used to do a lot of. So that would be, instead of one-on-one sessions, that would be holding space for a group of people who can also hold space with each other about various liberated topics related to food and body. So that, I’m really excited about that.
Chavonne:
So excited. I’m dancing I’m-
Jenn:
So excited.
Chavonne:
… so excited.
Jenn:
Groups are a chance for people to pay less for a group and sometimes even get more than from one-on-one because of so many perspectives that they can have. It’s an incredible option, and it’s challenging to be credentialed with insurance as a dietician in this state, so I’m always pushing in that direction and interested in that direction. So that’s on my plate too, and I’m going to have help with that. I’m going to have someone helping me, and this is someone who listens to the podcast, so hi, Maya.
Chavonne:
Hi Maya.
Jenn:
Going to join me this summer and see what we can do when it’s not just me. So considering rest and what we were just talking about in the earlier part of this, what if I don’t have to do it all by myself, right?
Chavonne:
Yes.
Jenn:
That’s the theme of everything. No one should have to do anything by themselves. Being in community, being in connection with each other, being in conversation with each other is what this is all about for me. I already do that a lot with getting supervision and co-treating with other professionals and all of this stuff that happens, but I want to do that on a more intimate level. So I’m excited about these more intimate spaces and moments. So a lot of group leaning things, group practice, groups for clients, these two space, or people who aren’t clients, those two spaces. And that’s what I’m thinking about for now. How about for you?
Chavonne:
That’s huge. No, no, no, we’re not done. That’s huge. Congratulations.
Jenn:
It is huge. Thank you.
Chavonne:
Exciting.
Jenn:
Thank you.
Chavonne:
That is so exciting. So how has rest playing into that for you? How’s the podcast been playing into that process for you, if at all?
Jenn:
Oh, that’s very interesting. Great question. I can’t stop thinking about how rest is just in the middle of our podcast name. It keeps pinging my brain.
Chavonne:
Totally.
Jenn:
My peacefulness is one of my major themes. I have enough privilege that life would allow me peacefulness. I just don’t take that. Rest and peacefulness is a place for… My energy doesn’t always have to be chaotic, anxious, stressed out, intense, filled with pressure. I’ve already been playing with this for a long time, but that’s outside of work, so I’m bringing it in here, and that feels really good. The more collaboration and conversation potential that I have and more ideas sharing and also being in collaboration and process with people doing things brings me peacefulness. I don’t mean delegation. I like lots of eyes on things. I like lots of ideas. I’m interested in other people’s ideas. So having more access to that for myself and sharing in that gives me peacefulness. So I feel peace by being in community. I think I’ve gotten that from this podcast most of all. So I just want that to expand more.
Chavonne:
Totally, totally. Ooh, I love that answer.
Jenn:
So the things that scare me can also bring me peace. They don’t have to just scare me and be intense. It brings me peace to know that there’s more people helping the people who need help in this state.
Chavonne:
Absolutely.
Jenn:
It brings me peace to know that I don’t have to come up with an idea by myself. It brings me peace to know that other people’s ideas can be in process and any way that I can help make that happen. It brings me peace to know that people can be connected and learn they’re not alone about something. It goes on and on and on. The lack of isolation and more solidarity, that brings me peace.
Chavonne:
I love it.
Jenn:
And I want it to be liberation focused in any way that we can make happen, whoever the we ends up being.
Chavonne:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ooh, that’s a great answer. That’s a fantastic answer.
Jenn:
Thank you.
Chavonne:
I love it. I’m so excited for you.
Jenn:
Thank you.
Chavonne:
I’m so excited to-
Jenn:
Thank you, friend.
Chavonne:
… watch you on this journey, for sure.
Jenn:
I feel like that was a lot of buzzwords, but I really meant all of that.
Chavonne:
It was good.
Jenn:
I really meant all of them.
Chavonne:
It was really good.
Jenn:
I always think like, “Oh no, I’ve done all the C words,” which is collaboration, community, connection, but I really mean them.
Chavonne:
But [inaudible 00:29:32] are you. [inaudible 00:29:32] though. Absolutely.
Jenn:
Yeah. Very excited about that.
Chavonne:
Absolutely.
Jenn:
How about for you? Time to put my listening ears on.
Chavonne:
Hi. So lots of things have been happening. Since I want to say probably the last 7, 8, 9 years, I’ve had this dream of opening a group practice. I know I’ve said it in the last two ending conversations of our podcast for the seasons. And my good friend Jenn turned 40 last year.
Jenn:
I did.
Chavonne:
You did. And I remember having a conversation and you were saying you wanted to do all this stuff because 40 felt really expansive and open for you, and so I turned 39 in March, and I remember thinking, “Why do I have to wait until I’m 40? I’m just going to do it.”
Jenn:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker X:
Exactly.
Chavonne:
I’m doing it. I was like, “Why is 40 this, ‘All my life can begin then,’ and that’s not true?” So not that my life was stuck, but I was ready. So I have said this many times about many things, but I truly believe if you tell the universe that you want to do something and it’s the right thing, it’s going to happen at the speed of light. So it’s been happening really quickly. So I opened a group practice. It officially opened on Monday.
Jenn:
Literally three days ago, you all. Three days.
Chavonne:
Totally three days ago. I am so tired, and I have one employee and she’s incredible, and I have two more that will start in June, a possible another one that will start in June, but I can’t think about that at the moment. I will think about it another day, but it is a dream come true. I have cried so much this week. So I have office space. I know Jenn and I have talked about buying a building, and I think we will one day, just not yet. But I just needed to get some space, so I could put people in there and put myself in there. It’s just a dream come true. So I opened my group practice technically, I guess… Well, a few months ago, but really the first employee started this week, and our focus is on serving people in the BIPOC community or members of the global majority. I’m trying to say that more often because I love it.
Jenn:
Yes. Thanks, Alicia.
Chavonne:
And I’m trying not to be… Yeah, thanks, Alicia.
Jenn:
[inaudible 00:30:16].
Chavonne:
Yeah, so I’m trying not to be cookie cutter as well. We all have that focus, but we all do… Well, I don’t see clients. That’s not what I’m doing right now, but every therapist sees who feels important for them to serve. So we have that focus, but we’re not all doing a specific anything else. So that feels really good. I’m just trying to get started, and it’s a labor of love, so I feel really energized by it. Like I said, I am tired, but I also feel really energized, and I’m so excited and I just can’t wait to see where this goes and how this grows. So in terms of rest-
Jenn:
Ooh, wait, wait. What’s the name of your agency?
Chavonne:
Oh, I didn’t know if we could say it. I don’t know why.
Jenn:
Can you? Do you want to? Do it.
Chavonne:
I do. It’s called Whole Self Counseling. So my oldest, when he wants things his way, he says, “I want my own self this,” and, “My own self that.” And I couldn’t call it Own Self or My Own Self. So it’s Whole Self Counseling. That’s how it came about. So I am just so excited. It’s just a dream come true. It’s such a dream, and in terms of rest, I am figuring that out. I have not gotten there, but I think I will. I think I’m trying to create better boundaries. The first month I think is just going to be what it is, but I’m working really hard to have those boundaries in place, and Jenn has been amazing. We were supposed to record last week and instead, we just talked about my practice for-
Jenn:
Yeah. Let’s just talk.
Chavonne:
… two and a half hours.
Jenn:
I wanted to know everything. I’m so interested in every single detail.
Chavonne:
And it’ll help you when you’re ready to open, so this is how we work together though. We just bounce off of each… Collaborate. I was going to say, “Bounce off each other.” It’s both. It’s both. And it’s just been such a gift to… I feel like you’re not a part of the practice, but you are. You don’t even know.
Jenn:
I am.
Chavonne:
You are.
Jenn:
She’s going to build furniture, and I already told her, “You let me know. I could build furniture.”
Chavonne:
That sounds awful.
Jenn:
I will paint and build furniture, which most people don’t want to do. I love both of those things.
Chavonne:
I paid for a painter because I was like, “I refuse to make this a part of my schedule.” I just cannot. So it’s been such a gift. It’s a really exciting process.
Jenn:
I love it.
Chavonne:
It’s been a long time coming, so I’m really excited.
Jenn:
And do you remember what you were going to say about rest?
Chavonne:
Oh, I don’t have any. No, I’ve gotten better. I have created the boundary of not working after the kids go to sleep, and so I’m still getting my relaxation time. For a while, I wasn’t moving my body as much, so making that a priority for me and the first thing in the morning, because that’s a good regulator for my mental health and that kind of thing, keeping up with therapy and medication and all that good stuff. So just creating boundaries. And I listened to this podcast, the Group Practice Owners podcast. That’s not what it is, but it’s basically that for therapy group owners. And one thing she said is, “Your to-do list is always going to be logged. It’s never going to get short, and it really isn’t. So it’s about making sure you know what has to be done and then working from there. You make a plan of how much time you’re willing to or able to put into this, and you work from that to decide what you’re going to do.” So I’m working on it. So that was last night. That was when I was washing dishes while my kids were eating dinner, but in theory, I will think about this soon so I can start creating [inaudible 00:35:31].
That was me while I was eating my dinner in the kitchen. My husband was working. I was making dinner and eating it in the kitchen while the kids were eating their dinner so I could wash dishes at the same time. So no boundaries.
Jenn:
Yeah. Multifocal chaos time.
Chavonne:
Yeah. So that’s what’s going on for me.
Jenn:
Yeah. Does rest feel aspirational to you in this moment? I’m just realizing it feels aspirational to me in this moment.
Chavonne:
Yeah, totally. Totally, totally aspirational. It feels like quite the shift from last year where rest was this… It’s still a priority, but rest was what everything was scheduled around, and instead, it’s like, “I need to find rest in my schedule.” So really trying to sit into this place of… I’m not trying to denigrate anyone who has a history of addiction or substance use or alcohol use or anything but this workaholism, I don’t want to say that. I work a lot, and that’s the culture I was born into in my family. So trying to continue to insert rest in there has been more of a challenge than I expected after taking a full year of rest.
Jenn:
Yeah, it’s hard not to swing the other way after rest.
Chavonne:
So hard.
Jenn:
As we were just talking about earlier, about even the podcast and jumping back into it, it’s hard for me to not do that about everything. My brain is like, “Oh, let’s do it. Oh, we haven’t done anything for a while. Ooh, what should we do? Ooh, let’s do that.” Right?
Chavonne:
Mm-hmm.
Jenn:
It’s just this never ending excitement, but also it’s exhausting. It’s okay to be excited. So that’s what we’re up to, and so we’re also in just thinking about this coming season of our lives and also of the podcast, talking about what embodiment is for us in 2023. I’m curious if you want to start us off. Just for you.
Chavonne:
Oh, just for me. I was like, “Oh, wait.”
Jenn:
In this current moment, what does it feel like for you? How does it feel to be in this spot? In asking that, I’m going, “Where’s mine? Where’s mine?” I’m trying to find it, so please.
Chavonne:
Yeah. I’m trying to let her sit for a minute. Well, now that you’ve so brilliantly told me that rest is in the middle of our podcast name, and I didn’t realize that for three years, something of the sort it feels like, very close to it, I think rest is going to be a part of it this year for me is finding how to center that again. Rest and sitting in my body, just sitting, just sitting. Just feels like I’m not sitting right now. I’m physically sitting, but just slowing down is what I need to do right now. So embodiment for me is acknowledging that I need rest, acknowledging that I still need to do things that feel fun, and I know last year I talked a lot about internalized fat phobia with some body changes that I’ve had, and actually, I don’t even think there were body changes. It was just internalized fat phobia, because it just comes up every once in a while when you least expect it.
I feel like there’s this rolling, which we talked about with Michelle Phillips and you bring up all the time, is this ebb and flow of that grief process. And there’s running with that ebb and flow of grief of living in a fat body, and sometimes I’m fine, don’t think about it, and other times, it kicks up so hard. And I know it’s because I’m living in this time of everything is happening around me, within me, and it feels like the only thing I can control, and I know I cannot. So I’m in that grief cycle right now. I’m just sitting with it right now. So that’s my embodiment process, in addition to trying to make myself… Not make myself. I don’t want to sound forceful, but encourage myself, empower myself to keep that rest as part of my life.
Jenn:
Oof.
Chavonne:
What about you you?
Jenn:
That resonates. Shout out to my brilliant therapist who has been helping me under-
Chavonne:
Hi.
Jenn:
Hi. Has been helping me understand that it’s not just spaciousness that I look for in rest. It is that I feel like within spaciousness, I have some level of control. Rest is not rest from control. Rest and control are together, and again, not in a forceful way, but in an empowered way. So in other words, a way in which I take embodiment from myself is I just try to give myself space, but I don’t tell myself what the textures should be. I don’t even think about what they should be. When I get really busy, when we’re in chaos time like we’re feeling right now, I don’t even tell myself what that space should look like. So space becomes a very murky area for me. Rest becomes a very murky area for me, and I often just sit and trying to intellectualize it. That’s my default form of control where I’m like, “I’ll empower myself with information. This is what rest should be.”
I even heard myself, “Yeah, I’ve got to read that book again,” trying to read Rest is Resistance again, instead of checking in with myself about what’s missing. And so trigger warning for talking about trichotillomania, if anyone needs to have that. I utilize trichotillomania as a tool when I have spaciousness with no definition. It’s like I have space and I don’t know what to do and I don’t go for your typical fidget stuff. If I had it around, if it was in my face, I’d probably use it. But I go there and I just pull on the hairs at first and then I pluck them and then I go to different areas of my head. I’ll even do it on my legs. I’m fully engaged in this process because spaciousness without control feels like a threat to my body. So I give a trigger warning for that, not because it should be something that we are ashamed of, but because just talking about it can make people want to do it, and so I wanted to give some space around that.
I just wanted to name that because I used to feel a lot of shame about it, but also, shout out to my brilliant therapist who has helped me realize that I felt shame because other people felt shame. Trying to get me to stop, slapping my hand, those sorts of things. I’ve been doing this since I was very young in phases, and it’s usually when I finally have space, but then I don’t know what to do with it. So I’m actually realizing control isn’t the right word. It’s more like recognizing it’s in my sphere of influence to change spaciousness. Like, “Space with,” “Space and,” “Space for,” that kind of stuff, that’s all I really need in those moments. What does future embodied me need out of this space right now? Those sorts of questions. So not really thinking about it with its full context, it just leaves me in fidgety spaces where I can end up doing things that don’t get me anywhere other than immediate release. Even skin picking, dermatillomania, so trigger warning for that. That’s something that I’ve also engaged in.
These are pretty normal common things when we’re talking about ADHD or we’re talking about other divergence. This is a really normal conversation for me. I’ve never talked about it in any sort of public forum, and I think that’s important because when we’re talking about rest, my brain goes, “What about that?” I’m like, “Boom. What about the trichotillomania?” because it is a very… It’s not strange. It’s a very embodied activity. I can tell you where the warmth is, so where I’m going to pull the hair. My head gets warm. I can tell you when I found the one that’s going to end it for now. It’s a very embodied process. I’m thinking about… I can’t remember from last season. Actually, it was a combination of the end of season one with Sheila and also the beginning of season two with Molly, talking about how embodiment is scratching an itch.
So trichotillomania sits in that space for me because it is a form of embodiment that I have and space that has the, “With,” and, “For.” I don’t even think about doing that because my body and I are engaged in something about the spaciousness, about the rest. So something I’m recognizing for myself is that embodiment is about the context that I’m embodied within, and it’s something we’ve talked about a lot, but just realizing it for myself is a little different. So right now, I’m in chaos time. I just came off from a month of helping a family member. I feel behind. “What am I doing? What am I…” kind of space. I’m getting anchored in who I am as a person, but it was a little different than taking a month off during the holidays because people are taking time off. Then no one took it. It was just me. It didn’t even coordinate with the spring break time in this state. That had already happened the month before. It doesn’t even coordinate.
Chavonne:
It’s just you.
Jenn:
Yeah. So I’m just kind of checking in and everything has progressed, and so it’s been making me think about this because a feeling of being behind affects my embodiment and affects my rest more than anything else. Something you were talking about before we started to record… I’m trying to remember. Ooh, shoot. Now I’m not going to remember. Hold on. I wrote it, so let me find it with my eyeballs. So in our conversation with one of our first, oh my gosh, five guests… We’ve already interviewed five people.
Chavonne:
Wow.
Jenn:
Yeah. Wow.
Chavonne:
I didn’t think it that many.
Jenn:
And so in one of them, with Nethary, we talked about divesting from perfectionism, collective embodiment as well, which just really got my brain going. So divesting from perfectionism includes about how we rest. It’s one of the things I love about the book Rest is Resistance, because it doesn’t need to be something that we perform. It should be something that has a result. “Ooh, I rested. Get back to being chaos.” We don’t have to invite that stuff back in, and so spaciousness with or and and being in community with other people makes me think about how embodiment is a process. We also talked with Kimber, who was our first interview of this season who is going to be back. So those of you who listened to season two-
Chavonne:
Yay.
Jenn:
… she’s going to be back.
Chavonne:
Hi, Kimber. Hi.
Jenn:
We really talked about the seeds we had planted in the first time we talked to each other, and so it’s all about, “Well, how are we watering them? How do we…”, letting them flourish. So it’s making me think about spaciousness as the beginning of something. That’s what I mean by results. It’s like the beginning of a process. I don’t need to just exit chaos and get into my body and then go back to chaos. That feels a little bit empty for me. It’s more like exiting the chaos, going into my body, getting something where I feel more, not just grounded, but rooted, something I can take… I often hear rest talked about as grounding, and this has a lot of connotations and lots of different contexts, but grounded is like, “I am standing firmly on the ground. I can feel the earth.”
What about rooted? What if we get rooted in our rest? What if we get rooted in our embodiment? Now I can carry that somewhere else, because being rooted is across situations, whereas grounded is just for that moment, or at least this is how I distinguish this in my mind. And I just have been realizing that embodiment for me has been very grounded. I love being grounded. I am very grounded when I am embodied in all the ways. Even when it’s like, “This is chaos,” I can even have a embodiment about that and be grounded about that and have some perspective and stay human. What about the roots? I feel like I actually sometimes uproot myself and then put myself somewhere else. But those roots have to take their form back. They have to get replanted in a way.
Chavonne:
Totally.
Jenn:
And so this analogy for embodiment, I have been playing with this since the rest that we took in December, 2022, because I can very easily get grounded, but I never thought about being rooted.
Chavonne:
Mm-hmm. Wow. Wow, wow, wow.
Jenn:
And I mean, “Picture a plant, picture a tree, picture something,” because there’s root chakra in all of that, but I don’t know enough about that to know if I’m talking about that right now. So I don’t know. But I really mean feeling something tethering me. I’ve even used the word tether before, but I mean in the ground. I play with lots of analogies like a cantilever. I love Frank Lloyd Wright architecture because he cantilevers everything, and it’s always like, “This building has purpose,” and that building is always connected with nature. It’s one of the many ways that he does that. Like, “What’s my cantilever?”
Instead, I’m going, “Rest,” so I’m like a seesaw. “Rest,” and then I seesaw back. I’m like, “Chaos.” That’s a lot for my body to go through, and that is my condition in me through family, society, my profession, academia has done that in general, all these things that I’ve been involved in, working for myself, being an entrepreneur, all of that says, “Oh, seesaw your way through everything.” So this is one of the first times I can remember being in the seesaw place, but talking about how I don’t want to be a seesaw. I am so much in a seesaw right now, but I don’t want to be. I want to be rooted. I want to be rooted instead.
Chavonne:
So you don’t teeter totter.
Jenn:
Yeah. A cantilever has a beautiful flourishing, ongoing forever root that keeps it steady. So that or a plant analogy, which is probably my preference. Like, “What about the plants?” There’s some kind of white flower in the open space, which for those who don’t live out in Albuquerque, is the forest service land that’s a little hilly, but it’s the dry natural landscape before you get to the first part of the mountains. Because we have big enough mountains here to have foothills, and then the bigger mountains behind that. So there’s also a flat dusty area before then, and in that space, there’s these white flowers right now. They have the tiniest… I need to look up what they are. Maybe we’ll put those in the notes. I’ve never seen them before that I remember, and they have the tiniest little plant, an inch high. But then they have this flower on top of them where it’s four petals and each petal is an inch. So the petal [inaudible 00:49:27]-
Chavonne:
I don’t know those. Interesting.
Jenn:
I don’t know. And they’re everywhere. The hills, there’s this white lines and clusters and stuff everywhere. And I’ve been thinking about them like, “Wow. They got rooted. They made their little plant. They made their little flowers and they’re just shining and they’re just in their moment,” and I was, “You don’t need very much to be in that moment.” So there’s a simplicity. I used the word peacefulness earlier, but there’s a simplicity that I’m looking for because my brain naturally makes everything really, really complex. Not that I’m trying to change the core of who I am. I’m just trying to lean more in, “What does it feel like to be simplistic in some ways? For some things to be simple? What if I just get rooted and I stay rooted? What if I get rooted and I stay at least a little bit rooted?”
Chavonne:
You need to get rooted.
Jenn:
I don’t know. I haven’t practiced. Maybe you can only stay a teeny bit rooted. I don’t know, but-
Chavonne:
I love that.
Jenn:
… I just want to explore that more. So that’s in a space like this, I’m just in two places at once. I’m in my chaos mode, but I’m also, “What’s it like to be rooted?” I have the capacity right now, but I wonder.
Chavonne:
I wonder, is it rooted chaos?
Jenn:
Yeah.
Chavonne:
[inaudible 00:52:14] play with these words.
Jenn:
Chaos, comma, rooted.
Chavonne:
Chaos, comma, rooted.
Jenn:
Yeah. I don’t know. But that’s where I’m sitting in that, and I was bringing forward some of the conversations that we’ve had, because everything we do with this podcast informs the language that I use with myself, my language of my body, as well as the language of my mind. Words, and also feeling sensations in thinking about that, so those were coming forward. I have no idea if that made any sense, but it really-
Chavonne:
It did.
Jenn:
I wrote down, “Ooh, chaos, comma, rooted.” I don’t know. I got to think about that.
Chavonne:
I think I do too when I’m trying to find some rootedness in this chaos. It also made me realize, while you were talking, is that we changed our definition of embodiment and we have not shared it yet.
Jenn:
Oh, yeah.
Chavonne:
That’s why I brought it up while you were speaking. Do you want me to-
Jenn:
Yes.
Chavonne:
Jenn wrote this.
Jenn:
I did.
Chavonne:
It was amazing. Yes.
Jenn:
I was like, “When did I?” I’m glad you remember, because I don’t.
Chavonne:
It was August of last year. So, oh wait, maybe we did share it in the last recording.
Jenn:
I do not know. Please feel free to-
Chavonne:
We’re going to say it again.
Jenn:
… share it again.
Chavonne:
We’re going to say it again, because I do not know. I truly have no idea. That’s hilarious. So embodiment to us means the body is our partner where the relationship can be reimagined and be embraced through empowered play and pleasure.
Jenn:
Oh, yeah.
Chavonne:
Do you remember this now?
Jenn:
I do. I do. So this is from the document that we send out to potential guests on our podcast. And I did. I changed it. I just forgot I did that. Yay. It passed me. I like it.
Chavonne:
It’s one of my favorite things when you come back and you’re like, “I did that? I love that. Go me.”
Jenn:
Yeah. And one of the reasons for that is I can watch a TV show again, I can watch a movie again. I genuinely don’t remember the exact context from before unless I write it down and remind myself and say it on purpose. So it’s a good kind of surprise for myself.
Chavonne:
I love it.
Jenn:
[inaudible 00:52:51] advance. Oh, I love that. I love that.
Chavonne:
That’s great. So it makes me think of this rootedness and that you are reimagining and embracing this relationship with the body and that creates that rootedness, I wonder. That’s just playing in my head.
Jenn:
Ooh. And I love something we really got from our second season was how embodiment is everything. I was just saying earlier, “Scratching an itch.” It’s taking a shower, being in a room where the fan isn’t on versus being in a room where the fan is on. Those are two different embodied experiences.
Chavonne:
Very.
Jenn:
And also what not being embodied keeps from us, like pleasure was mentioned in that definition, because pleasure can have so many synonyms depending on the context. And when I say peacefulness, that’s what I mean. Because there’s a pleasure in that, so the rootedness of pleasure can be anywhere. Even pleasure in chaos, sometimes I do pushing myself. It’s not that I don’t want to push myself. I like that. And it’s not like I don’t want to do hard things. I love doing hard things. I just want to be embodied during them. I don’t want to do so many hard things that I’m asking myself, “Who am I? Am I a person? Am I on planet earth?” I actually love what your shirt says right now-
Chavonne:
Oh, yeah. It’s says, “Create balance.”
Jenn:
… which is, “Create balance.” My brain keeps-
Chavonne:
And it’s got a potato stain on it because I was eating breakfast on my way to Pilates. So this feels very balanced to me right now.
Jenn:
Yeah, it’s very balanced. It’s very balanced. So create balance, the rootedness is a balance, because things above ground in this analogy get pulled on, pushed, moved around. There’s wind. There’s dogs peeing on the tree. We could come with lots of things in this analogy. The roots stay steady. Things can also affect the roots. We live in a really dry place. So if we don’t have enough moisture here in the desert, roots can become eroded the next time that there is a huge flood of stuff.
Chavonne:
Totally.
Jenn:
So creating balance between the restful times and not. Anyway, I just want to think. Journal topic for me. I need to play around with this some more, but that’s where I’m sitting. It’s so interesting. This is because I discovered that… Well, okay. I didn’t discover it. I’m not an explorer.
Chavonne:
You totally discovered it. I love it.
Jenn:
I’ve just noticed.
Chavonne:
You could tell me that and I’d be like, “Cool. Tell me what you discovered.”
Jenn:
I’m going to say, “Noticed.” So I noticed that rest is in the middle of the podcast name. Because of that, it made me think about rootedness. Even rooting the title of our podcast in the word rest changes something about it for me in a further evolving direction. So I was just playing with and trying on in real time what that feels like for my own embodiment. That was fun.
Chavonne:
Totally.
Jenn:
So thank you for coming.
Chavonne:
That was really fun.
Jenn:
That was already… I don’t even know if I need to write anything. I just need to look at the transcript.
Chavonne:
[inaudible 00:57:39] processed it. You can just send the transcript to your therapist. “Here’s what I did. Let’s discuss.”
Jenn:
“Here you go.”
Chavonne:
“I’ve highlighted the parts I need you to respond to.”
Jenn:
That is something I would do.
Chavonne:
It really is.
Jenn:
I would color code it. So look at the green one.
Chavonne:
I love it. I love it.
Jenn:
Green ones are the most important to me, but also look at the orange ones because maybe those are also important.
Chavonne:
How much time we got? I love it. I love it.
Jenn:
Yeah. This is going to be a seven part series, just so you know. This is part one.
Speaker X:
I love it.
Chavonne:
That’s really good.
Jenn:
So that’s all swimming and percolating and playing around for me.
Chavonne:
Percolating. I love it. I love it.
Jenn:
I have to say, I really like this as unscripted for us.
Chavonne:
I know. I was nervous. I’m not going to lie.
Jenn:
Me too.
Chavonne:
It’s really working for us. I thought we’d get off and I’d be like, “I talked about the color blue for 45 minutes and I don’t know why.”
Jenn:
Yeah. But I’m getting a lot out of this as I do about all of our conversations. It’s a free moment and I absolutely want a script as usual for the next one. But I-
Chavonne:
It’s really great, but also, we’re going to have a script.
Jenn:
It’s really great, but in talking about rootedness, I can notice the lack of script. So I say that because I can notice, because I don’t know what to say next. It’s that kind of thing.
Chavonne:
Same.
Jenn:
I don’t mean people listening to this are like, “That lack of script was extremely helpful.” Or maybe it will be.
Chavonne:
That was [inaudible 00:57:38].
Jenn:
I guess you all will have to tell us.
Chavonne:
Sorry.
Jenn:
That’s fine. So the last thing on my mind, is I was mentioning from our chat with Kimber and our chat with Nethary what had come up. I’m curious. When we’ve already done some interviews, we usually talk about them. Do you want us to talk about just some of the other things as a little preview and expansion of this?
Chavonne:
Sure. I love it. I would love to. So anyone who knows me, has known me for longer than 10 minutes, knows that I’m obsessed with Alishia McCullough.
Jenn:
Oh.
Chavonne:
Of course.
Jenn:
How could you not be?
Chavonne:
I know. So she almost always lives in my brain rent-free, but her interview definitely has for me. And one thing that she talked about… Well, she talked about a lot of really compelling things. I swear we need to have her every season, but we obviously talked about Rest is Resistance. This book keeps coming up. And one thing she really talked about was recovery in terms of recovering from just the way that we are encouraged to live, the way that we are expected to live. And one thing I wrote down, the one question that I wrote down that she said is, “How do we dismantle capitalism in all of our bodily symptoms?” And that, I just wanted to get off the interview at that time, and I was like, “I can’t right now. This is a lot. I need to go process for three hours before I go do anything else.” So I have been really sitting with that idea and how white supremacy culture plays into, well, it does play into everything, but even our bodily systems, how we take that on and how we see abundance and how we expect abundance to show up in our lives. And so I’ve really been sitting with that. Another thing is the over-giver wound, because-
Jenn:
Oof.
Chavonne:
I know. Because-
Jenn:
How dare she?
Chavonne:
First of all, how dare you? But bringing up, “How are we to recover if we’re constantly over giving?” I won’t say this for every helper that I know, but most of us who are helpers in some capacity are over-givers because that’s why we became helpers, right?
Jenn:
Yes.
Chavonne:
Either because we are trying to heal our own over-giver wound, or we’re trying to give, there’s just a whole bunch of stuff, but there’s this over-giver wound of people who give and give and give and being able to try to heal that so that you can care for yourself so that you can give to yourself and not [inaudible 01:01:56]-
Jenn:
And give to others more authentically.
Chavonne:
Yes, yes, yes. So that one’s one that’s been really sticking with me, healing through moving past that culture that we’re expected, and even if we’re not expected, that we often play into.
Jenn:
Yeah, and talking about it as a wound.
Chavonne:
Oof.
Jenn:
All of all the things you just reminded us of, right?
Chavonne:
Yeah.
Jenn:
Recovering, addressing all of our bodily systems. We are a complex being, and also centering on abundance while playing in the question, “Do I have an over-giver wound?” Yes, I do. While thinking-
Chavonne:
Definitely.
Jenn:
… [inaudible 01:00:59] be addressed? Yes, it does.
Chavonne:
Yes. Absolutely.
Jenn:
I brought that one to therapy immediately, honestly, Alishia. Thank you so much for that. I was like, “So we have to talk about this because absolutely,” and it’s that part of me that kicks up. We were talking about chaos time earlier. Any of these things, the over-giver wound in me both doesn’t know what to do when I’m not going to be over giving. Even the idea of just giving feels like a threat to my entire body, and so there’s so much somatically to explore there, intellectually to explore there, and especially in community to explore there, because it always involves the presence of another human being or other human beings. There’s just a lot there. I have been playing with that ever since we had that conversation, and I’m still going to keep doing that because that wound is deep. It is wide, and it is unhealed, so very much so.
Chavonne:
Totally. What other interviews or things are coming up for you? It could be Alishia too, but any other ones?
Jenn:
Well, we did talk about Alishia’s book, which I can’t wait for everyone else to hear about, with an exclusive, which is one of the best moments of my entire life.
Chavonne:
It really was.
Jenn:
Oh my gosh. Ooh.
Chavonne:
I’m getting emotional thinking about it again. It was magical.
Jenn:
I’ll just look at the next one that’s in my notes. It doesn’t have to be any particular order, which is Aaron Flores. Oh my gosh. We talked about so much and used so many… How would I phrase this? We used so many phrases and words together that were us reclaiming things in real time or clarifying for each other in real time, or just offering each other kindness in real time when one of us was being hard on ourselves. It was a very realtime, real stuff kind of conversation. Something that is from Body Trust and that Aaron talks about a lot is C-level work. Not asking ourselves to get our A+’s or our A’s or our B’s or even our B-‘s, but showing up and doing the work. So it’s a different framing than being like, “Let’s not be perfectionist.” Instead it’s like, “Well, what are we going to do instead?”
We’re just going to do. Why does it have to be, “Do to this level”? Why is it to be, “Do to that level”? Why does everything… Even the phrase, “Not reinventing the wheel,” is starting to, I was going to say, “Grind my gears,” so I’m using multiple things moving around analogies, but I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. And I’m like, “But the wheel sucks.” The wheel is capitalist in nature. The wheel is oppressive. So just sitting in this space of, “What if things don’t have to go round and round and round and round forever?” And I’m remembering what you said you really got from this. I’m just thinking of the word, “Floundering,” which we talked about near the end of our conversation. Actually, that word kind of stuck with me, just thinking about chaos time.
That’s exactly how I feel in, “Floundering.” Floundering is harder to do when I’m rooted. So I’m just thinking about how we can notice in some of these conversations and some of these moments, “When am I rooted and when am I not?” We could be grounded and floundering. I am convinced of that now. So something needs to be deeper than that, which is sometimes that’s just the awareness of saying, “Hey, self. You are floundering.”
Chavonne:
“Hey, you’re floundering.”
Jenn:
“Do you need to take five?” You don’t have to keep going with this adrenaline energy that has now entered your path, right?
Chavonne:
Mm-hmm.
Jenn:
You can have a chance to break that down and return to your normal speed, those sorts of things.
Chavonne:
Totally.
Jenn:
So I’ve been really thinking about that. Do you remember what you wanted to say about Aaron or what you got from that one?
Chavonne:
I have a thought, but first of all, I need to say in our interview, I had not watched Andor yet, and I have now. So I just needed to put that out there. It’s very important for me to say, because he’s a Star Wars person, and I have a Star Wars baby. So it’s my youngest, Bean, it’s Bean’s birthday today. He’s three.
Jenn:
Today.
Chavonne:
So I had to mention the fact that I’ve finally watched Andor. I have not watched The Mandalorian, but it’s happening. Again, working on space, but I have to watch Succession before I get to Mandalorian. I just have to, because love it.
Jenn:
There’s so much to watch.
Chavonne:
There’s so much. I’m having a hard time picking things because everything is on. Anyway.
Jenn:
That’s very important. Aaron will love to hear that. I have no doubt.
Chavonne:
I will let him know. Andor has been seen.
Jenn:
He hadn’t watched all of it yet. I remember I had to keep my mouth shut in that moment.
Chavonne:
Oh.
Jenn:
I remember.
Chavonne:
The last episode, woof. It felt like I was watching a movie again. Anyway, which also excites me because Rogue One is one of my favorite of the non-canon. I guess it’s canon, but not really. It’s not… It’s so good. So it was great to see it. Anyway, I’m thinking of this over-giver wound. Something that Aaron Flores talked about was, “Saying no to other things is saying yes to myself,” so that has felt like a real healing of my over-giver wound. It’s going to be a lifelong journey because that’s who I was socialized to be. It’s my career, all of that. So just working on that. But I like the idea of, “Saying no to things is saying yes to yourself.” That that’s really something that has stuck with me that he talked about.
Jenn:
What I’m remembering is in real time, I used to always tell myself something that I can’t remember now where I got it from, but just saying, “Yes,” to everything, the universe is just asking you, “It’s saying yes to you, so say yes to them.” It was challenging something that I use as my major way of seeing the world in a really big way. I’ve heard that phrase before. This is the beauty of Aaron Flores. When he says something like that, that saying no to other people or other things is saying yes to yourself, there’s something in the context that he always brings to that, and examples and metaphors and everything, that always just click something that I have to think about. Because I’ve heard that phrase a lot, but it just bounces off me, like, “Listen, thank you for saying that, but goodbye.” But this, it’s really been sitting with us. So I loved that. I just went back to that moment for a second.
Chavonne:
I love it, and I don’t need permission to do that. You texted me about giving me permission for something. I was like, “Yes, I do need permission.” So it’s not that I need permission. I need a reminder that I can do this. That’s what it felt like from him. That’s what it felt like when you texted me that it’s okay that I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing for my first day with my employee, and I was just going to need-
Jenn:
Oh my gosh, yes. Reminder.
Chavonne:
… the reminder. You went, “It’s okay.”
Jenn:
It’s not permission.
Chavonne:
It’s okay. So that is what I got from him is the reminder that it’s okay to say yes to myself every once in a while.
Jenn:
I love that so much. A reminder, not permission, because I often write, “I know you don’t need permission, but I’m giving you permission.” But you’re right that-
Chavonne:
I don’t need permission.
Jenn:
… it’s just a reminder. Oh, I love that.
Chavonne:
And I texted you, “Can you please tell me it’s okay?”
Jenn:
Yes.
Chavonne:
So it’s [inaudible 01:09:45] permission. Next time, I was like, “Can you remind me it’s okay?” Absolutely. Absolutely.
Jenn:
Oh, I love it. Exactly, exactly. Our inner selves that are always a little wary about other people giving us advice, unsolicited or solicited, or being judged or any of those things, permission’s not very gentle to that part of us.
Chavonne:
Correct.
Jenn:
A reminder is really sweet and gentle.
Chavonne:
Yeah. And I can accept that. I can embrace that a lot more easily than permission. That’s really helpful.
Jenn:
I love it.
Chavonne:
It doesn’t make me feel defensive. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Jenn:
Yeah. And how about you? Are there any others that stick out for you?
Chavonne:
So the other person that we have interviewed for this season, and we haven’t discussed yet, is Esther Tambe, who is a… I love all of our interviews, so I’m just going to say she’s great, but she is. They’re all great. Everybody’s great.
Jenn:
All of them.
Chavonne:
But I really enjoyed our discussion on credentialism, which is something that you and I have talked about a lot, which we’ve talked about with other people a lot. But why she became a diabetes educator so that she could have those letters and how, I think we even talked about it with Erin Flores, how we say, “We don’t need all these letters. Lived experience is important,” because it is, all of that is true, but sometimes we have to play the game so that we can reach the people that we want to reach, that we can support the people that we need to support. So especially as I’m opening a practice and thinking about all the credentialing, a different kind of credentialing, but also just all the letters of people who I’m interacting with and how I feel like sometimes I have to assert, for lack of a better term, my letters just to get things done. It’s been a really interesting process for me. What about you?
Jenn:
Wow. I was actually thinking about the same part of that conversation. Something in the way you were just describing that and just remembering and reflecting on how Esther had been talking about that and also when you brought in us talking with Aaron about that, something just kind of clicked for me there that seeking letters can be a way to be more embodied with people later. It’s like a gift of labor embodiment.
Chavonne:
That felt very permissive. That was good. It felt like a reminder.
Jenn:
Like, “I don’t have to worry. I have these letters. I can do this work. I can do this support. No one’s going to come for me,” that feeling of being able to take up space. Is it a privilege? Yes, of course it’s a privilege. And also, how would I say that. It’s embodiment now and later. I said, “Embodiment for later,” but it’s actually embodiment now as well. I’m in pursuit of this, so I myself… Oh, that’s the other thing I forgot to mention earlier. I think I already said that at the end of last season, but I’m in pursuit of the diabetes educator credential myself. I knew I forgot something.
Chavonne:
I’m sure I did too.
Jenn:
I was like, “Feels like I’m forgetting something really big.”
Chavonne:
That’s totally big.
Jenn:
So by the end of the summer, most likely, in 2023 or for sure when this podcast season is over for the year-
Chavonne:
Awesome.
Jenn:
… I will have that credential. I already basically do that work, but there is a pull to have these letters so that I can have a particular say in a medical team and be listened to. So I’m just sitting here and thinking about that from multiple angles, and it helps me be embodied now and by studying for it and the new knowledge that I’m getting and the lived experience of my clients as those are becoming more varied because I’m having more experiences like that, and so it’s not just for later. It’s for now too, because I was just thinking about how rooted that actually makes me feel amongst all this chaos. The supervision that comes with that, constantly interacting with clinicians who are teaching me, constantly interacting with information. I’m sorry, but a dietician without this credential does not know very much about diabetes.
It’s been one of the most humbling learning experiences I’ve ever had. I love being humbled. I know I’ve said that many times on here. I love it, love it, love it. I’m just like, “Wow, I didn’t really know very much about this topic.” I had super surface level stuff. So I think there’s a big misconception about that because it’s a big topic in the education to be a dietician. But we don’t know these kinds of details. So this credential, this specialization, its additional training, information, and hard work, that grounds me also and further roots me because now I have this going forward.
So you just made me think of that connection there, because Aaron was saying, “Well, of course we pursue them. They give us access to things. Of course we pursue them. That’s what we do here. That’s not our fault that that’s the way things are set up, and so of course we do those things.” So there was a lot of permission in that. There was a lot of reminding us why we did those things that I really, really, really appreciated. So I love that. I think that’s all I’m thinking of about those. Nothing else has popped up that I can think of.
Chavonne:
Me too. I think it’s a great season. I love everything.
Speaker X:
It’s like, “I love it all.”
Chavonne:
But I love, even from season one to this season, how the conversations differ because we are different because we’ve grown along with our podcast. So I just love our insights and our calling ins, callings in, not sure.
Jenn:
No clue. Either way, sounds good.
Chavonne:
You know what I’m saying. And what I mean by that is when we call people and call ourselves and call each other in, but also when we are called in, I really appreciate that and the depth of the conversations that we’ve had with people this season and continue to have. It’s such a gift. It’s really such a gift.
Jenn:
It really is. And you just reminded me. So this is a great closure topic that we had really bold asks for this season. We got really sweaty, asking people we’ve really, really, really wanted to talk to, again, for some deeper dives and also talking with people just exploring embodiment and the rest of us. And now I’m going to be thinking about rest as well. But just getting the chance to explore this from so many liberated and liberating perspectives. I just can’t wait.
Chavonne:
Me too.
Jenn:
I can’t wait. I’m so excited by what we’ve already done.
Chavonne:
I know.
Jenn:
There’s going to be so much. I’m so excited, so excited.
Chavonne:
Just sweaty. I’m just sweaty all the time.
Jenn:
Yay.
Chavonne:
But I’m also sweaty because I’m excited.
Jenn:
And I already have ideas for the next season that are going to make me sweat even more.
Chavonne:
I know. Me too. I’m already like, “Okay, I love this season. I’m excited we have more interviews to do, but also, I’m ready to start interviewing other people.” I just want to do this forever. It makes me super happy.
Jenn:
Yeah. So my oldest nibling calls this, “Sweat money,” but I’m not afraid to say it, “I’m a sweaty person.”
Chavonne:
Same.
Jenn:
When I’m running around with my niblings, it’s like, “Wow, these kids can go on and on and on, and I feel that I am 40.” I’m very embodied while realizing I am not a toddler and I’m running around [inaudible 01:15:50]-
Chavonne:
Every time I play with my toddlers, I’m like, “Oh, my bones are not made for this.”
Jenn:
So as we’re playing, as we unlock the next phase, she puts her hand on my neck and she says, “Ooh, sweat money.” And that’s how we decide what we’re going to do next, so I was just-
Chavonne:
Amazing.
Jenn:
I was just thinking of how when we know we’re going bigger and challenging ourselves and unlearning in different ways, we get really sweaty. That’s just what our bodies naturally do, your body and mind. And so I’m trying to think of a different term for that. There’s a kind of unlearning that feels particularly sweaty to me, but it would be such a joy to be able to touch the back of my neck and be like, “Yeah, there’s the sweat.”
Chavonne:
Sweat money.
Jenn:
It’s a sign that we’re going in the right direction for us.
Chavonne:
I’m going to try to think of that with that [inaudible 01:18:17].
Jenn:
I’ll have to think of a term. I have zero on the spot. I have nothing.
Chavonne:
Same.
Jenn:
But it’s just making me think about that, that there’s something. So maybe by the end of the season, I’ll think about that. I’ll make a note to myself to think about sweat.
Chavonne:
I love it. I’m going to write it down so I can ask you when we do our recap episode at the end of the season.
Jenn:
Season three recap.
Chavonne:
Sweat money alternative.
Jenn:
Yeah. I love that we normalize that, right?
Chavonne:
Yeah.
Jenn:
For people who are socialized as women and femmes and raised as those, we are told not to sweat. There’s lots of words like glistening and sparkling and misting, and I can’t remember any other words right now. So it feels empowering to play with a phrase like that, kind of take it back a little bit.
Chavonne:
I love it. I love it.
Jenn:
Okay. Well, we’re excited. So excited for this season to come, and-
Chavonne:
So pumped.
Jenn:
… to be with all of you in this conversation. We can’t wait for more and more and more. Thank you for listening and we’ll catch you in the first episode.
Chavonne:
Yay. Thank you.
Jenn:
Thank you.
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.