Embodiment for the Rest of Us – Season 3, Episode 10: Whitney Trotter
Thursday, September 14, 2023
Chavonne (she/her) and Jenn (she/her) interviewed Whitney Trotter (she/her) about their embodiment journey.
Whitney Trotter (she/her) is dually licensed as a Registered Dietitian, Nurse, and yoga instructor and is currently working on her doctorate degree to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner. Whitney has over ten years of experience working as a registered dietitian serving various communities such as the HIV/AIDS community and the eating disorder field. Whitney also previously worked at a Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center as a Pediatric emergency room nurse. In addition to working as an RDN and RN, Whitney has served as a member of her county’s Rape Crisis Center. Her work at the Rape Crisis Center equipped her to co-found an anti-trafficking organization Restore Corps, where she now provides medical training to the community focusing on human trafficking response.
Whitney’s career in the Eating Disorder field includes being a former Nutrition and Nursing director of a Residential, PHP, and IOP center. Whitney is also the owner/founder of Bluff City Health, a private practice that bridges the gap in the eating disorder field of equitable care and social justice. This past year Whitney created the first-ever BIPOC Eating Disorders Conference and started #BIPOCEatingDisordersAwarenessWeek
Content Warning: discussion of privilege, discussion of diet culture, discussion of fatphobia, discussion of racism, discussion of fatphobia in the career space, discussion of mental health, discussion of chronic medical issues
Trigger Warnings: None for this episode
A few highlights:
4:21: Whitney shares her understanding of embodiment and her own embodiment journey
8:10: Whitney discusses how the pandemic affected her embodiment practices
14:26: Whitney shares her understanding of “the rest of us” and how she is a part of that, as well as her privileges
24:46: Whitney discusses how the word “Rest” right in the middle of the podcast name feels, occurs, and shows up for her
43:58: Whitney shares how her education and career have changed and challenged her relationship with her own embodiment
51:18: Whitney discusses her process in co-creating the BIPOC Eating Disorders Conference
1:10:31: Whitney shares her experience learning and unlearning while calling out what is oppressive in our systems
1:19:27: Whitney discusses how listeners can make a difference based on this conversation
1:26:05: Whitney shares where to be found and what’s next for her
Links from this episode:
BIPOC Eating Disorders Conference
Music: “Bees and Bumblebees (Abeilles et Bourdons), Op. 562” by Eugène Dédé through the Creative Commons License
Please follow us on social media:
Twitter: @embodimentus
Instagram: @embodimentfortherestofus
CAPTIONS
Season 3 Episode 10 is 1 hour, 28 minutes, and 50 seconds (1:28:50) long.
Chavonne: Hello there! I’m Chavonne McClay (she/her).
Jenn: And I’m Jenn Jackson (she/her).
Chavonne: This is Season 3 of Embodiment for the Rest of Us. A podcast series exploring topics and intersections that exist in fat, queer, and disability liberation!
Jenn: In this show, we interview those with lived experience and professionals alike to learn how they are affecting radical change and how we can all make this world a safer and more welcoming place for all humans who are historically and currently marginalized and should be centered, listened to, and supported.
Chavonne: Captions and content warnings are provided in the show notes for each episode, including specific time stamps, so that you can skip triggering content any time that feels supportive to you! This podcast is a representation of our co-host and guest experiences and may not be reflective of yours. These conversations are not medical advice, and are not a substitute for mental health or nutrition support.
Jenn: In addition, the conversations held here are not exhaustive in their scope or depth. These topics, these perspectives are not complete and are always in process. These are just highlights! Just like posts on social media, individual articles, or any other podcast, this is just a snapshot of the full picture.
Chavonne: We are always interested in any feedback on this process if something needs to be addressed. You can email us at Listener@EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs.com.
[1:36]
(J): Welcome to the 10th Episode of Season 3 of the Embodiment for the Rest of Us podcast, and our interview with another amazing dream guest: Whitney Trotter! It’s amazing what we fit into this one episode together.
(C): Whitney Trotter (she/her) is dually licensed as a Registered Dietitian, Nurse, and yoga instructor and is currently working on her doctorate degree to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner. Whitney has over ten years of experience working as a registered dietitian serving various communities such as the HIV/AIDS community and the eating disorder field. Whitney also previously worked at a Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center as a Pediatric emergency room nurse. In addition to working as an RDN and RN, Whitney has served as a member of her county’s Rape Crisis Center. Her work at the Rape Crisis Center equipped her to co-found an anti-trafficking organization Restore Corps, where she now provides medical training to the community focusing on human trafficking response.
(J): Whitney’s career in the Eating Disorder field includes being a former Nutrition and Nursing director of a Residential, PHP, and IOP center. Whitney is also the owner/founder of Bluff City Health, a private practice that bridges the gap in the eating disorder field of equitable care and social justice. This past year Whitney created the first-ever BIPOC Eating Disorders Conference and started #BIPOCEatingDisordersAwarenessWeek
(C): Thank you so much for being here with us dear listeners! This season is deeply moving for us and we are honored you are here. Take a deep breath and breathe in this wisdom and experience with us!
[3:15]
Chavonne (she/her):
We have another dream guest on the podcast today, Whitney Trotter, she/her, joining us from Memphis, Tennessee. Welcome. We’re so excited.
Whitney (she/her):
Aw. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here with you both today.
Jenn (she/her):
Yay. Thank you.
Chavonne (she/her):
We can’t believe you’re here and equally can’t wait to get started sharing space and conversation. So how are you doing in this moment, Whitney?
Whitney (she/her):
Good, good. It is I’m pretty tired, but good. We just finished up with a BIPoC Eating Disorder Conference, and then I just started my last semester of school this week, so it’s just been…
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, my gosh. So exciting.
Chavonne (she/her):
Congratulations. That’s exhausting and wonderful.
Whitney (she/her):
Sure. I’m exhausted and ready to be done.
[4:21]
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I’m thrilled for you and especially future you as of December-ish, right? Who’s going to have access to more time and brain space and oh, my gosh, all the things that come with that. As we start this conversation about being present too and in our bodies, I’d like to start with asking our usual centering question about the themes of our podcast and how they occur to you. Can you share with us what embodiment means to you and what your embodiment journey has been like if you’d like to share?
Whitney (she/her):
Yes, absolutely. I love that question. I think for me, embodiment is kind of the grounding and attunement within, and so I like to think of that as like, how am I listening to my body? Even if it’s like a painful day. If I’m having a pain filled day or just emotions feel like kind of dysregulated, how am I in tune with my inner self?
Chavonne (she/her):
Even that answer just felt very grounding. For lack of a better term, it just kind of brought me down. I really, really like that. Absolutely.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah, a check in. I love that, and it’s feel like a gut check, right? It’s so oriented with our instincts and our intuition. I really love that. I’m curious about your embodiment journey, if you’d like to share. Has it felt different for you in the past? Is that something you feel like you grew to or has it always been like that?
Whitney (she/her):
Oh, definitely I have grown to it. I’m a former college athlete. My husband is a college athlete, so I think being an athlete and the competitiveness, you kind of disassociate from your body. There’s not necessarily an attunement. You learn your body, especially as a young adult in ways being an athlete that maybe somebody else might not, but it is always tied to this performance base. So I think the past couple of years or I would say last decade rather, really stepping back from that competitive punishment type rhetoric with body and really being still and listening has really transformed my journey a lot.
Chavonne (she/her):
That is so interesting because you think, at least when I think about athletes, I think about this form of embodiment, like you said, being very tuned into the physical aspect of what you’re doing and how you’re performing, but how there has to be some disconnect to be able to keep doing it if you’re doing it in at such a grueling pace. Yeah.
Whitney (she/her):
Yes, yes, and like multiple, I mean, sometimes you have two a days, three a days, and so it’s just multiple hours life consuming of your time. I almost do think there’s the safety aspect of just having to disconnect to get through.
Jenn (she/her):
Interesting. It’s like your body is a job or treating it kind of like you would going to work. Where there’s I would also imagine or relate to checking out in order to get things done, meet deadlines. I would imagine that might be an analogy for what it’s like. I hadn’t thought about that. I almost walked onto the swimming team in college, but they were going to my labs in the afternoon like competed with practice, and I was being a perfectionist about school at the time, so I was like, “No, I’m not doing that. I’m doing the school part.” But it was already apparent to me that you have to treat it like a job or another class or something like that and be able to push yourselves in ways that we don’t always expect the human body to endure.
Whitney (she/her):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah. Oh, I like that. And what a difference from feeling like it’s your job to, I’m just going to do a check in with my body and see what it has to say. I think that’s so beautiful. It’s like, I don’t know, an unfurling or an opening of a beautiful flower or something. I think that’s so great.
[8:10]
Chavonne (she/her):
As a human being, how has this ongoing pandemic affected your embodiment practices in ways that challenge your process, especially with all of its inherent ableism, virtue signaling, and quote, back to normal energy of the current moment?
Whitney (she/her):
So the pandemic has, I mean for all of us, the pandemic was so hard on me because what was really interesting is a week before literally everything shut down in that March, I got diagnosed with a lupus. So it was a very strange time because my body was so… I was in so much physical agony and pain. I mean, I was like, I cannot continue like this. I mean, it was very, very just real. I remember world shut down. There were so much controversy and just politicalness with Plaquenil, and that’s the gold standard for lupus. So I remember being this physical agony and pain kind of disassociated, disconnected with my body because the attunement like being in tune with my body when you have a chronic illness, particularly a chronic pain illness is just very jarring. Nobody wants to be experiencing that pain.
It’s also interesting because I couldn’t access my medication. They were thinking at the time Plaquenil was going to quote, unquote, “cure COVID.” So it was like the start of the pandemic, nobody knows what’s going on. I can’t access this medication. So I’m a dietician, I’m also a nurse and so I was starting school to become a nurse practitioner that August, so I had to go back into the hospital to do rotation, and so it was very hard to visually see so much death, be in pain every single day. But because you work in healthcare, I mean, you’re not taking a time out like you cannot not do it. So it was really interesting of this embodiment experience of being so grateful and thankful to be alive. But living in daily pain, there’s no answer on the horizon, and then you’re just visually absorbing so much pain too. So it was a very interesting time the first year, year and a half of the pandemic for me.
Chavonne (she/her):
Wow, that’s a really hard… I can’t even imagine the experience. I mean, I’m a healthcare worker, but I’m one of those healthcare professions that I got to stay home and I just can’t imagine being exposed. I mean, I worked with people who were nurses and teachers, et cetera, and just having to experience all of that on top of your own physical journey, I can’t imagine. Yeah, that would really impact my embodiment too, I would think.
Jenn (she/her):
Does it feel like there’s anything in this process in the pandemic in being diagnosed with a chronic illness that involves chronic pain that feels like it connects you further? And is there anything also in the midst of that that felt like it lit you up about that work or helped you feel the most embodied?
Whitney (she/her):
It’s interesting. It’s sad that I hate that sometimes we have to have a shared experience or empathy. I hope to be one of those people that I don’t always have to. I can be empathetic without the shared experience, but it’s not always the case. But for me, one of the things that really stood out was just how ableist our world and society is. I mean, I think it wasn’t until the pandemic and being diagnosed that I really started to understand fully and not even fully. I think we’re all kind of on our own learning trajectory, but just how much ableism impacts our day-to-day life and especially a capitalistic society because I mean, as you all probably know as well, being an entrepreneur, it’s really hard because if you’re not working, you’re not getting paid.
It’s very hard to be an entrepreneur with a chronic illness with the insurance piece because you need insurance. So just the ableism aspect of, and again like I said, I was a Division 1 athlete. My husband was an athlete. Our lives were very just athletically like inclined at every aspect. And so when that gets taken away, you’re just like, what now?
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah. Also, you said it sucks to find empathy through shared experience, so that’s how we have to do it, but it’s not always in a world that is ableist, patriarchal, capitalist, extremely racist, et cetera, et cetera. It’s like it interrupts our ability to be empathetic without having really clear shared experience. And that’s interesting because strange things in the pandemic have felt very connecting that are very surprising, whether it be what we’re all watching on social media at the same time, whether it is learning what’s helpful, standing in a virtual line for vaccines, whatever the experience has been, there’s been a different level of doing things together, but also while feeling really disconnected from each other in other ways. It’s been, I don’t know, a mind focused coming to mind as you were talking, just being reminded of that and sitting in that again.
Whitney (she/her):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah.
[14:26]
Chavonne (she/her):
We’ll talk about the second half of our podcast title. So what does the rest of us mean to you? How do you identify within the rest of us? We’d also love for you to share your pronouns and name your privilege identities in context here too.
Whitney (she/her):
Oh, absolutely. So my pronouns are she, her and I definitely have many, I would think the space in the context of privilege identities, especially when it comes to colorism. I identify as a Black biracial woman, but I benefit from light-skinned privilege and just even the texture of my hair and things like that. So I really try to be cognizant of the privileges that I hold. I live in a larger body, but again, identifying the Black community, even the way my body shape is, even though it’s larger, even though I have to self-advocate for weight-inclusive care at the doctor, the way that my body shape is still a privilege being in the Black community.
And so it’s why I don’t identify as fat or small fat. Even though my body could physically appear as somebody living in a small fat body, it’s because of the privileges again that just the cultural nuances in the Black community that I hold. So I don’t know if that answers the question or not, but I definitely, I take those privileges and really try to figure out, okay, how can I use my identities to make the most impact for people? What does that mean in everyday life?
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. Are there any aspects of your identities that you would consider as the rest of us in addition to that, do you think?
Whitney (she/her):
I think definitely navigating the south as a Black woman is very interesting. The patriarchy is real here, but also I’m cisgendered and so Tennessee has some of the worst anti-trans legislation. I was in Nashville in March when we were doing advocacy with the nurses association and the abortion bills that were passed and stuff. And I remember sitting in a room, I was the only Black person in the room, and none of the congressmen would look at me or speak to me, but I was able to go in the room. I was able to even get in the room because of how I physically looked. Even though it was a horrific just experience and sucked the life out of me, I still knew that I needed to be there and the advocacy piece, because so many people are dying from the legislation that Tennessee and other states are passing.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah, absolutely. I’m definitely thinking about intersectionality when you talk about the fatness spectrum, how we have small fat, large fat, and infinite fat, et cetera, and how race plays into that. I struggle with the fatness spectrum because I’m always like, why do I feel the need to say where I exist? Is it because I’m trying to compare myself to this or to that? But I also think it’s really important to name it in terms of discussing privilege within it, what you can fit in, what you can access because of where you live on the spectrum, but putting blackness into that is a really interesting piece as well. Yeah, I’m going to have to sit with that a little bit.
Whitney (she/her):
Yeah. Again, I think too, I started really emphasizing the aspect of blackness in it, because my husband is from Atlanta like College Park, and so just the hip hop culture is so unique. And when I think about that and I think about the influences of hip hop culture and Black body shape sizes, it’s very real in how we are perceived outwardly in the world. So I think to not acknowledge it. For me, especially living in Memphis, which is another Black city does a disservice.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. I also wonder how other intersections would interact with the spectrum like disabled communities, queer communities, other races or ethnicities, religion, all kinds of… It’s just playing in my head how other identities play into this spectrum.
Whitney (she/her):
Yeah, interesting.
Jenn (she/her):
Well, it’s making me think of, so we’ve had Tiana Dodson on this podcast before and we’ll be on again in the future next season. They have this beautiful short snippet on their podcast about relative fat versus absolute fat, and you’re both reminding me of that conversation because as the intersections add to each other, how much more absolute can we be perceived as based on all these things, right? Because the action part of this is too racialized to healthify, to adultify. Because if we think about a spectrum of fatness and how it is used to adultify very young Black people, male and female or any other gender identity that the more absolute someone has decided that it can be, the more that person can be harmed and have it be justified. So not that I think that’s the way it should be, but that’s how it plays out.
So I really appreciate this sort of deep think about this because I think and it’s probably my own white privilege showing that I take the weight spectrum for granted that it’s so simple and it’s just about… I’m like, we don’t have to use it because sometimes whether or not clothes fit us may not feel like the right metric, but I’m sort of getting in this moment that it’s deeper than that as well, because what is it like to be perceived buying different kinds of different sizes of clothing based on these absolutes. I hadn’t thought about that deeply enough, so I just want to name this out loud and give myself a check about this and think about this some more, because it’s never simple, never.
Chavonne (she/her):
[inaudible] nothing.
Jenn (she/her):
My brain simplifies it because I have the privilege to do so, and I really like to out loud check myself that it’s more complex and nuanced and therefore more harmful and insidious because the visuals of the people are absolute, but what’s being done to them is not always so visible. So I think I’m missing seeing things. I’m just sort of getting that and seeing them in this moment. Does that make sense?
Whitney (she/her):
[inaudible]
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/her):
And I don’t know, it just feels very powerful to what you were saying also about advocacy and being in positions where you felt deeply uncomfortable, and I hear very harmed. That sounds absolutely horrible and still feeling compelled to be there are some of the nuances that are the hardest in this work, quote, unquote, “meaning advocating for other people and their rights to their bodies.”
And so I was just sort of sitting with the depth of that because something that is said a lot is just vote, just show up, just this, just that. It’s like this oversimplification and minimization of what it actually takes to do these things. If you’re not myself, a white person who would be protected if you got arrested, I actually don’t think I’d be afraid to be arrested. I wouldn’t like it, but I know I’d be fine, but I don’t think that’s everyone’s experience by a long shot. So I mean, to not be have anyone look at you. Like my heart went, “Oh,” and like just broke right there in one spot because advocating for your humanity and the humanity of others but not being seen, heard, understood, held in any way while you’re trying to do that threatens what feels valid in yourself.
Chavonne (she/her):
Absolutely.
Jenn (she/her):
And it’s just really hard. So I appreciate the depth of this and the connections from more than one angle, not just intersectional. We just had a conversation with a previous guest about the nuances of even the legal aspects of using intersectional, because there’s also the human aspects of things that aren’t just about intersectional. At the beginning, you said you were talking about embodiment related to emotional dysregulation and physical pain in your body. Those are some of the things that we can’t see. They’re not, I mean, they are intersectional. We can’t see them. We often can’t label them or quantify them or something like that in these other contexts. So just thinking about that too, we don’t know what other people show up with.
And to assume that it’s a level playing field, and I mean just the basic humanity of someone seeing you, I’m like, they can’t even ask you how you are as a person if they’re not going to see you as a person. Just, yeah, it’s driving forward sort of some of the intentions with this podcast as well, which is be in conversation with people while they’re seeing their own humanity, that they are held and seen and understood while it’s being reflected back at us too. So I’m just appreciating this space, lots of check marks of things I really want to think about and also just appreciating the space that we can even name things like this with each other, it just feels important to me.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes. Absolutely.
Whitney (she/her):
Yeah.
[24:46]
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah. And as part of a new realization for us co-host this season, the word rest is right in the middle of our podcast title. So I’m curious how the word rest feels occurs and shows up for you.
Whitney (she/her):
Yeah, it’s not something that I’m really good at.
Jenn (she/her):
Honestly, ditto.
Whitney (she/her):
Yeah. I was talking to my husband a while ago and it’s like I never thought I would be thankful for an illness. I think getting diagnosed with lupus forced me to conceptualize rest because I mean, literally there were days I couldn’t get out of bed. So I think it was like I had always just been go, go, go. I was very blessed with certain aspects of the pandemic. As an RD, I could shift my private practice completely online. As an RN, I could not. So there was these polarizing things. And even too, the vaccine, at first, people that had lupus, they were like, “You cannot get the vaccine. We don’t know what the vaccine is going to do when you have that type of autoimmune.” So that was really hard too, because I was like, okay, I really want to get it. We were masking. We were being so intentional. And so it was like, okay, I need to just stop and be inside and rest and figure out how not to be in a flare, figure out how to de-stress, so to speak.
So for rest for me, it’s really tied to stress elevation. And it wasn’t something I think I would’ve really experienced had I not gotten diagnosed with lupus and specifically lupus in a pandemic, because I would’ve had access probably to medical doctors a lot quicker. I would’ve been able to get into a specialist a lot quicker. I would’ve been able to start medication, and I would’ve just kept going, going, going.
Jenn (she/her):
What you just said rest tied with de-stress is so interesting and also so clear to me. I wonder if you could say more about that, because I think that’s such an… I don’t hear that talked about a lot with rest. I mean, this oversimplification I was talking about earlier where it’s like just rest, just sit, just don’t, but you were really talking about what needs to be unwound, what needs to be reduced. So I find that very interesting. If you could speak more about that, I think that’s just so great.
Whitney (she/her):
Yeah. So for a long time, I had this notion of rest was just like taking a nap or just sitting still, and I was not very good at that either, but I really had to figure out, okay, my brain was just constantly firing, firing, firing, or I’d be sitting down doing homework. So I would be kind of maybe taking a pause, but I would still be, quote, unquote, “working.” So my body would still be experiencing stress. So it wasn’t actual true rest, but I was so used to going just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, that I thought if I was just sitting down or being still, that I was truly resting and I missed the intentionality of separating stress, pausing, reflecting. So for me, it really is about the de-stressing. I need to not be reading a textbook because that’s not rest. I’m finally sitting down, but I’m on my phone answering all my emails that I missed. So really being intentional because stress is a huge flare for me. So really being intentional about what are the ways that I can minimize the stress, I truly can rest.
Chavonne (she/her):
I could hear my internal girl. This is like, hey. Like rest versus pausing, I am like a queen of pausing so I’m going to rest so I can get back on my bullshit.
Jenn (she/her):
Exactly.
Chavonne (she/her):
But actual resting, whooh. I also feel like, so Jenn and I are both in this place of building our businesses, and maybe because we’re not billionaires, maybe we get to a certain point we’re billionaires but that’s never going to happen, but I’ll speak for myself as well. But if I get to the point of being a billionaire, maybe I can rest. But instead it feels like the more I grow, the more I work, it’s just I don’t get it. I don’t get it. So pausing versus resting hit me just in the guts. I need to like, when was the last time you actually rested instead of taking a nap so you could go blah, blah, blah?
Whitney (she/her):
Exactly. It’s like a conditional aspect. The rest is very conditional.
Jenn (she/her):
Okay. So this is really impactful for me. We were just starting because I want to start a group practice, but I’m having a lot of flareups in my own chronic illness. I’ve been taking off more days than I ever had before in 2023 for sure by far, no question, and it challenges my notion of what rest is for. So I really appreciate that. It’s like if we were talking to a client about pausing or resting. We might make it smaller for them so that they can grasp it tangibly, maybe reach out and grab the notion of it. But for myself, it’s like pause, rest. For people listening on, I’m doing huge circular arm motions because it’s like, how big can I make the challenge also makes rest feel really elusive.
Whitney (she/her):
Yes, absolutely.
Jenn (she/her):
Just yesterday, the power had gone out for half the night and I cannot sleep without a fan. So I woke up and I was like, “Ugh.” I got maybe three hours of sleep. My mom and I had a plan to grill some corn. We got some really good-looking corn. We just wanted to take a break and grill some corn. But as soon as we ate it, I was like, “I need to go take a nap because I can’t do any of the things I want to today,” but I had a lot of trouble going to sleep because I didn’t want to do any of the things later. But because I tied them together, it was like this whole resistance of my own demands thing happening when I really wanted to just take a nap.
And I didn’t cancel anything later. I was like, “No problem. I’ll take a nap.” But then I still had to cancel it anyway, but what if I’d canceled it before my nap and now my nap could just be however long it needed to be until I felt rested? So that’s really resonating and especially how, not simplistic but like easy or gentle you’re describing it, where it’s like rest can be meaningful when it’s intentional and it can actually feel like rest when it’s intentional. I don’t think I admit this to myself very much. So I just appreciate that perspective.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah, I swear I did it for a year and I was like, “Oh, I’m a rester. I get it.” And in January, one hit and I was like, “All right, balls to the wall.” So I was like, “Was it a year long pause?” I don’t know, because I took a year off from work because my body, I have some autoimmune stuff, was like, “If you don’t stop, I’m going to stop you. You are stopping now.” And I came back and it was just, I hit so fast. This doesn’t need to be about me, but now I’m just going to sit with this. Was that a year long pause? I thought it was a year long rest. I don’t know, because now I’m working harder than I feel like it ever worked right now.
Whitney (she/her):
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah. I feel like I’m buffering a little bit right now.
Chavonne (she/her):
[inaudible].
Jenn (she/her):
As I’m playing with this a little bit, if there’s a larger intention in the world to support other people in their rest, something that I’ve found myself saying that I would just… This is those take your own advice moment, that’s what this is going to turn into. But it’s like, “I see how hard you’re working,” said client. Said person I’m working with whoever it is, “I think I’d like you to work less.” Like, “How can we make it so you can actually work less?” I mean less hard on topics. Everything doesn’t have to be going balls to the wall, as you said, a hundred percent. It’s going to make me play around with the body trust concept of C-level work. What if you just get things done versus doing them until they’re perfect? And it’s just resonating in that same kind of space of what if we play around with some labels, some names that make this feel smaller or more accessible and therefore more restful?
Whitney (she/her):
Yeah. Well, and you know what? You bring a really good point, because I don’t know that Black people in this country have the privilege to do that, right? So if you think about school, I’m not afforded the ability to do C-level work. Dieticians, I think less than 3%. I think it’s the numbers were 2.6% of dieticians are Black in the U.S. And so it’s like you really can’t afford to do C-level work because you’re competing with a majority white woman brand career. And so how can you be an entrepreneur and a business owner being 2.6% and stand out? You won’t, right? And then if you take nursing, it’s really interesting because we know nursing is a little bit, it’s not a little, it’s much more diverse, but it gets less diverse the higher education you are. So in nursing, you can have an associate’s degree, and when you look at it, it’s pretty on par diversity wise, but a lot of hospitals now are only hiring bachelor level prepared nurses.
And so it gets smaller when it compares to Black people and then if you talk about the master’s aspect and the doctorate. So to be a Black nurse practitioner with a doctorate, you’re small in that percentage. So it’s the inability to be a nurse work in a pandemic and still pursue further education. You can’t get away with doing C-level work. So it’s a constant stress of how can I just survive with these parameters and expectations compared to a white female dominated industry. You have to show up A and B to get the same job opportunities and afforded the same job responsibilities and things like that. It’s really hard and especially in the south, I’ll say that too. I don’t know where it’s like in New Mexico, because you are in New Mexico, right?
Jenn (she/her):
Mm-hmm.
Whitney (she/her):
Okay. That’s my thought earlier. But of course Tennessee, we compete for who’s the worst between Tennessee, Florida, and Texas.
Jenn (she/her):
We do too from over here in our direction. That’s interesting.
Whitney (she/her):
That’s so interesting. So it’s interesting because I’ll have my doctorate and I’ll be a nurse practitioner in December, but I still won’t be able to fully practice independently. I’ll have to have a supervising psychiatrist that gets to set like a retainer. Each monthly fee that just supervising when that just means they look over 20% of the charts, right? But there’s 27 other states where I could be a Black NP and I wouldn’t have to do that.
Chavonne (she/her):
You should come here.
Whitney (she/her):
I shook this New Mexico’s full practice authority.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes, it is.
Whitney (she/her):
One of my best friends just moved there.
Chavonne (she/her):
Nice.
Jenn (she/her):
I love my prescribing psychologist. I love them so much.
Whitney (she/her):
And so as we’re having these conversations, how can I do less? It’s like when your productivity is tied to capitalism and breaking generational patterns and you think about generational wealth, it’s like you can’t do some of that C-level work even though you need it to survive.
Jenn (she/her):
Yes. I really appreciate that, especially because something that I want to make sure that I catch within myself or notice in others and just try to catch with my mind is when something gets oversimplified. So I really take that on because for me, C-level work is simple. So what I just heard in that is that it’s not always simple and maybe only for me and a select few people it is simple, and I really appreciate that. And as you were talking, I was just thinking not just of your experiences in survival, but just this is only from what I’ve read and heard and I’ve been told.
This is not my experience but the experience of being a Black woman, I imagine you can never rest. Even in what you are talking about and in what you are sharing as de-stressing, I imagine that it may not feel accessible to have that be accomplished. It might always be in process and it might never get as deep as you need. So I was just feeling some sorrow and some grief for that because it was really resonating what you were saying. I wanted to reflect that back to you, because I think that’s really important and I want to check myself again.
Whitney (she/her):
Yeah. No, thank you for naming that. Thank you for…
Chavonne (she/her):
And it’s interesting you’re saying you’re feeling sorry and all I was feeling was rage, and I was like, that’s why we’re fucking dying. That’s why we’re dying.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah, you’re right.
Chavonne (she/her):
Because we can’t breathe. Yeah.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah. Many recent incidents can’t even say, “Hey, move your fucking boat because a bigger boat is supposed to park here.” Just the super basic, we’re just going about our day. Please just let us go about our day is not accessible in a way that I have experienced. And yeah, just as we’re reflecting about this, the word rest, it’s interesting because we’ve had conversations. We were talking about Marquisele Mercedes, was the last person we were talking with, just talking about how rest shows up very differently for them. And it was also because I can’t access it in the ways that you say and how even rest is resistance adds something to it that makes it not restful. So I’m sort of hearing that reflected here too, which is… I don’t have a lot of words for it because I’m processing, but I feel really grateful to sit in this moment and hear that and feel that and have that resonate because I push rest for myself, for other people.
But a direction like de-stress is how much less stress can I get in the moment. How much less stress can I get overall is ringing in a different way as more accessible. I’m just hearing rest as an ideal is I guess what I’m really getting to, what I’m really sitting with. I have never thought about that before, but it very much is. We have a concept in our mind of what that should look like from other people, from society at large, from ableism, capitalism, racism, everything is like, this is what that should look like. I’m thinking of phrases that are used very boastfully, like I’ll rest when I’m dead as a dominant rest structure.
And it’s ways in which patriarchal ideals hurt every single person, but as it goes down the line in terms of privilege, it is so, so harmful when you don’t even have access to the basics of slowing down or rest. So I really appreciate the intentionality as you said and the directionality of de-stress. It’s very intriguing to me and it’s sort of occurring to me as it can feel more personal because you can decide what that is for yourself instead of being like, well, I’m going to try to reach the rest ideal, which is maybe an exhausting pursuit and not restful at all.
So I really appreciate that direction switch of that. I’m just sort of getting that now. That’s really impactful. Thank you for sharing that. It is such a vulnerable thing to share to say like, I don’t know that I can rest. I don’t know that I’m allowed to rest by the society around me, which… I mean, I have sorrow now, but I know that I’m going to be mad. I’ll listened to every episode back later. I know I’m going to be super mad later when I’m listening to this because that was done with intention.
Whitney (she/her):
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
Jenn (she/her):
And so right now, it’s making me feel like this is so unfair. It’s really sad to have to do intention against another intention. Why can’t the first intention just go away? I mean, that’s an ideal world. That’s not a reality world, but like, oh, okay, the rage is entering. Okay, there it came.
Chavonne (she/her):
And it’s interesting because we interviewed Mikey two weeks ago and I was practically standing up, “Rest is resistance, rest saved my life,” that I know now I’m like, “Oh.” I feel like I need to write an email, be like, “I get it.”
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah. I love Mikey.
Chavonne (she/her):
Now I understand why you were telling me that rest is not activism, because I was like, “No, it saved my life.” And I do think my pause saved my life. Yes, I think I have to.
Jenn (she/her):
And it can. Yeah, maybe it’s both.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. I needed that break for my body. I needed that break for my mental health without a doubt. But it wasn’t activism, it was saving my life. Maybe it was a personal act of it, but it wasn’t… And I am incredibly privileged. I’m aware of that. I am aware that I was even able to do that. But when I came back, I immediately fell back into that you’re Black, you’re a woman, you’re fat, you got to work three times harder than everybody. That’s just what it is. So feel like I need to email Mikey.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah. How does that feel to say that made me want to cry?
Chavonne (she/her):
Fine, it’s fine. It’s my life. I mean, it’s what I’ve been told since I was, I don’t know, three, I don’t know. It’s just what Black women especially are raised. This is who you are. This is how much harder you’re going to have to work to get ahead. That’s just what it is. So it doesn’t feel sad to say. It just feels like my life.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah, angry because these are angry tears. I want it to be different. That’s what’s resonating.
[
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. Let’s talk more about work since we’re going on work. How is your process of all of your education and your Bluff City Health practice, your continuing career changed or challenged your relationship with your embodiment? What learning and unlearning feels like it was only possible because of the space you had to hold in real time within such a fatphobic and anti-Black experience such as academia and entrepreneurship?
Whitney (she/her):
That’s such a good question. It is.
Chavonne (she/her):
Jenn wrote it.
Whitney (she/her):
Such a good question.
Chavonne (she/her):
Write them all.
Jenn (she/her):
Thank you, friend.
Whitney (she/her):
Okay. It has been really interesting. I never thought I would be in private practice. Again, it was not… Viola Davis said this quote and I always re-share it. She said, “Representation is so important because you have to see a visual manifestation of your dreams.” I work primarily in eating disorders and I never saw a Black dietician in eating disorders. I didn’t know of one. So when I started my private practice in 2019, it was very, very isolating. Even though I was dually licensed, I went back. I had been a nurse, I’d been a dietician for several years, worked at various levels of care. I had on paper and on my resume all the experience that one would need, but still felt this imposter syndrome and less than because I had never seen anyone else that looked like me. So it was really challenging from an embodiment because I didn’t feel grounded and secure in my ability to show up as a Black woman working in a white dominated space.
Because even in the media representation, you never saw people of color that had eating disorders. You never saw Black women. You never saw Black trans people. You never saw disabled people. Even all the marketing, the media, the research was all stereotyped to very white, thin, affluent, cis white women. And so to not see yourself in anything landscape wise was just very jarring. But what was so interesting was, like I said earlier, as an RD, I was really able to pivot virtually, which opened up so much, because I really wasn’t on social media. And so the pandemic, it kind of forced me to be on social media. I ended up connecting with several Black RDs that worked in eating disorders. My private practice really expanded because I wasn’t just siloed to Memphis, but I could see people in other states, and my practice became much more diverse, which I was just really grateful for. So I think that it really changed my relationship in the internal aspect of embodiment and feeling grounded enough to continue to do the work.
Chavonne (she/her):
What a gift. And again, it’s so important to see people who look like you doing the work, but I can only imagine this tiny little person who sees what you’re doing is like, “I’m going to do that one day.” What a gift for that little kiddo, yeah.
Whitney (she/her):
I know my daughter calls me a doctor, a nurse doctor, and it’s so funny.
Chavonne (she/her):
I love that. So sweet.
Whitney (she/her):
But for her, it’s like, “You know mommy’s a doctor.” And so she has her little baby stethoscope and will listen to heart sounds and stuff. So it’s really cute. It’s really sweet.
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s really special. Yeah, absolutely.
Jenn (she/her):
I love that Viola Davis quote. Something that I’ve heard in rhetoric a lot recently is representation is not enough. And I have been thinking and feeling that misses something that sometimes representation is just the first step. Can we just have some…
Chavonne (she/her):
Can we just be happy with this for a minute?
Jenn (she/her):
Can there just be something that’s visual? Why do we have to fast-forward? It’s the same thing about how rest is so big. Why does everything have to be so fast forwarded, so much pressure, so much stress? Why can’t it be something intentional, slow, first step? I mean, just your daughter alone, getting to see a doctor for a mom is so cute.
What an impact that’s going to have on her whole life? And that she gets to talk about and influence other people in her life about. It’s just like you can see immediately how representation is enough to consider. I wish I could remember the artist there. When I lived in L.A., there was this photography exhibit about being Black and white America, and it was photographs. It was from the ’60s, I think. It was some sort of retrospective, but it was people, Black families in their houses witnessing white culture from their houses. So was like television, they were only white people. On the news, it was only white people. When they went to the grocery store, white person owns the grocery store and is also checking out their groceries. Every experience was like them popping into a white world or visualizing it with no representation for themselves.
It was then followed, I can’t even remember what year that was, sometime in the early 2000s, but what it might look like now. At that time, there still was not a lot of representation. There was not. It’s a little different now, but it really impacted me, 60, I can’t do math right now. 50 years later, whatever the amount of time was. Yeah. But I mean-
Chavonne (she/her):
Not I mean go. Absolutely.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah, those people are grandparents right now. There just wasn’t that much space there. And there’s lots of examples of things like this, but just walking around that room and walk, seeing those photographs, they had all sorts of other things. Iraq war photos and I can’t remember what else. A bunch of trauma porn was all that was everywhere, all over the rest of this exhibit, but people were avoiding this room. I think it was hard to go into that room and see how not much had changed, but also entire generations aren’t just exhausted and trying to seek these ideals, but can’t even see themselves represented somewhere. You just reminded me. I haven’t thought about that really since then, but I think I should have. So I appreciate that sort of checking about that too. You have a really grounded way of speaking.
Whitney (she/her):
Oh, thank you.
[51:18]
Jenn (she/her):
That is, I don’t know. I’m like sitting in the pocket of it. I don’t know how to describe it, but I’m just inviting myself to imagine what that might feel like or reflect on how things can go deeper even in this conversation we’re having. So I appreciate that. I already feel that this is not me being in a parasocial relationship with you or anything, but just the work that you put into the world gives me that feeling as well. So I just appreciate that. So thank you for the chance to see these things. And speaking of at the beginning, you talked about the BIPoC Eating Disorders Conference, and this was the second year of that. So this next question kind of popped into my mind in just being an observer of this and watching its growth and getting curious about what it’s been like on the other side, because I can’t imagine it has been easy.
First of all, a conference is an incredible amount of work. Second, to do it in a way that is not the traditional way in an eating disorder world is something else. Just thinking about your experience like advocating for other people’s bodies and not being seen, and then just sort of all that’s floating in my head. So I’m just curious about balance and boundaries in creating that conference, because it’s very clear that you have deconstructed some of the traditional bullshit about conferences, and I really fucking appreciate that. I mean, so deeply. But you have seen the bullshit and noticed it and felt it in your bodies and you were trying to do something different and put it together, and now you’ve done it two years in a row. So I’m really curious about that, the balance and boundaries and being yourselves and being embodied humans in this process and what that’s been like, because I don’t think people pause to think about that very much. And I want to pause and think about that.
Whitney (she/her):
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that. It has been wild and I’ll just be quite frank. Again, it is Angela, the co-creator, my dear friend. She’s been in the field I think 20 years and similar to me, we’re to every level of care. So it’s interesting because neither one of us prior to 2020 had ever been asked to speak at any of the major conferences, even though we’ve been in the ed field for so long. And so when I just kind of being on Instagram, connecting with so many people, and I told Angela, I said, “There’s a lot of us.” There are a lot of clinicians, healers, and coaches of color who are actually doing this work. We’re just siloed, and virtual world really brought us together. I think we both became so furious of the whitewashing of the eating disorder field and the intentionality to ignore marginalized and underrepresented identities.
I was just going through an immense period of grief, so I was like, “We’re going to do this. I don’t know how, but we’re going to do this.” I remember calling her, I think it was end of January, February, and I was like, “We’re going to do a conference. You have to help me. We have to do this.” And she was like, “Okay.”
Jenn (she/her):
Love it.
Whitney (she/her):
And so at first I was like, “Okay, let’s do it in May.” And she was like, “No,” July is BIPOc Mental Health Awareness month, and so we ended up doing it in July. I mean, it’s hard because, again, I was in school. We both had private practices. We’re both wives and moms of young kids. And so it’s like, how do we not go in debt to pull out this conference? Thankfully, the community rallied around us and we had some amazing sponsorships and it was interesting.
It was hard even navigating those relationships, because there’s a lot of pressure to put on a conference. And typically in ed fashion world, they don’t pay their speakers. So we were adamant about we’re not going to have a BIPoc Eating Disorder Conference and not pay speakers and panelists and not pay them well. So that was a big thing for us is we wanted to be able to pay speakers and we wanted to have enough money to leftover to do like mutual aid and to do some scholarships. So it was just hard. The boundary aspect was how do you have this dream that’s never been done, but you also need the money from very problematic institutions, and that was the hardest thing is…
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, I bet.
Whitney (she/her):
… reconciling those two things. It was hard. It was really, really, really hard. And it’s something we continue to struggle with and think about like, do we take somebody’s money that we know and put them on our little sponsorship billboard, so to speak, when we know there are a harmful treatment center? What do we do with that? So a lot of conversation. It feels so good to have year two done. It’s just a lot of work. It’s a lot of work. We’re trying to figure out the boundary of to continue having something like this and how do we preserve rest and just slowing down as well, because I mean, you’re talking about six months out of the year that you’re emailing, planning, preparing, and it’s hard. It’s hard with just the other aspects of our responsibilities of everyday life.
Chavonne (she/her):
Do you think you’ll do a third next year or are you going to do biannual? Is it biannual is every other… is that twice the-
Jenn (she/her):
I never know.
Chavonne (she/her):
For me annual, biannual. You know what I mean? Yeah. We’re just not sure yet.
Whitney (she/her):
So I think we’re going to spend the rest of this year figuring out just the… I said when we started this last year, I said, “Let’s just get 50 people.” That was my goal, and we obviously surpassed that. And so we never thought, we never thought it would have the impact or be as big as it has. So now we’re trying to figure out just the business aspect of it, how do we do the business, the legal stuff, the taxes, and so we’re trying to put some intentional energy around kind of planning for that.
Jenn (she/her):
Wow.
Chavonne (she/her):
That’s exciting.
Jenn (she/her):
I was going to say, this is what I want, but I’m not going to say any of that.
Chavonne (she/her):
In my head, I was like, you just said you’re working harder than you ever had in your life. And I’m like, what if you did a New Mexico mental health?
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah, my brain got really expansive.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, same, same. Geez. And this is the entrepreneurial spirit and finding that balance and finding the boundaries, but what you did is just incredible and such a gift. So thank you. That is so appreciated sincerely.
Jenn (she/her):
And what was highlighted for me is that so entrepreneurship is not an area stereotypically or real life in practice where we tend to rest. That’s not where it is. You’re just sort of highlighting where creativity, thinking outside of the stereotypical box, doing things the way other people have done and actually having intentional time and carefully thought out aspects, not just let’s do another one. I appreciate that. Gosh, that’s like my word of the day. Why do I appreciate everything? I guess I’m lost for words in the… I feel it really deeply because there are things that were said last year in the conference and this year in the conference that I have never thought of in my life, that I have never even gotten myself to consider.
Whitney (she/her):
Really. Can you share a little bit? I’m so curious.
Jenn (she/her):
Of course, my brain is going to go blank. Let me see. I was just thinking of Jennie Wang-Hall. Well, everything I interact with her about, that’s how I feel. But it was also Allyson Inez, those two, I mean two people who I greatly admire anyway. They just phrase things in a way I’ve never considered before. Even when they’re talking about a liberated practice, a deconstructed practice, being a person in sessions with other people, those kinds of perspectives that each of them comes from their two perspectives, which I’m trying to remember what their talks was. Allyson was on psychedelics, if I remember right.
Whitney (she/her):
Ketamine. Ketamine.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah, ketamine. Thank you. Just like-
Chavonne (she/her):
Fascinating.
Jenn (she/her):
What if the stereotypes and stigmas, not just about weight, not just about blackness, not just about… I mean those things as well. But what if we’re considering those things about something that feels untouchable, I guess is how I would describe it, where it’s like, what if we touch psychiatry itself? What if we touch ketamine and how it’s super… I mean, I noticed that major treatment centers are also starting to get on that particular wave, but nothing could really touch Allyson’s presentation, which was very permissive in a sort of like, what if we just talk about all the things that we can explore versus having that delicate, be careful liability voice, even though that was present in the discussion? For example like in the questions, that was a lot of people’s concerns and questions, but there was just an openness, an expansiveness, a broadness. What if we don’t have to be limited even in how we talk about it much less how we use it?
Whitney (she/her):
Yes.
Jenn (she/her):
Does that make sense?
Whitney (she/her):
Absolutely.
Jenn (she/her):
That’s a summary of my thought. I was going to say, I took a lot of notes, so I do have some very specific thoughts, but it was just so… And when Jennie talks with such a beautiful sweetness, but also it cuts through me where I’m like, “What?” Right. I just have this very temporary but retraction of like, “Oh, fuck I contribute to that.” And like, “Oh, oh.” It’s like a lot of that, but then I’m like, “Okay.” And now we’re going to talk about how we don’t have to contribute to that. It’s like, what if we heal during this presentation is another way that I would describe that. And it’s not unique to just the two of them. That’s just what came to mind first. And even the way that you and Andrea hold the sessions and the conversations…
Chavonne (she/her):
Angela.
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, no. Sorry, Angela. Oh, my gosh. I said the wrong… What did I say?
Chavonne (she/her):
Andrea.
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Sorry, Angela, that there is… Sorry, I got Allyson. I got all my A’s mixed up. I’m thinking of this for the second conference, the very first presentation, the doctor talked about weight loss, right? But the way that conversation was held was very, very beautiful and impactful to me because I don’t know, it’s like a space where it’s talking about some of the most controversial possible things and deep things in the field, but I could still tell people we’re listening to each other, even if they disagreed completely. That is not an experience I’m used to having in a conference. It can get extremely nasty, especially a virtual conference.
Whitney (she/her):
Oh, you talk about having a disembodiment experience. [inaudible]
Jenn (she/her):
So when you were on-screen, I was like, “Oh, I hope she’s okay.” I can’t even imagine to try to stay neutral and also not want there to be harm like that and to stay seen, but also want to be so invisible. I would want to retract so far back into myself that exercise where you’re like, am I derealized? And you look at your hand and I’m like, nope. I’m all the way back, who knows where inside myself, but I actually went back and watched it again.
Whitney (she/her):
Oh, wow. Okay.
Jenn (she/her):
Especially the last part, and even I often do that, I watch things multiple times because sometimes my reaction is so strong in myself. I might get a little dysregulated or I exit. I just need to go back. And I’m like, you know what? This is the kind of place that I’d like to have this conversation because one, how dare that person? And second, they didn’t know what they were showing up to and I loved that. I mean, not for them, not for them or for anyone that felt triggering to or really retraumatizing to because there are people who are currently healing who are also practitioners. They’ll be there too.
Whitney (she/her):
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
Jenn (she/her):
But the conversation was just so beautifully held. I’m so glad I get to tell you this.
Whitney (she/her):
Me too. Me too.
Jenn (she/her):
The second time I watched it, I cried through it, just sort of like mourning that this is how, like it was like a little taste of other conferences for a second. It’s like, again, how dare them? But I also understood their perspective. It was a really interesting sort of, what’s the word I’m looking for? Transparent. That’s the word I’m looking for. A really transparent conversation in all of its difficulties.
Whitney (she/her):
Yes. I’m so glad we were talking about this. Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you haven’t-
Chavonne (she/her):
I was going to ask your experience, Whitney. Go ahead. Sorry. I thought that was all I was saying.
Whitney (she/her):
I’m so glad you brought that up. I think I’m still recovering.
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, I bet. Right. A month later almost you’re still going to be recovering next month. I mean, not a small thing.
Whitney (she/her):
Yeah. I’m so glad that you shared that because we had kind of prepped them prior too of just what we hold to be true in our fat liberation weight inclusive space. Angela had really done a lot of groundwork of just explaining to them how we don’t talk about weight. What’s so interesting is my fear was, and I think it did happen to some people, that they missed the last 10 minutes. They missed the prior 45 minutes. It was so hard but I remember telling Angela, I still have so much respect for him because he has dedicated his life to serving the trans and non-binary indigenous community. And what they didn’t talk about, which I wish we would’ve had enough time, because I think people would appreciated this. They took a lot of the money. They won the Canada’s Amazing Race. What they ended up doing was they took-
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, I knew I knew them from somewhere. Oh, my gosh.
Whitney (she/her):
Yeah. So they won Canada’s Amazing Race, and what they did was they ended up taking that money. And what they do is they have traditional indigenous ceremony practices when the adolescents are trans and non-binary, and they get to have the full experience of their culture, and they use the funds from their winnings and things like that, which is so beautiful. And another thing that the doctor said, and it was interesting because Canada has very different health laws that we do.
So there’s almost this inability of policy change that can happen versus here there’s a little bit more autonomy medically of what we can do. I also love what he shared about how instead of making you come back six times, because people are driving 2, 3, 4 hours to see him. Instead of trans people having to come back six times to get the letter, he does it after the first one. So you see this experience of I’m doing everything I can, but there is this also aspect we’re not in alignment with. And it’s like, how do we work with providers who really care about people, who really care about their community? And we agree on these issues, but we’re not in alignment on every single thing. Can we still share space?
Jenn (she/her):
Yes. Oh, yes.
Whitney (she/her):
I just don’t know that people-
Jenn (she/her):
They don’t have to be perfect.
Whitney (she/her):
Right.
Jenn (she/her):
And also we were all allowed to be mad and your disembodiment is totally understandable. I’m really hearing from you that, I’m sorry I totally interrupted, but it’s okay to be in process. It’s something that I hear people say all the time, and I wonder how this feels because maybe it feels like a judgment for me, but it feels like you embody that. I don’t know if you feel that way. Being in process is such an important aspect of things. That’s the kind of space holding, which I again, can’t even imagine. My fight or flight was going off and I was just in the comment section just watching, so I can’t imagine that, but you have this… It’s just a really beautiful way of being or that’s how I relate to it, whatever that ends up being, that being in process is the destination.
That’s something I’ve gotten from last conference and this one, especially in the reflective sessions, because there were even people who presented last time. I think there were two people who presented this time and I was like, wow, look what’s changed in a year, isn’t that interesting? That might be all you… I think that’s a really big thing to get out of a conference is that the dynamics of the group has changed from one year to the next.
Whitney (she/her):
Absolutely.
Jenn (she/her):
It’s like a living, breathing conference that’s always in process. I’m really getting that you and Angela live and breathe it and process it all the time, and it’s very reflected there. I’m sorry, I totally interrupted. I just got excited.
Whitney (she/her):
Oh, no.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah. I appreciate knowing how that was for you also. I really, I was like watching you when you were on the screen because you weren’t always on the screen, but I was just watching you wondering how you worked.
Whitney (she/her):
I had my little squeeze ball trying to de-stress [inaudible]. I was like, yeah, it was hard, but I’m thankful it happened. I wouldn’t have changed it. Again, I just think there’s a lot of really amazing providers who have not yet had the privilege be introduced to weight-inclusive care, and it’s a disservice for those that work in the space to not want more providers to be exposed to it, because you don’t know what you don’t know.
Jenn (she/her):
That’s right.
Whitney (she/her):
You don’t know what you don’t. On my fourth degree, and I mean there’s never been any talk of weight-inclusive care, so I can’t blame another doctor in another country that hasn’t had that exposure.
Jenn (she/her):
Such an important point. Yeah.
[1:10:31]
Chavonne (she/her):
What have you found that we can learn and unlearn from each other surrounding the internalized ick, so phobias and isms of maintaining, discovering, or remembering access to our own embodiment, humanity and beyond, while calling out what is oppressive in our systems?
Whitney (she/her):
Such a great question, what can we learn and unlearn from each other? I think that for me, one of the things that is really important is we saw kind of in the pandemic too, there’s this kind of obsession with acquiring knowledge but book knowledge like cognitive knowledge. I think one of the most important things you can do to learn and unlearn with a lot of this just internalized ick that you mentioned is being actually in community with people that are different than you. I think that is the most important thing. I think cognitive knowledge is obviously great reading books, listening to podcasts, substacks, but I think the vulnerability really has to happen in the actual relationships, because you’re going to mess up and there’s this fear.
We know perfectionism is a symptom of white supremacy and there’s this tendency to be perfect. So if I accumulate all of this knowledge, I’m going to say the right things and do the right things. It’s not realistic. And even in relationships, people aren’t going to be perfect. But I think the ability to repair with people that share different identities than you is one of the most powerful experiences. So I think that is really important. It’s the community aspect while continue to fight for the injustices that are happening around us. You don’t need to be perfect to advocate.
Chavonne (she/her):
I love that. That’s a really necessary reminder.
Jenn (she/her):
I mean because none of us are. I don’t know where people are searching for those perfect people, but…
Chavonne (she/her):
Not here.
Jenn (she/her):
I don’t know any of them. I’m definitely not.
Chavonne (she/her):
No, I love that. I love that it can be like a… I think we talked about it with Mikey a few weeks ago about kind of being that light bulb, but you don’t have to be the person who knows what comes after the light bulb. You can kind of flick that switch, but you don’t have to have the rest of the answer, because I always feel like I should know everything before I try to talk to people about stuff, but that’s not possible.
Whitney (she/her):
No, no. I mean, and again, I’m very open. I share that in my experience, just my husband’s a pastor and just the deconstruction of there’s still a lot of transphobia and homophobia in the Black community. And so as we fight for the racial unjust, the people who need to be leading and the people we need to be in community with are our trans and non-binary and our intersex Black community. And so it’s so important to have the conversations within your small community and the larger community about what is happening as well. I think just as a Black person in the south, particularly proximity to evangelical culture, it’s paramount. We have to be having these conversations. We have to be unlearning and relearning.
Chavonne (she/her):
I love that. Absolutely. Yeah.
Jenn (she/her):
I like that learning and relearning, we say, and I wrote learning and unlearning. Seeing the same thing from a new perspective is so important, so I really appreciate that sort of nuance or addition there, because it takes real humility to sit in that space of relearning. It takes effort that we already did about the same topic to look at it in a new way, and so I find it very understandable, but there’s so much resistant to that. This is the way we’ve always done it, why can’t we just do it this way in every area of our lives and culture, honestly? But particularly in a field as you said, that concentrates its energy about who’s valid on cognitive knowledge, on book knowledge, on peer reviewed literature or knowledge.
It just misses the opportunity for humility in our clinical experience. Right hey, I don’t know anything about that. Do you even want to talk about it with me? Even on that level and lived experience of, does it feel safe to tell me about this in your life, this lived experience? Because the only a way forward, not the only a way forward may be there, but it involves real vulnerability. It may feel unsafe, it may feel insecure. How can we make you feel safe and secure comes from that direction of relearning, where we hear something and we’re like, “They did what?”
They said, “What? Oh, that clinician I thought was a great clinician in New Mexico. I didn’t know they did that. Oh, just to name some previous experiences that are very recent.” Like, “Oh, really? I refer everyone there. Thank you so much for the heads-up.” That kind of space like relearning is so important. Otherwise, I keep funneling people to a harmful direction. I can’t know that without their lived experience, which is a hard thing and I can’t get there with clinical experience, sorry, book knowledge. There is no recipe for what to do in that moment except to be in community with that person and to try to make it less harmful and less secure and clean up the mess that I may have helped create because I didn’t know something.
That’s what I’m hearing as community as well, because being in session with people is a kind of community. Yes, they’re paying for that time. Yes, there’s a power dynamic. It’s different than just being in community space with each other, like just showing up to be in community, but I’m hearing how important it is to also be truly in community in that space. It’s something I’m trying to work on all the time. I think it’s going to be a forever process. I have so many privileges in the way of me seeing that clearly I usually have to learn after. I’m trying to get closer to learning real time and before.
Whitney (she/her):
Like during, oh, absolutely, absolutely. I learned that with, my brain just froze out, sorry, the HAES movement. I had a [inaudible] who, this is probably about a year and a half ago was like, I wouldn’t be alive without the introduction of HAES, and so she identifies as fat and we really talked through the lack of intersectionality and who gets to have the health at every size approach, right?
Jenn (she/her):
Yes.
Whitney (she/her):
But it was really, I just appreciate the repair that we got to have with each other, but being in community to hear for her with all of its issues and problems, she wouldn’t be alive today without the [inaudible]. But had we not been in community, I would’ve missed that. I wouldn’t have got that from her.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah, that’s really powerful. Absolutely.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah. Holding other people’s experiences as valid, whether we get it or not.
Chavonne (she/her):
Exactly.
[1:19:27]
Jenn (she/her):
Sometimes we don’t even get it. We’re like, listen, that sounds really, without the minimizing phrases, that sounds really impactful for you. It is a phrase that is taught to dieticians to say, it’s like, “Oh, this is your New Mexico diet, but you are on dialysis. No, you can’t have any of it.” It’s like, “Oh, that’s great for you, but you might want to consider not having…” I’m like, “Don’t take away this part of it.” It’s this minimizing, oppressive quite frankly aspect of this work. It’s one of the reasons other dieticians are so problematic in this state. I’m like, don’t take away what they eat every day. It’s already what they ate. It’s clearly not the problem. We can think beyond that. I know that we can. We’re just we because I want to take responsibility for being in this field.
I use these letters so I take responsibility, but okay, I appreciate this. So first, thank you so much for being here with us today. I am floored. I am just as excited as we started and I have an incredible amount of unlearning processing work that I really want to play around with. So thinking about unlearning and relearning, I’m curious what you think people listening might make a difference with from what we have learned, unlearned, relearned or played around with today together.
Whitney (she/her):
That’s a good question. I think the biggest thing that I’m still absorbing and like you said, learning and relearning is, weight stigma is so pervasive and crosses so many different identities and how we really can work with those providers who are well-intentioned with the lack of exposure. Because usually, speaking as an RD, we get very dismissive and they’re on our do not refer list anymore and it is, you are not a safe person. I think about the conversations if we can be able to exist in community with them and expose them. I think about my last year, I was at a clinic 80% of the time and then did inpatient and the psych and PA I was under was not weight inclusive. It just no exposure.
One of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my entire life, the ability of what she does with medication is unparalleled. I mean, I’ve truly never seen and what she gives of herself to people. I mean to me I was like, I could either just say, I don’t want to be in this rotation anymore because of the weight loss advice or continue sticking with it, and we built this phenomenal friendship. Now she’s a great mentor, but really it was the exposure piece. She had never heard of weight-inclusive care, and so now it’s so interesting. Towards the end, it was so funny. She would ask the patient permission to discuss weight like, “Can I have your permission?” And she would look at me and I’d be like, “Yeah.”
Chavonne (she/her):
I love that.
Whitney (she/her):
But it was so beautiful because again in our little narrow, a niche of being a psychiatric provider, so many of our medications can disrupt metabolism. And one of the number one reasons people go off of a lot of their psychiatric medications is weight gain and so to not have the conversation, it’s not informed consent to the client. So many of us are trained. Okay, now you’ve gained weight. We need to switch, da, da, da, da, without bringing the client in. And so we really got to have these really deep conversations of if we need to talk about weight, asking permission, giving consent, and her understanding too of it’s not just about the weight.
Let’s not prescribe this medication even though it might be the best choice because we’re projecting that that person might be fearful of weight gain when in all actuality they might not be, but we never had the conversation. And so I really hope that people can, from the conference and just from this podcast, really take that away, is that there are a lot of really good providers that have no exposure or experience that really could be brought into our community that could be of value, but we are triggered rightfully so and can be easily dismissive sometimes of that.
Jenn (she/her):
Our inclusivity can become exclusive very, very quickly. Whoops, switches really fast. I really appreciate that.
Chavonne (she/her):
Same.
Jenn (she/her):
Keeping the inclusive intention even when everything in us says get rid of them, run away, don’t send anyone there.
Chavonne (she/her):
Through the whole clinician out, yeah.
Jenn (she/her):
I really appreciate that. It’s almost like equally-
Chavonne (she/her):
That’s really compassionate.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah, it is.
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s like this.
Jenn (she/her):
No, the human and the clinician, I think that’s a really important thing. It can be really lost in conversations of the client as a human.
Whitney (she/her):
Yes, a hundred percent.
Jenn (she/her):
The clinician is a human. We’re in an intended therapeutic alliance with the client, so that would make us as human as they are because it’s a reflection back and forth. It’s intended to be mirroring and educational and humbling and action oriented, behavior oriented. We can’t do that without recognizing our own humanity. That’s like I was saying about Jennie Wang-Hall. That is something that I feel like I relearn over and over. I tend to forget it. Look away from it. I need to come back. It’s like that’s a really impactful thing to be a human with another person.
Whitney (she/her):
Absolutely.
Jenn (she/her):
Community as you were saying, and also, what’s the word and phrase I’m trying to look for? Permissive about what we can acknowledge is connected in these conversations, right? Food and body relationship isn’t just about eating and it’s not just about your body or body image. It’s about what’s going on in the world around you and all of its complexities, what’s going on within you and all of its complexities, so it keeps it real. Yeah. I’m getting this theme of oversimplification leaves an incredible number of the rest of us minimized, marginalized, oppressed people at the far end of the… like out of it completely. Keeping things complex and nuanced and inclusive, not going towards that exclusive direction keeps a very special part of the conversation going that we might completely miss. It’s like missing in other areas of exclusivity, right? You can’t do this unless you have a surgery that helps change an organ in your body before you do any other part of your care is so exclusive. Exactly.
Whitney (she/her):
Exactly.
Jenn (she/her):
Also, medications that are a temporary version of that, which are everywhere now, right? It’s like you only get access when you check the points. It’s like they even acknowledge how minimizing and oppressive it is, but don’t say, “And we’ll do something about it.” They say, “Now you do something about it.” You’re just like helping me release notice that and center that. No wonder it makes me so angry, but that makes me want to be exclusive, but I want to play with that, so I really appreciate that.
Whitney (she/her):
Absolutely.
[1:26:05]
Chavonne (she/her):
Thank you. As we finish up this episode today, what would you like everyone listening to know about what you’re up to and how they can find you? What direction do you see your career and or work taking in the future?
Whitney (she/her):
Good question. I have no idea. Somewhere that pays these student loans, if I’m quite honest.
Chavonne (she/her):
Right. Love it.
Whitney (she/her):
It’s interesting. I’ve been my own boss the last four years since 2019, so I don’t know what the combination of a psychiatric nurse practitioner and RD will look like. I’m excited for the next journey. I’ve been an RD since 2011. I’ll always be an RD, so I’m excited to figure out how to combine the two, but I just don’t know what it’ll look like yet, and yeah, everybody can find me. I’m pretty active most months on Instagram @whitneytrotter.rd. Yeah, right now just really working on getting ready to finish this last semester and really wanting to expand the BIPoC Eating Disorder Conference, whether that’s more offerings throughout the year, newsletter, but I just want people to know that we are out here, we’re here, and we can speak on more than just our race, ethnicity, and culture. There’s so many of us that have expertise in so many areas as well.
Jenn (she/her):
Ooh, wow. There is so much to explore that is not inside of objectification and tokenization.
Whitney (she/her):
Yes.
Chavonne (she/her):
What a gift. Thank you. This has been wonderful. Like Jenn said, this has been a dream interview. We were so excited. I’m fan girling super hard. This was awesome. Thank you. Thank you so, so much.
Jenn (she/her):
Thank you. So grateful.
Chavonne (she/her):
So, so grateful.
Jenn (she/her):
Thank you for sharing of yourself and with us. Thank you so much.
Whitney (she/her):
Thank you for having me.
Jenn (she/her):
Bye for now. Our pleasure. Thank you.
[1:28:10]
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.