Embodiment for the Rest of Us – Season 4, Episode 6: Deep Dive with Lindley Ashline
Thursday, July 4, 2024
Jenn (she/they), Chavonne (she/her), and Mayaneli (she/her) interviewed Lindley Ashline (she/her) for a deep dive about embodiment as partnership with our bodies.
Content Warning: Discussion of ableism, Discussion of medical fatphobia
Trigger Warnings:
44:33: Lindley mentions death threats
A few highlights:
5:43: Lindley shares embodiment as conversation and/or partnership with our bodies
35:45: Lindley discusses “capitalist mythology” in the average body positivity/liberation conversation
1:45:13: Lindley shares the idea of embodiment as a practice of depth and clarity
Links from this episode:
The 11 Reasons Why People Hate Fat People
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 4 Episode 6 is 2 hours, 15 minutes and 23 seconds (2:15:23) long.
Jenn: Welcome to our 4th season of the Embodiment for the Rest of Us podcast, a series exploring topics and intersections that exist in fat, queer, and disability liberation (and beyond!!)! You can consider this an anti-oppressive and generative space full of repair and intention.
Chavonne: In this podcast, we interview those with lived experience and professionals alike to learn how they are affecting radical change and how we can all make this world a safer and more welcoming place for all humans who are historically and currently marginalized and should be centered, listened to, and supported.
Jenn: Captions and content warnings are provided in the show notes for each episode, including specific time stamps, so that you can skip triggering content any time that feels supportive to you! This podcast is a representation of our co-host and guest experiences and may not be reflective of yours. These conversations are not medical advice, and are not a substitute for mental health or nutrition support.
Chavonne: In addition, the conversations held here are not exhaustive in their scope or levels of inquiry. These topics, these perspectives are not complete and are always in process. These are just highlights! Just like posts on social media, individual articles, or any other podcast – this is just a snapshot of the full picture.
Jenn: We are always interested in any feedback on this process, especially if you feel something needs to be addressed. We invite you to email us at Listener@EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs.com with any comments, requests, or concerns.
[1:44]
(C): Welcome to July! Before we begin, we want to do a tiny bit of housekeeping – our second deep dive with Michelle Phillips will be rescheduled for later this summer, or early fall, after a new two-part series which starts today. So, hello from Season 4 Episode 6 of the Embodiment for the Rest of Us podcast. In today’s episode, we have the first part of our deep dive conversation with Lindley Ashline (she/her).
(J): Lindley Ashline creates photographs that celebrate the unique beauty of bodies that fall outside conventional “beauty” standards. She fights weight stigma by giving plus-size people a safe place to explore how their bodies look on camera and by increasing the representation of big bodies in photography, advertising, fine art and the world at large.
(C): Lindley is also the creator of Body Liberation Stock (body-positive stock images for commercial use) and the Body Love Shop (a curated resource for body-friendly products and artwork). Find Lindley’s work and get her free weekly Body Liberation Guide at Bit.Ly/BodyLiberationGuide.
(J): Lindley can be found online at:
Their Website: BodyLiberationPhotos.com
Instagram: @BodyLiberationWithLindley
Facebook: BodyLiberationPhotos
Bluesky: @Lindley.Bsky.Social
(C): Wherever and however you are listening to this today, you are in for another incredible conversation. We are so glad you’re here!
[3:15]
Jenn (she/they):
Our second deep dive of the season is today with front of the podcast Lindley Ashline, she/her, who is joining us from the Pacific Northwest area of Renton, Washington. We had such an expansive exploration with you in season two, Lindley, that we had to have you back for a deeper dive. We also have Maya, she/her, who’s my dietetic intern and with us for the second time. How are you today, and how have you been since then, Lindley?
Lindley (she/her):
Well, today we are having our traditional week of full spring weather here, outside Seattle and it is gorgeous. It’s been mid-60s, almost 70 degrees, sunny, all the flowers are blooming, the cherry blossoms are out. I’m beginning to spend some time outside and got to soak up all this sun before we go back into our regular gloom and 50 degrees and raining until July. So, this is the chance. This is when we all get outside.
Chavonne (she/her):
Get out there.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah, the week-
Chavonne (she/her):
We’re so- Yeah, go ahead.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah, that’s how it usually is here. We just have a week, but we have had extended spring for three weeks. We just keep fluctuating. It’s the strangest spring I think I’ve ever had here.
Chavonne (she/her):
It is. I think my house… Half of my recycling bin is in my front yard and this is the first day it’s clear enough for me to go out after this to go retrieve things. It’s been really, really-
Jenn (she/they):
Yes.
Chavonne (she/her):
… windy here.
Jenn (she/they):
Really windy here.
Chavonne (she/her):
So wild.
Jenn (she/they):
I have a tumbleweed hill at the bottom of my street that is literally 10 feet tall and multiple houses wide.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. Yeah. It’s so wild.
Jenn (she/they):
It’s been wild. And the trees are blossoming and it looks gorgeous, and there’s no wind today. Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes, it’s a beautiful day. But we’re so excited to have you, and I’m so glad your cherry blossoms. I love cherry blossoms-
Jenn (she/they):
Me too.
Chavonne (she/her):
I’m so glad those are up in-
Jenn (she/they):
They’re beautiful in Seattle.
Chavonne (she/her):
…[inaudible]. But so excited to see you, so excited to see you.
Jenn (she/they):
Yay. We love having you here.
Chavonne (she/her):
Always.
Jenn (she/they):
Yes. And how are you, Maya?
Mayaneli (she/her):
I’m doing good. I’m feeling really joyful today because I’m drinking out of my Giles mug, which always brings me a lot of [inaudible], to share. Lots of [inaudible].
Jenn (she/they):
Giles from…
Mayaneli (she/her):
From. Yeah. Buffy the Vampire.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah. Thank you. My brain lost it.
Chavonne (she/her):
Perfect.
Jenn (she/they):
From my favorite episode when they’re teenagers.
Mayaneli (she/her):
This one.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
That’s my favorite.
Chavonne (she/her):
The best. Love, love.
Mayaneli (she/her):
[inaudible] you can’t see, it’s the pinup version of Giles saying really [inaudible] things.
Chavonne (she/her):
That’s the best. That’s great.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Giles is yummy. Yay. We’re also happy you’re here too.
Jenn (she/they):
Yay. It’s a full house. Full room.
Chavonne (she/her):
Full house.
Jenn (she/they):
Lots of space.
[5:43]
Chavonne (she/her):
One area we really wanted to deep dive about is the idea of embodiment as conversation and, or partnership with our bodies. We love this as an analogy for all the conversations in our lives as well as the foundational level of partnership with our bodies because it is the bedrock for everything else. How has that topic sat with you, felt challenging for you and expanded for you over these couple of years?
Jenn (she/they):
Just a small question, Lindley. Just a little one.
Chavonne (she/her):
Tiny, teeny, weeny.
Lindley (she/her):
Well, I’m a couple of years older than when I last saw you all.
Jenn (she/they):
Me too.
Chavonne (she/her):
Same.
Lindley (she/her):
Which is great. I’ve leveled up some more.
Chavonne (she/her):
There we go.
Lindley (she/her):
And as we record this, I’m 43. And so, I’m now far enough into my 40s that I can be like, “Oh wow. Now, I’m my 40s.” And, aging has been on my mind a lot, both because in the social media world and to a certain extent within body liberation and fat liberation, it’s a young person’s game, in the sense that those are the people that we tend to see. And, also those tend to be the folks who have the energy for constant social media posting. In addition to our cultures issues with ageism. And so, I’m starting to enter the cohort of people who don’t have as much representation and as much of a voice, particularly on social media.
And so, in addition to that, of course, the last time that we recorded, it was during the pandemic. We are still in the pandemic. But we now have a couple more years of pandemic, which that society-wide trauma, it does things to our brains and our bodies. But it also adds another dimension to this embodiment. And how stress affects our embodiment, trauma affects our embodiment, and these big cultural things affect us. And so, all these things have been on my mind a lot. Both because they’re personally affecting me. But also because harm reduction has been on my mind a lot. And the way that the embodiment is this negotiation, this partnership. But also this constant, particularly with COVID, but also just… Particularly as we age, there’s this factor of just our energy becomes more limited. Both in the sense of literally how much energy we have to spend on things. But also. How many fucks we’re willing to give.
Jenn (she/they):
Yes.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. Hard.
Lindley (she/her):
There’s this trope that, of particularly women as we age, that we just give fewer and fewer fucks until women over 50 or women over 60 are just unstoppable forces, because we just don’t have anything left. We have no patience left to give.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
And so all of these things have been intertwining for me a lot lately.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
And particularly, it’s been four years of pandemic. And so, this concept of harm reduction, there’s a couple places I want to go with this. But this harm reduction, this negotiation with ourselves. My husband, he’s been forced back into the office part-time. He has a traditional nine to five office job. And he is willing to mask on the bus. And he does that very faithfully. He has a fairly long commute, since we’re outside Seattle and he commutes downtown. But he won’t mask in the office. And that’s his harm reduction. And it’s a decision that I’m not super thrilled about. But also, I’m sitting here at home, I don’t have to mask all day. And, he’s an adult, that was his compromise.
And we’re all making those compromises constantly. And COVID happens to be just a really good example of that. But also just with our bodies in general. All of us have a certain amount of physical and mental energy. How am I going to spend that? What is the… Not only how is that negotiation within ourselves? If I go out… I’ve been pruning things in my yard, because it’s this beautiful weather. And so, if I go out and I prune more roses today, that is something that needs to be done. But it will mean that I have more limited energy to do my other work.
And again, these are the trade-offs that we make every day. This is perfectly normal. But it’s just all these negotiations and they’re affected by not only our cultural conditions, but of course our personal lives. Our amount of privilege and resources. And if I pay someone to prune my roses, then I don’t have to do it myself. But then that also means that I’m spending resources in another direction.
But where it really starts coming back to embodiment then is, as I was thinking about this question in advance, I kept coming back to someone I know who doesn’t brush their teeth. And I know that that statement is shocking. It’s a little horrifying I think, for people. But this is someone who has a number of chronic illnesses that need to be managed. And, they made the decision a few years ago that they were going to take this path of harm reduction. And when they were at the dentist, they were like, “Look, I’m willing to do other things to help my teeth, to slow decay as much as possible, but I’m not going to end up brushing my teeth. It’s just, from a sensory standpoint, it is not working for me. And I have to use so much of my energy on managing chronic illnesses. I just don’t have anything left. And so rather than beat myself up about this, what are some other things that we can do?”
And again, I know that example in, particularly in this white Western cultural ideas of health, is a little shocking. But that compromise, who flosses their teeth twice a day, every day? Nobody.
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s like that meme that says, “When was the last time you flossed?” And it’s like, “Bro, you were there.”
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
At the dentist.
Lindley (she/her):
So, we all make these trade-offs. And maybe if we all had the life conditions and resources to where everything was taken care of for us and all we had to do was self-care. And other than that, just to do whatever leisure things we wanted. All we had to do was personal care. Maybe we would all be perfect examples of dental hygiene. But-
Jenn (she/they):
I think I still wouldn’t be good at it. I’m not good at brushing my teeth.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
Well, and maybe eventually there will be some technology aid for that, that will make dental care easier for us. But, the point is that we all make those trade-offs all the time, and that has really been on my mind, both with COVID and with… I spend a lot of time, and I think later we’re going to talk about disability. But I spend a lot of time with disabled folks these days, just socially. And people with chronic illnesses, I have chronic illnesses. And just that energy trade-offs-
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
And the way it affects our bodies is just always on my mind a lot these days. Both because, maybe a trade-off that I’m making is not… Maybe, it’s positive in one way and negative in another. But also, the fact that we are adults who get to make those trade-offs.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
And those trade-offs may or may not match up with cultural expectations of health and embodiment.
Jenn (she/they):
Wow. Okay, I love this and I will always admit out loud transparently, I have trouble brushing my teeth as a sensory experience. I had pneumonia at my very last semester of college and it would give me this gag reflex thing because of all the phlegm that I was coughing up. And it was really challenging to brush my teeth without engaging that cycle. And it remains challenging to me, to this day. 21 years later, for me to be able to… When I brush my teeth I do a fast pass version in case everything starts getting activated and at least I did something, or so that I can tell that I’m already going to get into that space. I love what you said about your friend. It is advocating for yourself, and I hate having to be my own consultant for my own medical care, including dental care, but it’s like, “Hey…”
It’s like with diabetes as well. I have diabetes. I don’t do blood sugar pricks anymore on my fingertips because they are such a sensory nightmare for me, it’s so challenging. And I have controlled blood sugar now. So why? Why would I have to do this? Perfectly appropriate, I’m training to be a diabetes educator. So here’s my little moment where I’m like, “It’s perfectly appropriate to manage through A1C alone. It’s perfectly appropriate.” It’s actually up to the individual.
So my choice is I’m not going to do that. If I’m like, “Things are weird today. What’s going on with me?” I will check. But other than that, I won’t check. Middle of the night, “What’s going on?” Because stress and all that can induce little changes. The same thing’s true of the dentist. My dentist has ADHD. One of the most helpful things that’s ever happened to me is for them to be like, “Well, there’s a method in which you can brush your teeth.” And I said, “Oh, well I won’t do that. I’ll do my own method.” He said, “Well, there’s a way you can do it with ADHD.” I was like, “I won’t do that.” My PDA stuff just kicks up. “Nope, I won’t be doing your way of doing things. I’m going to do it my way.” And I said, “So what are we doing here every six months?” And he was like “Getting all the things that you can’t get on your own.” I said, “So, whatever I can get or not get on my own, people who are aging…”
You were talking about ageism earlier. That becomes a challenging thing, with dentition as we age. We have someone who’s taking care of things for us. We have someone who’s helping us prevent things. Every time I’m there, they check my tongue for tongue cancer and my mouth and my throat, and there’s other preventive things that happen. That’s enough. And that word enough is challenging. I mean, enough like we can choose that it’s enough. It’s actually a choice.
And dentistry is very stigmatizing for people in different body sizes, in terms of what is assumed. Everyone in a larger body, they’re all like, “Do you drink soda?” I’m like, “No.” And they’re like, “Do you do this? Do you do that? Do that. Don’t want to suck on hard candy anymore.” I’m like, “I don’t do that.” It’s just, there’s already these assumptions to be… And the hygienist, I go to the same one every time because I’m like, “Sorry about all the plaque.” And she’s like, “That’s what I’m here for. Just lay back and relax. This is what I’m doing.” Because that’s just part of it. I have that permanent retainer. It doesn’t even matter if I floss endlessly. I can’t get it. That’s right where your salivary glands are. There’s nothing I can do about that. Same thing with molars. Sometimes you can’t reach them. I have really, a tiny little mouth to put my toothbrush into.
I think that’s so important because there’s so many aspects we can normalize. There’s actually so many choices we can make. Do you want to use a water flosser? I’ll hold it up right now. Everywhere in my house, I have these little DenTech little flosser things because I don’t like putting my hands in my mouth with floss. Do you have them too? Yes.
Mayaneli (she/her):
I have them in the bathroom too, yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
And I have a new kind that has a flat top that helps me go really far back without gagging, because that’s a problem for me. This is how I floss. And no, it’s not twice a day. Maybe I get to this once a day. It’s like if I have the sensation that I need to do that. But I can take care of what I can take care of and they can do the rest.
That’s why they’re hired as the consultant to do that for us. I love the normalizing of that experience. And when I say this to people, including my own clients, they get horrified. And I said, “This is really important that there’s different levels of choice.”
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Jenn (she/they):
We have access to different levels of choice that may not even be good choices to begin with. With chronic illness, a lot of the good choices evaporate in that moment. We are left with limited choices. So what would we like to do from those choices? I love this phrasing of energy trade-off and negotiation as the relationship and conversation about embodiment, because it’s up to us. We’re the only one who has to experience the energy depletion. We’re the only one who has to experience an energy gain or saving of some energy. That’s for us to gauge. There is no professional or colleague or anything outside of us, friend, whatever, that can determine that for us.
I love that harm reduction as autonomy that you’re describing. I think it’s so, so valuable and so important. I love that. I’m not horrified. I’m just loving this conversation. I’m like, “Let’s normalize it. Let’s talk about it.”
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
I used to have an incredible amount of shame. I didn’t go to the dentist for eight years because of that shame. But also, I was tired of gagging at the dentist’s office. I just needed a break. That’s why I started. But then it turned into lots of other stuff like, “Oh no, I haven’t been there for too long. What are they going to say to me? I guess I won’t go this year either.” I think these things are really important. At some point I was like, “Okay, I actually want to know how I’m doing and I have to go in and do it, and I’ll just endure whatever I have to endure.” That’s how I found this ADHD dentist. I was like, “Oh, you have ADHD? Okay, I’ll come back.” It just felt to have that neuro-affirming space. Because I’ll be like, “Take your hand out of my mouth. I am going to gag.” I need to be able to have this sensory regulation opportunities. So I love it.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah. You’ve just reminded me that I have a different friend who was having real challenges finding a therapist that they resonated with. And they are ADHD. And they found an ADHD therapist. And the description of these… I’m not ADHD, I’m autistic. My brain works very differently. And the description of these, that my friend will occasionally tell me how the therapy session is going. And I’m like, “I could not work with that at all.” But they work so well together and they’re making really cool life changes because of that.
But yeah, earlier, since our listeners aren’t going to necessarily see the video of us gesturing at each other. I had pulled a package of Plackers dental floss picks out of my desk drawer and held it up, and they’re right here with me because-
Jenn (she/they):
Yep. Mine too.
Lindley (she/her):
… I have always had sensory issues flossing. Putting floss around my fingers and it getting wet and icky and having to shove my hands in my mouth, ew. So I just wasn’t doing it. And then finally a dental hygienist was like, “You don’t have to…” And I had found the floss picks. But again, I just wasn’t really doing it. And so, a hygienist finally told me, “You don’t have to do it at night. What if you keep it in your desk drawer and do it during the day?”
Jenn (she/they):
And right after lunch, that’s when I’m most likely to do it.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah, I do mine in the morning because it is part of my little morning checklist, because I like lists.
Chavonne (she/her):
I love that.
Lindley (she/her):
And, is it most effective in the morning? Maybe not, but at least it’s getting done. And the thing is that there are more trade-offs than just the energy trade-offs too. Is that as environmentally friendly as using the floss out of the little box? No, it uses more plastic, single use plastic. So there is also that mental trade off too. And, my harm reduction for myself was, I’m going to use the extra plastic and actually floss my teeth.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
And somebody else may not be comfortable making that trade off. And so-
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
… it’s so complex. There are so many things that affect our lives. In the news just recently, as we’re recording, there was this really ridiculous article that got beaten around a lot on social media about how something about your asthma inhalers are hurting the environment.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh my gosh.
Lindley (she/her):
It was click bait nonsense. I mean, but from a reputable publication. It wasn’t like Buzz Feed style click bait, but it was clearly outage bait. And of course, we could probably talk for an hour just about how terrible an article like that is.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
But of course people should be able to make the trade-off of, “Is my asthma inhaler worse for the environment than just me not existing at all?” Yeah, in theory, but as individuals, if we’re going to talk about pollution, let’s talk about corporations.
Chavonne (she/her):
Correct. Correct.
Lindley (she/her):
But again, that’s a bit of a different topic. But, yes, of course people should get to make that trade off as individuals. And having basic healthcare I would argue is not even a trade off. It’s a basic right. But-
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
… the point is that we are all making all kinds of trade offs every single day. And honestly, everybody’s making that trade off. Nobody wants to floss their teeth. Nobody. [inaudible].
Jenn (she/they):
I don’t do it out of enjoyment.
Lindley (she/her):
I’m betting you don’t want to do it either. But at the same time, we don’t talk about it.
Mayaneli (she/her):
I think you bring up a great point though about finding the right support and that takes time, and energy to find the right people. Jenn was saying finding the right dentist who has ADHD. Having that person that resonates with finding the right therapist because of their [inaudible] diagnosis. That can be really tough too. And I find [inaudible] space, I feel really privileged I can find these, but it takes time and effort. Which I have this long laundry list of things to do, but it’s hard to finish that because it’s overwhelming sometimes. I don’t know. That’s what I was thinking with finding that system, those tools in your toolbox that are necessary, but it takes time to get to [inaudible].
Chavonne (she/her):
Absolutely.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah, and if you’re-
Chavonne (she/her):
There’s a… Oh.
Jenn (she/they):
Oh no, go ahead.
Chavonne (she/her):
Go ahead.Go ahead.
Jenn (she/they):
No, please.
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ll go quickly. But it makes me think there’s a, Jenn has brought up this person before and now I listen to their podcast all the time, Casey Davis and the podcast Struggle Care.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
And one of those episodes is about… I’m working through it incredibly slowly. But one of the earlier episodes, because I start from the beginning, is about eco shame and I think the title is like You Can’t Save the Environment if You’re Depressed. And it has sat with me so heavily in that like, “Okay, I buy bag salads,” because I love a salad, but I don’t have time to get this and this and chop and chop when my toddlers are trying to climb me like a tree the whole time. Or I… There’s certain things that I use that are single use because that’s what works for me. And sometimes I feel bad about it, but it’s what’s keeping me alive and I can’t let it affect my mental health because I’m trying to keep this, trying to use these.
It makes me think of laundry detergent. Those earth laundry detergent sheets where they sound fabulous, they sound great. I haven’t even had time to figure out how they would work for my washing machine because I don’t have fucking time. Let me just buy the giant fucking thing from Costco, so we have clean clothes, so I’m not depressed about what I call, laundry mountain ,every Saturday. So-
Jenn (she/they):
Yes.
Chavonne (she/her):
… we do what we have to do. And again, like you said, Lindley, if we’re going to put the onus on someone, they’re encouraging us to, “You can do this to save the earth.” No, fuck you corporations, you’re the ones that are killing our earth.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Jenn (she/they):
Oh, so this is great. So I was thinking of two kinds… I love all of this. Because there’s unlimited almost amounts of context and also levels of context. So I was thinking of corporations too. The individual ecological footprint is an idea by oil companies in the early 2000s because they did a big old nasty oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. And they’re like, “This is really bad.” And they’re like, “I know. We’ll make it about individual responsibility.” And they teamed up together and they made this ecological footprint, and now we all think it’s our individual responsibility. When our impact, even billions of us cannot touch what corporations do. It just can’t.
Chavonne (she/her):
Absolutely.
Jenn (she/they):
There’s really easy to find graphs from the EPA. You can also look at other places that show the magnitude. It’s one of those graphs where the tall vertical y-axis has the little divots and you suddenly have this new metric at the top because it’s so much bigger, the impact. That’s what the graphs all look like. I was also thinking in the context of disability. Single use items are disability affirming. Particularly physical disabilities, but we’re talking about sensory things as well. It’s other areas that are not necessarily presented and visible to other people.
It’s so important. People say, “Let’s boycott Amazon.” That’s how some people get their groceries. “Let’s boycott…” I would love to boycott Amazon if they hadn’t already inserted themselves everywhere, and it’s made it so people can survive and have things that they need that bring them comfort, reduced pain, the ability to eat in general. There’s so many things that some of these services… Excuse me. Bring to people on the margins. And so sometimes in centering people on the margins, we are talking about things that are, “harmful to the environment,” if we could equal the magnitude of a corporation.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Jenn (she/they):
If we actually had proper plastic recycling in this country, perhaps we could have a huge impact. It’s one of the biggest farces of the entire recycle. That’s also a rebrand. That one is a whole, that’s hours of conversation. But plastic recycling is a rebrand because it’s extremely inefficient or impossible.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Entire plastic recycling centers have been built and it goes to the landfill anyway. This is a really big controversy. I mean, talk about a special interest of mine. I could really go to town on that one. And, these things are very important, so these different contexts can intersect. You can have disabilities that are visible or not visible. You can have a desire ethically to affect our environment in positive ways and yet have no access to it while continuing to go beyond the basics of just surviving. Because people deserve to do things that aren’t just surviving. And so-
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Jenn (she/they):
… I just think this is so important, what you’ve said. I can see it touching just about every subject we could think of when it comes to embodiment actually. I love this and I love what everyone said here, just thinking about the ways we can zoom in, look at things in microscopic ways, and zoom out to a 30,000-foot view and just see all the layers of this. If you’re thinking about energy, that includes whether or not get fatigue or brain fog. In other words, incapable, have lost the capacity to do anything else for the rest of the day.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
How are you supposed to think through these things when you have limitations in that way? It’s incredibly ableist, and I would even say eugenicist, the way that it is often offered to us. Why can’t you do what everyone else is doing? Maybe you’re not worth it then. I see this kind of conversation on Twitter especially all the time.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
So importantly.
Chavonne (she/her):
Even Amazon. Oh, sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. No, because I was just going to go off on Amazon and it’s fine. Yeah. As I look at Amazon boxes in the corner, it’s fine.
Jenn (she/they):
We have what my… So, sorry. My partner calls it the mail room, my pile of Amazon boxes in the front.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
That’s how I access things that I need that I can’t. Sometimes it’s a third of the price. That is how I afford to manage some of my chronic illnesses.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes. And I have to say, it’s neuro divergent affirming for me. I’ll be done after this. Amazon Day, it is not a possibility for me to make a shopping list on a regular basis. So I have my little Amazon day, I put my little shit in there. It all shows up on Monday. And it’s like my birthday, once a week. It’s the only way I’m going to go shopping and remember what I need to buy. It’s just impossible for me. So-
Jenn (she/they):
Great point. It’s a great list maker.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
Well, and again, one of the reasons I love talking to you all is I have so many thoughts just wanting to explode out of me right now.
Jenn (she/they):
Do it. Us too, clearly.
Chavonne (she/her):
Clearly.
Lindley (she/her):
But one of these trade-offs there is, and both in environmental and time and resources and thinking about Amazon. I also have a small mail room in my foyer of Amazon envelopes-
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah, yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
… that have come in that I have not had time in the last two days to… Okay. By two days, I mean a week, let’s be honest.
Jenn (she/they):
Yes.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
[inaudible].
Jenn (she/they):
Three and a half, four weeks. I have some that are that old.
Chavonne (she/her):
It was my birthday last week and my mom was like, “Go find your present because I know you have at least six boxes. One of those is from me. You have to open your boxes, otherwise you will not get a birthday present.” I’m like, “Fine. Let me go see what I got today.”
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah. Okay, so I am very into houseplants. I have a very large number of houseplants, and I have a specific hippie fertilizer that I use for them. And I need to go see today. I actually made a note as we were talking because I was reminded of it. I need to go see if Amazon sells it.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
Or if someone sells it through Amazon. Because the closest place to me, physically, that carries it is 45 minutes away at this wonderful nursery down near Tacoma. And, do I love going to this nursery? Yes, I do. It’s a wonderful place.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
I like to go in the winter because its semis sheltered. So it’s outdoor, indoor. It’s outdoor covered. I can go in the middle of winter. There’s all these tropical plants. It’s like going to a botanic garden. I love going, but how often do I have a chance to go 45 minutes away? And if I go 45 minutes away for this one single thing of fertilizer. That is, it’s time, it’s wear and tear on the car. It’s microplastics-
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
… from the tire or tire dust, whatever.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
It’s all this environmental impact that could be used by an Amazon delivery truck going a lot shorter distance to bring that to me.
Jenn (she/they):
Who’s likely already in your neighborhood, et cetera.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah, I mean, we’ve got a warehouse down the street. And let me not say, I mean, let me say that this is not big defensive Amazon.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, no.
Jenn (she/they):
No, no. No.
Lindley (she/her):
At the same time, we’re back to trade-offs.
Jenn (she/they):
Yep.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
I went to CVS yesterday to pick up some medication. And I went inside because I needed toothpaste. Well, they started locking up the toothpaste at my local CVS.
Jenn (she/they):
What?
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. They lock everything now everything. It’s really hard [inaudible].
Lindley (she/her):
There was one non pharmacy employee in the store, and they had a line at the register that was about eight people deep. And I’m like, “I’m not standing here and waiting on eight people to check out so I can get my toothpaste.”
Chavonne (she/her):
Yep.
Lindley (she/her):
And so I went home and I placed an order for toothpaste that will be here today.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
It was-
Chavonne (she/her):
And that’s exactly what it is, yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
… cheaper than CVS. And then I don’t have to run out of toothpaste while I’m waiting for our regular grocery store day.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
Trade off.
Chavonne (she/her):
And don’t have to use my spoons to talk to a person when I could just order on my phone. Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
Trade-offs, trade-offs, trade-offs, every day.
Chavonne (she/her):
Trade-offs. Every single one.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah, every minute. And, so many of these trade-offs are us versus cultural narratives. Us versus the expectations of our culture. Which leads really neatly into capitalism mythology, which I’m really excited to talk about.
Jenn (she/they):
Oh. This was my favorite thing you said last time. I’m so excited.
Lindley (she/her):
And yes, I did have to go back and read our transcript from last time because I had no idea what I talked about last time.
Chavonne (she/her):
I was like, “The what?”
Lindley (she/her):
Me too, yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Well, since you mentioned it, were you going to say something, Maya?
Mayaneli (she/her):
Oh, yeah. I was like, I remember that conversation being a long one, which was great and fabulous. It’s been a while since I’ve listened, but it was great.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
I also want to say Lindley is a great podcast guest because you’re really great at being like, “Let’s go to the next question.”
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah, you’re right.
Chavonne (she/her):
So you don’t even have to do it. We’re like, “Okay, cool. Let’s do it.”
Mayaneli (she/her):
It’s those patterns and those connections. Autism brain is all about patterns.
Jenn (she/they):
Yes.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. That’s great.
Jenn (she/they):
Yes, we can notice my pattern is to write questions that are very verbose. So let’s get to the next question.
Chavonne (she/her):
And I love you. I love them.
[35:45]
Jenn (she/they):
So there’s a couple of things we talked about last time in one. We talked about fat embodiment and fat liberation as areas we started to explore in the last conversation. I’m going to highlight was about, “Capitalist mythology,” that you brought up and how our bodies can bear the brunt of that energy, as you were just talking about. You hold a very nuanced space for how your average body positivity.
Jenn (she/they):
… hold a very nuanced space for how your average body positivity/liberation conversation does not necessarily include these areas, right? Specifically last time you said, “Body liberation and fat liberation are two different things to pay attention to.” And how have these topics sat with you, felt challenging for you, and expanded for you also over the last two years?
Lindley (she/her):
Well, let me sum up the capitalist mythology thing because I suppose that not everyone listening to this will have listened to my interview from two years ago.
Mayaneli (she/her):
Pause. Now. Go back.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah, I was going to say… We encourage you to do that.
Mayaneli (she/her):
Come back later.
Lindley (she/her):
So capitalist mythology, I guess these are how things get coined. That’s not a term outside my own head, but basically when we talk about fatness, when we talk about bodies, capitalism and racism intertwine to create these stories about what fat people are like. What fat people are allowed to do and be. What kind of traits fat people have – almost entirely negative in this mythology. And so it creates these stories that fatness is indicative of a bad person. So that also means that if you become fat, you are becoming a bad person. And I’m actually going to quote myself from our previous transcript.
Jenn (she/they):
Yes!
Chavonne (she/her):
Do it!
Lindley (she/her):
I looked back at, I was like, that was really smart.
Jenn (she/they):
Do it, do it, do it!
Chavonne (she/her):
Sounds like Jen.
Jenn (she/they):
I fucking love this question because I wrote it.
Lindley (she/her):
So these are stories that we tell ourselves around the campfire to justify the way that we treat fat people.
Jenn (she/they):
Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
And to make it clear that if you become fat, not only are you now going to be subject to that same treatment, but it’s because the evidence of your sins have been made clear in your flesh. And in our previous chat, we then went on to talk about the work of a writer named Alan Levinovitz and how this becomes intertwined with religion because yes, that is very deliberately religious terminology. And so I encourage you, if you want to hear more about that, to hop over to our previous conversation. But –
Jenn (she/they):
It’s great. That conversation has shaped lots of fundamentalist deconstruction, space holding conversations with clients.
Lindley (she/her):
Oh, wonderful.
Jenn (she/they):
To face that head on and talk about it, like hyper-independence of the oldest, socialized as femme, child, just like these are traumas and really challenging things that are baked into our culture because our culture is inherently fundamentalist, puritanical, et cetera. It’s so important. I constantly think about this very specific thing. Sorry, I jumped in. I just wanted you to know I’m constantly thinking about this. I had forgotten the phrase capitalist mythology until I went back to our transcript. I was like, that’s what it is. So thanks for that.
Lindley (she/her):
To illustrate this, I actually want to tell a story about this thing, this event that I saw literally a couple of days ago. It was either two or three days ago. And I’m not going to name the person because I haven’t asked in advance, and I don’t know that they would want that attention right now.
But this is the story about a very fat woman that I’m Facebook friends with, I don’t know her well personally, who posted this week on her personal Facebook in a public post, but just on her wall about a tattoo that she’s getting. And now this is a very fat white woman who is getting this massive back tattoo and it’s sort of this Japanese demon looking thing. And I don’t know the inadvertent crossover into a different kind of mythology, but I don’t know anything about the character being portrayed. But it’s this huge, huge back tattoo. Very impressive. And she posted along with talking about this, photos of herself with a bare back getting the beginnings of this tattoo and it is sort of sketched out on her skin. And then it’s the beginnings of the actual work on it.
And photos like these as a photographer, I’m always into the imagery, but photos like these are so powerful because we do not see, we don’t see photos of very fat people. We particularly don’t see photos of very fat people naked. And I spend a ton of time around images of people who are very fat and people who are very fat. And I don’t think I had ever seen a photo like this of a person getting a tattoo of that size where all of their skin is exposed.
And so these were very powerful photos even though they were very casual. But the point is that it immediately accumulated a ton of comments. And because other fat people were finding this really, really inspiring and meaningful for them, there were people in these comments going, I’ve always wanted a tattoo and never felt like I could get one before and now I feel like I can go do it. And people telling specific like, oh, I have very loose skin and now I feel like I can go to get a tattoo. Or I have existing scars, whatever. It was clearly affecting the way other people exist in their bodies. How powerful and cool.
But what was happening is as the algorithm detected that it was attracting a lot of comments the audience changed. And now, okay, so I’ve been hanging out a lot on blue sky lately after I left Twitter, and highly recommend Blue Sky. It’s a very sort of lefty space. It’s a lot of fun, but it is also mostly not algorithm driven. So you don’t have to be weird and not use specific words because you think the algorithm is going to penalize it and so on. But at any rate, there’s a phrase that people have come up with there to talk about algorithms in other places where they call it breaking containment. It’s when people outside your circle, people outside your audience start to see what you have posted and things get weird.
And so basically, this woman’s post broke containment and the algorithm started to show it to people outside this woman’s normal audience. And the tone of the comments changed really abruptly and really drastically. And people started posting comments that were full of this faux concern. And anyone who’s in a fat body or in a disabled body or I suspect in a black or body of color will immediately recognize these comments where this very fake concern. “But what if you lose a lot of weight? What will happen to that tattoo?” “That had have cost a lot of money. What if you lose weight?”
Jenn (she/they):
“I just care about your health.”
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah, exactly. “I just care about your finances.” Complete stranger on the internet.
Chavonne (she/her):
You can pay for it.
Lindley (she/her):
And so basically from there, it escalated. People started getting into fights in the comments with these concern trolls and it escalated, I kid you not up to actual, literal death threats to the person who had posted this for glorifying obesity. Please forgive my usage of the O word. And the reason that I’m telling this story in relation to capitalist mythology is that this is not concern. This is reinforcement of systems of power. This is people who are jumping in to reinforce these systems of power for lots of reasons.
And there’s a post on my blog and it stays on my sidebar because it’s one of the most popular posts. So if you head over to Bodyliberationphotos.com and you go to the blog and you look at the sidebar, it’s pinned there because a lot of people visit it, but it is the reasons that people hate fat people. And that’s why it’s one of the most popular posts because it’s a very provocative headline. But at any rate, I’m not going to list all of them right now, but these systems of power, there are benefits to reinforcing that. There are personal, there are societal rewards.
If I go into the post of a fat person who is daring to be happy, who is daring to decorate their body, who is daring to find joy in things, and I try to crush that, I am going to, maybe not in that immediate moment, but I am proving that while I’m not like that. I’m proving that I don’t deserve to be treated the way that I’m treating this person right now because I’m not like them. It is whistling past the graveyard in the sense that if I’m treating a fat person badly and I am distancing myself from them, then I’m trying to prove that nobody should treat me like that.
And coming back to that evidence of your sins being made clear, people are terrified of being treated like fat people are treated, which they should be because we’re treated really badly. But at the same time they’re doing it. They’re treating us like that. And people are so threatened by fat joy and fat freedom that they’re willing to issue people death threats, to maintain a system of power where they’re not at the bottom. And again, again, this is intersectional. And if this had been a fat black woman or a fat trans woman, whatever, other intersections, I suspect it would’ve gone downhill even faster.
Chavonne (she/her):
I suspect the same.
Lindley (she/her):
But the upshot is this was somebody in their personal space on Facebook who was just trying to express some joy. And one of my close friends and I were reflecting on this, having seen this conversation go downhill. And I ended up telling her that talking about things like this, it becomes very emotionally intense. I’m actually going to flip back over to my other tab and see what I said because that’s easier than trying to remember it right now.
Jenn (she/they):
It’s such a good idea.
Chavonne (she/her):
It is.
Jenn (she/they):
Because I lose my thoughts all the time. Who knows what I was thinking.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah, I’ve just got to scroll back up to it. Okay, I got it. All right. So a close friend of mine and I were talking about this at the time, and because I’m a fan of remembering things by writing them down, I’m just going to read to you what I said in that conversation about it at the time.
It’s people finding anything they can to shove fat people back in this miserable undecorated box. Because if fat people can get fun colorful tattoos too, then it’s one fewer way for thin people to show superiority in their bodies. If we get to have some of these experiences, these life experiences, like getting a tattoo, something as simple as that, if that is expanded to us, then it’s one less way for people who have more social power in their bodies to demonstrate that. If fat people get to sit down in waiting rooms just like thin people, then how are thin people going to be superior in that moment? And that is really challenging, I think for people who are in small or relatively small bodies to confront the idea that not only is our entire civilization, Western civilization, can’t speak outside that, but it’s literally set up at an infrastructure level to demonstrate the superiority of one body size over another. But the people are often implicit. Complicit. Words are hard.
Jenn (she/they):
They are.
Lindley (she/her):
People are often complicit in enforcing this. And when you bury your discomfort with fat bodies in this faux concern, the only person you’re fooling is yourself. It’s reinforcement of systems of power. And when you start seeing that, when you see the system of power and when you go read Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings and you start understanding the systems of power and how they play into how anti-fatness is an expression of racism. When you start seeing that system, when you start seeing how people reinforce that in their daily lives, you can’t unsee it. And on one hand, since the last time we talked, the medicalization of fatness and weight loss drugs and so on has really ramped up just even in the last two years. But then on the other side, I do see more people starting to see the systems of power on sort of the street level. So just being aware of those systems of power is so powerful, even though it’s really uncomfortable work.
Jenn (she/they):
Extremely uncomfortable. If we have any sort of privilege in any sort of intersection in that conversation, we’re going to have to ask ourselves to see something we have not been seeing before, because that’s what our privilege protects us from.
It’s very uncomfortable. It’s like, wow, I knew things today that I didn’t know yesterday and I don’t like any of them. That’s a really uncomfortable place.
Mayaneli (she/her):
Absolutely. Absolutely. I love this term capitalist mythology. I’d never thought of it that way and it’s just sitting really heavily. Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
I mean it’s essentially just so stories that very fat person is in the grocery store in a walker or I mean in a scooter or in a walker, but I was thinking of that People of Walmart sort of trope of a very fat person tooling around in a scooter. Of course, when I said that I got it, and I literally spend my life fighting against this, but I still got that momentary thing of disgust. And I want to really call that out because I know that you probably got it in your head too.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
And those are my friends. These are people that I care about a lot who are the targets of that stereotype, and I still got it. That is how that embedded that is. That is how hard, how long-term this work is. And the trick is like many other things, like many other aspects of healing. It is not that you don’t get the tapes that you were embedded with, it’s that you recognize them when they happen so you can make other choices.
Jenn (she/they):
Yes. Spotting them.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah, spotting them.
Jenn (she/they):
I think that’s part of the myth that we should be able to stop it from happening. I think that’s part of the larger myth. It’s how we get in our own shame, guilt kind of spirals. I should never have thought that in the first place. It’s like everything’s being set up for us to think that. So what are we going to do next? I like that.
Lindley (she/her):
Individual responsibility comes along right back to Exxon. Capitalist Mythology.
Chavonne (she/her):
Right. Something that’s really coming up for me as I’m thinking about this capitalist mythology is how that shows up with disability and the idea that any of us can become, if we aren’t already, any of us can become disabled at any time. So that’s why we create this distance, this metaphorical distance, this physical distance, this emotional distance from disability by having these, now my brain is, it’s there, it’s just not coming out. But the idea that we create this distance so that we can be like, well, at least I’m not this. At least I’m not that. And that it’s the same thing with disability. It’s the same thing with blackness. It’s the same thing with all of these identities. It’s at least I’m not whatever. At least I’m not whatever.
That’s that capitalist mythology in terms, especially in terms of intersectionality. Yes, there are some things that you can say at least I’m not this and I’ll never be this, but when it comes to things like disability, when it comes to things like fatness, because our bodies are going to do whatever they do. Those are things that I feel like we try to create even more distance because it could happen to us. And that’s what’s showing up for me right now.
Although of course there is a lot of distance with at least I’m not black, that’s not going to change. But I’m just trying to think of the ones that are more permeable.
Jenn (she/they):
And I could see –
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s not a complete thought. I’m just playing with it.
Jenn (she/they):
No, I totally get it. You’re reminding me of when we create that distance, it’s like we can become myopic. My eyes can’t see that far. I’m not close enough to the issue. We can feign or sit in a place of staying comfortable instead of trying to zoom back in and get closer. Wow.
Chavonne (she/her):
And it makes sense that it’s a margin. So when Jenn and I were planning this season, we talked about our discomfort with talking about disability because it’s something that we aren’t as, I mean, so we both have chronic things, but it’s not as salient as other things that we’ve been discussing as the seasons have gone on. And so that’s why it’s easier to create that myopia. Like you said, that I’m not as close to that, so I don’t have to think about it. So I like this push to, again, individual responsibility, whatever, but this push to consider it. Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
Well, and having that perception of distance.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes, Exactly. That’s the better term of the distance. Thank you. Thank you. I needed that.
Lindley (she/her):
It also allows us to also have the perception of objectivity. And of course, this feeds right into not only electoral politics, but anywhere where you could in theory use the phrase “identity politics.” And I’m putting air quotes around that phrase in the way that fat people are not considered reliable conveyors of our own experiences because we’re not objective because we’re in it and –
Jenn (she/they):
Which is enraging.
Lindley (she/her):
It is enraging.
Jenn (she/they):
Wow. That’s a really common tactic inside of capitalist mythology is to be like, well, we can’t trust your description of your experience, so lean on us for that.
Chavonne (she/her):
You’re too emotional. You’re too invested. Yeah, obviously. Yeah. Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
You’re reliving it. Well yes I am, because it happened to me. Thank you. Thank you for pointing that out. That’s absolutely accurate. It’s also things that are coded, that the writing is absolutely on the wall, but something like you’re very intimidating. You’re bitchy. They’re very bossy though. Do we like that? And these other sort of descriptions of this. I’m like, do you mean in talking about their own experience? They can talk about it however they like. It’s their experience.
Lindley (she/her):
And this is how I ended up on the outs with a lot of the health at every size provider community, because I was a little too vehement in talking about fat people’s experiences and a population of people who were almost entirely nice, thin, white ladies were not able to handle having someone in their social media spaces who was not only part of the recipient population, part of the patient population, but also this very fat autistic person who was up in their grill about the language that you were using and so on.
Jenn (she/they):
Which you asked in question form, which I have always thought is such a great way of asking that. You had them ask questions of themselves that they didn’t want to answer. So instead they went into attack mode, which is another phrase that can be coded in different ways. But I really mean instead of answering the question, what about-ism is what happened? What about my experience? Talk about a long comment section. I remember your comment section Lindley. I was like, wow, 500, I just got here.
Lindley (she/her):
Well, that lots of incidents over lots over a long period of time too. But things like I’m thinking about in a provider community that I was in, someone had once, a thin white healthcare provider of some kind. I can’t remember. Maybe a therapist had a really highly recommended a book called Eating by the Light of the Moon. And full disclosure, I haven’t read this book. I do know that it has been a really important book for a lot of people genuinely as a gateway for them around food. On the other hand, I know from fat people who have read the book that it’s very anti-fat.
Jenn (she/they):
It is.
Lindley (she/her):
Like many of these, Brene Brown is also has been a very powerful influence for a lot of people and is also very anti-fat. Lots of –
Jenn (she/they):
The internalized fatness of Brene Brown is –
Chavonne (she/her):
Woof.
Jenn (she/they):
…like a beacon that she doesn’t seem to be able to see it, but it’s like this light just shining.
Lindley (she/her):
And with Brene Brown in particular, the ability to talk about shame and things, but then to not be able to turn around and see the reinforcement of shame-based systems of power on other people. But –
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah, shame doesn’t require willpower. And also, I have no willpower for this other subject. There’s actually in some Netflix special, this is when I was alerted to it, that’s some of my privilege is not being on the most marginalized part of the fat spectrum. This is my own privilege, but it was just like, oh, I love their work on shame. Oh, I love it. And then it’s like, okay, it took me only 15 minutes into this special, but why didn’t I notice this before? It’s actually pretty glaring once you start to see it. It’s extremely glaring.
Chavonne (she/her):
She’s also said some pretty awful things about Palestine recently.
Jenn (she/they):
Absolutely. And those things tend to go together where someone can’t see their own privilege or their own cognitive dissonance about the exact subject they’re talking about in certain intersections. And then when called on it refuses to face it. She has done this repeatedly
Chavonne (she/her):
Post comments, whatever.
Jenn (she/they):
But you’re right. Talking about how so shame, resilience, and then telling people how they must do shame resilience really starts to rub me the wrong way. There isn’t just one way to do this. There is especially not a white, very powerful academically inside of our culture person. A lot of people listen to Brene Brown and to not take responsibility for the influence that you have, as you said, staying inside of the comfort of power instead of talking about,
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, I like that too. It gave me chills.
Jenn (she/they):
Right? That’s my summary of what you said inside the comfort of power. While feigning being extremely uncomfortable having this conversation because she relates to, it’s always rubbed me the wrong way. I just never had words for it until that one Netflix special. And I was like, okay, I get what everyone’s been saying, right? Clients had already been telling me, don’t recommend that work to me. That’s harmful. Don’t send me these YouTubes, that’s harmful. And I’m like, you’re not my teacher and I will not send you anymore. Do you feel that you can express to me why I’m clearly not seeing something. It’s an important learning opportunity for those people who have any kind of privilege, and especially when they have privileges of power. I have the privilege of power with clients, so whenever they check me, I say, okay, no more.
Lindley (she/her):
And this conversation, again, I have so many thoughts that want to come out in different directions, but yeah, the ability, it’s so important to not be like the nice white ladies who cannot let go of the comfort of investing parts of their personal selves into these works. And there is comfort in that, and there is privilege in that because again, speaking just purely from a fat perspective, when I am live in a culture that dreams about, they’re no longer being people like me when that’s one of the dearest wishes of my culture, everywhere I go, I am confronted by that wish, by that dream. And so I don’t have the comfort of being able to watch a sitcom and just invest part of myself into that. I don’t get to read books and invest part of myself into that. But I can imagine, and again, this is speaking purely from fatness, I suspect that from a white perspective, there are lots of places where I have been able to invest part of myself into a work or a person and not even recognize the anti-blackness.
So again, purely from this one perspective, but people do invest especially into self-help stars, self-help gurus and specific works. For some reason, Eating by the Light of the Moon is one of the big ones. Brene Brown is one of the big ones. Geneen Roth is one of the big ones.
Chavonne (she/her):
Sorry.
Jenn (she/they):
Sorry, Chavonne.
Chavonne (she/her):
Sorry. No, it’s fine. Sorry, I didn’t need to make that sound out of my face. I apologize. It was supposed to be internal. Sorry.
Lindley (she/her):
Chavonne was just dying.
Chavonne (she/her):
I could feel the rage coming from my toes.
Jenn (she/they):
That one made me sweat, Lindley. That one made me sweaty. Yeah. Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
With the grace to say, lots of people have started their journey there, myself included. But also, don’t stop there, but okay, I’m good. I’m good.
Lindley (she/her):
No, that’s such a good point.
Chavonne (she/her):
I agree.
Lindley (she/her):
You can’t stop there. And again, I’m sure there are places that I have invested parts of myself, probably somewhere in the self-help world where I have not wrecked, have not yet been able to recognize my own doing that. \.
Chavonne (she/her):
Same, same.
Lindley (she/her):
But there is something about the nice white self-help stuff that I think encourages us to sink parts of ourselves into it. And it sucks to have that, to feel to again perceive like that as being taken away, especially when the delivery of that message is from someone that maybe you don’t gel with or you find annoying or you find loud or mouthy and it sucks. It sucks. It sucks to have a thing that is meaningful to you taken away.
And from a professional standpoint, I’ve done quite a bit of consulting work with particularly health at every size healthcare providers, but also sometimes it’s other photographers, sometimes it’s writers. It’s all kinds of different people that I’ve done some consulting work with. Coaches in the last few years where they’re like, okay, I, have been recommending Brene Brown to all in sundry. What do I do now?
Or I feel like parts of this work are really important. Help. How do I do this without doing damage to people? Oh, The Body Keeps the Score, The Body Keeps the Score, the Body Keeps the Score. That’s the one I was trying to think of. I had that book uncritically recommended to me for years and years and years in particularly health at every size spaces. And when I finally read it, I got halfway through and was confronted by a whole chapter that’s nothing but anti-fatness, and it is completely the rest of the book. I bailed there. I did not complete the book. I cussed at it a lot, and then I said, no, not doing this anymore. Especially because there were a bunch of other weird problematic things in the rest of the book that I had never seen anybody talk about.
Jenn (she/they):
Much less the person who wrote the book and what we know about their treatment of other people in their life, yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
I think the widespread awareness of that post dates, my experience with the book itself. I think at the time that people were recommending it really enthusiastically in hay spaces.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh yeah, for sure.
Lindley (she/her):
Before that, in-
Jenn (she/they):
Therapy Spaces too. Even as a therapist, I’m always like, no, we are not talking about that book.
Lindley (she/her):
And on one hand-
Chavonne (she/her):
… talking about that book. Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
And on one hand.
Yeah, the rest of the book is all very carefully cited. And even though the author’s biases and things do come through. But then we get to the anti-fat chapter, and suddenly there are no citations at all. It’s just his vomiting of his prejudices.
The point is that often when I talk in public spaces about things like this, professionals then want to know what they should be using instead. You go do your job. You go read other books. You seek out things from marginalized people. It’s not my job to. Well, of course if I know alternatives, I’ll suggest it.
Chavonne (she/her):
For sure.
Lindley (she/her):
But no, I don’t know alternatives to Brené Brown because that’s not my job. I wasn’t the one who had recommended her in the first place. You go do it.
Now, that said, if somebody is coming in for consulting, yes, of course I’m going to work.
Chavonne (she/her):
That’s a different…
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
I’m not going to be like, “No, you go do it.” But if it’s in a comment thread somewhere on Instagram, “No, you go do it.”
Chavonne (she/her):
Google is your friend.
Lindley (she/her):
I’m not your researcher.
Jenn (she/they):
There are endless lists you can easily find on Google. Right?
Chavonne (she/her):
Absolutely.
Jenn (she/they):
And there’s five new publications in the last 12 months alone that you could recommend as alternatives. They’re very easy to find.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Google is free. Go ahead.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah, exactly.
Jenn (she/they):
Are they determining a huge part of our capitalist mythology? Yes, they are. And also they’re free. Go ahead. Comes at a cost, but it’s free. Go ahead.
Lindley (she/her):
Duck, Duck, Go is also free, and is also using lists.
Jenn (she/they):
I love Duck, Duck, Go.
Lindley (she/her):
Artificial intelligence results.
Mayaneli (she/her):
What is it called?
Jenn (she/they):
Duck, Duck, Go.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
That’s what I use. Thanks for reminding me. The app used to be very, if you are doing it on your phone, the app used to be really full of bugs, and it is so much better.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, okay. I’m on it. Thank you.
Lindley (she/her):
Nice. I need to change everything over. I haven’t done it.
Jenn (she/they):
My partner’s in IT. He’s like, “You need to use Duck, Duck, Go from here forward.” I said, “Okay, I will.” And I haven’t gone back.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah, yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
It is significant. When I forget and I do Google, I’m like, oh, so many sponsored things. So many things. And then I’m like, oh yeah, I need to go back to where I know that I’m just going to get the first five results. I’m going to be like, I’m very interested in clicking these things. Okay, I will do it.
Chavonne (she/her):
That’s great.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah. Well, and losing, to come back to that, Jen, I actually wrote down this quote, because I might have to quote you at some point on Instagram with your consent. Because this idea of staying inside the comfort of power.
Jenn (she/they):
You quote me. That’s so cool. You go ahead.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
I quote you constantly. So go ahead.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
The comfort of power is really hitting for me today. Because we are in a world where we have 24/7 news. We have access to doom, and constant bad news from all over the world, in a way that humans have never had before. We can sit there and doom scroll on social media. And I think there’s a lot of positive power in social media too. Don’t get me wrong. I doom scroll with the best of them. So this is not me lecturing. But the point is that we live in uncertain times. We’re still in the middle of a pandemic. There are a lot of… Stuff is hard.
I saw somebody the other day say, “It’s hard to be a person right now.” And that really resonated with me too.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
And also, humans are comfort seeking. Of course, we’re comfort seeking. And some of our capitalist mythologies, like our Puritan roots here in the US, create really weird conflicts with comfort too.
And of course, the comfort of a fat body. We are physically soft. We are comfortable for other people to literally, physically, lay on. The last time I was, no. Two flights ago, this was just pre-pandemic. The random dude beside me on the plane literally slept on my shoulder the whole way.
Jenn (she/they):
That’s happened to me many times.
Lindley (she/her):
Oh, please don’t do that. Yikes. On the other, I hope you enjoyed this nice soft shoulder, my dude. But also, please don’t do that. Yikes.
Chavonne (she/her):
Please don’t do that. Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
I’m not literally here to be a pillow. At least not without consent.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah, please ask my permission first.
Lindley (she/her):
Right. And so our Puritan ideas of rejecting comfort are part of what plays into our discuss with fat bodies. That literal physical softness. But the point is that it is comfortable when you have privilege. It’s comfortable to be in power.
Jenn (she/they):
Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
And it’s comfortable when someone who is like you says something that changes your life. And it sucks to have that criticized, but at the same time, you are grown ass adults.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
That’s right.
Lindley (she/her):
And when you are a grown ass adult, you got to deal with, you have to. Particularly when you are in a field, a professional field, or you have taken on some level of social justice awareness, or integration within your work, you have to figure out, maybe with the help of a therapist, there’s no shame in that. I adore my therapist.
Jenn (she/they):
I do too.
Lindley (she/her):
You have to figure out how to reconcile a loss of comfort, with the way that the comfort that you’re losing, was the opposite for other people. Does that make sense?
Jenn (she/they):
Yes.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes, absolutely.
Lindley (she/her):
When my comfort is directly fueling discrimination against you, how crappy is it for me to cling to that once I know differently? Maybe I can find some comfort somewhere else. Or maybe I didn’t, deserve isn’t the right word. That’s not what I’m looking for. But maybe I didn’t need to have that comfort in the first place.
Jenn (she/they):
And comfort actually feels like something that should be abundant. Comfort brings other comfort. So there can be, working through this as I’m talking about it, I feel like there can be comfort if it’s shared. Comfort that distances from power. Comfort that’s collective. Comfort that’s mutual. The different framing of comfort.
And as we’re talking about comfort, I’m reminded that those 10, I don’t remember if they’re tenants or aspects of white supremacy, it’s like this list of the major things.
Chavonne (she/her):
I was thinking about that too.
Jenn (she/they):
Comfort is one of them. I’m just thinking of that now. Because that was a huge realization for me.
Oh, comfort is a tenant of white, again, I don’t remember what they’re called. I’m just going to call them tenants of white supremacy. And I’m like, I love being comfortable. And I’m like, oh, but it’s not bad to be comfortable in your body. What we’re really talking about is, I don’t want to deal with that kind of comfort. That’s for, I’m so distanced inside this capitalist mythology, I don’t have to deal with that. That kind of comfort. Comfort at the expense of what?
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Jenn (she/they):
So it’s making me play with the word comfort. Because when we’re talking about embodiment, that word comes up a lot. Pleasure, joy, satisfaction, comfort. They come up so often, and not all comfort is the same. Just like things can always bring a particular feeling, or result, or something to us, at the expense of someone else.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Jenn (she/they):
Or many people.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah. And sometimes it’s just really literal too. Particularly when we’re talking about fatness.
I have Mini Countrymen, is the car that I drive and I adore it. It’s 10 years old and I’m going to try to keep it on the road as long as possible.
Jenn (she/they):
Oh, that’s one with the little hatch in the back. They’re so cute.
Lindley (she/her):
This is the bigger version.
Jenn (she/they):
Oh gotcha.
Lindley (she/her):
But yeah. Yeah, tangent. So I have the Countryman, which is the crossover SUV size one, although it still has the hatch in back. And then my husband has the coupe, which is smaller than a standard Mini Cooper. It’s a little two seater sports car, deally. And so we joke about having the Mini and the Maxi.
But at any rate, my car is in the shop right now. And so I have a loaner car, which is also a Mini Countryman. It’s the 2024 version. And sometime between the 2015 version that I have, and the 2024 version that I was loaned, someone decided that only thin people were allowed to have comfort in that car.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, how nice.
Lindley (she/her):
Because I can no longer comfortably fit in the seats. And it’s not just that they are narrow, it’s that they are cupped specifically to hold a thin butt. And to cradle a thin back.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
Which means that I am sitting, it’s like sitting across rather than sitting down in a soup bowl. I’m now sitting on the edges of the soup bowl. And it’s deeply uncomfortable. It’s awful. And it’s not just my butt, it’s all the way up my back. Because it’s a seat not only with arms, but… It’s like if you were an adult trying to sit in a child’s car seat. That’s exactly what it feels like.
Jenn (she/they):
Or the edge of a chair that has a very bony, well, it’s wood, but it feels like a bony like arm rest. Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah, like sitting across the arms of a chair.
Jenn (she/they):
That reminds me of Roxanne Gay who talked about, I can’t remember where I saw them talking about this now, I can’t recall. But I think they were doing a talk at the 92nd Street Y in New York. And they had to hover above the seat because they could not fit for the entire talk. That was recorded, while the focus was on them and their newest book. And everything was really… They felt they couldn’t change because the entire situation was created around them being present. And so they physically hovered.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah. And everybody who’s my size knows the hovering.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
When I went to the dealership to drop my car off and get this loaner. And I also want to acknowledge the privilege of being able to go to a car dealership that could give me a loaner car. And to have this vehicle and to be able to afford repairs on it, yada, yada, yada. I just want to acknowledge that there’s privilege. That there’s comfort in being able to do those things.
Jenn (she/they):
That’s right.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
And so again, trade offs and privilege and so on. But the seat there at the service area where I was sitting to drop my car off, I wasn’t fitting in it. And so I was scooched on the very edge of it, hoping that I wasn’t going to flip the chair over. Because all my weight was on the very edge of this chair.
Jenn (she/they):
Yes.
That’s a very common experience at the doctor’s office. March is my month to go to the doctor’s office. This is going to be published in June, but I see all my specialists. It just started, a diagnosis started then, so I see a bunch of people.
And just yesterday I had an ultrasound and I was sitting on the edge of a seat. And they used to have accessible seating, and they are suddenly missing. They were there in December, last time I was at this radiology place, but they’re not there anymore. And so I can’t fit. My hips can’t fit. My stomach can’t fit. My ribs can’t even fit. My general body size can’t fit there. And so I had to be far enough forward because all these chairs have arms. And I actually kept envisioning myself flipping this chair over. I better be careful when I get up. That’s a great description of that.
So frustrating. The built environment can be built however we choose. We don’t have to constantly be centering only one body type.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
And again, coming back to some things we talked about earlier, is this very literal, this is who belongs in this space. This is who gets comfort in this space. This is a separation.
I once went to a dermatologist’s office for a couple of years where I could technically fit into the chairs, but they were these leather, faux leather things that had kind of a rounded back. And so the back and the arms were connected. And I fit in it so tightly that the first time I went, that when I stood up, the chair came with me.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
It got about two feet off the floor. I just stood up. I wasn’t thinking about it. And then it falls off of my butt with this clunk. And of course everybody in the waiting room is staring at me. And so after that, I stood in the walkway because there was nowhere else to stand.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah. I do a wall lean. Many times.
Lindley (she/her):
And no one asked me, “Hey, are you?” Because I’m just standing there. No one ever asked me, “Hey, are you okay?” “Hey, can we get you a different seat?” Nothing.
In fact, I had a primary care doctor that was similar for a while. Where I just had to stand. And the thing is that whenever you talk about these experiences in public, you will get bombarded with people. Usually people who have more body privileges than you going, “Well, why didn’t you say something?” Depending on the situation, anywhere from, why didn’t you ask for a different chair, to, you should say to them.
I mean, not over a waiting room chair, but if you have a bad healthcare experience, it’s always, you should report them. Well, the thing is that discrimination against me is institutionalized.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
Who am I going to report it to?
Chavonne (she/her):
Right.
Lindley (she/her):
The primary care doctor, whose waiting room I couldn’t sit in for years, I did advocate for myself. I asked her multiple times for a seat that I could sit in, and she was always going to get around to it. This was a sole person practice. It was just her. She was always going to get around to it, and she never did. And then it’s worse when it’s a chain of places, or a big practice, because then they have to.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh yeah. Completely removed, yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
I travel an hour to take my cat to this vet because we used to live close by. And they’re so good that I just never, I am willing to drive up there. In part because the shaming of fat pet owners is a big phenomenon too. And these people have always been great to me, and they’re great with my cat. So I drive an hour.
But their bathroom, in their brand new facility, they just built it a couple years ago, I can’t wipe myself in their bathroom because the toilet paper dispenser that they don’t use is so close to the toilet. It is unused and it’s still there. So three visits ago, I had to take my cat in several times for some procedures recently. So three visits ago, a few months ago, I asked the front desk person, I’m like, “I know you personally aren’t in charge, but can y’all please remove this because it’s a big problem for me and my body?” And she was very nice about it. She said she’d look into it, and it’s still there.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
You know? So yeah, in a perfect world, well, in a perfect world, I wouldn’t have to. I would not have to constantly advocate for my comfort.
Chavonne (she/her):
Correct.
Lindley (she/her):
But in a better world, I would have the energy to speak up and write an email, and talk to somebody’s manager, and report somebody to the whatever board that a doctor would be reported to, every time something happened. But A, not only would I be using, literally, a part-time job’s worth of time on that, but also harm reduction. I got to pick my battles.
And I’ve just started telling people that on the internet now. Because every time I talk about a bad experience, there will be somebody in the comments, usually an average size white woman, usually younger, who will be like, “Well, why didn’t you do xyz?” Because I’m human and I needed to get my whatever and get on with my day.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
I get so exasperated with that these days. You write an email.
Chavonne (she/her):
Right.
Jenn (she/they):
And if it’s in our built environment, and it’s in all of the built environments in which we exist, how many letters and comments is that going to be? It’s going to be a full-time job. It’s going to be the work of an entire team to keep up with. It’s like, oh, the airline, the airport itself, the transportation to the airport. This is if you travel.
Going to the doctor. I see a lot of specialists, it’d be each and every one. I’m going to see seven specialists this month, they’ll be each and every one of those offices. Plus radiology, which is like a catch-all. And what if I have to do lab work? Particularly the place that I do lab work, I go to the one that’s closest to me, but I can’t sit anywhere. And I am, again, I’m in the middle of the fat spectrum. I am not in the most marginalized of bodies.
We live in New Mexico. This is a state with an incredible lived population of people in larger bodies.
It is who this state is, and who people are, and who their entire set of ancestors have been as well. It’s really sitting in that space. But it’s still a medical field that’s dominated by white supremacy. It’s still inside this capitalist mythology. That it’s like, well, those people should conform to the ideals of beauty standards, even though we’re talking about medical care. Which is not the same thing, or it shouldn’t be the same thing. It’s so overlapped right now.
But there’s, yeah, just thinking about the amount of labor that would be… I have a joke with my partner about this. I love this word, but I only say this when I really mean it. It’s asinine. It sits in a place. And our 20-year-old is like, what’s that mean? I’m like, it’s so ridiculous it has the word ass in it. Otherwise, I don’t remember the definition. But I’m like, yes. Right? It’s like this is asinine.
In the beginning, and I’m inside of one of these healthcare managed systems, where the whole system itself is managed. Not just my insurance, but the actual system I’m in is managed. It’s the biggest one in this state. People can figure that out. But when I go there, it’s like, and they’re like, and you have to drive across town to see your specialist. And you have to drive across. You have to go by the airport. You have to go by Journal Center, which is where our newspaper center is.
And also it’s all of the higher levels of healthcare. But I’m darting across. The number of audio books that I listen to in the month of March, going between all these appointments. Everything in Albuquerque is within 30 minutes. Everything. So I am really traveling everywhere for it to not to be that. And you’re right, we become consultants. Unpaid consultants.
For exposure. And exposure that’s harmful. It’s a really damaging situation. And just thinking about, I have a lot of PTSD related to my medical care over my life. What if I’m in a freeze response? How am I supposed to advocate for myself there? I have to bring things written and show them on the notes app on my phone. I have written my entire medical history to take to any new specialist, so they don’t just breeze over things as if they didn’t happen. I highlight compared. But it took a lot of labor for me to do that.
But it’s because I wasn’t getting the care that I needed. And so I had to start advocating in a different way. And it comes at great personal costs. I have to recover. And I, again, am not the most marginalized person, not even close. Not even close in our healthcare system. Not even close. I have power in this system. If I say I’m a dietician, I can get somewhere with people sometimes. It depends.
Sometimes I’m never going to mention it to them because now I’m going to be even more harmed by that person. It depends. I have to do that very… But again, it’s like choosing your battles. I like that as an expression of privilege, whether or not you can choose your battles.
I like that.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah, yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
I really love that.
Lindley (she/her):
And since we have been talking about this framework of capitalist mythology, it’s becoming clear to me, just as we talk, that one of the myths is, well, part of it is the just world fallacy. But it’s also where it intersects with, where it meshes with the mythology of justice. If I tell my doctor that I can’t sit in their waiting room, well, of course. Of course they will fix it.
Because not only just world fallacy. And so if that thing doesn’t get fixed, then clearly I did something wrong. But also the mythology and the narratives that we have around healthcare providers too. Particularly around MDs. The goodness and wisdom of healthcare providers, again, particularly MDs, that they’re these infallible experts, while also being like House. But it’s okay if they’re assholes because that’s just how MDs are. We have all these narratives.
Jenn (she/they):
It’s what you expect.
Lindley (she/her):
But all of those narratives reinforce these systems of power. And of course, the gate keeping of the healthcare industry, and healthcare education, ensures that those systems are maintained.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
And so then if I spend all my time… So I’m already traveling to an hour away, to University of Washington, to see one of the, and I am privileged. I live in an area with more than one health at every size aligned healthcare provider. But I’m still traveling an hour away to see one.
Jenn (she/they):
Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
She has been fantastic for me. But she is not fully health at every size aligned. And so I never know if that worm’s going to turn. And by the time that I have traveled an hour away, through city traffic, and so it takes me a whole day. It takes me a whole day to go to the doctor. And then I have to park and walk up a bunch of steps. Depending on what the escalator, whether the escalators are working. Because the parking lot is four or five stories below the healthcare building/ because it’s on the side of a hill, because Seattle.
So by the time that I get to the healthcare office, then they want to test my blood pressure after I’ve driven through city traffic, and walked up a bunch of steps. So I always have to advocate. First off, don’t forget to let me sit for 10 minutes.
Jenn (she/they):
And not talk to you.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
Before you take my blood pressure. And don’t make me talk, because…
Chavonne (she/her):
Also I’m nervous because I’m in a doctor’s office, and I don’t know how I’m about to be treated.
Jenn (she/they):
It’s making me sweaty that we’re just talking about it. That’s how I get.
Chavonne (she/her):
Same.
Jenn (she/they):
This is my sweaty month of the year. I’m like, I guess I’m going to be sweating towards every doctor. At every doctor’s office. Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
Lindley (she/her):
So with all that, and then you think on top of that, that I’m going to risk my further healthcare by pitching a fit about something.
Chavonne (she/her):
Correct. Correct. We have to start all over with someone else.
Jenn (she/they):
Great point. It threatens our healthcare and our retaliation system, our reporting system. Sometimes we lose privacy in reporting a provider. And sometimes it’s more than one person has complained. There can be, in the hearing, there could be literal parts of your record read out loud. These are exceptions to HIPAA. And so it is a very challenging situation to try to…
It’s like when people, earlier we were saying, just sue them. It’s like, okay, me and what money? Me and which lawyer? What do you think I have access to? It’s us versus a system in that case, because it’s going to protect the provider. Their medical malpractice will hire them a lawyer who’s going to protect the provider. It’s not a small thing to undertake to have change.
And instead we might just be costing our self health care. What if that’s the only provider that is a specialist that we can trust? Two of my specialists, I only trust one. I’ve already seen other ones. They were so harmful to me. I can’t go to the other specialists. One of mine is for a liver. It’s not just a gastroenterologist. It’s specifically a hepatologist. For my liver, there is one. One who is available to me that I can trust.
And they still give me a BMI printout at the end of my session. And I go, “Can you please not do this? Can you please not print this out for me and everyone?” And like, “Oh, it’s just automatic Jen. Just throw it away.” And I’m like, “I don’t want to throw it away. I don’t want to see it at all.” I do even feel so comfortable saying something. This provider’s amazing, and this is so New Mexico. They bring their Great Dane puppy to meet me in a session because they know I’m coming in. They’re like, “Come the back way. Come the back way to the hospital. I want you to meet my dog.” We have an amazing relationship.
And I still have to say, “Can you please not print this?” It’s automatic. It just knows. And so it prints it. I’m like, “I don’t want to see it.” At least put it in the recycling on the way to me. Just get rid of it. I don’t want to interact with it. I’m not here to see you for that. My family has livers that start to act up in your late thirties, and I am now the same as the rest of my family.
But the first person that I saw, I was like, “Am I ever going to get help for this?” That was my thought. Do I have to go to another state? If we don’t have providers here in New Mexico, we can go to Colorado, and in fact some other states too. Because we’re just a low provider per client space or state. But I don’t want to do that. Right? The closest place would be Denver, and that’s six hours away. Because the other places don’t have providers either. I have to go to the major metropolitan area. So that’s really important too. I’m just really getting in this that sometimes we have to maintain our comfort in power, but it’s not ours.
We can even suffer in that dynamic. Because it’s like, I have to allow this provider to have power over me so I can just have access.
Right?
I’m trying to prevent things that are harder on me in the future than they are right now. Or maybe prevent isn’t the right word. We’re trying to figure out what mitigates my risk. So what keeps my risk lower? Not these ideas of, let’s prevent diabetes. I’m like, good luck. Everybody’s going to have it by a certain age in their life. You can’t do that. That’s not a human possibility, but you can mitigate how damaging that is to your body.
Why do we pay attention? Oh, it’s because of cardiovascular risk. That’s why we actually care. I’m trained to be a diabetes educator. I had to learn that on my own. Zero people. I have an endocrinologist. Again, I had to have a liver specialist. I get a lot of visualization. No one said, what we’re doing here is trying to prevent heart attacks and strokes. No one said that to me.
My diabetes educator was going to retire three months after meeting me, so they didn’t give me any education. They were like, “Jen, you’re going to train for this. Here, take my book.” They just gave me all this study material. And I’m like, okay, this is great, but I really, really, the first appointment would’ve liked to know this is maintenance on a car. You’re just getting maintenance more frequently. You got the special package.
I actually have more luxurious healthcare. I wish that I had known that I would have more access. This is the most access I’ve ever had, all of it paid for by my health insurance. I do pay my deductible very fast every year, because of how much visualization I have to do in the month of March. But I have the privilege to be able to afford that. I can access all of my care. But just sitting in, I can be more comfortable with something like a diagnosis of diabetes, because I choose proximity to power.
And what I mean by that is, I choose to go see all the specialists. I choose to be slightly harmed in some situations, or greatly harmed depending. My therapist would disagree with me than it is slightly harmed. Laughing for release, not because it’s funny. Just for anyone listening. No, it’s a really serious situation. So even comfort, just kind of thinking of the levels of comfort. Some of those choices don’t feel like mine. It feels like I will be harmed if I don’t choose the comfort and closeness to someone else’s power.
Chavonne (she/her):
Absolutely.
Jenn (she/they):
And so I make those choices. And also, not all of my clients, for example, could have the same options.
Because they can’t handle being harmed one more time right now. So that also speaks to my privilege about being therapized. And having access to my own therapist, et cetera. So yeah, comfort’s tricky. Because comfort is something that is challenging. Just thinking about our conversation about disability earlier, comfort is very challenging. When I’m in complete brain fog and fatigue, there is no comfort to be found. I will not be accessing that today. Or extensively if I have a long time to recover.
Just thinking about this. Gosh, this capitalist mythology, Lindley, you’ve got to write about this or something. This is an incredible framework for considering things that have not been collectively demystified.
Instead, it just stays as a mythology. It stays as allegory. It stays as conversation. It’s really important that it stays relatable and all that kind of stuff, but it’s really hard to see it when it stays a myth. It’s really hard.
Lindley (she/her):
But then once you do see it, you see it everywhere.
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s all you can see.
Jenn (she/they):
Now I’m like. My brain is doing that. I love Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I know you do too, Chavonne.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Jenn (she/they):
But Charlie, with his wall of trying to figure out the mystery, I’m like, solve the case. I’m like, my brain is doing that right now. I’m like, it’s everywhere. I can see it.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah. And I’m just thinking so much now about risk mitigation. Because being marginalized, and the more marginalized you are, the more intense this is. The more it affects your daily life. But it is just constant risk mitigation. And this is purely, purely an individual activism thing for me. So this specific thing is not necessarily going to affect that many people. But because I have been so outspoken in healthcare provider spaces, there are now healthcare options that are off limits to me in Seattle.
There are cases.
Jenn (she/they):
I don’t like that, Lindley.
Lindley (she/her):
And now that I have spoken out about in support of a ceasefire in Palestine too, as we record this in March 2024, I don’t even know what year it is.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah, I was going to say, where are we?
Chavonne (she/her):
What is time?
Lindley (she/her):
It’s very relevant right now. I’ve lost a significant number of friends here in Seattle. Some of whom are also providers. I’m lucky that my therapist, who’s amazing, doesn’t do social media.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh wow.
Lindley (she/her):
She’s more or less hazel line, but she’s not tied into the gossip networks. So I don’t have to worry that, what is she hearing on the down low? And is affecting the care that I’m getting?
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Oh, it is. It’s made your actual choices and options significantly less. It’s already a small community. There’s no way that, that’s not a great effect, or great impact on you.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
Well, and again, I’m very lucky to live in this area where there are multiple providers. If I needed a dietician for some reason, I do, you know.
Lindley (she/her):
If I needed a dietician for some reason, not only do I know who I can approach and who I can’t. But also, I know them personally so I can quiz them about things before I see them. I am generally the person in my area that people come to say, “Okay, tell me whether Dr. so-and-so is actually good.”
Jenn (she/they):
I’m also that person.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Go whisper networks.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
In my Discord community, The Body Liberation Blanket Fort, a couple of days ago, somebody needed a massage therapist and so I was able to contact the two massage therapists locally that I know personally, and say, “Okay, what’s the weight limit on your tables?” And get answers really fast.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
And that is a privilege. That is comfort.
Chavonne (she/her):
That is privilege, absolutely.
Lindley (she/her):
And so, I’m always strategizing how I can pass that on to other people in my community. That I can go into a provider community and yeah, half the people in there think I’m terrible. But at the same time, the other half think I’m great. And I can go in there and say, “Okay, who knows about a therapist in Raleigh, North Carolina that’s trans-affirming?” Or whatever. And I have a better chance of getting an answer than someone who was just Googling.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
And so again, that it’s a very complicated privilege, but it’s still a privilege.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
And half those folks think I’m awful, but half of them think I’m great. So, it’s always trade-offs. But yeah, this concept of constant risk mitigation. And if I complain about something, then am I going to affect the… And it’s not just… To come back to my silly car dealership thing. If I tell them I can’t sit in that chair for five minutes while we deal with my service stuff for my car, and ask for a different chair, how is that going to affect the way I’m treated in the future? How is it going to affect the way I’m treated now?
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
Right now they’re currently blowing me off about something that I’m concerned about, about the car. And is it because I came in fat or is it because that’s how they are? Not only is it this constant risk mitigation, but it’s this constant calculation of how has my risk and my treatment changed and now that people have seen me in person and understand that I am fat. And really fat, not just chubby.
Chavonne (she/her):
This whole conversation about what we have capacity versus capability. We’re doing, of doing, is really making me think of our next question and I wonder how you’d feel about going to that one?
Lindley (she/her):
Works for me.
[1:45:13]
Chavonne (she/her):
Is that okay? One of our favorite parts of our last conversation that Jenn and I have been exploring since then is the idea of embodiment as a practice of depth and clarity, not of working on it or through it, but just the practice of holding that space repeatedly. It challenges ableist, patriarchal, supremacist, and neuro typical standards of always going harder, faster, stronger, better in such important ways. What shows up for you in continuing to explore coming home to yourself and your body and supporting other humans in doing the same, in your work?
Lindley (she/her):
I am so excited about this question and I’m so glad we had a chance to get to it today because depths and clarity are such good phrases for this work. And I’m liking that framing of this so much more than I do… I have fallen into the phrase, “Body, image, journey.” And I use that quite a bit because it’s easy and people know, they get the metaphor. But I’m really liking depth and clarity because I just think it’s more accurate. Because seeing body image work, seeing embodiment, seeing… Occasionally, if I’m feeling particularly, I like using a gross metaphor. I talk about diet culture messaging being fishhooks stuck in our skin that we have to pull out. Because they hurt while they’re in, but they also hurt to pull out.
Jenn (she/they):
That that’s like analogy for racism of death by a tiny cuts. I like that.
Lindley (she/her):
Oh, yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
The comparative analogy there.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah. And so, but all of these journey images imply that there’s a destination, as opposed to it being a practice. The writer and activist, Jess Baker, who was one of my gateways points from body positivity to deeper, to fat liberation as activism work. And also my one of my first gateways and touch points into the history behind feminism and body liberation and how those things intertwine, and historical power dynamics. At any rate, I saw Jess Baker speak at a convention a few years ago. And she actually drew us a quick little picture that was just a bridge. And one end of the bridge was this very 101 level body positivity, or just these first steps into ENT diet thinking. And then the other end of the bridge is liberation. And she was using this as an illustration to talk about where her own work falls in this analogy. And she placed her work right in the middle, which happens to be the top of the bridge. But the middle of that spectrum that people often start at one end and work towards the other.
But, as I was thinking about this prompt, and I love that you send these out in advance so that I can really be thinking on this. I just really strongly got the image of a pond. A little or a big, maybe it’s a big lake? Maybe it’s a small little ornamental fishpond? Pick your own mind’s eye image here. But, at the point where we start becoming aware of the healing that we need to do. And again, my own lens is about anti-fatness. But again, pick your own analogies here. Decorate your pond any way you want. But our ponds are full of bricks and pieces of concrete and leaves and mud and things that got put there naturally over time. And by naturally, I mean from the culture that we live in, that just accumulate over time. But also maybe somebody was chucking trash into your pond?
Maybe people have been driving… Maybe your pond is right near a major road and trash has been blowing into it. Again, pick your analogy. But, I think that depth and clarity as we heal, as we rage, as we do whatever we need to do to unlearn and to learn, it’s fishing stuff out of our pond. It’s pulling out the concrete and the soda cans, and it’s… To do that, you had to pull out some of the big stuff first so that you can even reach in to your little destroyed pond and start even seeing how deep the pond is.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
Even seeing what the water’s like. Is it saltwater or freshwater? My water’s real salty, let me tell you.
Jenn (she/they):
My water’s definitely salty.
Chavonne (she/her):
So salted.
Jenn (she/they):
Same.
Lindley (she/her):
But maybe it’s not a pond at all. Maybe it’s this beautiful clear stream. Who knows, until you even start working the trash out of the way. But the thing about this is that as you start clearing sticks and rocks and leaves and stuff out of the pond, it cannot be clear. It cannot be peaceful. It cannot be… If it’s full of stuff, it can’t have depth, because it has been up. Maybe naturally it does? Maybe naturally it is wonderful and deep and clear, but how would you know?
And so, and of course this ties really neatly back into self-discovery as a metaphor too. But not only is it a process to start clearing that water. But time is going to blow more stuff back into it.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
Again, if your pond happens to be near a major road, so maybe your family is very anti-fat, and you are constantly getting messages from them. And I have to interrupt this to note that my cat ate her food too fast and she thrown up behind me because-
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh no.
Lindley (she/her):
… this is what happens when we record things.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, God. The humanity of it all. I love it. Or the [inaudible] cat. Nevermind. I was like, humanity, cat, [inaudible]. It’s fine.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s fine.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Everything is welcome here. Everything is welcome here.
Lindley (she/her):
Cats keep us humble.
Chavonne (she/her):
They sure do. Every time.
Jenn (she/they):
Like, “How’s this?”
Lindley (she/her):
How about some of this in your pond?
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
But maybe you have people in your life who are deliberately throwing trash in your pond. And maybe that is something that, do you want them throwing trash in your pond? Maybe you need to start getting to the point where you can make some different choices.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
Maybe you need to put up a fence between your pond and the road, whatever. Again, build your own analogy. But the point is that time is also naturally going to throw stuff back in your pond.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
You were naturally going to have leaves and sticks and dirt blow into your pond. And so you are never going to be finished with that process.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
But also it’s a process that takes time because nobody’s going to be able to clear their pond in a day.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
Nobody is going to be able to get all the stuff out of their stream of the day, end of the day. Partly because that is a lot of work. It’s hard work. But also, if you have ever taken a stick into water that’s got a lot of stuff in it and just stirred it around. It’s going to break up the stuff. It’s going to make it even harder to get out. It’s going to make the water muddier. And so, particularly once you’ve got the big stuff out. Once you’ve got all the bricks and the concrete blocks out of your pond, you’re going to have to start sifting more and more carefully to get stuff out. And that, it just takes time.
A couple of years ago we had the deck that is attached to our house rebuilt. And we didn’t expect them to do that in an hour and a half. It took two weeks, and that was fine. In fact, we were impressed they did it that quickly. Things just take time and the fact that it’s in our brains and our hearts and our spirits doesn’t make it take less time. But it is this ongoing process. If you’ve ever an actual fishpond or an aquarium or whatever. Anything that you need to tend over time, it is not a one and done thing. It just takes maintenance. I have to water my houseplants. Every day there’s something that needs to be watered, things need to be repotted. It is a practice.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
And you can think about it as a hobby, like anything else, clearing your pond, that healing work, because it does take time and effort. And sometimes that time and effort isn’t what you want to do with your time and energy, honestly. And sometimes it needs to be put aside-
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
… because you don’t have time to go work on your pond because you got to take your car to the shop, whatever. But also, do we have a moral obligation to get all the concrete blocks out of our pond? No. It is morally neutral. But we might be happier when we can see our own reflections in our pond. And yeah, this just really hit me. And the thing is that the pond is also going to get cleared and healed best if you do it in a way that works with your specific brain and body and spirit. If I go out physically and try to prune everything in my yard, I have a fairly extensive yard with a lot of… I inherited a garden with a lot of mature bushes and plants and things.
If I tried to go out and prune all of that in a day, I would make myself sick. I would end up being ill because I would be so exhausted. That doesn’t work for me.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
I need to do things in little bits. And so if I honor that, it might take three weeks to get it done, but at least it’ll get done. It doesn’t matter. And so, working on your pond, maybe it gives you the best incentive if you get to plant some cool ivy around the edges, before you get all the rocks pulled out of it. Cool. Do that. Plant whatever you want around it. Get that freaking tattoo. It’s bouncing back and forth between the metaphor and the physical here. But-
Chavonne (she/her):
I love it.
Lindley (she/her):
… if what lights you up when you work on your pond is painting your nails before therapy. Paint your nails before therapy.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Jenn (she/they):
Mine is during therapy because it keeps me occupied.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
So I’m not just 100% filling up the space of talking.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh my God, I love that. I might have to do that next time.
Jenn (she/they):
I also always have a nail file, because even if it’s not repainting, I have to do something-
Chavonne (she/her):
Something.
Jenn (she/they):
… concretely fidgeting. Not just a fidget toy, but is actually towards a different goal of mine. Just like, I love looking at my own nails. I don’t know why, but I do. So it’s actually a friend of the podcast and mentor of ours, [inaudible] from Ample and Rooted. I went to a gathering space talk about gender dysphoria and gender dysmorphia that ended up talking about gender pleasure. And I’m like, “Oh, mine’s my nails.”
Lindley (she/her):
Oh.
Jenn (she/they):
It’s also my hair. I’m about to shave my hair again.
Chavonne (she/her):
I love that.
Jenn (she/they):
Those are things that I like to play with, so it’s like I’m getting euphoric and pleasure while I’m with my therapist. So I love that. Because, that was one week ago. I’m just literally starting to affirm that I love that. My brain was like, “Oh, yes, exactly.”
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah. Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Love that.
Lindley (she/her):
It doesn’t have to be… We are punished so much for our daring to exist in human flesh. We are… And the more marginalizations you have, the more you’re punished. But, we have been trained that if it’s fun, if it contains any pleasure at all, then it’s not real work. But maybe for your particular pond, maybe you like the grunge look. Maybe you want to leave it full of rocks and sticks.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
And maybe you’re only going to pull out the bricks.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
And then you’re going to plant a bunch of flowers on the outside. Again, again, choose your own adventure here. But, the point is that replacing one impossible goal, that of being compliant with beauty standards or with health standards or whatever, with another, having the perfect pond. Having, arriving at the Nirvana of body image, there’s no such thing. There’s no such thing.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
I’ve been doing this work, professionally, for almost a decade. And from an internal standpoint for five years on top of that. And I still got that little flash of [inaudible] when I suggested the image of a very fat person on a scooter. I still got a tiny bit of that tape. And that is not because I think that. That is because we all have this actual psychologist, forgive me, I know this isn’t accurate, but we all have this lizard brain cultural understanding of how we should feel. And that is never going to be… We’re never going to be perfectly rid of that because we’re all taking that in all the time, no matter how hard we try.
Jenn (she/they):
I’m not sure that’s ever going to stop.
Lindley (she/her):
[inaudible] live in the woods-
Jenn (she/they):
Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
… to not be absorbing that.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Absolutely. Absolutely. I love this metaphor of the pond.
Jenn (she/they):
Me too.
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s just, what does your pond need to look like? It doesn’t have to look like anybody else’s. Maybe you like the rocks, maybe you don’t? Maybe get some koi, whatever. I don’t know? I’m just playing all the-
Jenn (she/they):
I was picturing koi too-
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Or a little fountain that keeps it aerated in the corner.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Jenn (she/they):
Skills and tools that are constantly working behind the scenes, even if we don’t have to work them.
Lindley (she/her):
Oh.
Jenn (she/they):
It’s very disability justice oriented to be like, “What could be working behind the scenes? What could be happening there?”
Chavonne (she/her):
Absolutely.
Jenn (she/they):
Because also, I love that. And I was also picturing you can plant certain plants in a pond that naturally refresh the water as well. You can have a filtration system with something that you can empty for all the stuff. It feels like we’re all living next to the road. As soon as you started saying that, I was like, “We all live next to the road.”
Chavonne (she/her):
All of us, yes.
Jenn (she/they):
We live in a society that’s anti-fat, that’s racist, that’s supremacist, that’s capitalist, that’s patriarchal or even larger scales of oppression like kyriarchal, everything’s oppressive.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
It’s all existing there. So how do we keep going? How can we outsource pond maintenance when needed? That’s like a therapist.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Jenn (she/they):
That’s like a dietician, not a dietician-
Lindley (she/her):
That’s a community. It’s our community.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes. Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
I was thinking of mutuality. Jenn’s pond needs some tending to right now. Can please everyone show up on Saturday to Jenn’s pond?
Chavonne (she/her):
To Jenn’s pond, yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Okay, now we need to go over to Lindley’s pond. Right, Lindley?
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
This is the week for Lindley’s pond. Okay, now we’re going to Chavonne’s pond. And this is no reason Chavonne, but it’s like, “Okay, now we need to go back to Chavonne’s pond.” It’s like-
Chavonne (she/her):
That’s okay. My pond needs a lot of support. It’s okay.
Jenn (she/they):
I was just like, “Wow, my pond-”
Chavonne (she/her):
[inaudible] for therapy and medication and all the… Yeah, that’s my pond. Yeah, totally.
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah. Just thinking Chavonne of earlier today, I had my ultrasound was intra vaginal yesterday. It was my first experience. I came… I’ve had a colposcopy, which I knew was going to be far worse than this, but I was like, “I’m pretty sure I’m going to be cramping tomorrow.” So I brought my Tylenol, my ibuprofen to take right after the appointment. And this morning she was like, “Can you soak,” because we both have the privilege of a hot tub. Total privilege. My mom just didn’t want it in her backyard, so it’s in mine, total privilege. So I was like, “I do need a soak.” I did need to tend to myself. I would not have thought of that if Chavonne hadn’t been helping tend to my pond also. And I’ve been thinking a lot about mutuality in community recently because there’s this idea is everyone should get their fair share.
And I’m like, “That’s not mutuality.” Mutuality is who among us needs support and how can we get it done together? And we just keep asking that question. Sometimes it’s never going to be one of those people, because they just have enough privilege to not need that mutuality present or they need it at a different level, like conversation, space holding, something like that.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
But the point is, is that we’re all in this together. I can actually see a road that just is dotted with these ponds all along the side. We live in a society of ponds next to a road. I can see that as being corporations, institutions, the government. I can see that being there where it’s like we’re all next to this really damaging road.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
And so how can all the ponds get through together? Because if we don’t, ponds are going to dry up, ponds are going to be polluted and no one’s going to be able to exist in their own pond. How can we do that collectively? Just feels… I don’t know? It feels like anything mutual that’s really sitting in a mutual space often reminds me of coming home, as a group. We can all sleep at night because we did this mutual work. Because we received it, because we participated-
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Jenn (she/they):
… whatever that space is. And I love the analogy of the constant journey of coming back to the home that is a body.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Jenn (she/they):
Because sometimes we’ve been using skills for 20 years and we’re like, “I’m good.” And then we stopped using our skills and then we’re like, “What’s happening? Why is my pond taken over?” And that mutual aspect is also people saying, “Hey, you just haven’t been taking care of your pond. You’ve been busy. We’re here to take care of your pond with you.” You’ve been talking Lindley today about the health at every size community. Which I often speak of health at every size and beyond, because I have realized that health at every size is an inclusive space that gets dangerously close to exclusive, constantly. Because the same people are centered there as are there in the rest of society, whose voices are centered.
And so just thinking about these ponds, how it keeps everything mutual, keeps everything inclusive. All the ponds matter. If we think about the ponds as how we all get nourishment, as how we all get our water. Because there are going to be fish swimming in there, and we’re all fishing for our food, that we can keep playing with the analogy. It’s not just a one and done. Speaking of capitalist mythology, it’s like one and done, you are a success. One and done you are the top of your field. One and done. It’s just like there’s going to be a one and done moment that we should all ascribe, or… That’s not the word, not ascribe. We’re going for it. Whatever that word is.
Chavonne (she/her):
Is it as ascribe? I think it’s good. Ascribe to?
Jenn (she/they):
Anyway.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah, that’s fine.
Jenn (she/they):
I don’t know. Whatever the word is, we’re going for it. And so I’m hearing in this right, mutuality, community is also about sticking with the journey as a concept versus the destination as a concept. Because honestly, the only people I know of that I ever, and I don’t know any of them personally. People who can access this one and done thing, they have so much privilege. They have more than we could ever imagine on an intersectional level. Everything points to them as privileged.
Just thinking about the pandemic, these people have had purifiers this whole time. They have the two, three, four levels of testing beyond what we are now. They make sure that when they get together, it’s extremely exclusive.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
That’s a form of power to be able to be exclusive because everyone could just afford to be there. Even if it’s a very small number of people. And so, those people are also polluting our ponds. That’s a runoff from a hill that’s just over there on the other side of the ponds. And they’re like, “We are good.” And then there’s this onslaught of stuff that hits the rest of us.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah, yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Oh, the rest of us. I didn’t do that on purpose. Just like sitting in that space. I love that. And Lindley-
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
… we were just talking with Lindley on a little break about how we’re going to have Lindley come back for a second, part two. There you go. A part two of this, because we have more that we want to ask and we always love talking to you, Lindley. We want to keep talking about it. I am going to make a mental note about this pond because actually in the next questions that we’re going to talk about next time, I can hear this-
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Jenn (she/they):
… as being a wonderful analogy and visual for exploring those things we’re going to explore too.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Including disability. Some people have very shallow ponds. Some people have narrower ponds.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, yes.
Jenn (she/they):
Some people have ponds that somehow always have the wind hit their surface, but no one else’s ponds. There’s things that happen that are just a part of being a pond in the world. And so I can just hear how this is in there too. So I’m super excited to do that.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh. Oh my gosh, yes.
Jenn (she/they):
I don’t wait until we record again in June. I just want to do it now-
Chavonne (she/her):
I know.
Jenn (she/they):
And, that’s all the time we have for today. So we want to keep talking with you. Does anyone have any closing thoughts or feelings or sensations or anything?
Chavonne (she/her):
I love the shit out of this. And you-
Jenn (she/they):
Me too.
Chavonne (she/her):
… Lindley.
Jenn (she/they):
I do love the shit out of you. I echo that completely.
Chavonne (she/her):
This is just so excellent. And I was so excited. I know I can speak for Jenn because I always do anyway, and she speaks for me. But we were so excited to have you back and just so excited. Could talk forever, honestly. Clearly.
Lindley (she/her):
Me too. And these conversations are so important because this pond thing came to me at about 10:15 last night.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh.
Lindley (she/her):
Because of the prompts that you all had sent.
Chavonne (she/her):
Thank you, Jenn.
Lindley (she/her):
And this is something that I’m going to carry with me. Every time I have a wonderful conversation like this. It not only it pushes me forward in my thinking, but it gives me more tools that I can use.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
And I think these conversations are how we progress as a community. And it might be a conversation with just one or two other people like this, or it might be a conversation that we have in a larger group. But, it’s so important because we can only push our causes, our areas forward so much in isolation. In part because we build on each other. But also, we can gently call each other in or say, “Hey, you’re not considering this,” or whatever, which is really important too.
Jenn (she/they):
It is. If we’re all going to have some level of privilege, some more than others, and without being able to call each other in, how are we supposed to see it? Privilege is protective to seeing it. We need someone else to point it out. Yeah. Oh my gosh, it’s so lovely.
Chavonne (she/her):
This is wonderful.
Jenn (she/they):
We love having you. I can’t wait to do it again. I’m so excited. Thank you for agreeing to that.
Chavonne (she/her):
So excited.
Jenn (she/they):
Oh my gosh.
Chavonne (she/her):
Thank you so much.
Jenn (she/they):
And, I always say, “Journal prompts,” but we end up in this amazing brain tangent together that we’re flowing, going, circling. I’m going to have to probably listen back to the episode and find my journal quotes.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
But there’s a lot here to think about and process and just let integrate and let’s sit there and see how it feels. Because so many things we talked about today as I was talking, I was thinking about it the same time. First time thinking, first time talking about it.
Chavonne (she/her):
Absolutely.
Jenn (she/they):
Which is such a cool space to be in. I think Lindley, that that’s a space you cultivate. Let’s talk about it.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Jenn (she/they):
Let’s experience it together. Let’s see what we come up with. It’s such a cool space to be in with you.
Chavonne (she/her):
It is.
Jenn (she/they):
Really, truly.
Chavonne (she/her):
So awesome.
Lindley (she/her):
Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. Can I leave us with a final pond related thought?
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes, please.
Jenn (she/they):
Yes please.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Lindley (she/her):
So there is on interstate five, between Seattle and Tacoma. There is a wetland area. And so the interstate itself goes through this little watery wetland area. And it’s a very humble and prosaic, and it’s literally the interstate. And it’s just going over this little patch of water with reeds and things sticking out of it because wetland. But that’s also where I saw my very first bald eagle.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, wow.
Lindley (she/her):
And now, there’s actually a nest about a mile away from my house. And so I see them regularly and it’s so cool. It will never stop being cool. Just like driving to the grocery store, “Oh, there’s one of the bald eagles.” I love living here. But the thing is that if you are having trouble with thinking about the pond analogy, like what yours might look like. What if that was your pond? See if that resonates with you, because it is this beautiful wetland space that then connects to a larger wetland that’s out of sight. If you’re just driving by on the highway. And so, on one hand it’s got an interstate running through it. I’m sure trash blows into it all the time. It’s got tire dust and all this stuff going into it. But on the other, even though it’s right there on the interstate, it is supporting all kinds of life. Like I said, it connects to things that are larger than itself.
It is doing an important job in the ecosystem because it’s also helping filter that runoff and that junk. And maybe I don’t want to encourage you to carry that necessarily into your analogy, because none of us deserve to be the crap filtration for other people. So, maybe hold that thought separately. But the point is that it is also beautiful and has a purpose, larger than itself. But it also deserves to exist on its own. And so I just keep coming back to this little patch of wetland as this area that if we dug deep there, who knows? Who knows what would be there. But it’s also this thing that people pass by every day and don’t really look at.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, I love that. I really, really love that. I do.
Lindley (she/her):
Yeah. And so, it’s also an area where that particular area is known by its white settler name. But I think that there is more of an effort now to bring back some of what I think of as the true names for places in that area. I know that the white settler name for that area is Madison Creek, and I’m not sure what the original name for it was, from the native folks who still live in the area. But, that’s my job for today, is to find out. Because I know that there’s more of an effort-
Chavonne (she/her):
Love.
Lindley (she/her):
… to bring those names back. And so the point is that we are rediscovering the true names for these areas and repopularizing them. And there has also been a big restoration in that area. So, that’s your literal example of-
Jenn (she/they):
Yeah.
Lindley (she/her):
… restoring the past.
Chavonne (she/her):
Beautiful, beautiful.
Jenn (she/they):
I love that.
Lindley (she/her):
Because that’s what I really want-
Jenn (she/they):
The name being, having the choice about the name. Having the choice about how to tend to it.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, yes.
Jenn (she/they):
I love re-words, reemerge, rediscover-
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, yes.
Jenn (she/they):
The opportunity to do something again, because that is so much of life. Okay, here we go again. Okay, here we go again.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/they):
Especially for this pond. Our body, our relationship with self. The negotiations you were talking about at the very beginning of the episode, the trade-offs. Ooh, I can’t wait to explore some more. So I’ll make a note.
Chavonne (she/her):
I can’t wait, this is amazing. Thank you.
Jenn (she/they):
I mean, I’ll make a note about the ponds. I’ll make sure we talk about it again. Ah, okay love you, Chavonne. Love you, Lindley.
Chavonne (she/her):
Love you all.
Jenn (she/they):
And Maya had to dash. So love you, Maya. And-
Chavonne (she/her):
Love Maya. And you have to dash.
Jenn (she/they):
… thanks for listening.
Chavonne (she/her):
So, yes.
Jenn (she/they):
And join us next time.
Chavonne (she/her):
Okay. Bye.
Lindley (she/her):
Bye.
Chavonne: Thank you for listening to Season 4 of the Embodiment for the Rest of Us podcast. Episodes will be published the first Thursday of every month-ish (in case we need some wiggle room) wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also find all podcast content (including the transcript and show notes) at our website, EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs.com.
Jenn: And follow us on social media, on both Twitter @EmbodimentUs and on Instagram @EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs. We look forward to continuing this evolving and expanding conversation in our next episode.