Embodiment for the Rest of Us – Season 3, Episode 12: Lisa Daughters and Fawn McCool
Thursday, October 12, 2023
Chavonne (she/her) and Jenn (she/her) interviewed Lisa Daughters (she/her) and Fawn McCool (she/her) about their embodiment journeys.
Lisa Daughters (she/her) is a HAES-aligned fat-positive, LGBTQIA+ allied, social justice informed Expressive Arts Therapist. She works with fat folx, LGBTQIA+ community, grief/loss, fertility struggles and pregnancy loss, relationship challenges, family dynamics – these are all near and dear to her. She has been serving clients as a professional counselor for 12 years, working with a variety of settings and concerns. She works from a person-centered approach, using humor, mindfulness, and acceptance as tools of healing and transformation. She believes in the need to broaden our view from seeing individual struggles as collective, moving towards solutions that foster interdependence and equity. She approaches counseling as a co-creation, and considers her role to be an insightful companion through the process. She trusts the inherent wholeness of each individual. I have specific training in Expressive Arts Therapy, which utilizes art-making as therapeutic.
Lisa is strongly anti-diet and diet-culture. She is involved in the fat liberation movement. And it’s impossible to talk about body politics without talking about racism, misogyny, and ableism. She is anti-capitalist, and anti-racist. She loves animals and spent years before becoming a therapist working with animals. She believes current social and economic structures have stripped our sense of community and our emotional experiences have been villainized and pathologized to the point that mental health is a growing challenge. She thinks it’s a disservice to focus only on individual health without also addressing community. She does not believe in the paternalistic dynamic that she has seen in the mental health world, and she thinks to do my work well she has to be continually learning.
*
Fawn McCool (she/her pronouns), is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with a private practice based in Portland, Oregon. Her therapeutic approach is warm, nurturing, collaborative, engaged, and nerdy. She loves brain science so there MIGHT be some mention of neural plasticity or blaming of neural pathways along the way. She will shame the patriarchy, never you.
As an LCSW, she has worked in a variety of settings providing skilled trauma-informed services to families, women and children. She offers clinical therapeutic services in Tigard, OR and enjoys working with a wide variety of issues including but not limited to: trauma, depression, anxiety, OCD, ADHD, perinatal/postpartum mood and anxiety disorders, infant loss, and fertility issues .
She received her Masters of Social Work degree at California State University, Los Angeles in 2006. Her professional credentials include certification in Interpersonal Neurobiology through Portland State University and is Ample & Rooted trained.
Additionally, she has had the honor of presenting at several professional conferences focused on Neonatal Intensive Care Unit experiences, neuroscience & birth trauma, and behavioral health counseling in school based health centers.
She is an anti-racist, LGBTQ+ affirming, and HAES provider.
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
40:28-53:29: Chavonne’s audio goes a bit wonky
Trigger Warnings:
34:22: Fawn mentions Noom and Ozempic
49:42: Lisa uses the words “crazy” and “nutty” in a way that is ableist
A few highlights:
7:08: Lisa and Fawn share their understanding of “the rest of us” and how they are a part of that, as well as their privileges. They also discuss how the word “Rest” right in the middle of the podcast name feels, occurs, and shows up for them.
1:01:15: Fawn and Lisa discuss how supporting clients has changed and challenged their own relationships with their embodiment
1:46:47: Lisa and Fawn discuss how listeners can make a difference based on this conversation
1:57:48: Fawn and Lisa share where to be found and what’s next for them
Links from this episode:
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
Persistent Drive for Autonomy (PDA)
Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria
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 12 is 2 hours, 7 minutes, and 10 seconds (2:07:10) 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]
(C): Welcome to the final interview of Season 3 (Episode 12) of the Embodiment for the Rest of Us podcast, and the last of our two-part interview with our dear friends Lisa and Fawn! This little peek into our conversations as friends is such a balm for each of us four, and we hope the same for you (oh and we really crack each other up!).
(J): Lisa Daughters (she/her) is a Health At Every Size (HAES)-aligned, fat-positive, LGBTQIA+ allied, social justice informed Expressive Arts Therapist.
Lisa works with fat folx, LGBTQIA+ community, grief/loss, fertility struggles and pregnancy loss, relationship challenges, family dynamics – these are all near and dear to her. Lisa is a great fit for people who’ve been to therapy before (maybe many times) but feel the need to dig deeper.
Lisa has been serving clients as a professional counselor for 12 years, working with a variety of settings and concerns. Lisa works from a person-centered approach, using humor, mindfulness, and acceptance as tools of healing and transformation. She is LGBTQIA+ affirming, HAES-informed, and social justice aligned. Lisa believes in the need to broaden our view from seeing individual struggles as collective, moving towards solutions that foster interdependence and equity. She approaches counseling as a co-creation, and considers her role to be an insightful companion through the process.
Lisa is strongly anti-diet and diet-culture. She is involved in the fat liberation movement. And it’s impossible to talk about body politics without talking about racism, misogyny, and ableism. Lisa is anti-capitalist, and anti-racist. She loves animals and spent years before becoming a therapist working with animals. Lisa believes current social and economic structures have stripped our sense of community and our emotional experiences have been villainized and pathologized to the point that mental health is a growing challenge. She thinks it’s a disservice to focus only on individual health without also addressing community. Lisa doesn’t believe in the paternalistic dynamic that is seen in the mental health world.
(C): Fawn McCool (she/her), is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with a private practice based in Portland, Oregon. Her therapeutic approach is warm, nurturing, collaborative, engaged, and nerdy. She loves brain science so there MIGHT be some mention of neural plasticity or blaming of neural pathways along the way. She will shame the patriarchy, never you.
As an LCSW, she has worked in a variety of settings providing skilled trauma-informed services to families, women and children. She offers clinical therapeutic services in Tigard, OR and enjoys working with a wide variety of issues including but not limited to: trauma, depression, anxiety, OCD, ADHD, perinatal/postpartum mood and anxiety disorders, infant loss, and fertility issues.
She received her Masters of Social Work degree at California State University, Los Angeles in 2006. Her professional credentials include certification in Interpersonal Neurobiology through Portland State University and is Ample & Rooted trained.
Additionally, she has had the honor of presenting at several professional conferences focused on Neonatal Intensive Care Unit experiences, neuroscience & birth trauma, and behavioral health counseling in school based health centers.
She is an anti-racist, LGBTQ+ affirming, and HAES provider.
(J): Thank you so much for being here with us dear listeners! This season has been deeply moving for us. We can’t wait to share our reflections in our wrap-up episode in two weeks!
[5:18]
Jen:
We are so excited to have our friends, Lisa Daughters, she/her, and Fawn McCool, she/her, here again for a part two and our last guest interview of the season. Yay. Welcome.
Fawn:
Yay.
Jen:
We are obsessed and delighted with you two and are so excited. We’re all together in the same space again. How are you two doing today, Lisa and Fawn?
Fawn:
How are you, Lisa?
Lisa:
I’m pretty good. I got my boosty deluxe COVID yesterday with my flu shot, but I’m surprisingly energized today. I don’t feel like I did after some of them, so pretty good. I had my birthday a couple of days ago.
Fawn:
Yes, happy birthday.
Lisa:
Thank you.
Jen:
Happy belated.
Lisa:
I’m all settled in my new house. I mean, mostly settled, so I’m pretty good. I’m good.
Jen:
That’s lovely. How about you, Fawn?
Fawn:
Yay. I’m okay. I was telling everyone earlier that I am in a lot of pain with my back today, but I am living for the future, because I just booked a cabin in Mount Rainier National Park to go… It’s an A-frame because I have to live my most influencer life with my private Instagram account.
Jen:
Obviously.
Fawn:
At peak fall foliage, we’re going in October, first week of October. I’ve got to figure out this back pain before then. But I am, yeah, doing okay [inaudible] tomorrow, I guess.
[7:08]
Jen:
That’s so awesome. Yeah. Since we don’t share the video of this, I just loved how when Chavonne was introducing you both. You both took a lovely big old swig of coffee while I did the same. I just thought that was awesome. It was a great moment. I love it. We’re picking up where we left off last time and exploring some more in conversation together. The first question is about the second part of our name of our podcast, which is the Rest of Us. What does the Rest of Us mean to each of you? How do you identify within the Rest of Us? We’d also love for you to both share your pronouns and name your privileged identities in context hereto.
Lisa:
I’m going to leave it.
Fawn:
Go for Lisa. You go. I feel like I did all the talking. I was so emotional last time.
Jen:
No, I think you both shared the time together beautifully.
Lisa:
My interpretation of the Rest of Us is the experience of just feeling othered. I mean, to me, that’s what it sounds like. For me, personally, I mean, I’ve been fat my whole life, so that’s always been a pretty substantial one. Then also, my trauma always kind of set me apart and made me feel like I had things that I was aware of or dealing with or struggling with that other people didn’t. Just the sense of when there’s a narrative, when there’s an experience that is shared by a majority, there’s something about it that feels not aligned or not resonant. That’s what the Rest of Us sounds like to me.
My pronouns are she/her. Definitely, I benefit from white privilege, and in previous parts of my life, had a lot more financial stability and socioeconomics privilege that set me up for things that I benefit from now. And cisgender privilege, I have that working for me. But also, I am part of the queer community. The more that comes out about the expansive galaxy of neurodivergence, the more, I’m pretty sure, I’m somewhere there. Although I think at this moment in history, we don’t have all the language or terms for it yet.
I have some disabilities that I manage and are part of everything that I do. I always feel like that gets a little missed in conversations. It’s sometimes when I find myself skipping over, when I’m struggling with comparing myself to other parents or things that other people are able to accomplish, I sometimes forget about my own physical limitations. I think that, yeah. Did I answer the question? I forgot.
Jen:
Yes.
Lisa:
I like to talk myself into this prose where I’m talking and then I’m like, “Wait, what was the question again?”
Fawn:
Well, this question’s so funny because it’s about the rest of us, which is like, “What does that mean?” But then, it’s also about rest. I am not the leader of the podcast, but here I am asking you questions. [inaudible] here.
Jen:
Do it. Do it.
Lisa:
Love it.
Fawn:
But I’m so curious about rest for you, Lisa, just because I’m so curious about rest for everybody. I love how all your other guests name that rest of us and rest is all in and they speak to that. I’m curious about you and rest as a single mom who works real hard. What’s the Reba McEntire… (singing).
Jen:
(singing)
Lisa:
(singing) Yeah, I’ve heard of rest. I have heard of it as a concept.
Jen:
I know. I don’t get a lot of it.
Fawn:
(singing)
Lisa:
Yeah. No, I don’t get a lot of rest. I find myself creating life in a very slow and busy, at the same time, pace because of that, because I don’t really get downtime. I don’t get a lot of time without my kiddo. That means that every day is just structured around trying. When can I get things done when she’s not here? And when she is here, how am I creating space to be engaged with her or connected with her? My rest is really between the hour from when she goes to bed to whenever I can drag myself to bed.
There’s always a negotiation between how much mental decompression do I need, how much emotional processing do I need. Can I fit in a chat with a friend to process in that time? The rest of the day is managing care for everyone in the whole world, including me, all my pets and my kiddo and my clients and just life and all the demands of that. So, rest is something hard one. When I do get it, I have to really think about managing different needs because the weekend comes around and it’s not really rest, because I’m then managing my kid full time and no breaks. But I have to work in social needs and emotional needs and all of those things too, so it’s just a tough balance. I really try to create a slow pace in my day because of that.
I really am protective of my time, and I don’t schedule more than hopefully one task per day besides work, because I have to be mindful of my energy levels and how my lungs are doing that day, and all the things that I’m going to have to do later in the day to keep up with my daughter. And so, it’s this weird mix of I try to keep the day slow and gentle, and that’s because I don’t have big chunks of break or rest.
Jen:
I love that. Thanks for asking that, Fawn.
Fawn:
I wonder if that’s a common experience of moms in bodies that either have chronic pain or disabled or just bigger bodies with this management of energy. I never had that before having children. And then, it’s like, “I don’t know if I want to do that.” I need to manage my energy, because, damn, their energy goes on forever.
Jen:
It never stops. It truly never ends.
Lisa:
Yeah, it’s a real challenge because I am just a lower energy vibe always and forever. I have to fight a lot with my programming, capitalist programming around productivity, and then mom pressure and mom guilt about being the superstar mom and being the fun mom. Because unfortunately, as a single parent, I’ve got to do all the hard stuff. The play is not as accessible because it takes up all of my energy to do the caretaking and bill paying and the decision making. I sometimes grieve about my lack of access to being able to have more fun with her or having more energy. In a weird way, I’m really grateful that, I don’t know if this is the right wording, but my mom was disabled. My mom had MS. And so, I don’t have this epic example of some mom who did it all, or who was out there being super mom, or who was actively engaged with me all the time.
Certainly, there’s trauma around that, but also the reminders that even there are all kinds of parents. It is a little bit of a challenge because my daughter’s other parent is sort of happy, fun time parent. My daughter’s four, of course, is like, “They’re the fun one. They’re the fun parent.” Every time I’m like, “No. Okay. Yep. Okay.” I’m the stable parent. I’m the reliable parent. And so, I’m not super, super on the ground rolling around. We’re not playing games actively. But finding acceptance of that identity because it means kindness for my other realities for the reality of everything that I’m carrying has been an important part of embracing rest and being okay with just offering her what I have to offer.
Fawn:
Have you guys read the book, the emotional parent book? What’s it called? The Emotionally Immature Parents?
Jen:
Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.
Fawn:
Adult Children.
Jen:
Oh yeah, adult. Yeah.
Fawn:
I’m so relieved that they named Disney Dad in here because that can really be a mind F for a kid to grow up with a parent that’s like that. And then, Reba McEntire over here as a mom, and I love that they name in this book, it’s an emotional immaturity to not set your kid up for life in that way and to just show up as jazz hand’s parent.
Lisa:
But then the jazz hand parent leaves, and I’ve got to find the doctor and I’ve got to brush the teeth and school.
Fawn:
We’ll just give this to your daughter, this book [inaudible].
Lisa:
The irony of the inception, the therapy section moment is I gave that book to my daughter’s other parent.
Jen:
Nice.
Fawn:
Look, you’re in here. Did you know they wrote [inaudible]? You’re famous.
Lisa:
I was like, “Hey, you might benefit from this.”
Fawn:
Did you sign my copy?
Jen:
Yeah, I’ve added a couple tabs just to take a look.
Lisa:
Check out this section.
Fawn:
It’s about you.
Lisa:
I don’t have any delusions that they’re going to read it.
Fawn:
Maybe next year, you could try the audio version.
Lisa:
We did it. Yeah. We gifted the book. Yeah.
Fawn:
Cliff notes the following year.
Jen:
I love the transparency and honesty in that. It’s tickling me just because it’s so real. Yeah. How about you, Fawn? How about the rest of us and where you find yourself, and the question that you asked about resting?
Fawn:
Yeah. I suffer from hot mom privilege.
Jen:
I love you.
Fawn:
Yeah.
Jen:
Okay. We all do.
Fawn:
I’m actually quite surprised you didn’t name that, so we’ll just start off with that. No, I mean, I have a lot of privilege, and I need to remember that on days when it gets so hard. But I have white privilege. I think I’m upper class, which is wild since we live paycheck to paycheck, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it is. Cis female in a hetero relationship, so there’s a lot of privilege. We also have a daughter who’s disabled. Some days, that makes me feel so unprivileged. But even that comes with some privilege, because we do have extra help because of that disability, because I know a lot of people who don’t quite make the threshold and don’t have that help. I don’t know what we do, because it’s, honestly, not even enough. I’m also neurodivergent. I have ADHD, which can be a lot of fun, but oh so taxing.
Jen:
Exhausting.
Fawn:
It’s exhausting. To think of the idea of rest as an ADHD parent, and I have two children with ADHD. The third is TBD, but I don’t know that she stands a chance in this family just because nature and nurture. But yeah, rest as a neurodivergent mom with trauma is really hard. I’m pretty sure my mom definitely is undiagnosed ADHD. If it’s not that, it’s personality disorder, and it might be both, but she worked nonstop. I remember being a kid, some of our trauma was moments where it was like, “You will not sleep until your room is clean.” I’d fall asleep on the floor, and she’d come in and wake me up. I would just be so tired and just begging for rest. It was like, “No,” just because… Or homework. I had an to write for a newspaper as a child, and she would not let me go to sleep until it was perfect. I’d have to do it over and over and over and essentially stay up with her past midnight until she decided to write it herself.
Rest was never taught to us. I think because she didn’t know how either. She was neurodivergent. She was the breadwinner in our family. She had trauma from that, I’m sure. But it’s really… I also think, I don’t know how you guys feel being business owners yourselves, but I also own my own practice and that provides me with so much safety because relationships in the workplace, when you’re neurodivergent, are scary to me. I’ve had a lot of relationship trauma in the workplace from people who are just judgmental or unkind or have not been supportive of my needs as a mom, especially mom to disabled child or child with a disability. But there’s so much safety in owning my own practice, and also, it comes with so much extra work.
You don’t ever mentally rest because there’s always charting or billing or patients to call or crises, and it’s just you. Or the mental storm of, “Why did fucking I say that?” Or, “How do I repair this?” Yeah, rest is, for me, I need to get out of… Rest doesn’t happen in the home, because the home is where I work, the home is where I raise my children, the home is where I do all the cooking, cleaning, laundry. It’s never clean. So, rest comes to me out there. I was just telling you guys that I booked a cabin in Mount Rainier. Rest to me is adventure, which sounds so ass backwards, but that’s what it is.
Jen:
My brain totally gets-
Lisa:
Actually for ADHD, that totally tracks, right?
Jen:
Yeah, totally.
Fawn:
It’s so regulating to be adventuring, even with three kids. For me, my rest is going to be using our disability hours and taking my nanny with me, so I don’t have to solo adventure in a national park with my three girls, because my husband’s rest is not being on an adventure. Rest for him is being quiet and listening to a podcast about the world ending.
Jen:
Or the Roman Empire?
Fawn:
No, I don’t know. That’s good. Not him, but that’s interesting.
Jen:
It’s the latest ridiculous trend to ask. Well, mostly white men who are cis heteronormative in their relationships, if they think how often they think about the Roman Empire, and it’s a lot.
Fawn:
I bet he would say zero times a day, but that’s really interesting.
Jen:
It was just a joke. It’s just-
Fawn:
Oh, okay.
Jen:
There’s no way that I can-
Fawn:
It’s not on the TikTok. I don’t get this.
Jen:
It’s very TikTok.
Lisa:
I heard it on… Wait, don’t tell me, because that’s [inaudible].
Jen:
Yep. They’re talking about it on podcasts now. And then, there’s also what is the equivalent for people who would consider themselves female or femme, and it’s a huge array of things. It’s endless things. I just think that’s… But even if it’s not the Roman Empire, it’s something.
Fawn:
Yeah.
Jen:
Mine said yesterday, “Why do you ask?”
Lisa:
It’s [inaudible] system. [inaudible]. I think about constantly.
Jen:
The postal system? Tell me more
Lisa:
Constantly. It’s just like, “How do you get…” This is so unhelpful. This is nothing about embodiment, but [inaudible].
Fawn:
This is very helpful.
Lisa:
[inaudible] this piece of mail and it gets somewhere. How long does it stay in one place, and then someone has to do something at night, and it goes here, and then it has to be… I’m sorry. I think about it constantly. I truly do.
Fawn:
I love it. My neighbor is a night manager at the post office, and I have known him for about 20 years. I may or may not have asked endless questions throughout that period of time.
Jen:
That’s [inaudible].
Lisa:
[inaudible]. It’s fascinating. It’s truly fascinating to me. That’s my Roman Empire.
Fawn:
I just also appreciate the fashion involved with the post office. The hat wear. UPS doesn’t have-
Lisa:
[inaudible] yeah.
Fawn:
… those hats. It’s really top notch.
Jen:
Yeah. Driving on the other side of each vehicle, I find it all fascinating.
Lisa:
I just came out of war with the post office.
Fawn:
Uh-oh.
Lisa:
Because there was beef between the builder and the postal service, the postal service didn’t want to acknowledge our street.
Jen:
I remember that.
Lisa:
They were telling the builder that all these addresses were just wrong and that we don’t exist here. And then, the builder said that the land bureau or something had to get involved, and it was like a war. It took me almost a month to get access to my mail.
Jen:
Wow. Oh my goodness.
Lisa:
[inaudible]. Wow.
Jen:
I called this US Post Office purgatory. I’ve moved many, many times in my life, and one of them was to a brand new apartment. No one had ever lived in it, and they were like, “You don’t exist.” I was like, “I’m here, and there was a mailman here earlier. I exist, and you know we exist.” They’re like, “But in the system, it doesn’t exist.” I’m like, “How can we…” This was a long time ago. This is pre-internet, anything helpful time, maybe 2001. But you couldn’t just call. Also, the phone number wasn’t readily available. I had to go to the post office and argue with them and then argue with the postman. It’s not fun. No. It’s a little easier now.
Fawn:
So much easier just to hack in the system and add your address.
Lisa:
Is it? Can you do that for me?
Fawn:
I don’t personally have the skills, but my husband might actually think about that. I wouldn’t say he would [inaudible].
Jen:
Yeah. I was going to think about my partner. I wonder if what… Yeah, my partner would be thinking about some hack, how something is being used behind the scenes. I think this is very embodiment-related because a post office purgatory affects our embodiment.
Lisa:
It sure does, because…
Jen:
[inaudible] affects our embodiment.
Lisa:
Because access to things, right? I am in this little town where there aren’t that many… There isn’t that much. There aren’t many resources. A lot of it had to come through the mail, but it was all getting lost in the world. There’s all these items that are just lost in the world somewhere.
Jen:
That’s so frustrating.
Lisa:
Which is wild. But I was going to say that for femme people, I wonder if this is just me. Chavonne’s is the postal service. Mine is, I heard someone else say this on the TikTok was…
Jen:
The TikToks. Sorry.
Lisa:
Or the [inaudible] was your ex best friend.
Jen:
Yeah. Oh, that one.
Lisa:
How true that is? Okay. I get that. I get that hard. You were saying about workplace relationships as someone who’s [inaudible]. I think relationships… Here I am in my ripe old age of 42 years old, and I still feel like I have no idea anymore. Just having had so many relationships that felt… Each time you are doing better or trying to do better, as you learn and grow and overcome your own traumas and try to learn your own patterns and try to build better relationships, and to still see them crash and burn, or people that you really love and end up severed from or whatever is… I don’t know. There’s a grief about that. I think about that more than I think about ex-partners or… You know what I mean? I am haunted by those. And I think if there was a version of the Roman Empire, for me, it would be that,
Jen:
Yeah. Mine is also, how will I be murdered or kidnapped today?
Fawn:
Well, that’s a fun one though.
Jen:
Yeah. Well, I lived by myself for much of my adult life, so it’s just part of that package in the world we live in. I’ve also seen particular ice dancing routines that people have shown, which are [inaudible] to me.
Lisa:
As getting murdered? No, I’m sorry.
Fawn:
Is that the same? [inaudible]?
Lisa:
Murder while ice dancing.
Jen:
Yeah, it’s the same topic. What do people think about? As you were talking, I was like, “Oh, are you going to talk about processing conversations that you had earlier today?” Because, Fawn, you did a nod to that earlier. I’m like, “I’m always processing what I already said.”
Lisa:
Constantly.
Jen:
But ice dancing, what is going on on the ice? People are just saying, this is what I submit as what the femmes are thinking about. And so, it’s been ice dancing. It’s been the, oh, triangle shirt, waist fire. That is the reason that we have…
Lisa:
Oh, yes, the shirt.
Jen:
I can never remember what it is.
Lisa:
Triangle, factory, shirt, waist, something.
Jen:
Fire.
Lisa:
All those words put together-
Jen:
Yeah, whatever.
Lisa:
… that would be.
Jen:
I bring this up, because I think it’s fascinating because… What this is often describing as a collective embodiment and consciousness experience, because we can relate to a lot of these. I also find it very interesting that for those socialized as femme, we are hypervigilant about an incredible number of things. The list is not just one thing, right? We are socialized to constantly be making sure no one is going to harm us, no one’s orienting to us. What’s the energy like? We just have this traumatic informed experience of what is going to go south in this. Like in the beginning of the pandemic whenever, and even earlier, when everyone was really interested in serial murders, that podcast serial, anything, all the shows that came out, anything like that. It’s just stuff that we’re already hypervigilant about.
I had an interesting, this is a little bit of a tangent, but I’m going to speak to the embodiment of this, because I have a very recent experience. There’s something happening in someone’s personal life, very close to me. I used a skill that I learned on a murder mystery show to see if someone had gotten into my bag. I took a bright orange EXPO marker. It was a tote, so I tied it and I stuck the EXPO marker in there so that when I came back, I could see if someone had messed with stuff and retied it, because it would be lower in the bag. I came back and it was at the bottom of the bag. It’s an ongoing situation. It means they went through my bag. Yeah. I also have other proof that they went through her bag, but it’s just like they’re-
Fawn:
[inaudible]. You’ve got teenagers in your house, yes?
Jen:
Yeah. Well, young adults.
Fawn:
This is a skill that parents of teenagers need to acquire. I worry I’m going to be the worst parent of a teen because I would not catch that stuff. The shuffling through the stuff, I’d be like, “I lost it.”
Jen:
My sister and I have joked since we were in our teens when we learned that there was a job called a continuity expert in TV and film, where you have to re-setup the shot exactly. Because all our brains do when we’re watching stuff is we’re like, “That glass was half full before. Why is there only a drop in there?”
Fawn:
That’s my partner. He’s the continuity expert of the household. He’ll be like, “This got moved.” I’m like, “Are you kidding? I don’t even know when this came into our home, what the name of it is, why is it here. Let’s just throw it out.” I could not, my brain doesn’t work like that. I wonder how-
Jen:
I can’t stop my brain.
Fawn:
I’m curious of the things we think about shift based on whether or not we’re on TikTok, because I am not on the Tok.
Lisa:
I’m not either.
Fawn:
Luckily, I get them sent to me-
Jen:
Except what I send you. Exactly.
Fawn:
[inaudible].
Jen:
Whenever I send y’all. [inaudible].
Fawn:
You guys, I’ve made it this long. There’s no way. But I wonder how that changes, because I do not think about ice dancing murders or really, my thoughts are so revolved around children and work, and that’s really it. And then, maybe a songs that gets stuck in, but-
Jen:
I literally sent you one to watch later.
Fawn:
[inaudible]. Okay. Do you think it shifts based on what is being flooded into your conscience? Also, how can I take down Noom on social media? That comes up a lot as they’re [inaudible].
Jen:
Oh, there are people trying. Yeah, they’re trying. It is algorithmic in nature. Whatever I, or recently, my little nibbling, my youngest nibbling was like, “Oh, I love it,” and would hit the love button, and then say share it with the world, which means repost it. My algorithm currently is the silliest things you could possibly imagine. I literally just texted you all one that I laughed about for over an hour last night. I was supposed to be trying to go to sleep, but I was just laughing. Just could not stop laughing. It’s someone trying to pronounce words, but they have a very thick accent, and English is not their first language, and they do it on purpose. It’s like on a podcast. They’re doing it to share with the world. It is, oh my gosh, I can’t wait till you see it.
But anyway, the algorithm, I think, can really affect things. If I like current events, if I just keep doing it, suddenly every time I open it, it’s current events. I don’t use TikTok for that. I use it to go to sleep at night as a neurodivergent person, because it loops. Once I just flip through things until I find someone talking, I mean, it could be about any topic, music, whatever the topic is on there that I’m like, “Ooh.” It hits this particular level in me that I’m like, “If I just turn down the volume a little, I’m going to be asleep in five minutes.” I just find this spot, which I assume is what happens to people who aren’t neurodivergent, that they could just go to bed, but I can’t.
I’m replaying the day. I’m doing all of these things we’re talking about. What was that conversation? What do I need to do tomorrow? It’s just this anxious mess of stuff. But if I just watch TikTok, boom, asleep. My partner comes in and he says it’s often blaring, just something repeating over and over. It’s just like, because I start it really loud, and then I find the groove and I turn it down, but it’s still pretty loud. I can just go to sleep to it, but he has to turn it off. He goes to bed hours after me.
Fawn:
[inaudible] bedtime time-
Jen:
… but he has to turn it off. He goes to bed hours after me.
Fawn:
You have to get a bedtime timer. I set my timer to shut it all off. Show of hands-
Jen:
Can you do that on the phone?
Fawn:
Yes.
Jen:
Yeah.
Fawn:
You just go to timer, you set a timer for however many minutes, I do 30. And then you just do, turn it off. The alarm is stopped, just shuts it all off, essentially.
Jen:
Thank you. Had no idea.
Fawn:
It says when timer ends, stop playing. Just out of curiosity, do any of you all go to bed without tech? Who goes to bed without tech?
Chavonne:
I don’t. I do.
Jen:
What is your nighttime routine?
Chavonne:
That’s not real. Oh… [inaudible]
Fawn:
What do you do?
Chavonne:
So, I can’t go to sleep with sound. I cannot. So, I turn everything off by 9:00, and all of my screens go off by 9:00, if not, sooner. And I read. What’s it?
Jen:
Like a book?
Fawn:
On paper?
Jen:
Like a physical book?
Fawn:
Turn pages?
Chavonne:
No. Okay, so I guess that’s tech. Because what I use the blue screen timer. That’s tech, isn’t it?
Jen:
That’s tech.
Chavonne:
It’s different somehow because I’m not [inaudible] out. Well, no, because if I have a physical book, then the lamp has to be on. Okay, nevermind.
Fawn:
Oh it’s so annoying, those lamps.
Jen:
I appreciate this though because, well, you’re talking about lack of sound and distractions. For me to be on TikTok, my phone has to be on do not disturb, because if things come in while I’m doing that, I’ll just be clicking and just endlessly doing things. So I have to have no new incoming anything that’s possible. It’s just me and TikTok.
Fawn:
No, going to bed without tech is a vibe. It’s like a nineties vibe and I’m here for it when we leave the house.
Jen:
It’s a nice little, yes, I can do it when not at home. That’s a great point. I can do it when I’m visiting other places when I’m on vacation, if I’m in the middle of the wilderness, I have no need for it whatsoever. I’m on a totally different wavelength, but in my own house and in my daily life, it’s a must. I used to have incredible insomnia that I could not get out of, there was nothing that I could do. And then I used to scroll Twitter and just try to read on dark mode until my eyes got tired. But if I read a book, I go to bed really fast and then I wake up for three hours. I have this hard to stay asleep thing or I used to-
Fawn:
This is why rest is getting out of the house. You need to fall asleep dreaming about how the owls are going to kill you.
Jen:
Yes, or in an experience I had as a child, my mom had told us a story of camping from her childhood about they put a tarp up and they used to sleep on the ground, like old school seventies camping. We don’t even need a tent, we’re just going to sleep on the ground. And it was in a squirrel’s territory. And so it came onto the tarp in the middle of the night and was screaming. My mom was imitating the sound. We were in Sequoia National Forest. It’s like when I was in third grade and overnight you could hear some animals screaming at each other. So we’re like, oh, “Oh that’s just squirrels.” No, it was bears on some cabin’s porch fighting over their food.
Chavonne:
[inaudible] tend to sleep outside.
Jen:
Well, we were in a cabin, thank goodness, but we all went back to sleep because we were like, “Whatever, it’s a squirrel.” It’s very easy to sleep in those kinds of-
Fawn:
No, it’s cocaine bear. IRL.
Chavonne:
That movie traumatized me.
Fawn:
I have not seen it. I will not see it.
Jen:
I do not recommend it. It’s not as funny as described and it has very violent, traumatizing scenes that I did not expect. I was like, “Oh, that’s so funny.”
Chavonne:
Yeah, when you texted and said you’re going to watch it, I was like, “Oh, enjoy.”
Jen:
I know. And then I said, “Do not watch. I do not recommend. I regret it.”
Fawn:
[inaudible] spray work on cocaine bear? If a bear is on the cocaine?
Jen:
It doesn’t.
Fawn:
If that bear was neuro divergent and they were on cocaine, they’d be chill AF. So that’s obviously a neuro typical bear. So the bear spray does not work on a bear that’s- okay, that’s good to know.
Jen:
And in New Mexico, bear spray doesn’t necessarily work on anyone because we have really spicy food here. Even bears are accustomed to eating our spicy food. So for example, your basic mace doesn’t work on a person. You’re supposed to use bear freshers spray on a person because it doesn’t work.
Fawn:
Oh, that is wild. Well, I live in Oregon where there’s long histories of racism, lots of racism up here. So I think our bears might, they might take to the spray, but that is truly wild.
Lisa:
I’m just going to make a note that we have bears here because I did not-
Chavonne:
Yeah, well- Oh God, [inaudible]
Fawn:
Don’t you have cobra’s?
Chavonne:
Sneak in my garage just a few weeks ago.
Fawn:
I think the snakes
The bears, they just want your food, the snakes, they just want to-
Jen:
Don’t tell my partner if I-
Lisa:
They just want to live their life [inaudible]. That’s what they want. They want to live their life.
Fawn:
They bite you and kill you.
Chavonne:
Exactly. I was ready to move. I was ready to set my house on fire and move and I didn’t even see it. And my husband told me and I was like, I can’t. I’ve seen one in the house, but-
Jen:
What kind of snake?
Chavonne:
Someone asked me that and I was like, I don’t know. A snake [inaudible] told me. I’m sorry, [inaudible].
Jen:
I’m going to have to Google it.
Chavonne:
I don’t know. I’ll ask him.
Jen:
Well, we have rattlesnakes, we have garter snakes, we have gopher snakes. If my partners-
Chavonne:
First one is gopher. I know the next one is a gopher.
Jen:
If my partner’s listening, we’re talking about snakes. We’ll have to put a trigger warning.
Chavonne:
Sorry. Warning snakes.
Jen:
We have a park right by our house, we have another one that we literally drive our dog to because we just need to escape all the aggressive other dog owners and be alone. And deer come with regularity to eat the crab apples right now. So we’re at the park and there’s just deer at the park.
Chavonne:
There’s bobcats in my, well, my mom thinks I live in the wild, wild west, but there’s bobcats in our yard. There’s all kinds of stuff.
Jen:
Yeah. We have a gray fox that’s going between, my parents live across the street.
Lisa:
What, there’s fox here too?
Jen:
We have a gray fox.
Chavonne:
There’s everything.
Jen:
They’re so cute. Their tail is bigger than their body. They’re teeny little foxes. They’re so cute.
Chavonne:
[inaudible] breathing.
Lisa:
I’m going to become a weird wild forest person here, even though [inaudible], and I’m just going to be collecting all of these creatures out here.
Fawn:
I love this season for you, it’s your snow-white season.
Lisa:
That’s my goal because I really-
Chavonne:
Yeah, we’ll take you far enough northwest and we’ll get you in the forest. There’s forests.
Lisa:
Yeah. I really like to be in the forest, but in lieu of that, I can still just have a lot of creatures.
Chavonne:
Correct.
Jen:
Yeah, absolutely.
Fawn:
Just don’t bring bear spray. It won’t work. You’re going to have to up your game.
Jen:
Yeah. We have to do the things that scare them. Smack sticks above our head, don’t run away, slowly back away, scream at them until they walk away. We can’t use-
Lisa:
They’re just going to eat me. I can’t even imagine that I’d be able to do any of that. I’m so terrified just thinking of it. I’m sweaty [inaudible].
Fawn:
Guys, when I was postpartum with Siersha, so she was born in 2017. My husband was on night shift, and I took the girls hiking at Cooper at this park nearby and we had just had really bad forest fire, so the animals were just very confused. And so I had Siersha in a sling and Ala on a scooter next to me. And I look over and there’s a mountain lion just within feet. And I was just like, “Okay, which one do I offer up?” This is Sophie’s choice. It was just like, okay-
Lisa:
The slower one, the answer is the slower one.
Fawn:
It was the scariest thing ever. It took me a long time to go hiking again in that forest.
Jen:
Oh, I bet.
Fawn:
Cougars are hard-
Lisa:
I think where y’all are going wrong is that you’re going, you’re very ambitious, you’re out there doing, I not you Shavonne. This-
Fawn:
You’re going outside Shavonne, you’re not ambitious at all.
Lisa:
This is your house. But I-
Chavonne:
You can still see my car. It’s not too far from my car.
Lisa:
I’m not going to go where the mountain lions are. If they come to me, I can see if they find me, if they come to my house for care and affection, then we know we’re going to be friends. If they just stumble upon each other in the woods, then who knows what’s going to happen.
Jen:
Yeah, that’s why I always use a walking stick on a hike so that I can at least keep distance for me at the very least. I usually have two, but I can smack them together to make some sound. It doesn’t work with a mountain lion. You’re supposed to just-
Chavonne:
Cracking up at which kid do you give?
Jen:
Yeah. Yes.
Chavonne:
This one’s nice and juicy, this one one might run.
Jen:
Yeah, that’s like that classic joke.
Fawn:
Just take them both.
Jen:
Yeah. It’s the classic joke, I don’t have to outrun the animal, I just have to outrun you. Let’s be clear.
Fawn:
Well then that leaves me. I would definitely be-
Jen:
I always find things like the Hunger Games or any other sort of apocalyptic thing very, very honest or Walking Dead where they eventually turn on each other. It’s very honest, because they’re like I just need to be faster than you. They’re the one that’s left behind, not me. I find that very honest and hilarious.
Lisa:
I am never going hiking with you. Just-
Chavonne:
You can go with me. You can go with me.
Lisa:
I’m never going with Jen.
Chavonne:
[inaudible] I take lots of breaks.
Jen:
Well, so do I. And I’m actually like-
Lisa:
No you already said, I already know-
Jen:
I’m the mom of a hike.
Lisa:
You’ll front of the mountain lion.
Fawn:
First she’ll try to use her poles and then-
Chavonne:
First I’ll use- Exactly. There’s an order.
Fawn:
Literally just last case scenario here.
Lisa:
And then she’ll trip me with that pole and then be like, bye.
Jen:
I’ll leave you with one of them so you can defend yourself.
Fawn:
That’s so nice. See, she’s a giver.
Jen:
I’m compassionate.
Chavonne:
She’s a giver.
Fawn:
She’s not going to leave you with nothing, you’ll at least have a pole.
Jen:
We believe in minimizing harm, I’m not going to leave you with nothing.
Lisa:
Right. Okay.
Fawn:
So workplace relationships being traumatic, it makes me feel, by the way, very validated hearing that I’m not the only one that’s experienced that. Especially-
Jen:
I’m unemployable. I work for myself for a reason.
Lisa:
Truly sorry to my current employer, but I’m not a good employee, I’m just not. I have a hard time follow rules, I have a hard time when there’s like, “Oh, here’s this thing that we’re doing.” And I’m like, “Mmm, are we?
Chavonne:
As a current employer, I-
Jen:
As your current employer?
Chavonne:
Somebody’s, [inaudible] to most of my people [inaudible] I’m like, well, why?
Lisa:
Well, why though?
Chavonne:
So it’s all about why though, I love that. That’s one of my favorite, that little kid, the crowns. Like why though? I’m like, it makes me laugh every time. Yeah, it’s about don’t make too many rules, people just do what they need to do. Don’t be a terrible human being. And hypothetically, a person who worked for me would do.
Jen:
Hypothetically-
Lisa:
I’m a double Virgo and I am half Italian, and that means that I never forget when something goes wrong. So my previous boss chose this new EHR that ruined my whole life, and I will never forget it. I’m going to write it somewhere someday in, I’m going to have it written in my obituary, how much I hated that EHR. I can’t let it go, I’ll never let it go. And if there was ever, I behaved for the most part, like I did as much as I could do, but there were just lines I wasn’t going to cross because I didn’t choose this EHR you did, and it was a bad choice and I’m never going to forget about it. And that’s the kind of employee I am.
Fawn:
But I love it when people start on a conversation with the label and then they’ll tell you what that label means. And it just means I will never forget the EHR. That’s what it means to be a double Virgo slash Italian.
Lisa:
I’m a Virgo son rising, and I’m half Italian. It means that I will never forget. And it means that then when other people in a workplace, for example, are talking about weather or cupcakes or what their kids did, I’m sitting there going, “But you also hate this EHR, let’s be honest. Can you please just be honest with me? Can we just please talk about this?” And then other people are like, “Can you move on?” And I’m like, “No.”
Fawn:
Not until the EHR is gone.
Lisa:
Especially not if you’re only going to talk about weather and cupcakes.
Fawn:
Cupcakes should get a pass, really. That’s an important conversation. But the weather, when there’s a bad EHR-
Jen:
Muffins.
Chavonne:
Muffins, cupcakes.
Lisa:
Fine. But immediately following that, I need to have that acknowledged. And so then I have a history of workplace relationships where I have big feelings about something and then everybody else thinks that I am ridiculous and crazy. But here’s what I’ve noticed is that then roughly 6 to 12 to 18 months later, then everybody else is complaining about the thing that I was already complaining about.
Jen:
Always me too.
Lisa:
Always.
Jen:
Always.
Lisa:
After the fact. Then later they’re like, “Oh yeah, that person was a problem, or this thing didn’t work, or that was really frustrating.” And I was like, “Hello, here I was saying it the whole time and y’all acted like I was nutty.”
Fawn:
I’m always the first one to leave a sinking ship, always. And then it goes down in flames.
Lisa:
I’m like indignant about it and frustrated. And everyone’s like, Lisa’s so dramatic. Guess what happens? Guess what? I’m right. And I’m over here, but nobody wants to, there’s tension sometimes. And that’s so I’ve chilled out. I want my current employer now, I have chilled out a little bit because-
Fawn:
Low energy, but don’t fuck with her EHR.
Lisa:
Well, it was bad. It’s really bad.
Jen:
I totally get it. It’s destabilizing to your purpose.
Lisa:
I’ve been a therapist for 12 years and I’ve never in my 12 years had an EHR this awful.
Chavonne:
You did bring it up during our first meeting, I think, which one do you use? Because I can’t do this.
Lisa:
I was like, tell me right now, just tell me because if it’s this, I’m out. I’m out. I’m not doing it.
Fawn:
This podcast is sponsored by [inaudible]. Let you down.
Jen:
I totally get it, I use one that is the most neuro divergently aligned with my executive functioning aids.
Lisa:
Do you guys remember when I told you about the time that I staged a full-blown protest in a meeting and I tore off a fake dress? Do you remember that story?
Fawn:
No.
Jen:
Yes.
Chavonne:
No.
Jen:
I do.
Fawn:
Tell it again.
Lisa:
It was because they were implementing this suicide prevention protocol that I was like, this completely undermines my expertise, all of my training and takes up so much of my time, and these are really talking down to these clients. The questions were really oversimplified and the people who needed more care would know how to evade those questions and the people who didn’t would know how to manipulate. It was just a complete and utter bureaucratic waste of time. And I was so furious about it. And I knew they were going to have this meeting and be like, “Well, y’all have to do the thing.” And I was just full of rage about it. And I said that I would rather tear off my clothes and run naked from the building, then sit through the meeting. And one of my colleagues said, “Why don’t you?” And I said, “I don’t want to be arrested.” So they’re like, “What if we made you a little paper dress and you could tear it off?”
Fawn:
Was your colleague also a double Virgo with Italian heritage?
Lisa:
No.
Fawn:
Okay, just checking.
Lisa:
No, they were just, I think kind of, you know someone who kind of pokes and then sits backs and watches the thing. That’s what was happening.
Fawn:
Oh, I watched a lot of real housewives, I know those women.
Lisa:
So we didn’t have paper, so they got me a trash bag and we cut a hole in the top and the arms, and then I drew some flowers on the trash bag. And then I had this coworker next door that was like, “Here, this’ll help.” And she brought me flippers. I don’t know why she had these, she just had these, she was like, “Here, these will help.”
Fawn:
[inaudible] blow up kayak too.
Lisa:
And I don’t think she really even knew what was happening, she just was like, “I see you in a bag dress and here are your flippers.” And I said, “Yes.” So then we go into the meeting and I just am sitting in this room and then the managers come in and I’m in the bag dress and I’ve got flippers. And I think it really speaks to my presence in this entity because they just sort of looked and went and then try to have the meeting. And it was fine, until they said, “Okay, let’s talk about this thing.” And I went, ripped off the dress, and I kicked my flippers, as a form of protest. And I think it was just a pain for them because not too long after that I got placed at this offsite office. I’m sure it had nothing to do it.
Fawn:
The offsite office.
Lisa:
I’m sure it had nothing to do with it, but yeah. So that’s-
Fawn:
Were put in isolation.
Lisa:
Yeah, they put me in a third party situation where nobody had to deal with me directly, which was lovely for everyone involved. But it may or may not have had to do with the fact that I staged this little protest moment in this meeting because it was pretty unrecoverable. I mean, how do you come back from that and have a meeting? Do you know what I mean? So did I win the war? No, but did I derail the meeting completely? A hundred percent.
Jen:
Yeah. A little disruptor. Yeah.
Lisa:
Do you think that policy still exists? Probably not. It was dumb to begin with. It’s going to be a problem forever. It probably crashed and burned a few months later.
Fawn:
This is why I feel like anger is such an underrated emotion. If you weren’t showing up in this anger angry, like, “No, I’m going to actually stand up and have a thought about this and I’m going to put on a very dramatic whatever, TikTok worthy-” very creative by the way.
Lisa:
It’s benign mischief, right? Really nobody got hurt and nobody got insulted, but we all knew, everyone knew.
Fawn:
So how did your colleagues react? I find that people are so weird about angry women. People really don’t like anger. They get, so they will isolate the crap out of you if you show that you are angry. So how did, just out of curiosity, how they react to that?
Lisa:
Well, I mean I got on this train because we were talking about strained workplace relationships, and I just always felt, always felt [inaudible] and I always felt like, I don’t know, people looked at me and I don’t know if this is a fatness thing or if this is a neurodivergent thing or just I am pretty transparent about myself, but I just always have felt like people kind of infantalize me and don’t have a lot of tolerance for my frustrations or my anger.
I can’t remember if we touched on this last time, but when I said that the growing awareness of how fat phobia shows up in relationships for me has been a big thing. Because when I look back at relationships and I think about how often I got the message of being too much, too muchness, and I wonder when I look at other people being a lot in relationships, but being loved and devoted too, then either I have had a long string of people who don’t have a lot of capacity, which is entirely possible, but also I sometimes just wonder if there’s a sense of too muchness because I’m also fat, right?
I have a lot of feelings, I have a lot of thoughts, I’m not going to shut up about them, and also I happen to be fat and there’s some pressure to just take up less space. And so taking up space emotionally, asking for needs to be met and things like that have always been met with this message of too muchness. And I have pretty low tolerance for that at this point in life because I’m like, well then go find less. But I think the combination of being in a meeting and saying something and having what I say kind of dismissed or minimized or made to be that I am dramatic or that I am a baby is quite often the message I’ve gotten that I am immature.
And I don’t know that I know where that line is, but just finally at this point in life went, I think fatness is part of that because I’ve seen a lot of other particularly thin white women who can get away with a lot of big feelings and behavior that I could never get away with and going, “Well, I’m also a white woman, so what’s the difference except I’m fat.” So I think that’s part of it. I think that there’s a connection between the way that people experience me as too much emotionally or mentally or in my needs or in my expression with the fact that I’m in a bigger body. And it’s always been this kind of, being met with a little bit of seeing me as immature or childlike or slow.
Jen:
And that’s so interesting because children who are fat are often adultified. It’s like it switches at some point. It’s very interesting and hard and challenging, and I think really true that it’s codified that way by our standards in this society. Like you said “Find less.”
Lisa:
And I think that as a coping, as a safety mechanism, a lot of how I would show up was in trying to soften my presence by being funny or by being sparkly or by being-
Fawn:
Aerial, not Ursula.
Lisa:
Trying to be easy for people to be around.
Fawn:
Absolutely.
Chavonne:
And I don’t think that helped anything other than a sort of illusion of safety.
Fawn:
Well, that masking is so exhausting and it just bottles up. It’s not like that anger goes anywhere and it just bottles it all up.
Lisa:
People sort of sign this unwritten contract that this is who you are. And so then when you are more than that, suddenly you are too much. If you are entering into environments and relationships as this shrunken version, then when you aren’t that anymore, that’s not what they signed up for. And there is no space for that.
Fawn:
Yeah, this is so valid. Whenever that kind of shows up, I’m always like, whose energy is this? I don’t think anyone’s too much. I don’t think I’m too much if I’m not your style, okay, that’s fine. Yeah.
[1:01:15]
Chavonne:
Can I ask their next question? I’m loving this by the way, but can I, okay, so our next question is, so we all support people in private practice in some form or fashion. So how is supporting clients in private practice, how has it changed and challenged your own relationship with your embodiment? So what learning and unlearning feels like It was only possible because of the space you hold with and for your clients or patients and for yourselves in real time.
Lisa:
Okay, I’ll go. I think someone I didn’t actually like that much, but one time was sort of helping me learn and said that you’re sometimes only one page ahead in a book, then the people that you’re helping. And that released a lot of pressure to have the answers. And being in private practice and being in close relationship with people and their vulnerabilities and even the inherent vulnerabilities that I feel in being in that role. I think the collective picture, if you’re a pattern recognition person, then being in these quiet moments with people means that you’re seeing these patterns in people. These are individuals and they’re individual situations, and they’re individual struggles, but it’s not isolated from bigger systemic things. It’s the big systemic thing showing up in the individual’s experience. And so there’s something really, it feels almost sacred about seeing these patterns and being able to then say to people, “I’m in this unique position where I get to hear about all of the ways that these things that are out here that are talked about in big words and big conversations are actually present in your lives.”
And that means that, I don’t know, there’s a collective sense about it, something less isolated about that. And I think it helps make sense sometimes to just see the ways that people’s struggles are similar or whatever. And that offers a lot of validation and a lot of confidence in knowing that if I understand this, because seeing this in a lot of people, a lot of people dealing with relationship inequities and a lot of people dealing with the angst of living and the struggle to survive at this moment, and people with disabilities feeling abandoned and isolated and all of these things. But that leading me to learn so much more about so many more experiences that are also so connected, has felt just like I feel like one of the people that’s part of it, rather than this entity that’s out here so isolated.
Because I see how all of these different corners of the same struggles are showing up in people, and then I place myself in them and I see that I am, here are my things and here are their things, but we’re all kind of in it together. I don’t know if that makes any sense at all. That’s my experience.
Jen:
I love it. I think we’re very embodied when we’re absurd. That’s what I think. The silliest, most ridiculous version of us is such a great, solid coping skill.
Fawn:
[inaudible] that’s an important thing to say, Jen.
Chavonne:
Oh yeah. We’ll keep that. I’ll put it in there.
Jen:
What did I say?
Fawn:
That we’re really embodied when we’re being absurd because honestly, it’s a very unmasked moment. We need more women unmasked.
Chavonne:
Agreed.
Lisa:
I think it requires a certain, one thing that I think has been challenging is in all of the hustle and scramble and survival that I’ve had to be in the last year or two, is that’s what gets lost, it’s absurdity and play. Because I have to be so responsible and busy and on top of everything that what gets edged out is the capacity for the ridiculous and for fun. So I do think it’s exactly what you said, it is more embodied to be able to access that to be silly.
Fawn:
That’s what I think about anger too, it’s embodiment. Yeah. All of this takes a level of safety that I was looking up that Barbie speech actually, right when you switched questions like that monologue America for, and the entire monologue, other than wait, which was at the top, which didn’t even, I mean, that just scratched the surface in such a really [inaudible] way. You have to be thin or not too thin, but you never want to say you want to be thin. It’s just like, “Oh my God, that’s so not even it actually.” But it’s like the rest is all about communication. It’s all about communication as a woman, and how many roles there are around how we communicate our needs and our thoughts and our wants and desires. That’s it, that’s what it was after thinness, it was about how we’re allowed to communicate. So to communicate in this big way that involves-
Yeah. So to communicate in this big way that involves a costume is just like, God, I just love that.
Jen:
It sounds great.
Fawn:
I love that you gave yourself permission to do that.
Jen:
Right? That kind of behold my field of fucks and see that it is barren. It’s one of those kind of moments, right? It’s like, there’s nothing left here except the truth, so let’s do it. This is how I feel about this. Here is my interpretive dance or performance.
Fawn:
And giving your colleagues’ permission. I think the mental health world, we’re a little effed up in this way because we are so…
Jen:
Which way?
Fawn:
Goal oriented. Just around communication in general and just composure and how you’re allowed to behave. It’s really, it’s about behavior at the end of the day, and we make so many effing rules about behavior and who made those rules? White men, of course. But there’s so many rules about how we behave and then we call it boundaries and ethics. And it’s like, eff you. Sorry. I hope this is an explicit podcast.
Jen:
It is. It is. Explicit away.
Lisa:
It really is the grossest. And that’s part of the reason where I think that’s part of where my love of mischief comes from is because of having to be in these stodgy meetings where people take themselves so seriously and are so willing to adhere themselves to these gross white supremacists, paternalistic roles, they just love it and really thrive in it. And I think from the time that I became a therapist, I just was always like, “This isn’t for me”. And my quiet rebellion was always bringing in absurdity and kind of making a mockery of things whenever I could. And I don’t think I had the understanding of why I was doing that. I just like to be a [inaudible]. But that’s kind of it. Some of my early rebellious behavior at work came in the forms… They had booked me seven straight hours of clients, and I have one hour for lunch and doing paperwork, and then they fill that, that day and me saying, “You can’t do this to me”, but because they won’t listen to me. Then I sat in the hallway and no one could get past me.
You know what I mean? It’s like there was no other way to, me trying to say something to somebody rationally and calmly got me dismissed and ignored. Because everybody’s just playing by the rules and they sort of count on as a general rule in our field, they count on people being these givers that never push back and never have boundaries, and that just become doormats. And so saying politely like, “Hey, that doesn’t really work for me”, got me nowhere. And because I never felt safe to be super angry or to speak up in that way, it was like I found this alternative expression, which was mischief and kind of creating a moment of disruption in the day, because I’m not going to yell at you, but if you’re not going to listen to me, guess what? Yes, you are. And that’s kind of how it started because I think our field is so gross sometimes that I never felt like I fit until I created it my own way and refused to do that stuff.
Jen:
Which ties back into that Barbie speech because what she’s also saying is, “We are never seen or heard or understood. We are just told how to be”, is basically what she’s saying. These are all the ways that were right. And it was all about you can’t be either extreme, but it’s also not okay to be anything in between either.
Fawn:
You just have to be palatable.
Jen:
Yep. That sounds so boring and not embodied. I would be bored to tears.
Fawn:
Otherwise, Issa Rae will be our president and they don’t want that.
Jen:
Oh my gosh.
Fawn:
They just want us to think, they want us to have no power and be palatable.
Jen:
Yeah.
Chavonne:
Few thoughts.
Jen:
Go ahead.
Chavonne:
Go ahead. Sorry, go ahead.
Jen:
No, no, go for it. I was just going to say anyone have any thoughts? Go for it.
Chavonne:
I do. Lisa, when you were talking about, I have two thoughts. So the first thing I was thinking is I talk about my kids and how wild they are and they are. They’re my little wild beasts and I love them. But when you’re saying you’re not going to listen to me, I’m going to make sure you listen to me. I could just see, especially my oldest, he’s my feisty one. Actually they’re both feisty, but just like, “I’m just going to sit here and you can’t move. You can’t go past me. This is just what it is”. And they are so embodied and it just makes me so, I mean, as a parent sometimes I’m like, “Oh, come on, just take it to the bathroom, what are you doing?”
Lisa:
“Get in the car. Just get in the car”.
Chavonne:
Yeah. I literally told my mom that a few days ago. I’m like, especially my baby is the headstrong one. The other one’s feisty, this one’s headstrong. This was just stubborn as a mule. But I’m like, “I love how sure of himself he is, and I always want him to be but don’t always want him to be with me”. Please just let me change your pants.
Lisa:
Everyone else.
Chavonne:
Keep that independence, keep that strong will. I love it. Just not right now. Not at seven o’clock at night. So I was just thinking about the embodiment of tiny children and how much I appreciate that. But when you were talking before about working with clients, the word that kept coming to mind in my head was witness. You’re in this moment with them, and it’s not just being this person from the outside or whatever. You’re getting in there with them, you’re bringing yourself into it. And the word that just keeps coming to mind is witness. And that just feels really, really, really beautiful for me.
Fawn:
I think you’re a witness in that day too, the trash bag day, because it was not just an act of a protest, but it was a witness to the suffering that policies or the whatever that happens when we just implement policies without assessment.
Jen:
A witness to humanity versus being an orchestrator of oppression and rules and rigidity and standards. All of our faces are doing a little angry face. I don’t know if you can [inaudible] those, but we were all, as I was talking. And I also, I just thought witness to me also says something on the lines of being an absorber to witness. As you were talking, Lisa, it was like to be, I love that word, to be a witness is to absorb whatever’s happening versus trying to influence it. And that has a significant impact. I mean, just in these conversations we have on the podcast to name something, to just listen and hear about people’s experiences with their own embodiment, holding space for other people, endless things like that. Witnessing that changes.
And I absorb that and I get to play around with that and integrate it just as if it had happened to me. It’s like a beautiful part of, I’m trying to remember what you called that earlier. I can’t remember if you called it the collective Lisa or something like that, but that ability to communicate and be in a collective space where we show each other things, it’s less about talking, even though we’re all in a profession of talking. To me, it’s more of an embodied thing. Even if there’s talking involved, it’s the absorption of it. I’ve never thought about absorbing things into my body like that in a non-traumatic way. So like a glimmer way, a non, I just haven’t thought about it like that. So it’s something I’m going to take with me, I find that very valuable. So thanks for putting out the word witness. I couldn’t quite phrase it until you said that.
How about you Fawn? Oh, sorry. Sorry. I rushed.
Lisa:
I was going to say that along the line of that question is that at least historically when I was trained as a therapist and the emphasis was so much on just being invisible as your humanity being checked at the door and your character and all of that just sort of blanked out that I think there’s very little conversation or not enough about the ways that your work with people changes you as well. Because at the end of the day, it’s a relationship. And if we’re lucky, when we’re lucky we get a sense of feedback or get to witness or companion through something with somebody and see them shift and change, and it is about them and the focus is on them and is their win.
And every single person I’ve worked with has changed me and shifted me as well and made me see things from, even if I’m saying, “Okay, here’s the same concept”. If somebody is dealing with grief, we can say, “This is the word and this is what grief means”. But every single perspective and experience of it is so different that I learn from them as much as they are shifting and moving in our relationship. And I remember hearing that when I was, it sounded like one of those cliche things that irritated me that our teachers would say, “You’ll learn as much from your clients, is they learn from you”. And I was like, “That sounds…”
Chavonne:
Exactly.
Jen:
And here we are.
Lisa:
But I do think that that’s true. I do think that’s true. I think that there’s times you’re going to encounter people that you would never encounter otherwise and your openness and willing to get in it with them, you’re crawling inside the narrative of their life and experiencing the world as they experience it. So there’s no way to be unchanged by that. And I think for the better, I think always for the better. Well, in this specific, for me, it’s always been that. Even if there’s been unpleasantness, it ultimately leads me to more understanding about people and about just about how people work.
Chavonne:
Absolutely. Completely agree.
Fawn:
In the words of Marvin Gaye, can I get a witness?
I don’t think we’re in the profession of talking. I think we’re in the profession of relationshiping, honestly. Because to me, being a therapist is all about, I think a lot of people that come to us don’t feel safe in relationships or feel like they need fixing. And part of my assessment spiel that I like to give in 10 minutes or less, or their session’s free, it’s like, I’m going to give you a diagnosis today. You are going to have to agree with that diagnosis. We’ll come up with it together and you’ll get an education on that diagnosis. But be very clear that diagnosis is only for insurance to pay me. You are not needing fixing, you’re needing loving and attunement and education, but certainly not fixing. But I think they come to us thinking that’s what it is, and then we are just in a relationship with them. And that is what is so healing.
Lisa:
I’ve had my clients say something like, they’ll be talking and they’ll say, “And then I heard your voice”, and think of the ways that there are numerous people in the world that are essentially haunted by my unconditional regard. I’m the ghost that pops up and it’s like, “I’m not going to let you say that about yourself”.
Fawn:
Can you add that to your bio? I will have my unconditional regard.
Lisa:
Yeah.
Chavonne:
I love that.
Lisa:
“I’ll come for you. You’ll hear me in the night speaking affirmation”.
Fawn:
Yeah, that question that you just asked, I’m looking at my answers from the last podcast we did because I took a ton of notes that time. But looking back, I must have felt pretty burnt out at the time, which I am reflecting on and feeling like, okay, I’m so glad to not be there right now. But I think what I had written down was being a business owner now, and also seeing patients and combining capitalism and therapy gets so tricky.
And I think that’s where clearly my head space was then. Like anytime I volunteer or go on a field trip, I’m losing money. Anytime I take a sick day, I’m losing money. A vacation? What a loss of money. So I think I feel, obviously I was feeling that so much being in private practice, that is the biggest challenge I think with my embodiment. I just think, and also money, when you’re a business owner, money also is how we track productivity or how we track. It’s a feedback. It’s feedback. And so that’s challenging too.
And then the barriers that being a practitioner that charges insurance rates too, because I refuse, really don’t want to be that person that says, “Cash only, sorry, here’s the super bill”. And I honor those that do, because I don’t mean to, I shouldn’t have been use a mocking tone because if that’s what you need to do to take care of yourself, you take care of yourself. But for me, I just wish there was more of an energy around fighting insurances, but they make it so hard. We can’t unionize, we can’t talk about our rates.
It’s like, I don’t know why we sit and accept that as a collective, because it sucks. The people who use insurance are the ones, it’s like they get so mad at us for not taking certain insurances. It’s like, “Dude”, and I do a lot of education around that, and I think people get really angry and it’s just like, yeah, I wish as a collective, especially the social workers, especially NASW, I wish that they would get the bravery to start taking on insurance and just make it so everyone, it’s not so scary to take it or you don’t have to have a working partner to be able to accept insurances.
So there’s that spiel. But let’s see, it’s how I hold space for my clients. In real honestly, I show up as my authentic self. And I think working for the upside to private practice, like we said, is I feel safe to be myself in the world. And I feel like when I’m working for myself and when I’m with my clients, I can feel a sense of safety in who I am and being authentic because they know who I am. They know they can provide me with feedback. They know that there are downsides to seeing me. And if they ever feel like that is not beneficial anymore to them, I will connect them to someone else, but I can just show up and just provide them with what I have to give, which is oftentimes loving on them and reminding them that they don’t need to be fixed.
Jen:
Do you feel like that’s a mirror? Yeah. Do you feel like that’s a mirror for yourself when you hear yourself say that to clients, that it gets mirrored back to you? I’m thinking about that. I am very aware of my challenges with taking my own advice. Even the stuff that I say would say every day, all day, even to family members, for example, and support of them. But I just don’t say it to myself. I don’t remember. Curious if you feel that.
Fawn:
No, I think there are a couple moms I see that also have children who also have challenges in the way that my child has challenges and they are mirrors to me because I see what happens to you if you don’t take care of yourself when all you do is prioritize your child and you get in this loop. It’s funny when you guys were talking about ice skating, I was like, “God, I wish I wasn’t up all night researching Abilify and Dicon listening therapy and how long we have to expand our palette, and how the hell are we going to do that when she’s throwing chairs at us at night?” I want space to think about a TikTok I saw. All I think about is the hell I’m in being a parent sometimes. And so when I see that reflected back at me, that does feel like a mirror. That does feel like a mirror.
And that really reminds me that I have to put myself first. And yet it’s so hard. It’s so hard, and it’s so hard to not feel like I also see this guilt and this just constant chasing of a fix that before you get the, there’s nothing you can do for yourself until you get the fix and then you can breathe. And so sometimes it is mirrored back to me when I see other moms in my position. It’s like that fix is not coming.
That fix is distraction, it won’t come. You’re going to have to learn how to take care of yourself, even when, but that is so much easier to chase than taking care of you. So that does get mirrored back at me, for sure. But that love, that love, no, I don’t think that’s not something I feel like it’s, that permission to just be who you are. I don’t know. I think there’s so much healing to do around the trauma of being a parent that I feel like maybe that shouldn’t come first, but it feels like it has to in a way before I can move on to that piece. I don’t know if that makes sense.
Jen:
It does make sense.
Chavonne:
It makes a lot of sense.
Jen:
Parents are brand new at it. Just as the little child is brand new in the world.
It’s a coexisting. Everything is new experience for the first time with each child. It’s not the same.
Chavonne:
And I think that you have to, yeah. And something you said Fawn about having to heal that trauma first, I would think you have to, otherwise you’re going to keep coming back to it. How can you focus on whatever, if everything you try just brings you right. The ice skating brings you right back to the other side of that circle.
Jen:
Yep.
Fawn:
Yeah. It really is like a loop and it’s hard to boop it. It’s hard to figure out where the boop is. Are you guys watching Shrinking by the way?
Chavonne:
I’ve heard it’s great. I haven’t yet.
Fawn:
What? Okay. I’m disappointed in you, you and you. This is unacceptable.
Jen:
Is that the one with Harrison Ford?
Lisa:
What’s your login in then? Are you’re going to send me your log in?
Fawn:
I’ll share it if I knew what it was that requires remembering a password.
Jen:
I have a log in if you need it. I have a log in. Remind me to send it to you.
Fawn:
But he refers to himself as a psychological vigilante, and that’s what I love about that show. And it’s like permission to just be yourself. And I love and also, and he’s such a eff up, but he’s so authentic that his patients see it. They know he’s a eff up, and they’re also just like, “Oh, okay, you’re just like me. Cool. Well, we can do this together”. And I like to show up in that way. It’s like, “Listen, I’m a hot mess. I am no expert, but I can’t wait to be a hot mess with you”. And just make sure you have all the space you need to soak up that adoration.
Chavonne:
Ooh, that’s good. That’s really good.
Jen:
Oh, I like that, that was a theme from both of you about holding space for human beings as they are, including yourselves. It’s like acceptance because there’s things we don’t have to accept being treated like, being oppressed, being inside of a system that doesn’t work for us, but we can find acceptance in a space where we get to be a person.
Fawn:
I will say that’s my pet peeve though, when my patients, that is something I struggle with when my patients show up and I can’t, they want me to not be human, like being late or something when that irritates them. And then you have to be like, “Tell me about what that does for you. Tell me about what that dysregulation sitting with someone who is a professional, who’s messy”.
Jen:
A human. Yeah.
Lisa:
I think that there are, what am I trying to say here? This automatic sort of authority that’s granted as a quote professional where people come into care thinking that I am the sorcerer and I’m going to bequeath the secret information that I have. But you don’t. And I really have always hated that position. What you said about not being able to be human. I don’t, I am not interested in having the answers that I bequeath to somebody or having any kind of image of me that I have these, I know the right way to do things and they don’t. I can’t stand that. I don’t want that.
Especially, and I really love this aspect of being a fat person in care, is that there aren’t that many big people in providing therapy who are super anti-diet and body liberation oriented. And there’s a safety just being in the room as a fat person provides. Particularly once we’ve had the direct conversation that says, because I think that there’s this sense that they’re going to come into care and I’m going to give them the secrets of how to not be oppressed in the world or to how to be okay in a big body in the world.
And there is no answer for that. And that also doesn’t mean that we can’t create safety between the two of us, between the four of us, whoever’s there, and that contributing to the collective movement on this issue. They’re not going to come in because I’m a fat woman and I exist in the world that I have this secret understanding of how to do that safely or how to love your body, which is nonsense anyway. But to be able to say to people that what I can do is be in what you’re in with you and maybe think of things that you haven’t yet, right? I’m just another set of eyes, [inaudible] right?
I’m just in here in this with you and I’m just offering you perspectives that are maybe not there because you’re in your own head. And that’s it. That I’m not this gatekeeper of wisdom, because I do think that that shuts out the capacity for humanity. You don’t get to just show up as a human with another human when you are posturing as an expert or as an authority. And so much of, I think surviving as a therapist requires that you are embracing your own humanity and embracing who you are as a person.
Because it’s an art, right? This is an art form, not this factory where you go in and learn these theories and come out and embark them at people and have secret answers that other people don’t have, or you somehow have it figured out. That’s just not, I think, comfortable. And that doesn’t leave room for you to be a human in the therapy room. And conversely, when you are just being who you are in therapy, I think you can actually stand to help people a lot more. Because you’re not on that, I don’t know, that differential of authority, that weird pedestal. Yeah.
Fawn:
Do you think it’s hard though, when people exchange money? I think that the money aspect of it for some people though, I do feel like people will always say, “We would totally be friends if you’re outside this room”. And I’m like, “I don’t think so. I don’t think you’d enjoy my company because I talk a lot or say stupid stuff or I don’t have time for friends because I have three kids and they’re my whole world”. I wouldn’t be a very good friend. But because I am paid, it’s not like I wouldn’t want to be your friend outside this room. But also it’s like I think you think in a way that money and that space, it is also like you’re showing up authentically and also someone is paying you and also they are paying you to not bring your own stuff into the room and take up their time with it or you know what I mean? There’s that too. And I feel like that…
Jen:
It’s a dual relationship.
Fawn:
Right. Do people say that to you ever?
Jen:
All the time.
Fawn:
All the time, right.? And then how do you answer that question? I’m so curious what you say.
Jen:
Oh, I usually say we would.
Chavonne:
Absolutely would.
Jen:
And that’s because I genuinely would.
I mean, I am in a different space. I’m holding space for the body very specifically. And so everything I would say to any human on earth, my own sister, my partner, my parents, a client, it doesn’t matter who it is, I would want to know what supports their relationship with themselves. So I am very similar in that way. I’m like a person where you talk to me for five minutes and we’ve gone really deep. I’m not a small talk person. They’re like, “I don’t know why I told you that. That is an experience that people have with me outside of that kind of space”.
Fawn:
That’s why you should be a social worker.
Jen:
I love that. It’s my favorite part of life. So when someone says, “I would be friends with you because this is the level we talk at”. I’m like, “Well, this is the level I always talk at”. So that makes sense to me.
And I often name a dual relationship, and there’s probably friendship here too. It feels like this is the playground, especially from a playground sense. That’s what I would consider a session. It’s space to play and be absurd and all these other things that we’re naming, because the work would be about being embodied and learning what that’s like and about that being safe. And I would only want friends who could cultivate that safety with me. So it’s also honest from my side that I would want to be their friend too, because that’s a rare space to find as well, for me.
And I have this with the three of you, no doubt, but how many spaces do I actually have where I can be free in that way? I’m actually able to do that with clients because I want to be on a really transparent and honest level. But I would be that way with a friend. I am that way with you all. I’m like, “Listen, this is my experience. And I don’t think you should say that to yourself, right? I think you should say this. I think you should think about what you would say. I think you might need to listen to it”.
So for me, they’re so similar. So I think that’s very interesting. It used to make me feel really uncomfortable. “Oh no, I’ve crossed a line. Oh, no”. Right? It’s all the conditioning that says, don’t ever do that.
Fawn:
The conditioning makes you feel like you obviously have bad boundaries.
Jen:
But as I unpeel layers, as I heal my own traumas, as I hold space and explore in all sorts of different and new ways that I’m exploring. It feels good to have that be honestly reciprocated.
Fawn:
I love that.
Jen:
Honestly reciprocated.
Fawn:
I love that is how you see that.
Jen:
It feels like part of the… I didn’t plan it that way, but it feels like part of the purpose that I didn’t realize I was intending. It also feels like a landing into something embodied in me, and it’s very similar to any relationship that I find in my life, right? I feel that way with each of you. I can say whatever first comes to my mind because I already know it’s a safe place for me to speak honestly. So I don’t even speak from conditioned places with you all. If I do, I’m like, is this weird? Right? I’ll ask it as a question. I can’t tell what’s happening, but that’s a hard thing to cultivate. So I’m just grateful for that wherever it shows up. So I think that’s why I’m like immediately, of course. Of course we would. Or something like, I don’t drink, and people are like, oh, I’m like, I’m not like a person to go party with.
Fawn:
Oh, nevermind. Can’t be my friend.
Chavonne:
Your loss.
Lisa:
Forget it.
Jen:
But I’ve had the experience in the past with someone saying, I did such and such, and you would love it, and they’re usually correct. And so that tells me…
Fawn:
Oh, totally.
Jen:
…that there is a level of friendship in our dual relationship or more than dual. Dual actually doesn’t feel like enough pieces, parts of relationships, but there’s just something there.
Fawn:
Now see, you just gave me permission to feel that. I love that because I have some trauma with boundaries from growing up. My mom was a public defender and we would always go to client, like those were her only friends actually. I remember so frequently going to a lot of her clients’ functions being like, this is so weird. And then coming into this world and then deciding who I am and how I want to show up in this way. What are my boundaries? I feel, again, I want to show up authentically. I’m a mess. You’re a mess. Let’s just be a mess together in this really loving way. But it is still, there is something in the back of my head that like [inaudible]
Jen:
And that exists for me too. It’s not a perfectly peaceful reality while that’s happening, but I just reject those things. A level at which I’m playing a lot with recently is body acceptance as an analogy for all sorts of things in my life, but mostly that acceptance is not a single note. I can be deciding if I accept. I can be in complete non-acceptance of being oppressed. I can be in complete non-acceptance of how someone is talking to me right now. Any sort of, I can be in complete non-acceptance of diet culture having any place in my life, so every time it shows up in my head, I ask it to leave. There’s so many levels of being able to sit in that space. I’m holding a different space for things that are called wrong in our profession just because someone said so, not because I agree, but just because someone said so.
It’s having me untangle that for myself. It’s a way in which I think people in our life is… I love that you talked about little kids being embodied earlier, Chavonne, just how embodied they are. My nibblings are so embodied and speak so freely and so transparently and are so curious and so connected to everything that’s happening in whatever they’re doing. I don’t care if it’s watching a tablet or watching someone cook some food or participating in something, they’re equally engaged, right? My youngest nibbling talks back to anything that they’re watching, right? It’s just like such an interplay, such a presence. That’s having me untangle some things too, because I tend to lean on the serious for safety, like me as a person and my trauma, I go to the serious. I can be organized. I can be regimented. I can do all the stuff that has kept me safe for a really long time, but I want to be the Disney Dad equivalent of whatever that would be in my life.
I want to be a fun person for myself first, and it’s a newer exploration for me. I don’t know how to do that quite… I’m a silly person. It’s probably going to be a TikTok. It’s how I’m finding my silliness, but it’s also just anything… Like a thing in my family is when someone slightly says a word different than it was before, we all say that’s not how you say this from now on, when someone pronounces it correctly. We now agree in full agreement that we pronounce it this new way. Like Ancient Aliens is something watched very much in this house where I live and there is an expert, I think that he calls himself some sort of astronaut, alien, I don’t know. I don’t know what it’s called, but he cannot say the word extraterrestrial like that. He says extra-testial.
It’s a show about aliens. It’s constantly repeating him saying this over and over. He never says aliens. He always says extra-testial. And his hair also gets wilder and wilder as the seasons go on and he mispronounces it more and more and more as the seasons go. I think it’s incredible. I’m like, this is the best thing I’ve ever seen. But things like that, it’s just, I don’t know. The silly stuff is becoming more interesting to me. I love noticing that with other people. I love people pointing that out for me.
It feels good to be silly, just relaxing. I’ve not been able to relax because I’ve been so serious. I don’t drink. I used to use alcohol to find my silliness, but I haven’t drank in almost a decade. So it’s finally time that I’m like, wait, what if I’m doing it on purpose, duh, self. But it just has sort of been landing differently for me lately. So that’s all inside of being myself with another human, especially if they were to be a client, is… It also sits on the level of, because it would be talking about body image and embodiment and nutrition and care and other respectful care areas. I think it’s important for me to disclose because my profession is so strongly against admitting that any of us have flaws. We must be the, capital T-H-E, nutrition expert, and we don’t have any flaws.
Fawn:
That’s how all medical providers are. It drives me crazy.
Jen:
I’m like, but just yesterday I had really angry body image thoughts in my head. I would like to admit them to you because they happen to me and I do this as a job. It happens. It’s the same level of transparency and disclosure because it’s very isolating what conditioning has us feel as an experience inside of our bodies. And it feels wrong and shameful, and like we should be blamed for that, but we should not. It just feels that way. So all of that kind of sits in that space too. And I guess on a final sort of level, I just realized as I’m talking, if someone says they’d really want to be my friend, I would want to validate that as something interesting to me at any time. And so just on a basic human level, I’m like, thanks for telling me. I didn’t know that. That’s interesting to me.
Fawn:
It’s like the biggest compliment ever.
Jen:
It’s a huge compliment.
Chavonne:
Yes.
Fawn:
So sweet. I love it when they say that.
Jen:
Yeah. So it’s interesting…
Fawn:
And also I’m just like, but you wouldn’t like me. That’s my, it’s always in the back. If you knew the real me, if you saw me out, if you met my kids, you’d be like, Ooh. Nevermind.
Jen:
Yeah. Well, I mean, some of the stuff I’ve been unpacking last time when we did the first interview, we were talking about RSD and PDA, and it used to show up for me in that space.
Fawn:
Yes.
Jen:
I would immediately be like, that’s a demand on my nervous system. Get away from me. And I would also sit in a space of, oh yeah, but you’re going to reject me as soon as you really get to know me. So it’s like, it’s this very defensive mechanism that was showing up there. So I would just kind of be silent and awkward, but the awkwardness started making me laugh, and so I had to start explaining my laugh. And so then I started getting this deeper sense of this because I was like, okay, I’m laughing because my brain immediately started rejecting, just like you and I were talking about body image last time. I just find it very interesting.
Fawn:
That rejection sensitivity dysphoria is a real jerk.
Jen:
And you know what? Everything today is also reminding me of our last conversation. Because we were talking about RSD and feeling like a toddler. And we’ve also been talking about playfulness almost at the toddler level as well. Just the simplicity of it, embodiment at the toddler level, how simple it is. I’m finding it all just, it’s a really nice time.
Fawn:
Maybe that’s what we’re doing. Maybe that’s what embodiment is. It’s like just experiencing all the emotions that you do when you’re sitting on the floor and saying, no, you may not change my pants.
Jen:
Yeah.
Fawn:
And it’s just like having permission because we weren’t ever given permission to cry, scream, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Have an opinion. Be silly.
Lisa:
When my daughter was little, I used to… I don’t know that this is something that anyone else really got, but when my daughter would cry as a baby or even, I mean, she’s four now, so she’s still in that, like, we cry a lot place, but I always delighted in it. And honestly, I would laugh when she cried.
Jen:
I totally get it.
Lisa:
I used to laugh so hard when she would cry, especially when it was something that an adult would say was so absurd. Something that, because some part of me resonated with…
Jen:
Yes.
Lisa:
…the parts of us that are just irritated and want to cry, but we can’t because we’re grownups, right?
Chavonne:
Yes, yeah, yeah.
Jen:
Yes.
Lisa:
And part of me just loved that and loved the free way, the way that that just is not even an option. They are going to cry about it.
Chavonne:
Totally.
Lisa:
And when it’s something, I don’t know. There’s a level of empathy there and delight in the fact that she was crying.
Fawn:
Free to have that. Yeah.
Jen:
Yes.
Lisa:
And that there was nothing that needed to be done other than she’s an infant. She’s pissed, she has hiccups. And so she’s crying and I’m just like, yeah, I feel that with you. And I don’t know, to come out.
Chavonne:
Love it, love it.
Lisa:
And this delight where I was like, imagine being able to just be upset about things…
Chavonne:
Yeah, yeah.
Lisa:
And not have to shut it all down, right, you just get the freedom to just be upset. And how many times am I upset about my shoe feels wrong or just…
Chavonne:
Yeah.
Jen:
I don’t want the sandwich I just made! I’m over it!
Lisa:
The texture of this thing is not right. And I don’t know the…
Jen:
It’s so relatable.
Lisa:
The feral nature of it just delighted me.
Chavonne:
So feral. I love that word, feral.
Lisa:
And I just love it.
Jen:
Love it.
Lisa:
I love it so much. And so for all of the first year to two years of her life, I just laughed when she would cry and not she’s in a trauma mode, but just she’s just expressing what’s happening.
Jen:
Yeah.
Lisa:
And even when she gets mad, there’s something that’s delightful about it…
Jen:
Yes.
Lisa:
…because it just is honest. Right? And same, I’m 42 and I get mad at those things. So do it. Yes, have it.
Chavonne:
Go for it.
Lisa:
Go for it.
Fawn:
There’s so much community in feral though. I think of this feral cat colony at the barn. There’s like a million of them and they’re chilling with raccoons in the middle of the day. Where’s our community? Our feral female… I want a feral female community. Raccoons are also welcome.
Jen:
Oh my gosh, I love it. Feral and free are occurring to me as really important together. I appreciate this little, I love that you brought this up, Fawn, all of this.
Lisa:
I also really liked, what did you say? Silent and awkward? I really liked that too because I just love it. I love the freedom to be silent and awkward.
Jen:
Yeah.
Lisa:
Right?
Jen:
Yeah.
Lisa:
I love that.
Jen:
It’s one of my favorite things to embrace because it used to feel like the thing I had to cover up the most, but it’s so human to be like, uh-oh, I’m short-circuiting and I don’t know what to do next.
Lisa:
Glitch.
Jen:
And Hold on, hold on. Buffering. Buffering, okay. I found it.
Chavonne:
Buffering, buffering, buffering.
Jen:
It’s so normal, but no one will admit it. Laughing at oneself is one of the most releasing things, and I don’t mean to talk about sobriety so much today, but I couldn’t even do it when I was using alcohol. I couldn’t do it. That’s not what I got in my freedom space there.
I love the ideas of things like laughing meditation or therapy, where you make yourself laugh until you can’t help yourself. You just are laughing hysterically because you’re laughing. There’s even a great, I don’t know, maybe it’s probably 10 years old now, but there’s a video of someone on a German subway and they just start laughing. And then there’s another person who’s also positioned there to start laughing back and there’s just like five minutes and eventually everyone is laughing about nothing other than laughing itself. That kind of energy feels very embodied and natural to me. And also like I shouldn’t, according to society, because I’ll be weird and awkward and…
Fawn:
Annoying.
Lisa:
Well, guess what? I’m already weird and awkward…
Jen:
And I’m like, listen.
Lisa:
…we might as well laugh.
Fawn:
We’ve got our…
Chavonne:
Might as well double down on that.
Fawn:
…our feral colony here.
Jen:
So now I love the…
Lisa:
Speaking of which, can we talk about the high of making a client laugh?
Chavonne:
Yes. Oh, so good.
Lisa:
It’s one thing to have them say, I wish we could be friends. It’s something else if I genuinely get them laughing. That feels like my best work. That’s literally what I love.
Fawn:
I love humor in therapy. I think it’s so underrated.
Chavonne:
Me too, me too.
Lisa:
I’ve done it today. I’ve conquered today. I really nailed it.
Chavonne:
Nice. I’ve conquered today.
Lisa:
I really nailed it today because they were laughing.
Chavonne:
Awesome.
Jen:
That’s like alternatively when I’m in my own therapy and my therapist says, oh, well said Jenn. And I’m like, that’s right.
Lisa:
I win, I win.
Fawn:
Where is my very favorite client? I’ll take the favorite client Chelsea, now.
Jen:
Yes. I love those memes about it not being appropriate to make your therapist laugh. And I’m like, oh, really? I have to do that in the first five minutes to break the tension, otherwise I can’t.
Chavonne:
Same, same, same, same.
Lisa:
Oh my gosh. I love when they do that, when they say something that just truly makes me cackle. I love that. I think that’s such a human healing moment, right?
Jen:
Yeah.
Lisa:
Two people that are laughing at something.
Jen:
You can’t even help it. Yeah, yeah.
Lisa:
Sometimes they say something that I’m just like, oh my gosh, that is so funny. And I just love that. I love it, and I love when they laugh. If I say something that makes them laugh, it just feels like I’ve won. I’ve won therapy today.
Jen:
Yeah.
Chavonne:
I’ve conquered therapy.
Lisa:
I’ve won.
Fawn:
Yeah. I’m so grateful for my clients. Honestly. I really do have some of the best ones. When they sign on with your favorite client as the name tag or, oh my God.
Lisa:
That’s awesome.
Chavonne:
I’m doing that next week. Your favorite client, just to see what mine says.
Jen:
Yeah.
Chavonne:
I’m going to look for her face. I’m so excited. I’m so excited.
Jen:
Oh, I don’t have anything like that. I used to have this thing on my desk that said fucker in charge of you fucking fucks. That was like…
Fawn:
Oh!
Jen:
…just me working for myself. I was like, yeah, this is me, myself and I is what this is describing. I’d probably hold out something like that.
Chavonne:
Mine says I’m a fucking professional somewhere in my office, so.
Fawn:
Yeah.
Jen:
Yes.
Chavonne:
There’s a lot of F-word things in my office.
Fawn:
Can we put allegedly on that, could we? Allegedly.
Jen:
Allegedly. Yeah. And life hypothetically, life is so serious. Life is so serious.
Chavonne:
So serious.
Jen:
The topics we’re going to engage in are so serious. Why do we have to be purely serious about it, is something that is just not that interesting to me anymore.
Chavonne:
Absolutely.
Fawn:
Are you guys familiar with Dr. Dan Siegel and his platter? He’s got that… It’s called the Mind Platter or something. Anyway, it’s essentially all the things needed for regeneration and brain growth, and he talks about adding laughter to that. It is so important for our brains and regeneration of cells to laugh.
Jen:
Yeah. We literally vibrate ourselves to healing. It’s like a cat laying on you.
Chavonne:
That’s awesome.
[1:46:47]
Jen:
So thank you both so much for coming back and being with us today. We want to hang out with you anytime. What do each of you think we can do to make a difference with what we learned today or last time or just whatever is sitting for you from what we talked about?
Fawn:
I’d like to just make a feral colony. I think just be feral.
Chavonne:
Perfect.
Fawn:
I think that’s what I’m taking from today is just like…
Lisa:
Free and feral.
Fawn:
Just be feral because it’s honestly, I think there are people out there that are needing permission to be feral and will feel so connected to your feralness.
Chavonne:
I love that.
Lisa:
I’m going to piggyback on that because I feel like that too. I think all the transitions that I just had in my life personally and the amount of courage it took, and… I think that being out in the world and being fully yourself and being willing to really show up and just constantly risk the rejection, I think is a big moment of liberation and being fully feral. But I also think that there’s… I mean, we were talking before the recording started about my villain era, and I think the funny thing is my villain era is just me being empowered and authentic.
Jen:
And with boundaries and then being honored. Yeah, it’s not…
Lisa:
Right, and having boundaries and saying no and releasing things that say be less or be smaller and just, I don’t know. What are the kids saying? The delulu era?
Jen:
Yeah, delulu.
Lisa:
Like living in my delusion and embracing that rather than self-checking, and monitoring, and filtering. I think being in my forties, being 42, that is my earned right at this point is to live in my delusional villain era.
Jen:
Yeah.
Lisa:
And so that’s what I’m doing because that’s all that works for me at this point. And I think that also gives people permission, like Fawn was saying, gives people permission to do that themselves, too. And my goals are…
Jen:
Oh, sorry.
Lisa:
…cultivating more community. And I think that something I, like I said, my Roman Empire thought is always about relationships, and so the challenge to be courageous and be as feral and unsavory as I think I can be in order to make sure that the people that show up in my life are willing to… That actually like me.
Jen:
Yeah.
Fawn:
I love that.
Jen:
I love both of those.
[1:57:48]
Chavonne:
And like Jenn said, thank you so much for being with us as we finish up our episode. 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 careers and/or work taking in the future?
Fawn:
Oh, so you guys aren’t even going to answer that question, though, for yourselves? We don’t get to hear your answer?
Chavonne:
We do, in our last episode, we’re going to.
Jen:
We are going to do the last episode.
Fawn:
Oh, you’re going to, okay. This is just like a teaser.
Jen:
And for today it would be for someone… I love the directionality switch that Lisa used earlier. I want people to find less. You don’t like what’s over here? It’s too much. Go find less. That is actually what I wanted to take from today.
Chavonne:
I’ve never answered that.
Fawn:
I love that. I’m going to write that down.
Chavonne:
I like the remembering, bringing your own humanity into your interactions. I don’t see clients, but with my staff just being my hot mess express self, which is me at all times. So yeah.
Jen:
Yes, hot mess express,
Fawn:
That brings safety, especially as a boss, that is safety. Because you are so nurturing. Just like as a human. You show up in this just nurturing, accepting way. I can’t imagine having you for a boss. That would be just so healing. Lisa, this is going to be your healing era. My god.
Lisa:
That is my goal. That is my goal.
Chavonne:
Yeah.
Fawn:
Okay. Sorry, there was a question you asked. I forgot it.
Lisa:
So I’m doing next is working with Chavonne. If I say that for Chavonne after I just said that I’m a terrible employee, but I am a good therapist, so I’ve got that.
Chavonne:
If you don’t wear a garbage bag dress at least once, I’m going to have…
Lisa:
Gosh, we have a staff meeting.
Fawn:
If that is not videoed, I will rage. Do you understand me?
Lisa:
It’s an opportunity to make a first impression.
Chavonne:
I will set you on fire.
Lisa:
Yeah, so you can find me.
Chavonne:
We’ve known each other for two years and never met face-to-face. I’m excited.
Lisa:
So I’m out here in the streets working for Chavonne and…
Jen:
At Whole Self New Mexico.
Lisa:
You can find me in New Mexico at Whole Self New Mexico. Come be my client.
Fawn:
Charming snakes.
Lisa:
We won’t be friends.
Fawn:
Charming wolves, charming bears.
Lisa:
We won’t be friends, but I’ll want to be friends.
Chavonne:
Yes.
Lisa:
And then I’ll win therapy when I make you laugh.
Jen:
Yes.
Chavonne:
There you go. Yeah.
Jen:
How about you, Fawn?
Chavonne:
What about you, Fawn?
Fawn:
This is in her healing era with and also her snake charming era. Yeah.
Lisa:
Yes, yes.
Jen:
We were talking about critters before we started recording.
Lisa:
Yeah.
Fawn:
Nothing is going to be different for me. I will keep doing the therapy. You can find me at fawnmccool.com. I will keep blaming the patriarchy. I think my goals are really personal. I mean, I think what makes me tick is education, family time and just taking care of myself and my body. And so I think my goals are always to just continue to fight for my needs and all the stuff. So I started horseback riding lessons, which has been insane for the most part. I just actually got on the horse recently, but a lot of it was on the ground.
Just really attuning to the horse and learning their signals and learning not to project my human emotions and thoughts and feelings onto the horse because they have a brain of a toddler.
Jen:
Yes.
Fawn:
Learning how to be gentle, but firm learning how to be predictable in my actions and that has really been, I think that’s what’s coming up for me as horse girl. I feel like through and through, it’s just really learning to be in my own body again, learning how to be Fawn again after being Fawn the mom for so long and now Fawn the business owner worker for so long and…
Maybe it’s going to be my motherfucking villain era, Lisa. You might’ve inspired me.
Lisa:
I sure hope so. I can’t wait to see it. And also, I didn’t know you were a horse girl because I am a retired horse girl and…
Jen:
I’m a retired horse girl. We’ve never talked about this before.
Lisa:
How did we never get into this? Okay, well, episode three I’m sorry.
Fawn:
There’s something really empowering about being a fat horse girl, honestly, because that is a space that is very traditionally, very thin, and I just…
Lisa:
Very fat phobic. Very very very fat phobic.
Fawn:
Very fat phobic. But also, yeah, I love the barn that I found. She’s so trauma-informed and working with her, it moves me to tears more than therapy most times.
Lisa:
Wow.
Fawn:
It truly is so healing for me. It really has opened my eyes to how damaged my nervous system has been.
Jen:
Oh, I love this for you.
Chavonne:
Me too.
Fawn:
Yeah, we’re going to heal together. Me and this horse that likes to rub his teeth on metal. It’ll be great.
Lisa:
Don’t we all.
Chavonne:
Lovely.
Jen:
Sounds… My jaw tightened at the thought of that. Yeah, so I hear that there are villain eras incoming. There’s an equine therapy era coming. Being friends with everybody era incoming. Being feral era. There’s just endless eras.
Fawn:
Move over Taylor Swift. This is the Eras tour right here.
Chavonne:
Thank you.
Jen:
Oh my gosh, I just got that. Oh my gosh, brain. I didn’t get that. I didn’t get that.
Lisa:
I still haven’t gotten it. That’s okay.
Fawn:
I’m not a Swifty, sorry.
Lisa:
I’ll smile, just smile.
Jen:
I’m not a Swifty.
Fawn:
I’m not a Swifty, it’s just, it’s everywhere.
Jen:
I get it. She’s talking about all her eras. I was just like, what’s an arras? What’s an arras is all I can….
Well I guess that’s…
Fawn:
I’m so glad I brought that to the space today.
Chavonne:
Learning so much.
Fawn:
If anything, you guys have gotten clarity over Taylor Swift.
Jen:
Yes. You know what, Fawn? You have won the podcast and that’s all you really needed to know.
Fawn:
I’m honored?
Jen:
Yeah. Yeah. I do have to say it wasn’t recorded, but Lisa, we were talking about all the critters in New Mexico and Lisa absolutely won this podcast for her future befriending of all critters that have to come to her, not the other way around. And that’s how she knows they’re safe. I think that also wins. Just wanted to point that out. It’s been on my mind this whole time we’ve been talking.
Lisa:
Right? Appreciate that.
Fawn:
That’s a good summary of what we talked about today, too.
Lisa:
Gosh, do you know how chosen I would feel if a snake showed up at my house? I just…
Chavonne:
I’ll will save it for you, gross…
Lisa:
Yeah, call me over. I’ll come get him.
Chavonne:
Okay, great.
Fawn:
I want that on video too.
Jen:
In summary, as our final sort of thing, I wrote down some keywords today, which is actually not something I usually do, but I was just on this level of writing down keywords, so I just wanted to do a quick summary and then we’ll end. Too-muchness. Rest. Anger. Mischief. Feral. Grief. Rest. Protective. Slow. Gentle. Disney Dad. That’s two words.
Lisa:
Not if you say it fast.
Jen:
Oh wait, masking. Of course, embodiment. Collective. Confidence. Connection. Rebellious. Absurd. Doormats or rather not doormats. Disruption. Witness. Absorb. Unique. And understanding.
Fawn:
If flippers is not on that list, Jenn, I just.
Jen:
How dare I. Oh wait. Oh, wait. I skipped one. I skipped one.
Lisa:
Tell me flippers. Tell me it’s flippers.
Jen:
No, I’m sorry, I forgot my column here. Villain season. Reba McIntyre. Trash bag dress.
Lisa:
And flippers.
Fawn:
Can we just go out on that Reba McIntyre song?
Jen:
Yeah.
Lisa:
Yeah, can we play that?
Fawn:
Can we roll the credits to…
Chavonne:
I will add it if I can.
Jen:
I no have idea. I have no idea. Let’s look into it.
Chavonne:
I’m going to find out.
Jen:
I think if it’s short enough.
Chavonne:
Well, I’ll look into it.
Jen:
There’s like a length that we can put in. Okay.
Fawn:
I’m a survivor.
Chavonne:
So thank you so much.
Jen:
We’d love you. Thank you for being here.
Chavonne:
This has been amazing.
Fawn:
Nice. Thank you.
Jen:
Love you. We’ll see you in our group text later. Okay. Bye.
Fawn:
Can’t wait.
Lisa:
Goodbye.
Chavonne:
Bye.
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.