Body Liberation for All

Roshni is a trauma-informed, embodied sexuality coach who helps women andnon-binary vulva owners connect to their bodies and find their sexualpleasure, power and wildness.She is a Certified Sex, Love and Relationships coach, a Certified FemaleSexuality coach, a Certified Male Sexuality coach and a Certified Jade Eggcoach. She has completed a year-long (650+ hour) training in the Sex, Love andRelationships Certification with Layla Martin’s VITA (Vital Integrated TantricApproach) Institute. She is currently training in Somatic Experiencing® (a 3-year Practitioner Training in a body-oriented therapeutic model that helpsheal trauma). When she is not coaching or creating content, you can find her drawing nakedwomen and reptiles, communicating with and savouring the life force thatemanates from trees, grass and natural bodies of water… and enjoyingquality dark chocolate.This episode we chat about:🌈Societal shame surrounding sexual practices across gender expression and orientations🌈The journey towards sexual empowerment and healing🌈Roshni’s personal story of growing up in a conservative environment and finding her path to becoming a sexuality coach🌈The importance of trauma-informed care, consent, and exploring one's sexuality with curiosity and without shameEpisode Resourceswww.daliakinsey.comDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body LiberationConnect with Roshniroshni@roshni.live https://www.roshni.live/free-gift Episode edited and produced by Unapologetic AmplifiedThis transcript was generated with the help of AI. Thank you to our clients for supporting us as we strive to improve accessibility and pay equitable wages for things like human transcription.Dalia Kinsey: Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Body Liberation for All. I'm excited to bring to you a guest who can help us tackle a really important topic in all communities, but one that tends to be a little more.of a traumatic area in LGBTQIA-plus communities, and that is sexuality. There's so much shame tied up in a lot of sexual practices across the board, even if they're considered mainstream and kind of vanilla. But if you happen to be a queer person, depending on where you're born and what community you're born into, there's probably even more shame related to anything that has to do with an encounter with someone of the same gender or someone who is gender nonconforming. So, I'm excited to have Roshni here. Roshni is a trauma-informed embodied sexuality coach who helps women and non-binary vulva owners connect to their bodies and find their sexual pleasure, power, and wildness.Welcome to the show, Roshni.Roshni Dominic: I'm so happy to be here with you.Dalia Kinsey: And I love looking at your website, one, thanks for including people who have vulvas who do not identify as female. And two, I see the metaphor between food and orgasmic pleasure throughout the website, which resonates with me because I want for people to be having more pleasure across the board because it's so much easier to pursue habits that give you a payoff in real time instead of putting it off. But so many people are afraid of pleasure because pleasure in general was seen as a bad thing or taboo thing. And even when it comes to food. Some people are uncomfortable having a very pleasurable, maybe orgasmic experience with food.But at the same time, everybody knows that correlation can be there. Yes, for sure. Everyone needs to look at the website so you can see the visuals that I'm talking about.Roshni Dominic: I love that.Dalia Kinsey: Go ahead. Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to cut you off. So, because you are a person of color, you probably already have an experience with sexuality that a lot of us can relate to, even though you're mostly a straight person.Can you tell me a little bit about how you came to be sexually powerful, even though you came from a patriarchal upbringing, like most of us are in patriarchal cultures all over the planet. There's almost no matriarchal representation on the planet right now. How did you get to where you are?Roshni Dominic: Yeah, so, um, firstly, I love that you noticed the food analogy throughout the website and how, you know, it's pleasures, pleasure, right?Food, sexuality, it's all, it's all connected. Um, so I love that you noticed that and just coming to answer your question about my upbringing and how I, how I became a sexuality coach. So, yeah, I mean, my upbringing was, um, it's, it's a triple conservative upbringing. So, uh, I was born in Bahrain, which is in the Middle East, which is right next to Saudi Arabia.So, Bahrain is right next to Saudi Arabia. And then I was born in this, um, conservative Indian families with a conservative Indian upbringing. And then lastly, I also was raised Catholic. So, I went to Catholic primary school as well in Bahrain. So, um, so it's. It's, it's not what you would call an environment conducive to becoming a sex coach.Um, and, uh, you know, it's, uh, I remember like in my primary school, they actually cut out the pages in the science book, which had the reproductive system in it. So, but we all found out anyway, because my cousin got the book that didn't have the pages cut out. And she was like, oh my God, look at this. And we're like, why is that what they're hiding from us?So anyway, um. But you know what? I'm privileged in that I always, I had this deep connection with my sexuality, like it emerged. I mean, I was very, um, scared of my sexuality, understandably, right, in the environment that I grew up in, but also, I had this deep connection that was emerging, and I'm very privileged that my body was, um, in a place where it wanted to heal, starting around 10 years ago, where I really dove into my Sexual journey, um, and sexual healing and delving more into pleasure.And yeah, so I'm, I'm privileged that my body felt safe enough to heal, um, and felt safe enough to follow those breadcrumbs. Um, that, you know, the breadcrumbs where my body was like, oh, go to this trauma specialist to do this course. Um, you know, explore this, uh, program and, um, you know, and then. And everything that I explored, I'm just really grateful and privileged that my body felt safe enough to do that.Because if it didn't feel safe enough, it was not going to happen, right? So, yeah, that was, that was how I became a sex coach. I just followed the breadcrumbs and, uh, found that this was really, really fulfilling and, um, purposeful and meaningful for me.Dalia Kinsey: Did you simultaneously feel like you were starting to reclaim or fully own your sexuality as you were doing the training or did that healing work come first?Roshni Dominic: I would say the training came first. Um, and then the healing came after that because the training came first, you know, I was delving into, um, Jade egg and Yoni eggs, as they call them, so Taoist methodology, and then some Tantric as well, um, and then just general, like, orgasmic stuff. So, there was all that and I came into it with this mainstream mindset of, um, you know, possibly influenced by Hollywood and things like that.Which is just one facet of what sex can be like, right? So, as I did this training, I discovered more things, which I was like, Hmm, what if there's more? And then the healing happened, the healing of, shall we say the overlay that society kind of overlays over sexuality and says this is how you should have sex, and this is who you should have it with and how many times per day and how frequently and these are the sex practices you're supposed to do and that's it, nothing else, anything outside is weird or forbidden, right? So that's where the healing came in is actually My sexuality is mine and it's not for somebody else or a society to tell me what to do and how to express it.Dalia Kinsey: Yeah, that's a powerful statement in itself that it is yours and no one else should be telling you how to express it I know that can feel really tricky if you have training in a religious context a social context, and a familial context that says everybody gets to tell you how to express your sexuality, especially if you're assigned female at birth.Everybody has something to say about how you express your sexuality. Your sexuality. So, to get to a point where you fully understand your body as well that you get to decide. That sounds like it could take a while for a lot of us to get there.Roshni Dominic: Yes, it's still, I'm still on my journey with that to be honest.Still on my, it's not that I've reached the perfect Nirvana of this or anything like that. journey.Dalia Kinsey: Yeah. You mentioned you had to feel safe enough in your body to do this work and you're also trauma-informed. And I know sometimes people hear the word trauma and they're thinking something again, maybe influenced by Hollywood.They're thinking of a certain type of PTSD, or it had to be a massive event and they feel like maybe there are some things they don't feel comfortable discussing or feeling or thinking about, but they don't recognize that you could have trauma responses, even if you've never been through anything that you maybe would define as trauma.How do you define trauma in the work that you're doing? And tell me a little bit more about why feeling safe in your body is a prerequisite for this work.Roshni Dominic: Yeah. So, um, I would define trauma as something that, I mean, there's many definitions of it, but one that really resonates with me is too much too fast.So, something that was very overwhelming, that one could not, that one didn't have someone who was safe enough with them to help them through it, to support them through it, um, and another definition is too, too little for too long. So, so, you know, if you, if one didn't get that, um, the connection with the primary caregiver and the support and love of the primary caregiver, and that was, you know, it was not there in their early life, for example, that woul

Recording artist and songwriter 2AM Ricky is best known for utilizing his platform to bridge the intersection of LGBTQ advocacy and entertainment. He uplifts marginally perceived communities while building trans awareness, one song and conversation at a time. In 2021, Ricky became the first black transgender male artist to land #1 on any music chart, with his single "Whatchu On (ft. CeCe Peniston)" peaking on the LGBTQ Urban Charts. His extensive portfolio includes several placements with credits including CeCe Peniston, Tyler Perry Studios, Zeus Network and more. Ricky has helped industry professionals, corporate leaders, and creatives worldwide to develop language and best practices for transgender healthcare and education, intersectionality, inclusive strategies, and mental health. He recently released a new album titled "Listen If You're Lonely", a musical exploration of mental health, relationships, and life from a black masculine perspective.This episode 2AM shares some of his story with us and we discuss:🌈 Growing up without LGBTQIA+ representation and becoming a visible member of the community 🌈 Living a blessed life and finding your calling🌈 Navigating transphobia in reproductive healthcare settings 🌈 Words of wisdom 2AM has for trans and non-binary young folks Episode Resourceswww.daliakinsey.comDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body LiberationConnect with 2AM Rickyhttps://2amricky.com/https://www.instagram.com/2amricky/Episode edited and produced by Unapologetic AmplifiedThis transcript was generated with the help of AI. Thank you to our supporting members for helping us improve accessibility and pay equitable wages for things like human transcription.Have you ever wondered why almost all the health and wellness information you see out there is so white, cis able-bodied and het? I know I have. And as a queer black registered dietitian, I gotta tell you, I'm not into it. I believe health and happiness should be accessible to everyone. That is precisely why I wrote Decolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation and why I host Body Liberation for All.The road to health and happiness has a couple of extra steps for chronically stressed people, like queer folks and folks of color. But don't worry, my guests and I have got you covered. If you're ready to live the most fierce, liberated, and joyful version of your life, you are in the right place.Body Liberation for All ThemeThey might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them. Live your life just like you like itIt’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You were born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.Dalia Kinsey: Thank you so much for coming on the show at 2 AM Ricky and I met recently at a 100 Black Trans Men Event that was focused on reproductive justice. And while I was there listening to your story was so impactful. I already knew, of course, that there are a lot of health disparities throughout the country for black folks, for people that have a womb and for trans folks, like when you're more than one type of marginalized, it really gets more and more difficult to get good access to healthcare.But just hearing your story, it was so visceral. I really appreciate you putting in that emotional labor to share your story with other people, and to do all the advocacy work that you're doing in addition to being a young person who's making their dreams come true. It seems like a lot to tackle at once.So, I'm so happy that you're here, and I would love to hear about a little bit of your story that maybe people don't always get a chance to hear. Like, how did you know, as a young person in North Carolina, a young Black person, that all that you're doing right now is possible, and if you didn't know it then, what had to shift for you to be open enough to life to be able to get to where you are right now?2AM Ricky: First of all, I'm from Winston Salem, North Carolina, so I'm from, I would say, a smaller town. I wouldn't say too small. I've seen smaller cities, but a smallish town. And I grew up in a space that everyone knew my family, everyone knew who we were, the history of them. And so navigating through, coming from a small place that everyone knew who your people were, but you might end up going through certain things and we all know in Black culture, "what happens in this household, supposed to stay in this household" type of thing navigating just trauma overall, and knowing that I needed someone who could be a voice for me, but that was also a situation where I needed a voice, and I knew that I was coming from a place that a lot of people looked at us for the voice, and so it was a very complex situation.And so I wanted to make sure that no matter what I did and no mattervwhat it was that I became, I just wanted to make sure that I made a great impact.Dalia Kinsey: Okay. So how old do you think you were when you started realizing you wanted to have reach?2AM Ricky: I, it's interesting because I actually got into music. My first like real project was called "Hiatus" and it was based around the death of my brother and best friend and he used to always say that like he used to always tell me that I will be doing these things and I will kind of like argue against it.Oh, not because I didn't think it was possible, but because of the weight that I knew came with it, I, as a young kid was like, even now I'm pretty introverted. So I'm not going to say I'm not a people person, but people like me, and I would rather just watch people.Dalia Kinsey: Oh, I, I can relate to that so much. So it sounds like you actually got a calling.I think there's lots of different ways we can decide to live our lives. But some people, you know, have a passion that they want to share with others. Or they have a thirst for fame, but I don't think an introvert has ever thirsted for fame. So you're just tolerating attention that comes with sharing your gift.2AM Ricky: Basically, God says so. And I feel like when I tell him, no, he kind of bullies me a little bit. So we just gonna flow with what he said.Dalia Kinsey: Oh, the facts. Yes. If everybody can just. Learn to get out of their own way. When people keep telling you like, Oh, but you're so good at that thing. Or like, Oh, that thing that you did, it's still on my mind.I really think you should push a little further. It's usually easier for other people to see our potential than for us to see our own potential. But I find that a lot of times, especially for queer folks and trans folks, that because we're being undermined in other ways. That sometimes it's even harder to trust yourself, so you know who you are but being your full self, sometimes people reject it or you see them rejecting other people like you, and that may make you feel like, well, maybe I can't trust my gut.Did you ever have any, any need for breakthrough around that being trans and from a southern state? I mean, y'all consider your, yeah, yeah, y'all are southerners. Yes. Okay. Just because North was in there for half a second, I questioned myself, but yeah. What was it like? What was the trans acceptance like the LGBTQIAacceptance in general, like when you were a kiddo in the 90s?2AM Ricky: I would say, well, I didn't really get exposed to too many queer folk when I was coming up. Like we didn't, I grew up more so in an area that was like more like faith based. Like you didn't really see people if they were LGBTQ, you didn't really see them talking about it. It wasn't a lot of trans representation. So, even once I did get to the point of like, I started going to like, Black queer community. Cause I graduated high school at like, 16. So, I went to college really early. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was like sneaking into clubs at like 16, 17, chilling.Dalia Kinsey: I'm surprised you got in cause you look like you're barely 21 right now.2AM Ricky: You know what? I don't know how I got in either. They never, like, I don't know how I've done a lot of things in life but I'm here. So, somehow, I was in there, and I was in there faithfully.Dalia Kinsey: So... I guess they just figured, you know what, he's cool. Maybe.2AM Ricky: Everyone treated me as such.I don't know how I got in. Favored. Favored, lets call it that.Dalia Kinsey: Oh, I like that. Do you feel like in general, despite what other people might see as, oh, it's a difficult identity to be born with, that your life has been blessed?2AM Ricky: Definitely. I think that my life has been very blessed. I don't at any point think that my identity or anything negates the blessings or grace that's on my life.If anything, I feel like there is a special grace that's on my life for me to be able to navigate certain spaces into having the calling that I have. But to be within my identity. I think that in itself says a lot about the favor that was on me when I was created and when my purpose was in mind. And so I live in that authentically.I don't take that for granted. And when I do find myself in times of taking it for granted. I always humble myself by reminding myself of the fact of anyone else could have been chosen, but I was, and anyone could have been chosen in any type of design and body is, is how I was created to be able to fulfill whatever purpose it is that I have on this earth.Dalia Kinsey: I love that. For music it sounds like the first real connection you felt with music and creating your own piece of work was linked to an emotional experience. Did you need that push to feel like it was time to express yourself in that way? Did you have any fear around performing or

“When we break bread with others/strangers, we begin to cross boundaries, which in turn creates a bond that removes ‘Other’ from our lexicon even if momentarily.”- Chef Kuukua YomekpeChef Kuukua Yomekpe is a the founder of Asempke Kitchen a catering, pop-up, and Culinary Experience company that specializes in providing great plant-based options to traditional West African cuisine. In this episode Chef Kuukua shares her entrepreneurial journey as a queer Black cis-woman living with an invisible disability. This episode we explore:🌈 Giving yourself permission to follow your joy 🌈 The impact of Anti-African and Anti-Black bias on building a business🌈 LGBTQ life in Ghana 🌈 Managing chronic illness and a creative life Episode Resourceswww.daliakinsey.comDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body LiberationConnect with Chef Kuukua Yomekpe https://www.asempekitchen.com/https://www.instagram.com/asempe_kitchen/Episode edited and produced by Unapologetic AmplifiedThis transcript was generated with the help of AI. Thank you to our supporting members for helping us improve accessibility and pay equitable wages for things like human transcription.Have you ever wondered why almost all the health and wellness information you see out there is so white, cis able-bodied and het? I know I have. And as a queer black registered dietitian, I gotta tell you, I'm not into it. I believe health and happiness should be accessible to everyone. That is precisely why I wrote Decolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation and why I host Body Liberation for All.The road to health and happiness has a couple of extra steps for chronically stressed people, like queer folks and folks of color. But don't worry, my guests and I have got you covered. If you're ready to live the most fierce, liberated, and joyful version of your life, you are in the right place.Body Liberation for All ThemeThey might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them. Live your life just like you like itIt’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You were born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.Dalia Kinsey: Welcome back to body liberation for all. today's we're going to be talking about the vibrant world of African cuisine with a special guest. I'm super excited to have her on. I have been trying to explore things that I may have lost because of colonization and on that long list of things that we have lost is our connection to traditional foods and since presumably almost everybody who's of African descent in the US who descended from enslaved people came from somewhere on the west coast of Africa. I've basically been exploring cuisine from the entire west coast of Africa. But I'm still still a novice. So super excited to have Kuukua on today. And because we're going to have some visual references in this episode, I want you to know that you can check out the podcast on YouTube, along with a growing library of videos we're making for you, just like body liberation for all the mission is to promote the health and happiness of queer folks of color.And. to try and help providers who want to be better hosts for us as well. So if that is something that you would like to tap into, do not forget to subscribe. And if you want to see some of the things we're talking about in this episode, be sure to check out the YouTube video. So welcome to the show, Kuukua.How are you doing?Chef Kuukua Yomekpe: I'm doing well. I have had quite an exciting couple of days. I was in Florida. It was nice and very hot. And came back yesterday and it's about 50 something up here. Central New York, finally. Other than that, I mean...Dalia Kinsey: So, you've been doing a good bit of travel, because we met recently at NGLCC, which is the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, essentially.And you can tell from the name that it's been around for a while, because the name doesn't really sound like it's including... all of the rainbow. But that's just because it's been around for a while, but it was really exciting to be in a place with so many entrepreneurs, so many queer entrepreneurs. But I was a little surprised at how little focus there was in the content on passion.My assumption was that a lot of us start our businesses because there's something we're passionate about that we want to share with others. But it really had more of a large business focus, which generally in capitalism, big businesses exist. To make money. There was a need in the market and they seized it.It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with passion, but when you were talking about what you do, it clearly started with passion. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey to the United States even and then becoming a self trained chef. I'm so impressed by all self trained everything because it's obviously a legitimate way to build skills.But it's something that I think a lot of us are afraid to even attempt because maybe we've been a little held back by public schooling or traditional schooling kind of leaves you feeling like you can’t do anything without a guide. Chef Kuukua Yomekpe: To join my mother and her brother who was doing a PhD at Ohio state. And so my mom is an RN, retired RN. And so she was at Mon Carmel in Columbus, Ohio. So that's how we ended up in the US. She had been living away from us since I was four. And so I'd been raised by my grandmother, her mother. So came to the U S when we first came, I realized my mom was making friends, mostly.Through her nursing colleagues and some other immigrants who were either nurses or in home health. And so she spent quite a bit of time with them, you know, sometimes on the weekends, but not always. But definitely at Thanksgiving and at Christmas and any other major holiday like Labor Day. cooking African, you know, Filipino, Ethiopian, you name it.We had all the different dishes in the house. And so that kind of sparked my interest in feeding other people because I wasn't trained. I didn't go to school for that, you know, because as an immigrant daughter, you went to school to become a doctor or a nurse or a lawyer or even better if you went into banking, right?So I got interested in cooking for others and feeding others through all those different potlucks that we were holding. And eventually people started asking us for catering. And so my mom and I got an extra stove and put it in the garage, which was probably illegal. But we did it and started cooking for catering.Nothing big, you know, like people who were going abroad and wanted to have like a little fundraiser, people who were taking their students to Ghana, who wanted the students to get a taste. So I did a little bit of that and then I moved out to Indiana to work for Notre Dame. So once I got there, I got sort of, I infiltrated the black community.So there was a lot of students of color who had very little knowledge of Africa. And so I cooked every weekend and had them over in my apartment because I lived in in the dorm. And so that's how that part got started. I left Indiana to California to do my second master's. And while I was there, I started catering, paying for my rent through little side job and then cooking classes.So that's how it all started, you know, just slowly, slowly building. And then seven years ago, I decided I was leaving higher ed. I'd worked in higher ed about 25 years, and I was going to start my own business. I did it for two years, full time, mostly on loans and credit cards. And then I fell. So I had an accident and while I was carrying some pot.and could not walk for three months. So I had to put the business on hold, went back to higher ed, and that's how come I ended up in New York in central New York. So it's been a journey of, you know, getting to this point of doing it full time and legally, like being an LLC actually about to convert into an S 4.So it's, you know, it's kind of through its iteration, and we came to the U. S. in 1996. So it's I think about 27 years of just playing with the idea, going into higher ed, teaching, doing the things that were sort of respectable by the immigrant parent standards, right? And then finally going, this is what I really want to do is work for myself.And I want to work for myself, feeding people. And that's, that's really where my passion is. It's like, if someone says, thank you, that was the best meal I've had. Thank you. That was so comforting. My job is done, you know, so I feel so good. Oh yeah, that's been my journey. Well, what did yourDalia Kinsey: parents say or what did, I don't know if there was one parent who's more focused on their vision for what you should do professionally in the States, since you did give their path a chance.Were they more on board when you said, you know, I'm clearly a full grown person, and now I realized I want to do something different. Did they just say, all right, well, weChef Kuukua Yomekpe: support you. So my dad passed 20 years ago, actually, 2003 August. So he's been gone a while. And so he never really got a chance to, you know, be a part of our life in the U.S. He lived in Ghana and never came to the U. S. So. Mostly it's been my mom and she has been focused on the pension, right? So as a, as a registered nurse, she had a pension and she's getting social security, um, and is able to live a pretty decent. You know, life in her older age because she has those amenities, right?And so that's her biggest problem is like, what are you gonna do when you cannot lift the pot anymore, right? Whatcha gonna do, where's your retirement coming from? So she str

Carolyn Jones is a Holistic Health Educator and Chaplain who teaches the art of self-care and practices a ministry of presence. She is licensed by the New York State Chaplain Task Force and serves the community as an herbalist, a certified aromatherapist and reflexologist. In this episode Carolyn shares her insights on the power of deepening our relationship with plants beyond culinary uses to medicinal and spirtual applications. This episode we explore:☀️How to get started with herbalism☀️Spiritual uses for plants☀️Medicinal uses for common herbs and spices☀️Rootworker belief systems Episode Resourceswww.daliakinsey.comDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body LiberationConnect with Carolyn https://www.behealed.info/Episode edited and produced by Unapologetic AmplifiedThis transcript was generated with the help of AI. Thank you to our supporting members for helping us improve accessibility and pay equitable wages for things like human transcription.Have you ever wondered why almost all the health and wellness information you see out there is so white, cis able-bodied and het? I know I have. And as a queer black registered dietitian, I gotta tell you, I'm not into it. I believe health and happiness should be accessible to everyone. That is precisely why I wrote Decolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation and why I host Body Liberation for All.The road to health and happiness has a couple of extra steps for chronically stressed people, like queer folks and folks of color. But don't worry, my guests and I have got you covered. If you're ready to live the most fierce, liberated, and joyful version of your life, you are in the right place.Body Liberation for All ThemeThey might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them. Live your life just like you like itIt’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You were born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.Dalia Kinsey: Welcome to the show Carolyn. I'm so glad to have you.Carolyn Jones: Thank you for having me, Dalia.Dalia Kinsey: I have been really interested in herbalism for years, but I always felt like I wasn't a plant person. I thought I didn't have a green thumb, and only since 2020 have I realized that I just wasn't slowing down enough to pay attention to when the plants were asking for more water or more light, and just suddenly it feels like being connected to the plants has been a little demystified for me.But of course, I'm a total. Baby when it comes to understanding herbalism, the spiritual uses of herbs, any of that. So when I saw you recently in a replay of a webinar that you did for another institute that I've been just studying, like their library, I haven't even gotten that deep yet. I was just fascinated that this institute in particular looks at the spiritual aspect of plants in a way that I really had never seen before, but it really resonates with me that the plants are not seen as just something we take things from.They're not seen as inanimate. They're seen as really powerful and as teachers that are always trying to speak to us. So when I saw your workshop on the African American relationship with herbalism and root work in particular. I was just blown away, and so I'm so glad to have you here to share some of your story with us and maybe how the listeners can get started exploring some of our traditions that maybe feel a little lost to us right now. Carolyn Jones: Well, I'm so happy that you enjoyed my presentation and I'm even happier that you were interested and curious enough to invite me on so we could talk about this in more depth. I love the subject and we are all babies when it comes to the plant world. We'll never know everything. It's always a learning process.The interesting thing is, I seemed like I could kill plants to look at them, you know? Oh, wow. I went to a workshop at a Brooklyn Botanic Garden one day, and I said to the gardener, I feel so guilty because it seems like I touch a plant and dies. He said, don't feel guilty. You know how many plants we kill around here?It becomes like an experiment, but I still feel that sensitivity because for me, the love of plants started early. My mother had a rose garden in the front of the house. We grew up in Bedstuy. I grew up in Bedstuy, born in Harlem. We moved to, uh, Brooklyn when I was six, and in the back she grew corn, tomatoes, college, she had a beautiful garden, you know, a Georgia peach.So she brought all that knowledge from her sharecropper parents and. Who unfortunately I never got the chance to meet. They died when she was 16, but she certainly took their knowledge seriously and brought it with her as a form of survival. Now, when I was younger, I didn't really pick up on it. Like I loved looking at it, but worms bothered me.Dalia Kinsey: As much as I love being outside, I really have a thing with spiders. That was another barrier. I thought, if I'm gonna be spending time with plants, I need to be comfortable with everything that's out there. It's good to hear that not necessarily so.Carolyn Jones: Yes. And I'm gonna tell you, just as of last night, I connected with a neighborhood garden, the Q Garden here in Brooklyn, and I actually sat next to someone who was digging out a pot and centipedes were running all over, and I didn't run screaming into the night.Dalia Kinsey: How'd you get to that point? Carolyn Jones: I don't, I don't know how it happened. Okay. When they were talking about a garden bed that had jumping worms, I held a full interview. How do they jump? Where do they jump? Where are they? You know, because I wanted no part of it, but luckily we didn't see any worms. We did see some of, I think it was a Japanese beetle, but that didn't even send me running.But I was really amazed that I didn't run away from the, well, they didn't get on me. So that's a start. They were on the pot. So being around people, I think who. Are not fearful that way. Mm-hmm. I think some of their courage may rub off. I'm not quite sure. We'll see next week, but you know, for now, so that it kept me from gardening.It really did. Mm-hmm. So as I began to develop a community of herbalists around me, more experienced herbalists, and they began to explain how medicines are better when you have fresh plants, you know, not always dealing with the dry herbs, then my mind began to open up more and more. So over time, as you expose yourself to people with different levels of knowledge, I guess this transformation takes place that you're really not aware of.That's the way we grow anyway. You don't think about it unless you really sit down, slow down, as you said. I thought that was very profound. You do have to slow down now. In order to cultivate my love of plants, I started collecting bamboo shoots. I can keep bamboo alive in water. I have like a bamboo garden all the way through the apartment here, the bedroom and living room.It's in here and they're flourishing. So I feel very happy about that. But I also incorporate that I'm a bereavement chaplain and I incorporate plants into that service as well because I find that plants are very comforting. And I just received a, a picture of someone's memorial garden. She had lost her son.I was doing some consultation with her and recommended that she use their backyard or the area that they have. Space. They have to designate it as an altar for him and she Oh, that's beautiful. She a picture of him beautiful memorial garden that the family has created in his memory. So plants will bring peace and depending on the type of plant, it will comfort you.It will dispel loneliness. And it's no secret that you can talk to plants and if you listen, they talk back, you know, energetically. Dalia Kinsey: How does that usually come through? Okay. Energetically, yes.Carolyn Jones: As far as we are talking about herbalism and root work, there are a few herbs that are used for root work. Hiss is one, but it also has many whole body wellness properties as well.It's used for other things.Dalia Kinsey: So how would you recommend somebody get started? Because that is something that's been intriguing is how vast the uses for a plant can be, and that once you start adding in spiritual uses too, from where I'm standing now, it looks like it might be easier for me. To remember the essence of a plant when I'm looking at it in a spiritual way also.But when I look at all of the, it's almost like medication with off-label uses. There's so many different things that one plant can do. Mm-hmm. How do you start getting your feet wet with this? Or how would you recommend somebody even start learning? Carolyn Jones: Most of the healers healing practitioners that I've interviewed, and I must include myself, started from the point of view of how do I want to heal?How do I need to heal? What could I use to heal myself? Who do I want to be? You know, they ask children, what do you wanna be when you grow up? Who do you wanna be when you grow up spiritually? Not what job you wanna have, how much money you wanna earn. None of that. Who and how do you want to be remembered?When it's all said and done, in order to ask that question, I found for myself that I had to get in touch with my own mortality and my own immortality. How do I wanna be remembered? When people think of me, how do I want people to feel when they think of me? Oh, that's really telling. I worked at a funeral home for two years at the height of Covid.Hmm. So I saw a lot of who I consider our libraries. A lot of elders Pass on the kitchen is as Queen of four. I love her. Always taught

In the face of microaggressions and other stressors, we often encounter the well-meaning yet useless/misguided advice to "just ignore it" or "brush it off." Suppressing emotions can take a heavy toll on our mental and physical well-being. Many of us have been socialized to believe that we aren’t entitled to our emotions and that expressing vulnerability is a sign of weakness, prompting many to habitually hide their feelings. However suppressed emotions do not disappear. In this mini episode, we explore the consequences of heeding the "just ignore it" advice, revealing the importance of granting ourselves permission to feel and express emotions authentically.This episode we discuss: 🌈Microgressions as a source of chronic toxic stress🌈Useful ways to support folks coping with microaggressions🌈Managing microaggressions in a self-compassionate way 🌈Validating your experience as a self-care tool Episode Resourceswww.daliakinsey.comDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body LiberationEpisode edited and produced by Unapologetic AmplifiedThis transcript was generated with the help of AI. Thank you to our supporting members for helping us improve accessibility and pay equitable wages for things like human transcription.Have you ever wondered why almost all the health and wellness information you see out there is so white, cis able-bodied and het? I know I have. And as a queer black registered dietitian, I gotta tell you, I'm not into it. I believe health and happiness should be accessible to everyone. That is precisely why I wrote Decolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation and why I host Body Liberation for All.The road to health and happiness has a couple of extra steps for chronically stressed people, like queer folks and folks of color. But don't worry, my guests and I have got you covered. If you're ready to live the most fierce, liberated, and joyful version of your life, you are in the right place.Body Liberation for All ThemeThey might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them. Live your life just like you like itIt’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You were born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.Have you ever tried to explain the nuances of your experience of racism, sexism, homophobia, or transphobia only to hear, well, why don't you just ignore it? You know who you are, why do you pay it any mind? Are you the type of person who tells your LGBTQIA+ or BIPOC friends to just ignore hate, discrimination, and the subtle reminders they get about the hostile environment they're living in, in the office in the form of microaggressions.Have you been that person? Was that your stellar advice? Just stop talking about it because, that'll probably make it better or easier for you to manage, or less uncomfortable for me to have to keep listening to. I'm going to explain why “just ignore it” is garbage advice and what we can do in lieu of stuffing down our emotions just for them to pop up in more disturbing forms later on.So before we get into why “just ignore it” is trash advice. Let's clarify what microaggressions are. A microaggression could be defined as a statement or an action that reveals that someone has internalized bias against you. It doesn't necessarily mean that this person hates the marginalized groups that you belong to, but it does mean that they have unchecked bias, so unchecked that just.Spills on out during the business day, during regular conversations, microaggressions, while the name makes it sound like they're not that big of a deal, the consequences for the person on the receiving end of this, it is severe. If you're a person who's had that experience of having somebody say something ridiculous to you that reveals they hold one of your marginalized identities in low esteem, like for example, oh, you're so pretty for a black girl.Oh, you're so pretty for a trans woman. Oh, you're so well spoken. Hmm. What is the underlying implication in all of those statements? Well, you are surprised because you hold this negative belief that all black fem people are unattractive, that all trans women are not attractive. That. Or that people that look like me will not enunciate or be someone you feel like you can understand.You may think what you've done is given a compliment. What you've done is a backhanded, hurtful comment that actually does harm. Some people have experienced suicidal ideation after. Experiencing microaggression exposure. So the consequences, depending on the emotional state of the person you are speaking to, or the other people that hear it, can in fact be very severe.The reason why this channel even exists my work exists is because the chronic stress that people experience. When they have parts of their identity not being embraced or celebrated by the world around them, that chronic stress tears the body down and microaggressions are as much a part of that as more overt obvious signs of racism or transphobia or homophobia.So telling someone to just ignore. Whatever microaggression they've been exposed to in the office because you think it'll cause less of a ruckus or you don't want them to make a scene, you're afraid that they'll end up being victimized if they're seen as a squeaky wheel. All of that is problematic. You are asking for the silence of the person who is the recipient of the abuse, not the abuser.That's problematic on multiple levels. Number one, how will we put an end to that behavior in your office or in your family, or wherever this has taken place? If we don't confront it and address it? If you observe this, it would be far more helpful for you to validate the. Experience of the person who has been harmed and to ask how you could be helpful.How would this person like for you to move forward? Do they feel like a formal complaint would be the way to go? What would feel like a proactive step? What can you do to help? No one needs for you to suggest. That they just stay silent about something that was troublesome enough to them, for them to repeat it to you.Two. Why is this advice horrific? Where do emotions go when we suppress them? Do they just disappear? Do they never trouble us again? Absolutely not. Suppress emotions. Emotions that aren't. Experienced will get stuck in your body and pop up someplace else. When you bottle up emotions, all you're doing is delaying the experience of them, and fair enough, some people will bottle, bottle, bottle and refuse to ever directly confront emotions for their entire lifetime.You will experience that bottled up stress, that bottled up anxiety in other ways. Sometimes it manifests as physical pain, as chronic tension that also contributes to physical pain, maybe high blood pressure, headaches, a suppressed immune system. You cannot ignore an emotion and. Expect it to dissipate.That is not how it works. The feeling of anger, the feeling of frustration, it's there to tell you something. Whatever went wrong, you are not being oversensitive. Your feelings are valid. You are having a reaction because what you witnessed, Triggered that reaction. Now, if the people that are currently in your space can't validate your experience, that's okay.It still needs to be validated and it still needs to be experienced. So maybe that's gonna be something you do. After work, if you are trapped in a space where it isn't safe to express frustration or anger, and if you are a person of color, you've probably had that experience of knowing that there was no way that you could phrase.Your experience that would be acceptable to the people around you because they're just so comfortable with encouraging marginalized people to suppress their emotions and to never say anything that could possibly inconvenience. Or even slightly stress out the people with more power in the room. If you can sense, it's not a safe space for you to really be honest about what you're experiencing, that's okay.You could journal at your desk. That's a way to process. You can call a friend on your lunch break. You can take it to the group chat, take it to someone who not only is not going to ask you for receipts or proof that what you heard is a microaggression was indeed inappropriate, but people who maybe have some similar lived experience who understand what that feels like to be stifled, to be silenced when you've been harmed in an environment that probably contributes to your chronic stress.All the time. If that negative experience is really sticking with you, it could be something to bring up in therapy. There are also physical things that you can do to help you feel your feelings and move through them, especially with more intense feelings like anger. For me, I find deep breathing exercise or physical activity to be really helpful.Sometimes just going for a walk is going to be enough because you can really relax. Your nervous system and breathe deeply while you're doing that, and sometimes you'll be able to feel it. There's so much pent up energy that you need to do something really intense. Maybe it's jumping jacks in the office, maybe it's running in place.Maybe you need to go outside and run around the building. You'll be able to feel when those emotions aren't. So stuck anymore. Think about anytime you've seen even an animal have an altercation in nature. You know, they don't have the same resources as we do for processing their feelings, but you'll notice they typically shake it out before they move on.That is a good note for you and a visual reminder that when you experience feelings appear, it has. A reaction. There's a resp

In recent months, the United States has seen a surge in anti-trans bills being proposed and voted on in several states. These laws focus on limiting access to gender-affirming health care for transgender folks, as well as preventing trans people from participating in activities like sports and using public restrooms consistent with their gender identity. Proponents of these bills argue that they are necessary to protect “public safety”, while we know that they are an attempt to invalidate trans identities and deny gender diverse folks access to their fundamental (inalienable) rights.The potential ramifications of these bills becoming law are immense - especially for trans youth. Studies have found that gender-affirming medical treatments can drastically reduce depression, anxiety, and suicide rates among younger transgender individuals. Trans folks and other empathetic humans have logically been overwhelmed by feelings of hopelessness and distress in response to these developments. I was recently asked how I stay motivated to keep going when it feels as though so many (esp. in positions of power) want to destroy us. This episode is an addendum to my initial jaded / tired person response. This episode I discuss🌈Managing stressful news cycles and political changes 🌈Validating and controlling for the toll the current political situation can take on our health🌈Turning to the body for information to reduce stress and increase or joy during tough timesEpisode Resourceswww.daliakinsey.comDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body LiberationEpisode edited and produced by Unapologetic AmplifiedThis transcript was generated with the help of AI. Thank you to our supporting members for helping us improve accessibility and pay equitable wages for things like human transcription.Have you ever wondered why almost all the health and wellness information you see out there is so white, cis able-bodied and het? I know I have. And as a queer black registered dietitian, I gotta tell you, I'm not into it. I believe health and happiness should be accessible to everyone. That is precisely why I wrote Decolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation and why I host Body Liberation for All.The road to health and happiness has a couple of extra steps for chronically stressed people, like queer folks and folks of color. But don't worry, my guests and I have got you covered. If you're ready to live the most fierce, liberated, and joyful version of your life, you are in the right place.Body Liberation for All ThemeThey might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them. Live your life just like you like itIt’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You were born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.I received a really great question recently and it resonated because that's one that in the past I'd asked myself as well.Someone asked what motivates me to keep going, even when our political environment seems opposed against our fundamental wellbeing.My initial answer, in hindsight sounds a little salty. Even though that wasn't my intention. But that feeling, that knowing that you live in a nation, or you live in a social environment where the power structures really are set up to undermine your wellbeing - destroy you, shorten your lifespan. That is not a new experience for Black Americans. It's certainly not a new experience for indigenous people.So when recently the attacks on trans folks have intensified. And the political undermining of trans wellbeing has been intensifying. It is a familiar feeling. And so my response sounds like that of a tired person. And this could be part of middle age. Feeling that you can relate more to folks who have lived with systemic oppression for years and years during periods of real intensity like the  civil rights movement. You can understand why the older folks would say things like ‘nothing's changed, but the weather.’This is a pattern. This failure to allow room for everyone's humanity. In the U.S. this is a pattern. And it is exhausting.Sometimes you just feel numb to it. Everyone's reaction is valid but depending on how long, you've been having these feelings, how you process it over time really seems to change.So, this was a younger person confronting this feeling, maybe for the first time. And it is so valid, how extremely stressful it is to continually receive reminders that your wellbeing isn't guaranteed and there are not as many systems in place to protect you as there are for other people living shoulder to shoulder with you.I just wanted to share some of the things that I've found helpful. And go beyond my initial answer, which sounded a little old. And give a more comprehensive answer for people who are at different stages of having this experience.Looking back at my answer part of it does still hold true for me. And that is that I find comfort in knowing that we can't be erased. And that we belong here as much as anyone else belongs here. We don't need permission to exist. We do not need permission to take up space. But the fact remains that when the political environment is saying that you're not valid or you don't exist. You are more vulnerable to other people acting against you in violent ways. And that is unnerving and it only makes sense that your body will respond to it. And that this would elevate your baseline stress levels.One of the most powerful things I recommend, and I use myself is teaching your body the difference between a present moment, physical danger and stress related to thoughts of what could happen.If you are sitting alone in your room, watching the news listening to how other people are systematically creating structures that will make your existence, more difficult, more dangerous.As you ruminate on that, as you take that in, it can become impossible for your body to make the distinction between real and present danger in that room, where you were sitting alone and all of the potential dangers you may face later.Part of us may wonder, if I don't keep my head on a swivel, if I don't stay on high alert -will I be more vulnerable?The truth is when the danger is present, you will know.And you will be able to navigate that situation to the best of your ability in the moment.You don't have to stay on high alert, 24/7.Staying on high alert burns you out, runs you down, and robs you of joy that you could be experiencing in the present tense.It can feel unclear how you teach your body the difference but there are specific things you can do physically to bring yourself into the present moment.You can also just focus on noticing – Where you're holding the tension in your body, what fear feels like in your body? And how you can make yourself feel safer in the moment?Realizing that you need breaks from that feeling of fear and stress - searching for ways to give yourself that break.Watching your body and paying attention to your body will make it easier for you to notice times when that tension lifts or that physical experience of fear lifts. For a lot of us that's going to be in the presence of our friends, our chosen family, and the presence of other people who share similar identities that are being undermined and attacked.For some of us that'll be when we're completely alone - when we will feel it easier to let go of that tension or fear, because we don't feel like we have to be on high alert.Look for any area where you experienced those same sensations. That you could potentially opt out of.Could you use more breaks from social media? Can you strategically manage the time you spend engaging with political content.I stay tapped in to when it's time to take action.Follow groups, you can follow activists. Sometimes for me, the best thing is to be on their mailing list. So when there is a call to action, I can take action. But so that I do not constantly get these pings about more bad news in state after state, after state. Because your experience of empathy for people who share your identities could also feel like stress and tension in your body.And one of the most upsetting things about systemic oppression to me, it isn't even just these horrific displays of violence that people are sometimes subjected to. It's the way your every day, every minute of your life can be taken from you.If you want to reclaim that and experienced life as you want to. We can't give all of our energy to keeping up with the ways that people are attacking us. Not 24/7.If there isn't an action to be taken. The question is - Do you need this information right now? How is this information making you feel?Do you need to expend energy, trying to convince everyone that you exist and that your existence is valid and you deserve a space in the social setting in which you were born?For me, that's exhausting. I recently had a really nourishing meditation retreat experience.Something that came up for me. During the retreat is to lean into the energy that I get from focusing on the love that I have for people with whom I feel aligned. And releasing the need to convince or convert the people who are not aligned.For me, it feels like a weight is lifted when I released the idea of trying to convince the oppressors that they are on the wrong path. That they've chosen a caustic, unloving, harmful path.It feels more energizing, more joyful, more nourishing -for me to focus on uplifting people who've been made to feel that they don't belong, and doing what I can to nurture them and draw closer to them.It isn’t that I don't believe that activism on both fronts is necessary. But it

Dr. Maiysha Clairborne is an Integrative Family Physician, Master Practitioner & Trainer of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), Hypnosis & Time Line Therapy®, & founder of the Mind Re-Mapping Academy. Through her live trainings, Dr. Clairborne teaches individuals and organizations thought and communication mastery helping leader eliminate negative thinking, faulty beliefs, and emotional trauma, while also teaching them to be trauma responsive in their own communication. Dr. Maiysha specializes in trauma informed communication teaching her clients the power of word, and how our unconscious thoughts and beliefs have an impact on the reality we create. Her trainings combine the mastery of emotional and communication intelligence, teaching leaders that by mastering their language (both internal and external) they can not only be conscious but also responsible for the impact of their words, actions, and behaviors. This ultimately helps them to communicate in a way that transforms creating new connections and outcomes that positively impact the people, community & organizations around them. This episode we discuss❤️‍🩹Why it’s so difficult to let go of beliefs we picked up early in life❤️‍🩹How hypnosis and NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) can be utilized to shift stubborn beliefs❤️‍🩹Creating a sustainable/healthy relationship with angerEpisode Resourceshttp://www.mindremappingacademy.comDr. Clairborne’s Podcast Black Mind Gardenwww.daliakinsey.comDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body LiberationEpisode edited and produced by Unapologetic AmplifiedThis transcript was generated with the help of AI. Have you ever wondered why almost all the health and wellness information you see out there is so white, cis able-bodied and het? I know I have. And as a queer black registered dietitian, I gotta tell you, I'm not into it. I believe health and happiness should be accessible to everyone. That is precisely why I wrote Decolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation and why I host Body Liberation for All.The road to health and happiness has a couple of extra steps for chronically stressed people, like queer folks and folks of color. But don't worry, my guests and I have got you covered. If you're ready to live the most fierce, liberated, and joyful version of your life, you are in the right place.Body Liberation for All ThemeThey might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them. Live your life just like you like itIt’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You were born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.Dalia Kinsey: I am so excited to have you here. Thanks for taking out the time to join us.Dr. Maiysha Claiborne: I am so excited. We've talked offline. This is a long time coming.Dalia Kinsey: Yeah. It's no joke where you're trying to navigate multiple commitments, I think this is a fairly universal marginalized experience in the states, we may be out here doing big things, but we're also working, raising kids, doing all the things, taking care of people it can be hard to get things on the calendar. But when it's time, it all falls into place.Dr. Maiysha Claiborne: It does. Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be having this conversation with you.Dalia Kinsey: I really wanted to have you on because of your background as a physician, an MD and as someone who uses hypnotherapy to help people, because I've seen so many things out there that make it look like maybe hypnotherapy is a useful tool, maybe not.Since it's not regulated in the US it seems like it's one of those things, and I think this happens with anything that's not regulated, unfortunately, sometimes really loud people who use the tool are clearly just kind of bootleg running their operation by the seat of their pants, not really together. And so it makes people perceive the tool itself as less credible.So to see an MD using hypnotherapy was very interesting to me because we all know if you are a marginalized person, you probably have a lot of deep-seated beliefs that you would like to shake, that you maybe have not been able to figure out how to get rid of so if hypnotherapy is real, we really need to know.So can you tell us a little bit about what drew you to medicine in the first place, and when you felt interested in bringing in hypnotherapy? How did you realize that it could be useful?Dr. Maiysha Claiborne: Absolutely. I love that you said we have a lot of deep-seated beliefs. What I'll talk about, you know, at some point is the deep-seated beliefs that we also have about these types of disciplines, the deep-seated beliefs that we have about things like hypnotherapy and NLP and why that's the case. So just about me, there wasn't a sentinel event that drew me to medicine. I just decided one day out of an eighth-grade writing assignment that I was going to medical school and it felt sort of random. Although what I'll say is that my dad isn't a retired OBGYN, my mom is a retired dentist, so probably just kind of went into my DNA a little bit and was modeled to me this sort of like passion for caring for others, right. And I'm the oldest child and so I'm naturally a caretaker. So even though I would like to say that I made the decision of my own accord, most likely it was subconsciously, you know, a conversation for many years.But I think that it really was a natural part of me to really care for people. What drew me to the type of medicine that I practiced, which when I did came out of residency, I'm a family physician by training. Like that's what I trained in after I went to medical school. But I've always been interested in the integrative, the holistic, like how do we go beyond the Western practices of medicine, and pharmaceuticals in order to, to really heal ourselves? And that really started with wanting to understand the mind-body connection. I grew up in a home of domestic violence, witnessing domestic violence. In retrospect, honestly, I think I was a functionally depressed kid, and so I think that that was sortDalia Kinsey: Could you say more about that? Because I don't think I've ever heard that term? Yeah. Functionally depressed. What does that mean? Dr. Maiysha Claiborne: What that means? Thank you for asking me. A lot of times when we think about depression, especially the stigma of depression, and I think this is a lot of times why we deny the experience as, as people of color, as Black people, is that we see depression as, I can't get out of bed.I, you know, I'm not motivated to do anything at all. I'm crying all the time. I'm, you know, like that sort of thing. But there are some people who live at this sort of low level of sadness, low level of, you know, I'm, I'm just pushing through every day this experience of feeling depressed. , and it may not be connected emotionally, but feeling like a heaviness, but you can get through the day, right?Dalia Kinsey: Mm-hmm. , that makes sense. No, I thought that was everybody. Is that not everybody?I think I didn't realize until early adulthood and I finally tried an SSRI that worked and did something for me and started talking with other people about their general vibe every day, and I realized like, oh no, everybody else didn't feel like that. Yeah. It's a problem.Dr. Maiysha Claiborne: It really wasn't until very recently, I mean, I say recently, probably in the last really five to seven years, that I really began to think like, am I experiencing this sort of functional depression? But when I look back and I, when I thought about that, I start looking back on patterns and I'm, and I really think that, you know, there was a lot of, I, I experienced growing up a lot of sadness, a lot of, you know, inner turmoil and I because it was required, you know, at my age, I'll be 48 in April, so I'm of this generation that was raised by baby boomer parents where there wasn't room for being emotional or anything of that nature, holding space for any emotion. It was just pushed through. And so that's what I did most of my life is pushed through, but there was this part of me having witnessed what I witnessed growing up that really wanted to understand like, why? Why did this person act this way? Why did this, what made him be this way towards my mom? Right? This was a stepfather. I think that's what drove me to major in psychology in college, you know, I took my first psychology class and I was.You know, hooked to, oh, there's this, what is, what's up with the mind? I took abnormal psych and I thought psychology, and I thought, oh my gosh, this is it. You know, when I started to take behavioral psychology and, and started to understand like conditioning, you know, operant versus classical, oh my gosh, Pavlov and his dogs, and I mean all of those things.When I talk about conditioning, it's like how we are automatically trained in our brain to do things and it fascinated me. So that's what sort of drew me into the mind body. But then I just really liked the body parts and that's what had me go to medical school. Now fast forward through medical school, through residency.I'll say that I always was really off the beaten path. Even in medical school. I studied Traditional Chinese Medicine during medical school. I studied essential oils, you know, and then I started my practice out of residency. I was doing a lot of coaching with my clients as I had them on the acupuncture table.That was one of the things that I did, and I realized there was so much more to them than what was physically going on with them. And I thought if I could get underneath the resistan

Dr. Sand Chang (they/them/their) is a Chinese American nonbinary clinical psychologist, DEI consultant, and somatic psychotherapist with more than 20 years of experience providing training and mental health services in a variety of settings, including the corporate sphere, startups, community mental health, university counseling, public schools, nonprofits, and medical centers. As a DEI trainer/educator and consultant, Dr. Sand strives to bring an intersectional, trauma-informed perspective to help workplaces create inclusive and psychologically safe(r) environments.This episode we discuss🌈Understanding the value of lived experience 🌈Trans-masc and non-binary body image and acceptance barriers🌈Misgendering and other sources of minority stressEpisode Resourceswww.sandchang.comwww.daliakinsey.comDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body LiberationEpisode edited and produced by Unapologetic AmplifiedThis transcript was generated with the help of AI. Becoming a supporting member helps us improve accessibility and pay equitable wages for things like human transcription.Have you ever wondered why almost all the health and wellness information you see out there is so white, cis able-bodied and het? I know I have. And as a queer black registered dietitian, I gotta tell you, I'm not into it. I believe health and happiness should be accessible to everyone. That is precisely why I wrote Decolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation and why I host Body Liberation for All.The road to health and happiness has a couple of extra steps for chronically stressed people, like queer folks and folks of color. But don't worry, my guests and I have got you covered. If you're ready to live the most fierce, liberated, and joyful version of your life, you are in the right place.Body Liberation for All ThemeThey might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them. Live your life just like you like itIt’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You were born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.Dalia: I'm so happy to have you here. I am always looking for people who are focusing on serving LGBTQIA plus people, preferably BIPOC but it's sometimes really hard to find, I don't know if this happens as much for other folks of color, but among Black folks, the homophobia is next level and the transphobia is like - it just makes you wanna gouge your eyes out. And so, you may struggle just to find a BIPOC person who offers the healing services that you need, but then finding one that's not gonna be transphobic intentionally or unintentionally, cuz that's just not their focus, it's not their interest, it really is a whole nother layer.It's so exciting to see that you're out here leading with your marginalized identities. How did you get to this point? Because I know for me it wasn't overnight. How do you feel like being a Chinese American person and a non-binary person influenced your worldview?Dr. Sand: Oh gosh. I mean, that's a big question. I kind of wanna go back cuz what you, something you just said was so real. Like just, you know, within our own communities facing these different aspects of white supremacy, colonialism, oppression, and yeah, you don't have to be white to enact white supremacy. You don't have to, you know, it's like all this stuff is in the air and we're indoctrinated into these systems.And so, it's sometimes so hard to find like a truly intersectional liberation space and you know, to go to your question, I don't know that I, like ever thought to myself, oh, I wanna do this kind of work. I, I think I just like, as a young person, was really interested in people and trying to understand people and trying to understand dysfunction, to be honest.you know, the dysfunction that was around me. And I don't even wanna use that language, you know, I kind of feel like that's, in some ways amidst language, but like, let's say like the chaos that that, that I witnessed and wanted to understand. And in coming into these like professionalized spaces, people would come to me and say like, oh, like you, you're Asian.Like, tell me about Asian people. Or, oh, you're queer. Tell me about queer people. Dalia: Like all of the Asian people??Dr. Sand: be the spokesperson, right? And so that's like that burden of representation and the burden of needing to, to, I don't know, somehow be an expert, even if I'm not an expert. I mean, how could I possibly be an expert on all things Asian?Right.Dalia: How could one person know all the things about the global majority? Yeah. Like at this point, I don't understand how anybody's., when you really think about it from a global majority perspective, I feel like the response should be, I don't know, get a book like these are really old cultures, it's beyond one person's ability to kind of summarize something so vast, and why should one person have to school people on what the global majority is up to? Dr. Sand: Right, right. So, there's these expectations. There are a gazillion invitations to be on everyone's diversity committee and all the trauma of those experiences. And there's just the ways that my lived experience shaped me to not be an expert on any kind of population, but to kind of know how to navigate or know what to expect when I'm interacting with these really fucked up systems, right? And so, like, sometimes I say like,I'm not expert on trans people, you know, being a non-binary trans person.I wouldn't ever say I'm an expert on this, but I do think, like I do have a lot of expertise navigating systems of transphobia and especially working within trans health and working in systems that really enact all these colonialists and white supremacist, you know expectations around gender and gender expression and bodies.So anyway, I don't know if that's exactly answering the question, but yeah, I didn't, you know, wake up one day and think like, I wanna be a DEI consultant, you know, like, it's actually not really easy work. And sometimes I think it's impossible work. And then I have another part of me that's like, oh no, like there's this hope and there's this vision there for a different kind of world, and how could I contribute to co-creating that in whatever small ways that I can.But yeah, a lot of days it's, it's hard.Dalia: It's helpful to hear that from somebody who's been doing this work for so long, because I know, I see all the time things that I want to help maybe individual clients with over time it becomes obvious that it can't be solved on an individual level, it can only be coped with and so, then you feel drawn to try and push against the systems. And so, things like DEI consulting,it feels like a natural step, but then once you actually get into these spaces you don’t find it as positive as you’d hoped. Dr. Sand: Yeah. I've been thinking a lot about like, what is the trauma you experience in these oppressive contexts that don't even.what they're doing. And then what is the trauma or the pain of being in performative DEI spaces, like situations where people or organizations try to use white supremacy to solve white supremacy. So, like that's just kind of like encapsulates 2020 up to today.Dalia: Yeah. Like this, the racial reckoning that was, it was so frustrating while we were in, it was people acting like no one had ever tried to bring these issues to light.And I'm like, oh, I'm sorry. What? You missed the entire 1960s.Dr. Sand: Yeah. Yeah.Dalia: And for people to say they wanted people to express their frustration and heartbreak in a particular way and kept propping up MLK, as this is the proper way for marginalized people to say, stop killing us. And when I refresh people's memory, I'm like, okay and he said it politely the way you wanted him to and what happened to him? How did that end? There's no way to tell people who are deeply invested in white supremacy the reality of what it does to people, and it be palatable. Like it just isn't if you're attached to it and deeply invested in it.There’s no way we can say it that would make it easy to swallow. Yeah. And it was just interesting to me how quickly people. Put everything aside. And I don't think I ever noticed, and it could have just been me not paying enough attention, how frequently people will pick up on a social justice movement that's existed for decades and will have to continue to exist because true change has not happened.But how corporations, businesses, people who aren't directly affected by the problem will act as though they can only focus on one issue at a time. So, when people had BLM on their mind, they were like, oh, anti-Asian violence I can't, I can't understand. I, I, I don't understand how all these issues are connected, and we're only gonna put up, we support Asian folks on these days, and then the other days, we'll pretend we don't hate Black people, and then we'll just rotate.Dr. Sand: We all just get a month, you know?Dalia: Yeah. And, and what, how, how do you deal with that as a DEI practitioner.Dr. Sand:I mean, I really, I really make it clear that I'm interested in having conversations about collective liberation. And so, people are always surprised because oftentimes companies or organizations might latch onto one aspect of my identity, and that's why they've reached out.They're like, we're looking for an Asian person, or we're looking for a trans person. And then when I come in and I wanna talk about something else, I wanna talk about neurodivergence, or I wanna talk about anti-blackness, they're like, whoa, you know, they like. So, it's just the limitations, yo

Have you ever wondered why almost all the health and wellness information you see out there is so white, cis able-bodied and het? I know I have. And as a queer black registered dietitian, I gotta tell you, I'm not into it. I believe health and happiness should be accessible to everyone. That is precisely why I wrote Decolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation and why I host Body Liberation for All. The road to health and happiness has a couple of extra steps for chronically stressed people, like queer folks and folks of color. But don't worry, my guests and I have got you covered. If you're ready to live the most fierce, liberated, and joyful version of your life, you are in the right place.This episode we discuss🌈Setting intentions that are personally meaningful 🌈Evaluating our relationship with productivity and wellbeing🌈Auditing your life for joy Episode Resourceswww.daliakinsey.comDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body LiberationEpisode edited and produced by Unapologetic AmplifiedNew Year Intention Setting DownloadBody Liberation for All ThemeThey might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them. Live your life just like you like itIt’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You were born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.This transcript was generated with the help of AI. Becoming a supporting member helps us improve accessibility and pay equitable wages for things like human transcription.Hello, welcome to our first solo episode of the year. As promised, I will be doing solo episodes this year so that you and I have more time together to dig a little deeper with some of my core themes, which includes the belief that stress is one of the greatest threats to our health of our time, and that marginalized people are the most vulnerable to chronic stress because homophobia, racism, ableism, all of the things, transphobia, these are chronic stressors that can have a really negative impact on our health.Stress is one of the greatest threats to health of our timeMy focus is always going to be things that can positively impact your health but not exacerbate your stress at the same time. I love to have guests on the show, so we're definitely not getting rid of that element. I do have some special guests in mind for the show this year, so those will still be coming, but you and I are going to be spending a lot more time together on the show from now going forward. In line with the understanding that chronic stress is the enemy to our health, most wellness outlets are really not concerned about your liberation and are not open to massive paradigm shifts, like considering the possibility that toxic capitalism undermines your wellbeing, and we have to reevaluate our relationship with productivity and striving to be better in order to really be well and to reevaluate what wellbeing looks like to us.You'll notice that frequently wellbeing is just a reframe for ready to be super productive in the work place. It’s not really about what is meaningful to the individual and certainly not inclusive of other cultures or other world views outside of this belief that you are here to be productive - you must always be doing in order to be a valid expression of humanity.If you want for your wellness to be liberatory, a really important thing to do is to question where your assumptions come from and whether or not these assumptions are still serving you. When everywhere you look, everyone is saying the same thing, it isn't natural for you to think to question things that seem like a given.A perfect example of that is New Year's resolutions and all of the mindset that comes with and the thoughts that are at the foundation of the belief that we need to be fixed. I'm here to challenge that and posit that you do not need to be fixed. Anything that we imagine to be an indicator of a flaw when we're looking at our own bodies oftentimes is a sign that something is wrong, and our socialization prevents us from seeing that.So what do I mean by that. I had a conversation with someone about this recently, but it comes up all the time with friends, family, and clients. The person I was speaking to said ‘I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do, but I still feel so unwell. I feel so tired, so run down’ . Everything that they were being told by the coaches, they were going to, the physicians, they were going to kept focusing on what else they could be doing to make themself feel more, well for them to recapture the energy level that they had before, which is what this person was missing. The question was what should you be doing to get back to where you were before? But my question was, is there a possibility that you are doing more than enough and that your feelings of burn out, tiredness and exhaustion are not indicators that you're not doing enough, but actually a warning that you're doing way too much. Could it be in this case that your feelings of fatigue, your feelings of malaise, are linked to the fact that you do not feel you have permission to slow down, you don't feel it is safe to slow down?And I don't know the details of your life. Maybe it isn't. This is what I want us to focus on this year instead of the typical New Year's resolutions that encourage you to strive, that operate off the assumption that something is wrong with you, that you're deeply flawed. What I want us to look at is the possibility that we are doing too much and in the new year doing less could increase our wellbeing. What if the secret to bringing more wellness into your life this year is doing less not more?How are you going to evaluate this before you start setting intentions? Before you think about goals? First, do an audit of your life. This doesn't have to be very time consuming. You really wanna tap into what your body is telling you as you're going through these questions.This isn't meant to pick every part of your life apart. It's meant to get at what immediately comes to mind, because these are the things that are most pressing or bugging you that you haven't given yourself permission to change. As you're doing your life audit one of the questions that I want you to ask yourself is what do you feel right now in your life in general? What are a few words that capture how you're feeling? I know for me, when I did the exercise at the start of the month, there was overwhelm, grief, gratitude, and inspired. In some areas of my life I've really been feeling aligned, like I am living my mission through my business. I'm living my mission in so many areas, but the overwhelm is coming from still juggling a nine to five, and my business, which is far more meaningful to me, far more inspiring and the grief comes from the managing loss and a lot of shifts and a lot of changes at the end of 2022.I lost my last grandparent. That was a trigger for a lot of reevaluation. Looking at all of the wonderful things she did with her life, all of the caretaking, all the ways in which you can see the through line in her life is that of love, caretaking, selflessness, and also of great understanding of how to nurture and take care of herself even though she was raised in a time when no one was being encouraged to do that, not in a mainstream way anyway, at a time that everyone assigned female at birth was being told you're here to serve. I didn't ever see any messaging even in the early eighties and nineties, that that could also mean you should take care of yourself.I now offer inclusive wellness solutions for individuals and organizations. If you like myself, believe that health and happiness should be accessible to everyone, and you're looking for someone to help you make your programs more inclusive, or you're looking for an inclusive wellness specialist to come in with solutions tailored to your team's needs, then visit daliakinsey.com.The link is in the show notes to learn more about how we can work together.Another excellent question to ask yourself is what are you doing now on a regular basis that every time you do it, you're filled with dread? Every time you see it on your calendar, you feel like, ugh, this again. Now, what does that do for you? Why is it still on your list? For me, it’s the 9-5. Monday rolls around and all of the energy that I had to work all day on Saturday, doing things that are meaningful to me, that light me up, that energy, has disappeared.So why am I still doing that? What is it doing for me? Well, it's giving me a feeling of stability so I don't have to be super thirsty as the business grows and I can continue making decisions that are aligned instead of accidentally recreating all of the toxicity and all of the negative overworking patterns that came from the 9 to 5, which is what most of us are used to. A lot of people do this, they'll recreate the same things that were killing them in corporate. They'll recreate it in their own business, like pointless meetings or things that don't really move the needle forward, but give you a sense of being busy, especially if your sense of worth is connected to productivity, that's an easy trap to fall into. After you establish why are you still doing this thing that makes you feel zapped, that makes you feel full of dread then you can question, can you get rid of it? If that doesn't feel feasible at this time, can you reframe it? Instead of thinking, oh, I have to do this, could you start thinking more in terms of I get to do this and it is enabling me to do dot, dot, dot.So the fact that I'm able to do this job, the schedule, the amount of days I have of

Over 20 years ago an offensive racial identity discussion at Harvard pushed Misasha Suzuki Graham and Sara Blanchard to simultaneously walk out of the room and kick off their decades-long friendship. As biracial women and parents of multiracial children, they have been uniquely aware of the impact that our nation’s legacy of racism has on all racialized people. In their book and podcast, “Dear White Women,” Suzuki Graham and Blanchard answer the litany of questions that seemingly well-intentioned White folks have been asking people of color throughout this second wave of the civil rights movement. I don’t know about you but I’m tired of explaining that racism wasn’t solved during Obama’s presidency. I’m thrilled to have a resource to share/chuck at the next person that pretends they desperately want to be part of the solution but only if it requires less effort than a Google search. 🙄🙄🙄🙄If you've ever asked or been asked "What can I do to help combat racism?" then Dear White Women: Let's Get (Un)comfortable Talking About Racism is a priceless tool you’ll want to add to your personal library. This episode we discuss* Claiming your wholeness as a multiracial person in monoracial spaces* Balancing protecting your energy and giving grace to problematic “friends” * The legacy of anti-Asian sentiment in the US* The compound stress of racism and sexism * Harnessing the power of privilege to uproot systemic racism Episode Resourceswww.dearwhitewomen.com/Buy Your Copy of Dear White Womenwww.daliakinsey.comDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body LiberationEpisode edited and produced by Unapologetic Amplified Body Liberation for All ThemeThey might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them. Live your life just like you like itIt’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You were born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.This transcript was generated with the help of AI. Becoming a supporting member helps us improve accessibility and pay equitable wages for things like human transcription.Dalia Kinsey: Thank you so much for coming on the show. Misasha Suzuki: We're so excited to be here. Sara Blanchard: Thanks for having us. Yes, thank you. Dalia Kinsey: I've been cyberstalking, both of you in addition to fawning over the book and looking at my favorite sections. Again, even though I'm not the target person for the book, it feels like a really good resource for me to share with other people who want me to explain to them how to not be problematic.And just knowing that I have a resource for that feels like a relief because so many people act like they want to know what to do and will suck you dry energy wise, but if you tell them, you could probably find another resource for that. They'll come up with more ways to keep pulling on your energy, and I love that now I can just be like, no seriously read this, and if you're not willing to do that, you don't really wanna know. So that's very helpful. Can you tell us about why you felt like now was the time for your book?Misasha Suzuki: It's a great question and I think we've had, so we've had the podcast by the same name, Dear White Women for close to three years now. It's hard to, hard to imagine, that when we started back in April of 2019, that anyone save like the five family members that we could have strong to listening to it.Dalia Kinsey: You were able to get family to listen? It's literally impossible to get friends and family to listen.Misasha Suzuki: As it was coming outta my mouth I thought well not immediate family. Ok. Sometimes my mom will listen. And then she'll be like, why did you say that? And I'm like, oh, ok, you listened to that episode I think we recognize that not all people are podcast listeners and I'm staring at one, on the screen right now (points at Sara) Sara Blanchard: Sort of bad, I knowMisasha Suzuki: I'll still send her like episodes every once in a while and feel like 50 50 shot that she'll listen.But we thought that also the message and the platform that we have was really important to get out to a larger audience. Besides just the podcast, right? In different mediums. And people learn different ways in different ways and people reflect in different ways. And so we sort of came to the realization around the fall of 2020 that, we wanted to do this book.And of course, you know, there was just a few things happening in 2020. So, you know, Sarah asked me at that time cause we were homeschooling our kids and, you know, trying to handle everything else. If like why, why we should write the book. And I said in that moment, and it was my most honest truth in that moment that I think we should write it because I'm trying to save my kids' lives. And you know, it's one of those sort of responses when you're do the speed round of like questions. And it is, it is the thing that comes to your mind first. But that is, My truth. Right? And I, I feel to this day that if one person reads this book and that person has the ability in some way to make a decision as to whether my sons live or die, right? Or anyone else who looks like my sons live or die like that, and they make a different decision than they would have, that is enough, right? That is more than enough. And I think that about the podcast too. But the book is something that's so tangible and is similar yet different to the podcast that I feel like that's the goal.That's a singular goal. And so that's why, yeah. Dalia Kinsey: Yeah. That's a huge motivation. I know there are a lot of people who, when they get into activism, they. Motivators that are not stable or consistent. So like maybe they are empathizing with someone they're friends with, but if that friendship goes sour, they may also lose interest in the movement.So it's certainly a different thing when it's blood relatives who you're worried about or whether it's just intrinsic to you to be concerned about everyone's safety, which is also another motivating force for a lot of people. And those things are stable, whereas just because someone you have befriended is suffering.You know, I don't know that that's a motivation that would really last. And I've seen like fair weather activists, especially in 2020 that couldn't even hang in there for a year. And like you mentioned, you started the podcast long before this second wave of the civil rights movement. Sara Blanchard: Ooh. I like that you called it the second wave of the civil rights movement.The it, it Dalia Kinsey: feels like, yeah, like no one WA was framing it that way. It was so interesting to me how many people acted like B L M was brand new when these are precisely the same issues that we've had since reconstruction, like the US loves to do. They say they're going in to. People that are suffering when it's really a play for money or resources, like they do that overseas over all the time.That's also what it looks like. Maybe I'm biased because I was told it was a war of Northern aggression, which, you know, that's a whole nother thing. But like the perspective is, well they came down here for resources and for power, not for humanitarian reasons, which vibes with how the US generally is, and then left too soon as they always do.Like before any area stabilized and people just started murdering black folks left and right. Any time they had two red scents to rub together and decided that maybe they should be treated like equals, it was always a problem. And the police have been part of enforcing systemic racism. In my part of the country, at least since reconstruction.And so for anyone to think it was a new problem was just so bizarre to me when it's the same thing we've been dealing with since the beginning of this country being formed. Misasha Suzuki: I I love, I love that you said that, and Sarah knows, like, I, I will continually like hammer this point home on the podcast because I, I think that people completely think this just came out of nowhere, right?Or this is like, we were doing just fine cuz we had this civil rights movement in the sixties and like, we fixed it, you know, and, and once the Civil War was over, we also fixed that, right? And so there's periods that we've fixed. And so why is there such an issue now? And I think that shows up in, in, you know, a lot of different ways.You're absolutely right in that it was sort of, it has been baked into the founding of our country. And that reconstruction in particular was sort of designed to be this fix, but it never, it didn't go down that way. And in fact, people were still trying to sort of create the world that, that existed before reconstruction, right?Just without using the word slavery. And so I think that that is so important to understand that history because those are the cycles that keep repeating. And if we don't understand that, we're continually looking at it like it's this new issue. And that, you know, oh, we've got this new problem. We've got this B l m movement, or we've got, you know Asian hate and all of this is so new, but it's not.And I think that, I, so I love that Dalia Kinsey: you said that. That's a great, I'm glad that you mentioned Asian hate thinking that maybe that's new because I was not aware of, I, of course, I knew about, Internment camps and Japanese people being robbed of their property. But I didn't realize that the legacy of anti-Asian sentiment was even older than that.And I guess I never fully processed that. The US never apologized or did any kind of reparations for that. And the idea that you can just steal people's property and no one have an issue with it. In a country that claims it's all about you being able to pul

Joshua Young is a spirit-led guided meditation, yoga, and emotional intelligence teacher based in Atlanta, Ga. They guide meditation sessions that merge African Ancestral practices and philosophies to support the reimagining of wellness as we know it today. They empower BIPOC to seek a deeper connection to àṣẹ and Ori by merging guided meditation with what we & our ancestors know. Joshua cultivates practices that provide tools for moving through awakenings that encourage, vulnerability, community building, ritual, and empowerment to take steps towards healing. They contribute content for insight timer and continue to utilize this resource to make meditation more accessible and inclusive for Black, Indigenous, People of color and LGBTQ+ community members. This episode we discuss 🌈How mindfulness can serve people of color and marginalized folks 🌈The key to releasing feelings from the body 🌈How we've been socialized to reject emotions 🌈The importance of working with healers that honor your lived experience 🌈Using money as a love offering Episode Resourceshttp://trustyourori.com/https://www.instagram.com/trustyourori/www.daliakinsey.comDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation Body Liberation for All ThemeThey might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them. Live your life just like you like itIt’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You were born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.This transcript was generated with the help of AI. Becoming a supporting member helps us improve accessibility and pay equitable wages for things like human transcription.This conversation was aired as a livestream just days after the January 6th attack on the capital, a frustrating but by no means surprising reminder of the double standards in this country.Joshua’s insights about managing high periods of stress felt so relevant in the aftermath of the most recent mass murder of LGBTQIA+ folks in the US that I thought it an excellent time to revisit this conversation.   Dalia: I'm so proud of us right now. Look at us, just mastering the technology. Okay, so we're officially starting now.Hello everyone, thank you for joining us. You know what time it is. You know how extremely stressful this week has been. We already knew America loved white supremacy, but we might not have known how much and maybe didn't know how we would be affected by watching America show its ass this week.I know for me; I was so easily triggered this week and just everything pushed me right over the edge. Someone tried to condescend to me, another dietitian on TikTok. And I like literally lost my mind, immediately. She just assumed because I'm a brown person and because I'm in a bigger body that I don't know anything and wanted references at random and I was just like, NOT TODAY.And I just didn’t want to feel so reactive. So, I was happy that we already had this scheduled. What can you tell us about how you have been processing this week and how long you've been working on your mindfulness and being non-reactive?Joshua: Yeah, so first off, thank you for having me. This week is interesting.As a person who's really wanting to be living the life that is wellness, there's a lot of things that happened for me.And one of the things that I know is that if I'm not making myself a priority, no one else will. And so, this week I had to do what I had to do and that was taking a week off of work.And I've literally dedicated this whole week to giving something back to myself or connecting to something that's always been really important to me and making that the big news, making that the biggest thing that's happening for me. That’s been what's serving me. So, I've been like cooking, I've been talking to friends.I've been just doing my best to exist in the way that I want to exist. And yeah, mindfulness and meditation and all those things show up in those spaces as well because I gotta really know who I am first.Before I can realize, oh, it takes this, it takes that, it takes this. For me wellness, meditation, mindfulness is the only thing that I have when it comes to existing and being well, when oppression is still a thing. And it's always been.And when it, you know, as it relates to like my body and what I'm doing with it, how people are perceiving it, wellness is like my medicine. And so, meditation is just my thing. I don't know. It's always been my thing. I think that like very early on in my life that's what I was doing.I was just sitting, and I was just paying attention to what was happening around me. And you know, family label this as shyness, like, oh, Josh is just shy. I'm not shy. You decided that, and what I decided was that I'm gonna be mindful. I'm gonna be mindful of what's happening around me and how I'm feeling.And that work just continued and it expanded into this, where I realized like, oh, there's like deep value in that and knowing who I am. Knowing how I feel, being comfortable with it, whether it's something that's really good or not so good. And realizing oh, I can teach people this too.I'm a great teacher because I've been watching people and understanding how we're learning, how we are retaining information and how we're utilizing it.So, a lot of things have been on my side when it comes to wellness and meditation. And I'm happy.Dalia: That's so interesting that you naturally have that inclination.And I know for some people who, depending on how you process energy and information, it is more intuitive to make the room for introspection.I also know that for a lot of us who have dealt with so much trauma over our lifetime. We’re afraid of silence and afraid of introspection because if we get in touch with our emotions, it feels like it may just break something loose, and we'll feel outta control, we’ll feel overly distressed, and so we're afraid of it consciously or unconsciously, and we keep avoiding the silence and avoiding things like mindfulness. And this year in particular, it's been very difficult if you've been running from emotions and if you've been suppressing them. It's been hard to keep that running going because there has been so much space and room for introspection.Joshua: Yeah.Dalia: But like you mentioned before the call, if you don't feel the feelings and you don't process the feelings, they get stuck. So even when we think we're protecting ourselves by avoiding our emotions, running from them, they can't really be escaped. Can you talk about that more?Joshua: Yeah. Okay. So first I wanna say this.When I talk about the experience for people of color or from the lens of people of color, I'm talking from the lens of a Black person. I'm a Black person, and when I think about from the very start, right, learning what the emotions are all about, how to express them when it's appropriate to, what I find in conversation with other people is that we're limited to those experiences.Sadness is not something that I was like openly allowed to experience. Like people were trying to constantly fix it. People were constantly telling me, boys don't do that. You need to cut that out. You know, this is something that you have to stop. And, you know, it was almost like in this family, you know, space, only certain people at certain levels could experience things.So I had no room for anger. I was doing something wrong by being angry or by being sad or sometimes like expressing too much joy.Like, you know, if we're just getting down to the truth of it. This is just, this is just it. This is kind of what's happening in the family dynamics. And so now as a young adult, I've been through it all.I've had the anxiety attacks; I've gone through the depression. I’ve had all those experiences and I guess what I'm realizing right now is every single thing that I've ever experienced from the beginning, I'm still carrying with me in some way. So, when I'm feeling anxiousness in my stomach, or if it's getting really crazy and now it's in my heart and in my chest, it's the same thing I was feeling when I first experienced it.So, it's just in this space and it's sitting. And so, when we are doing the work of being honest with ourselves, being open with ourselves, loving on ourselves, being, seeking out that liberation, what we're doing is we're finding the opportunities to say, hey, you are here. I don't really know why or I could know why or I could be like turning a blind eye to it.But you're here and it's my responsibility to step into that knowing that you're here and to do something about it. Like, you can live here, I guess but personally, I'm not willing to take anything from this year into the next year with me. And the reason I'm not willing to do that is because when I do that, I am attaching myself to my past.And it's like this thing, this chain, this connection where no matter what happens, this is always gonna be my experience. And when I'm diving into these practices, I'm giving myself the opportunity to be free.I'm unwilling at this point to, you know, have the first experience with sadness continue to be the reminder that this is what sadness is all based on this one experience.You can go to therapy all you want to, you can talk about it all you want to, but I'm in here and I'm gonna stay in here until you do something about it. So that, that's a lot of what like the emotional intelligence piece of my work is all about is like getting to that saying, hey, you can go if you want to.You know, like creating the gentle invitation to just like leave. And then usually we find that that's not the case. Like it's there, it's been there and then the other invitation comes wher

Larissa is a queer, cis, biracial, Black movement teacher and mom to twins. She teaches intelligent movement strategies that help you feel connected, curious, and joyful in your body, and specializes in core & pelvic floor dysfunction. She is an ardent believer in the idea that connecting to your body is a pathway to joy, and joy is a pathway to justice and liberation.This episode we discuss* learning to sense joy and the full range of human emotion in your body* reestablishing a connection to the pelvic floor* the benefits of seeing a pelvic physical therapist* freedom and clarity that comes with middle age* living at multiple identity intersections and cultivating friendshipsEpisode Resourceswww.larissaparson.comwww.daliakinsey.comDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body LiberationBody Liberation for All ThemeThey might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them. Live your life just like you like it It’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You were born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.This transcript was generated with the help of AI. Becoming a supporting member helps us improve accessibility and pay equitable wages for things like human transcription. Dalia: This is so exciting. It's been forever since I've recorded an episode. Originally, I said I was just going to take a couple of months off. Mm-hmm. to just get my life in order, post covid and post finishing the book. And it is month six. And I'm not entirely sure when I'm gonna release this one, but I am excited to be recording again. I know that season two is gonna start the 1st of January and honoring rest and really liberating myself from that need to be productive all the time. I realized that I only wanted to podcast once a month.It just felt so right in my entire body. Yes. And when I was looking at what you do, when we first met, it was at the Together Thriving conference. Yes, yes. And then you were talking about pelvic floor health. So, I thought your focus was on. Reproductive wellness. Mm-hmm. and that part of the body for people born with a uterus.Right. And didn't realize that it's so much more than that, that it's embodiment work. When I was looking at your site and it talked about embodying joy, but also embodying justice, that really struck me because I realized I wasn't even sure what. Justice might feel like in the body. I'm just now getting to the point where I could feel in my body that podcasting once a month was a hell yes.Per my entire body. Yeah. But there's still some things I think I wouldn't even recognize. So why do you lead with that on your site?Larissa: That's such a good question. You know, so I was and still am really interested in and focused on doing core and pelvic floor rehab work. It's one of the things that. I love nerding out about hardcore, but what I found was, this is like the most circuitous way to get to the answer to your question, by the way.But what I found was that the more that I worked with people and the more that we kind of went on this pelvic floor journey together, where they started developing more awareness of their bodies' habits and patterns, and the more work I was doing with the folks, the more I got to this like realization that.At the bottom, if you imagine the work we're doing as a cereal box, or like a box of Cracker Jack or something, there's like this prize in the bottom of the box and that is like this body liberation stuff. Mm-hmm. And I decided I was tired of having it be the secret. Mm. I was tired of it being like the thing that we got to at the end of a series or after working together for a few months.And I really wanted to lead with it because I feel very strongly. Like, like I say on my website, that the body is a home for joy because we feel joy in our bodies and our bodies are homes for justice because we feel injustice acted on our bodies and we feel it with our bodies, and we feel it in the ways that we make choices about our bodies.And so, if we can get in more touch with our bodies, if we can really embody our bodies, feel like our bodies are our homes, then our bodies become a site for justice instead of injustice.Dalia: I love that you lead with it, and everything resonates. I felt like the copy was so beautiful the way you phrased everything.Thank you. But then I also thought, I am kind of a rare. Not that I'm a special snowflake, even though low key, I do think that I am, I felt like with my own messaging where I struggled the most was trying to give people something they needed that they would recognize. Yeah. So, with the pelvic floor, people recognized they need that.Cuz when I first heard that, I was like, Yes, I'm gonna be front and center for your presentation so I can figure out how. Stop pee when I laugh. I used to think that was only for people who'd had children, and now I realize it's for like literally everybody. Uhhuh as you get a little older and no one's told you like what to do to strengthen your pelvic floor.Yeah, but then when you talk about the end goal, which, because I kind of think that way, what I wanna do for people is make them feel comfortable in their bodies and confident that their life is best led by them in every single way. But when you say that I think a lot of people don't know whether or not they need that. I know even in the coaching contain, we weren't in this program together, but we are active in the same group. Yeah. So, one of the coaches that I've had, when I went to her, I did not know I needed what she actually offers. Yes. But she's such a master of marketing she presented something that I thought I needed, but what I needed, like you said, was at the bottom of the cereal another prize. It was confidence, it was mindset. But I never would've signed up for anyone who said they did mindset coaching. I would've been like, Oh, for what? Sounds impractical. So, have you had any issues finding your ideal person when you changed your marketing?Larissa: That's such an interesting question because I'm kind of in this in between space where I've changed the copy on my website and I'm still also teaching a lot of the same stuff and marketing it very in a very similar way. So, I would say I haven't really had a hard time finding folks to work with. And the folks who really wanna do this work who show up in my membership, for example, are really interested in the way that we're doing this together.When we are working together in that space at least, we have coaching conversations where we talk about all those little things that are going on in our lives that are taking away our sense of joy or adding to our sense of joy. But then we also do movement practices. So, we're really doing this embodiment work together and really experiencing, Okay the, the question that I think a lot of people can't answer all the time is, what does joy feel like in your body? Like what does joy feel like? Everyday? Joy. Not like, not like I just felt the best massage of my life.Dalia: Well, see, I wondered about that. When you say everyday joy, that's really Yeah. Helpful because I could definitely think about periods of like transcendent period.Yeah. And it doesn't have to be anything major. It's usually. Any kind of dancing exercise. It might happen if I do it for long enough. But a friend of mine I think saw, maybe it was your post asking like, what does, do I feel like in your body or someone else make, but I'm pretty sure it was you. And they said, oh my goodness, I don't know.And that was the first time they'd really thought about that. And I thought, Oh no, that’s a little heartbreaking. Yeah. And I feel like they are a joyful person, but they, like so many of us, folks of color, spend a lot of time thinking about survival. Yep. And not thinking about joy. Yes. Yes. So where do you start with that?If you don't know what joy feels like in your body, and why do we need to know?Larissa: So, I usually start with something, actually, I think I wanna answer the second question first. I was gonna say, I have this thing we start with, but let's answer the second question first. So, like, why do we need to know what joy feels like in our body?Because life is hard and because every system of oppression wants to steal our joy and so, I see joy as being revolutionary, not unlike rest. Rest comes along with joy. Like they, they go together. They're very important parts of the whole picture. We need to know what joy feels like because we know what struggle feels like.Mm. We know what suffering feels like. We know what sadness, anger, frustration. We know what all of those things feel like and to not be able to also access things like joy, pleasure, delight. That is not okay. That's not a full spectrum of feelings for a human. And humans need to feel all the feelings. So, it doesn't mean that you're never angry if you, you're living a joyful, delighted life.It just means that when you're angry, you know that you have reasons for your anger a lot of the time, and that the feeling will pass. And that we can come back to Joy eventually. And I don't see joy as like this, like peak experience necessarily. I really think of it as the practice of cultivating attention to things that we love that we find pleasurable, that we find delightful.Dalia: Where would you see the concept of fun in relation to joy? Because I think that people probably all know what fun feels like. Yes. But what is the difference, and is this more like contentment than it is fun? Hmm.Larissa: I would say fun has a big role to play in getting joy in your life. I think that fun is a type of joy. I really think play and curio

Yael R Rosenstock Gonzalez (she/her) is a sex educator, sex coach, researcher, author, speaker, curriculum developer, and workshop facilitator. As a queer, polyamorous, white-presenting Nuyorican Jew, Yael has always been interested in understanding the multi-level experiences of individuals. This led her to found Kaleidoscope Vibrations, LLC, a company dedicated to supporting and creating spaces for individuals to explore and find community in their identities. Through her company, she facilitates workshops, develops curriculum, offers Identity Exploration Coaching, and publishes narratives often left out of mainstream publishing.This episode we explore:* Honoring boundaries in community spaces and navigating POC spaces as a white presenting person* Finding belonging and claiming identity as a multi-ethnic person* Diversity in the Jewish diaspora * Promoting inclusive representations of human experience in publishing Episode Resourceswww.daliakinsey.comDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberationhttps://kvibrations.com/https://www.sexpositiveyou.com/https://www.instagram.com/yaelthesexgeek/https://www.tiktok.com/@yaelthesexgeekHello and welcome to another episode of Body Liberation for All. I'm your host, Dalia Kinsey, holistic registered dietitian, and the author of Decolonizing Wellness.My work is centered on amplifying the health and happiness of LGBTQI+ and BIPOC people. And that is also what we do here at Body Liberation for All. I wanna remind you, I am hosting the Decolonizing Wellness Eco-Luxury QTBIPOC retreat in Bali in March. So if you are a person who loves the plan way in advance, like I do. This is when you want to book. This is a great time to give yourself plenty of room to break the trip into payments and to get all of your ducks in a row. If you aren’t going to be able to join us, but you know someone who this retreat could be life changing for, please make sure you share it. Substack makes sharing so easy on their platform. So if you visit daliakinsey.substack.com to listen to this episode you'll see it's just a click of a button. Today's guest, the Yael Rosenstock has so much knowledge in different areas that we cover a lot of territory in this conversation. There was still so much more that we could have dug into that hopefully at a later date we'll get to revisit. Today we explore a little bit of the lived experience of being a white presenting person who lives shoulder to shoulder with POC within the family, but out in the world is not having the same experience as the family members that have a darker complexion. Since we already know race is not actually real from a scientific perspective, it's totally a social construct, your skin color itself will to a large extent determine how much lived experience you have as a person of color or as a white person, regardless of what the socialization inside of your house is like because so much of the POC experience, if you're living in a colonized country, if you're living in a country that has its roots in white supremacy, so much of the experience is informed by the anti-Blackness or the anti-POCness that you're going to encounter out in the world.That does not in any way invalidate the cultural uniqueness of people who are in these very blended families and happen to have pale skin or white skin. So it's interesting to me to hear directly from somebody having this experience. It's an interesting concept to look at on an individual level. What does the fact that race is fictional and totally social have? How does that all play out - when you know you are culturally different from the white folks who do not have POC blood relatives that they live with and are close with but at the same time you know that you're not experiencing the same level of marginalization. What is that like? I rarely bother to claim my Latinx heritage. Because the anti-blackness that I have encountered in a lot of Spanish-speaking circles here in the US is so intense it doesn't make any logical sense for me to keep trying to be somewhere that I don't feel welcome.Some of these themes that Yael shares, the feeling of not enoughness when you are more than one thing or when you've only been presented with a narrow definition of what it means to hold a particular identity, is so relatable. I know not just to us, it's so relatable to so many people, because the ways that we define certain identities are so narrow it naturally leaves out a large number of people. The work that Yael is doing to promote the authentic representation of a wide variety of human experience at her publishing company feels like such a natural extension of this lived experience that she has of knowing how difficult it can be to really claim and embody our identities when we haven't seen anything similar reflected back to us. I love this. Entire conversation. I know you will too. Let's jump right into it. Body Liberation for All ThemeYeah. They might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them live your life just like you like it is.It’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.Dalia: I definitely wanted to cover the concept of white passing fragility. But then I want to definitely talk about your other projects and just what you're doing with intersectionality.Yael: Okay. I do want to warn that there's a very good chance that that will not. Some people will really like that idea of the white passing fragility, but others won't because right. The author of that book has become super famous and super rich off of a book around racism as a white woman. And just giving you a fair warning that this may or may not be taken so well.Dalia: And then that's so interesting too, because it seems like people should be compensated for good work or things that they do with good intentions.Dalia: But so often people who are in social justice are on the struggle bus financially, but, and that almost seems to be the expectation. Like you have to be a martyr to break down systems of oppression. But then I also am conflicted because it seems like all the time, white people continue to profit off of pain from people of color and especially Black people in this country. Even when you look at who makes money off of depictions of just Black suffering in general, whether it's another movie about slavery, even if it's a "fun" spin on it, like the Django or something, which I refuse to watch, I just don't understand how we're not seeing how problematic that is, but at least hers originally started out with intentions that seemed more educational.Dalia: Like I think it's a little more sketch to create a film or a piece of entertainment that centered on Black pain. And then all the money goes to somebody who's not Black. I mean, not at all, but the majority, most of it, right. It seems less sketchy, but it is sketchy nonetheless.Dalia: And I've been having a lot of feelings around these white savior complexes that are popping out these days. And people not understanding that, hey, maybe people want to be the hero of their own damn story and guess what, maybe they are ready are.Yael: But you're in the wayDalia: I know. Right? Or like you just exhausting people showing up to the March and explaining to everybody how, you know, you're being white the right way. I don't know if you've seen that play out in real life where people try constantly schooling other white people on how to be more. Down, I guess is the expression, but it doesn't really translate, but it's so rare that people confront people like that because their competition or the people that you have to compare them to you sometimes are so problematic that by comparison, they seem amazing.Yael: Yeah, I like this better.Dalia: So it's like, should I even say anything?Dalia: So I don't know.Yael: Considering that most of my spaces are POC and or Latin. I don't have that many white saviors.Dalia: Smart. Okay. Is that by design or is that coincidental?Yael: Well, I think at first it's coincidental, right? Just like growing up in a mixed neighborhood with a mixed family.Yael: It just is what happened. I was in a school with folks of different groups. And so that just continued. And then when I did reach middle school and there were white people who were just white, not Latin, like, I mean, there were a couple in elementary, but not many. And. I just felt really uncomfortable in the space.Yael: And that was like my assigned group. Cause I wasn't dark enough to be in the Latin group, I think. And also like the Latin group was like ghetto fab. Like I also wore my hair back slicked back. I also had the lip liner, and I had the big hoop earrings as well,Dalia: But like it wasn't enough.Yael: It was a, it was a browner Latin group. And so I felt like I shouldn't be part of it. Like I was friends with them, but I shouldn't be part of it because I didn't look the same. And so I just like ended up, even though I was friends with all the other groups, I ended up in the white girl group and I was just like, this is uncomfortable. Like, I don't agree with the things they say.Yael: I like rebelled a bit and basically got kicked out. And so I think after that, I was just like, I'm going to try and choose. So I don't think I've ever been like, I'm unwilling to be friends with white people because that doesn't seem nice either. But the same reason that folks have affinity groups, right?Yael: The same reason we hang out with queer people as queer people, the same reason you hang out with Latin people if you're Latin or Black and Black is because you don't want to have to

Nhakia Outland (she/her/hers) is the founder of Prevention Meets Fashion Inc. She is a Black, queer, single mother of three. She is a social worker, sex educator, sex therapist in training and professor at Temple University with an extensive background in advocacy, consulting and community organizing who is passionate about finding creative ways to engage Black, LGBTIA+ communities. Nhakia’s work focuses on addressing stigma and inequalities in sexual health and reproductive health (SRH) through fashion, advocacy, community and education (F.A.C.E).This episode we explore* The impact affirming clothing can have on mental health* Finding and celebrating your aesthetic* The connection between sexual health and fashion Episode Resourceshttps://www.preventionmeetsfashion.org/https://secure.givelively.org/donate/prevention-meets-fashionhttps://www.thecrownact.com/www.daliakinsey.comDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body LiberationBali Retreat March 19-25 2023Hello, and welcome to another episode of Body Liberation for All. I'm your host, Dalia Kinsey holistic registered dietitian and author of Decolonizing Wellness.This show and my work overall is dedicated to amplifying the health and happiness of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ people.Today we're joined by Nhakia Outland. The founder of Prevention Meets Fashion. She's a black queer, single mother of three. She's a social worker, sex educator, sex therapist in training, and a professor at Temple University with an extensive background in advocacy consulting and community organizing. She's passionate about finding creative ways to engage Black, LGBTQ+ communities.Nhakia's work focuses on addressing stigma and inequalities in sexual health and reproductive health through fashion advocacy, community, and education.Nhakia and I had this conversation quite a while ago, so I'm excited to be able to bring it to you today. At the time of the episode was recorded the website for Prevention Meets Fashion wasn’t up but now it is. So you can see that in the show notes and check out the events calendar. I love that the condom streetwear fashion show is an annual event.Nhakia has a lot of fabulous things going on through this nonprofit. And it was really interesting to hear about her creative process and what brought her to form the nonprofit.Before we jump into that conversation. I want to remind you that I will be hosting my first in-person retreat in Bali next March, that's March 2023. If you're hearing this and it's pre March, 2023, there may still be space. So be sure check out daliakinsey.com/retreat to see the details. It’s going to be an amazing event. As always it will be centered on LGBTQIA+ BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color). However, if you are not an LGBTQIA+ BIPOC person, that doesn't mean that you can't come to the retreat.There will be a couple of healing circle events. That'll be sacred spaces for QTBIPOC folks. So those will not be events where everybody can come in and take up space. However, there will be plenty of other events that are for everyone. So if you were interested in taking a more liberatory approach to your wellness and you've done a lot of work on your own and you feel like this could be a catalyst for your growth then definitely check it out. It isn't going to be a beginner oriented event as far as healing work goes. If you've never done therapy, if you've never, read a self-help book, if you've never been in any sort of coaching situation and you're kind of new to the concept of systemic oppression having an impact on your wellness, then it's probably not the place for you to start.The retreat really is designed for people who already have an awareness of these things and are wanting to dig deeper and really wanting to be in a space where they can totally unwind and focus on the physical experience of comfort and freedom in their body. So that it's something we'll be able to re-create with ease when we get back home. The facilities are gorgeous. We'll have a chef cooking for us three meals a day. There are lots of excursions planned. We’ll have one-on-one time with a Balinese healer. There will be massages. It's going to be really luxurious, but then at the same time, a little crunchy, which is totally my vibe. We’ll have a touch of the outdoors. We'll be in an eco-friendly setting, but then at the same time, we're going to have access to all of our creature comforts.It’s going to be great. If you can join us, you absolutely should. Go to daliakinsey.com/retreat to reserve your spot. Alright, let's get on into this conversation.Body Liberation for All ThemeYeah. They might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them live your life just like you like it is.It’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.My name is Nhakia Outland. I am the founder and president of Prevention Meets Fashion Incorporated. We are a 501C3 nonprofit based in Philadelphia, but we will go anywhere. And our mission is to increase sexual health and knowledge in communities of color Black, LGBTQIA and nonbinary communities through fashion advocacy, community education, which stands for FACE. It is a model that I created to be able to look at the intersections of sexual health, reproductive health, racial injustice, disability rights all of these other what I call social determines of health as well into one model, instead of just naming them all the time.We look at the intersections of how many of those can be placed in fashion. How any of those could be placed in advocacy and in community and education, which to our advantage came out as face, which is a ballroom category. Which we're very excited about because my favorite category in ballroom is face.I just love when the community comes out and shines that way like, it seems like nothing else matters, but that person's face. And to see that in community that's really been, you know, hurt so many times again and again especially Black LGBTQ folks that just lights my world up when I go to ballroom competitions.But yes, I'm so excited to finally be a nonprofit. What a lot of people don't know is that we've actually been around for four years. Once I really started getting into the nitty gritty of Prevention Meets Fashion, I realized that it would, it would be so much better in a nonprofit structure to be able to open ourselves to getting grants, to getting more support to writing more curriculum and programming. So a lot of folks that follow us on Instagram and they just, you know, sometimes think that we just post, but that's the labor of love of hours of research putting snippets together to have those words in the little, in the little caption.I actually take the time my interns take the time my volunteers take the time to research things, to make sure that we're getting our perspective right.To make sure that we're getting voices heard. On our Instagram, we take it very seriously, I once said when I started this, that to me, that Instagram is just not a place for us to post pretty pictures it really is more than that for us.I remember when I first started, I talked about how I used fashion come out to my family over a certain, a number of years as queer.And I showed a picture of when I got my hair shaved on one side and how freeing that was to me for many aspects for one, I had just lost my partner.So you weren't a kid, you were an adult living outside of the home.Yes. And so I had just lost my partner and, you know so when I had shaved the side of my head, it was a freeing moment. Not only for me verbalizing my queer identity, but also that that I was shedding something that reminded me of my partner, cause they always liked my hair. So I was talking about that and someone took my whole face, whole caption, put it on there, their Instagram and people were tagging me like this is your face.And I'm like, do you know that I'm a real person? And they literally were using it. The message was correct. I think before that, but I'm a real person like you use my whole face and my whole story.Was this person, a member of the community? Yes! This person was a member of the community and a fellow, a sex educator. And this was not the first time that they did this. They actually. Took other posts and I had to call him out on it, you know, and I don't what to do that, but at least give me my credit, especially when it's my face. So I stopped a little bit from actually using my images. And the purpose of me using my images, was one, for people to know that I'm a real person, but for, two to show representation to y'all queer Black folks out there that that don't get seen as much.And to let them know that, you know, we're here, we're in every profession. You know, come and visit us, you know, and as I was like, really taken back by this, so I stopped showing my image for a while, but then the pandemic happened and people were, were like, you know, I don't think people know that you're Black owned or queer owned at all because you don't have no pictures of yourself anymore. So I began posting pictures of myself, again, posting pictures of my interns, posting pictures of my community stuff that I was doing. I do admit that I am a little bit shy and I don't give myself enough credit with Prevention Meets FashionI'm a social worker by trade and I decided to take everything, all of my experience and I absolutely adore the meaning behind fashion. And how has been used in black communities. How is being used in queer communities? Oftentimes when our voices were silenced, our clothes were loud.Interesting that you made the point

Angela Ocampo is an intuitive guide, Curandera in training, ancestral wisdom keeper, healer, writer, and old soul. She is devoted to activating, facilitating, and opening portals for others to remember the truths and medicine that lie within us. Through intuitive channeling, energy work, ritual, ancestral healing, Earth medicine, shadow love, and embodiment, Angela works to help others explore and reclaim the forgotten divine parts of the self, including peace, mysticism, ancestral gifts, power, light, and liberation. This episode we explore* Sitting with the truth of combined colonized and colonizer ancestry* Using ancestral remembrance to unearth the ancient wisdom that lies within you * Using embodied grounding tools * Connecting to the body as a source of power Episode Resourceshttps://www.instagram.com/iamangelajo/https://www.subscribepage.com/ancestralconnectionDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body LiberationBali Retreat March 19-25 2023I was raised in a super conservative, slightly fundamentalist Christian situation and over the last five years or so, it has brought me so much joy to pursue traditional spiritual practices that are more connected to my ancestry and that aren't directly connected to colonization and the transatlantic slave trade that said there's a lot of resistance in my part of the world anyway, to ancestor veneration or ancestor worship or ancestor remembrance practices. I have found that while ancestor veneration exists all over the world, people's understanding of it really varies from culture to culture and from person to person, quite frankly, whether or not people actually believe their ancestors can hear them and are directly responding to them, whether people see their ancestors as intermediaries between people who are living and actual deities, or whether people think it's just something that you do that is deeply embedded in the culture and that it is good for you psychologically to remember the people that came before you, but no one can actually hear you. So it certainly varies, but I personally I've gotten so much comfort and joy from exploring ancestor veneration that I'm thrilled to have Angela Ocampo with us today who's going to introduce us to ancestor remembrance practices. Angela is coming to us from an indigenous Colombian perspective. And she is going to share with us, her understanding of ancestor remembrance practices. The value that it’s had in her life and the healing potential that it has. Angela is an intuitive and uses embodiment work and dancing to reconnect people to their own intuition and to their own truth. A lot of times when you feel like you don't know which way to go in life and what's up and what's down. The truth is you do know, but you no longer are feeling confident in acknowledging what you know intuitively and you're seeking ways to validate or prove your opinions rather than just feeling them and going with them. So one of Angela's gifts is helping people get around that feeling of stuckness. So this is an excellent episode. Near the latter portion of the episode, Angela even shares a short meditation with us. So when you get to that section, you're going to want to make sure you're not driving. And that you're in a position where it's going to be safe to get a little relaxed and comfortable. And even though the meditation is brief, don't worry Angela's website is up now and you can visit https://www.angelaocampo.com/ and get a longer version of that meditation. I also have a pretty exciting announcement. I will be hosting my first ever in-person retreat in Bali next March. So that'll be spring break for a lot of people. So hopefully you have that time off and you'll be able to join us as well. There are a lot of exciting excursions planned its going to be focused on teaching you to relax your nervous system and to recover more quickly from any of the stressors you might encounter at home or at work. And for you to really develop recovery practices so that while you're feeling totally relapsed, Totally calm, totally at home in your body, on the trip. You don't have to worry that when you go back home when you fight your way through the airport, you'll completely lose all of that peace. No, you'll be going home with recovery practices. So you can keep returning to that sense of calm so that your nervous system. can stay in the zone that it's meant to be in. We're not meant to constantly be keyed up, stressed out, clenching your teeth, waiting for the other shoe to drop. So it's going to be a wonderful week. It is very far away if you live on the east coast of the us, but I know it's going to be so beautiful and so refreshing. There'll be more details to come. But if you are super excited about the idea of actually hanging out in a wellness space, that's centered on people of color and queer folks and you want to go ahead and check it out and put your deposit in, just visit https://www.daliakinsey.com/retreat, and you'll see the details there. Al right. Let's get on into today's episode. Body Liberation for All ThemeYeah. They might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them live your life just like you like it is.It’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.Dalia: Hi, Angela. Thank you so much for coming on.Angela: Hi, thank you so much for having me.Dalia: When I got your email, I signed up for it and listened to the meditation for connecting to your ancestors. I immediately thought people needed to know about this and needed to hear about the work that you're doing.Dalia: Let's start with, what are your marginalized identities and what does connecting to your ancestors mean for you?Angela: Yeah. So I am, a cisgender woman. I'm heterosexual as well. I come from Columbia, I'm a woman of color. I also have indigenous ancestry. So for me, it has been kind of like a rediscovery journey to meet with my ancestors and connect with them. Because my indigenous ancestry was colonized, a lot of their culture was taken away from them.Angela: And so a lot of the things weren't passed down to, to my family, to my lineage. So I think there was always a disconnect for me where I felt called, you know, to be on the earth and be outside. But I, I just didn't know why. And maybe like a little bit of stories from my family was passed down, but I, I just always felt called.Angela: So when I found ancestral work, I just felt into my body. This is what I need. As, as someone who, you know, was on a spiritual journey anyway, I was always somewhat of a seeker I always wanna find out the truth and just go deep.Angela: So ancestral healing has, has been able to connect me again with like my roots and where I come from. And it creates this sense of belonging. And it creates a sense of just peace in a way, because you are You are discovering who, who you really are, what is your blood?Angela: And you're creating these pathways of remembrance. And that will not only help you, but it's gonna help the generations that come after you.Dalia: Now that's fascinating because almost all of us are descendants of people who were colonized. When you look at how much of the planet was colonized it is mind boggling.Dalia: As their children, we are both descendants of the colonized and the colonizer.Dalia: Did you feel any sort of conflict around that when you connect to your ancestors, do you feel like you belong to them, but you don't feel called to connect to colonizer ancestors?Angela: Yeah. That is a duality that I have been facing. Right. It's it's a confronting duality. And I think I pushed it away for so long. I only wanted to see, yeah, yeah I have indigenous blood, but then that was like the other side, like I needed to face it because that is part of me.Angela: And so I do feel like before I felt more resistance to it and I feel that for, for some reason I have a really strong connection to my indigenous ancestry more it's probably because the stories that I know are mostly from that side of the family. And I feel that the more that I connect with that side I'm opening up the pathway of connecting to that other side, who is the colonizer.Angela: And I feel there's a sense of kind of like reclamation. And I do feel It's kind of confronting because the colonizer had, you know, they didn't have great intentions, you know, there was violence and there was just a lot of harmful things to, to our colonized ancestors.Angela: So I think approaching it in a way where it's it's intentionally saying to, to the energies, like, I wanna connect with the ancestors who have divine intentions and that in a way already sets like the boundaries and knowing that, you know, when people cross over, they. They tend to, you know, like it's, it's a clearing, right?Angela: That they have like kind of like the karma falls down and, and they, they could become pure, but at the same time, some people don't like some, some, some souls, you know, get stuck or so I feel that it's important, even when. When I do get to that point about my social remembrance journey to connect with the colonizer side, to know that I have protection over my own energy.Angela: I have protection of what I live in and I can choose to connect to the good side of them because I like to believe that there was some good in them regardless, and, you know, they did horrible things, but they're still part of me. So I have to like come to terms with that as well.Dalia: I like that framing and that you can set a boundary for what type of energy you want to draw in and which ancestors you want to hear from.Angel

Are you a leader of color who wants to lead and empower in revolutionary ways? Then you need Gieselle Allen...Gieselle works with revolutionary leaders of color to support them in expanding their businesses, team, and leadership, while also ensuring their needs are met in the process. In her mindset-first approach, she combines mindset, trauma healing and intuition to help her clients create and expand their businesses and revolutionary leadership practices. If discovering the confidence that comes with: decolonizing your thoughts, owning your identity, and building a thriving life that reflects your values and resonates with your core sounds like a vibe, you don’t want to miss this conversation. This episode we explore * What having a revolutionary business entails* The role that safety plays in learning and healing* Getting comfortable with having more than enough * Overcoming fear to answer a call to liberatory work Episode Resourceshttps://www.instagram.com/gieselleallen/https://gieselleallen.com/Decolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body LiberationHello and welcome to another episode of Body Liberation for All. I am so excited about today's guest. If you are a leader of color who wants to lead and empower in revolutionary ways you need Gieselle Allen, I was in Gieselle’s coaching program now almost a year plus ago. And the changes that I experienced in the program were enough to sell me on it, but the way it served as a catalyst for growth throughout 2020 was just beyond amazing. Gieselle works with revolutionary leaders of color to support them in expanding their businesses, their teams, and their leadership while making sure all of their needs are met in the process. And this is something that unfortunately, a lot of us have never had the opportunity to experience.So, the ways in which your socialization has affected the way you approach business, the way you approach speaking up, the way you approach really leaning into your identities and feeling safe is something that a lot of us haven't visited before.Having a coach that will specifically address the ways in which your socialization as a person of color has set up barriers that you can step around and circumvent, once you're aware of them its absolutely life changing because this is not the type of instruction or care we're used to.Sometimes it's hard to even know how much of a difference it would make to have somebody tailor an educational program, a coaching program specifically to you and to address the challenges the other people for so long have been pretending don't even exist.I love this conversation with Gieselle. Let's jump right inBody Liberation for All ThemeYeah. They might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them live your life just like you like it is.It’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.Dalia: I am so excited to have you here.Gieselle: I'm really excited to be here. I'm thrilled. I've been like, I was, I've been like eyeing your podcast for forever. And I was like, when am I, when am I gonna be on this podcast? Like a baby. So, I'm really glad it's working out and that we're here.Dalia: This is awesome.Dalia: I'm glad you asked because as you know, for people who haven't already listened to the episode that I was on with someone else who was in the same coaching group as me, when I worked with you, Gieselle basically is out here changing lives and liberating people in ways that you don't even see it coming.Dalia: So, you think you're just stuck in your business and really, that's not the problem. The problem is mindset, and how we've been socialized is behind it. But I'd gotten a ton of coaching from containers that weren't made for me.  and they really didn't get to the root of my problem. So maybe they got to the root of like Becky's issue and like, oh, why don't I feel comfortable?Dalia: Cuz my Lululemon’s are too tight or whatever, and worked on her visibility problems, but didn't get to me being socialized to not take up space don't challenge authority, and don't you dare do anything culturally distinct because we will. Beat you for it, we'll punish you for it. So being in your container was life changing.Dalia: And Sarah came on the show and discussed how much the changes ripple out as time goes by. But even though I feel like I've grown so much since the container, I still would've thought Gieselle doesn't wanna be on my podcast. like Gieselle's too big, and too busy, doesn't have time.Gieselle: Well, you know, what's funny is I feel like I'm just moving into a season where I have the capacity to like be out and, in the world, and on people's podcasts there, it's not about me being too big.Gieselle: I'm still really small and like the grand scheme, I'm small, I'm intimate. I'm exclusive.Dalia: I love that. Take on it. Yes.Gieselle: Yeah. I'm exclusive. I, and I wanna be exclusive, like, that's my whole thing. I'm the kind of person where like when white folks follow me on Instagram, I delete 'em and like, I'm not gonna respond to your you' like random comment on my stuff.Gieselle: Like, I'm not gonna engage with you if you're white, like I'm very much like I'm for I'm for who I'm for. And if it's not you then like, I'm cool with it. There's enough people in the world. And I don't need that many to be in my community.Dalia: Wow. I mean, even that, how, what had to change for you to be able to get to a point that it feels safe to say that and that you don't feel compelled to explain this doesn't mean I don't like white people. It means my business is not for white people.Gieselle: Yeah. That's a really great question. What had to change? I think what had to change is that scarcity that we've all been sold and the devaluing of folks of color that we've all been sold. Right. Where people, you know, I remember when I was gonna make this change and like a big thing I was scared of and a big thing that like, people still, mostly just my dad at this point, but like people still say to me is like, oh, like how much more money could you make if you are working with white folks?Like we're missing out on those white dollars?Dalia: Those spend better apparentlyGieselle: Apparently, but here's the truth about like, you know, focusing exclusively on BIPOC folks in business and in anything is that BIPOC folks and I know this because I used to work in TV back in the day. And so like, I understand how, I understand all the things we are, the most loyal people ever.We support our people like tirelessly, especially Black folks. Like it's like what, you're a Black person, you're doing a thing I'm gonna, I'm gonna work with you. You know? And so, recognizing that, recognizing how loyal we are recognizing that we are the people of global majority in this world, there are more than enough of us was really huge for me.But I think, I think the thing that it really took for me transparently was recognizing that I'm enough and that like, I was the right kind of Black person to do this work because that was honestly my biggest hurdle. And I think that's the biggest hurdle for a lot of us in being in communities of color, is that we've, we ex exclude we've like inherited these toxic traits in our communities that make us, that make us exclude each other.Gieselle: And we've systemically been ripped from each other through the prison system, slavery, we can even talk about like immigration and the American dream. Like we've been ripped apart from our communities and culture. And so, it doesn't feel, we don't feel like we fit in with them because we're all kind of this like weird hodgepodge.Gieselle: But recognizing long story short that I was enough and that my experience was enough, and that people resonated with it that's really what made the big change for me.Dalia: That is something that I think is a uniquely Black American experience and I could be wrong, but I really haven't heard that message from other folks of color because they did not necessarily experience as much of the deliberate breakdown of community because it's been targeted.Dalia: It's been targeted and not just during the transatlantic slave trade, but it's also been targeted in more recent history, the deliberate creating of more divisions in the Black community. Yeah. So, we don't even recognize each other sometimes. And we can't seem to be cohesive or find common ground even because I've even lately been watching a TikTok’s where there's this running trend where people are explaining when white folks misunderstand them, they take something literally that's from like African American vernacular English, but I know a fraction of them.Dalia: And in the past that would've made me feel, oh, this is more proof, I'm not Black enough. I'm not the right kind of Black. Yeah. And because I'm in a multi, well was from a multiethnic household, even though both of my parents are very Black and very into their Blackness, their Blackness was in no way, similarDalia: And so, we came out a hodgepodge of their two cultures. And so, I may know random Caribbean expressions that no one's ever heard. And I think, oh, everybody says that. And then not understand. I only learned, oh, you really put your foot in it like two years ago. And I've slowly been using it. And seeing if people can tell, like, I'm waiting to see if I did it right.Dalia: But it really is a thing when you feel like. especially in public school, I was told, again and again, that I wasn't talking Black enough. Yep. Totally. And that, because I like to go to the library and inline skate that I was enjoying activities

Kris Henry (they/them/theirs) is a radical Jamaican nonbinary creative, an Obeah enby, and an Aborisha in the Lukumì tradition. Kris creates art in many forms—centering their twerk as a spiritual safe space for Black queer, trans and intersex folx. They seek to create authentically empowering, ancestrally connected healing experiences that bring a sense of agency and sovereignty back to the historically marginalized from the inside out. Kris’ first published project is a collection of poetry titled “Love LETTERS”, and their second project, Warri(O)racle, is an online chapbook. Their latest creative baby is The Spiritual Abolitionist Oracle Deck: a radical, Black and queer centered divination tool to affirm the spiritual safety and wellness of Black queer, trans and intersex folx. You can find their projects at www.thespiritualabolitionist.com and follow them on Instagram @kriswithakcreates and @thespiritualabolitionist to see what they’re up to next.This episode we discuss🏳‍🌈Connecting with your ancestors and trancestors🏳‍🌈Honoring our queer ancestors with visibility🏳‍🌈Gender in the spirit world🏳‍🌈Protecting your spiritual energyEpisode Resourceswww.daliakinsey.comDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberationwww.thespiritualabolitionist.comThis episode is too good to keep all to yourself.Hello. Welcome to another episode of body liberation for all. I'm your host, Dalia Kinsey your Black, queer, holistic registered dietitian and the author of Decolonizing Wellness A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation.Like I've covered on the show before and like I covered the book, healing, growth, there's no end to it. If you are a curious person, if you are a person who's really interested in being as free as possible, you know there is no end point. As soon as you dig in deep and heal one area of your life, another layer appears. It's never over.And something that I have been working on a lot lately is my relationship with spirituality and my reluctance to openly talk about the spiritual traditions that I feel most closely tied to and realizing that I have been socialized/ colonized to normalize Christian beliefs and to not think it's strange when someone believes wholeheartedly in the rapture or in the second coming of Christ, all of that seems perfectly normal. And all the time in the United States, you see people who are professionals, who are academics, blending their Christian belief system and the work that they do all the time, you see therapists doing their work through a Christian lens. And I don't often find people criticizing that, but that may also be because I'm in Georgia.That said I've been taking a closer look at my reluctance to dig in, to traditional African spirituality in a public way and questioning why do I think that people may see me as less professional if I openly share my spiritual beliefs?What are the assumptions that I'm making? What are the assumptions that I have internalized that make it seem complex to me, to both be a person who believes in science and a person who believes in ancestor veneration? Why does it seem like those two things don't go together? Where does that come from? And what can I do to uproot those beliefs from my own consciousness?So, this conversation is coming from a bit of a vulnerable place because it's something I'm still working through. And I know that at some point I'll face that challenge of not feeling compelled to defend my spiritual beliefs or to counter. Any ignorant statements that imply the ancestor veneration is somehow more primitive than Christianity or somehow less logical than Christianity.Now for any of the atheist fam that's listening. I am sure that it all seems maybe about the same level of illogical. But I will say you were warned that my approach is holistic mind, body, spirit.And this episode, we're leaning heavily into the spirit aspect of that. I do think it is very important for your wellness to have a view to have a belief system that supports who you are as a full person.One of the things that is most nourishing about the traditions I've been exploring lately is that they don't have an element of proselytization. So, you are free to believe whatever affirms you and whatever feels good for you. And that doesn't affect me, and it doesn't have to affect my belief system.That is an enormous departure from the form of Christianity that I practiced in my youth. But it is a deeply liberating approach to spirituality. So, there's room for everyone. And if you already know in your gut, this episode is not for you.Then I'll see you on the 15th. Today am joined by Kris Henry.Kris is a spiritualist and they identify as an Obeah ENBY and an Olorisha in the Lukumi tradition. So, a lot of the insights that Kris brings us today are coming through that lens. You have to check out their site, www.thespiritualabolitionist.com If you don't immediately fall in love when you see them using twerk in place of work throughout the branding of the site and centering Black queer trans and intersex folks, I don't understand you. They are a fascinating person their book of poetry, entitled love letters, I absolutely love, and I've gotten so much value out of there oracle deck. I love using oracle decks, tarot decks as journaling prompts so that I can really connect to my own will whenever I'm at a crossroads.I've started working with Kris myself and the more I honor ancestral practices, the more empowered I feel in the present tense.I deeply resonate with their goal to create authentically empowering ancestrally connected healing practices that bring a sense of agency and sovereignty back to the historically marginalized from the inside out. Doesn't that just hit you in the heart? Their work is beautiful. This conversation was lovely.Let's get into itBody Liberation for All ThemeYeah. They might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them live your life just like you like it is.It’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.Dalia: Thanks for coming on the show today, Kris.Kris: Thank you for having me.Dalia: I'm so excited.I got my oracle card deck. So originally this is how we met. I saw you posted something on Facebook about your deck pre-sales being ready to go live and what really just grabbed my attention was that it's specifically from the perspective of a queer nonbinary Black person. And how many times is that even an option? Because I know even when I was just looking for a tarot deck or an oracle deck actually made by a Black person, I couldn't find, but a few. And there were others out there where they had Black characters depicted on the card, but it was clearly like exactly the same images from something else.I don't know if you've ever tried to buy a Black Santa, but anybody who has knows the struggle. So sometimes you'll find a quote unquote, Black Santa, but it is the white Santa who's been painted. And sometimes it even has the audacity to chip before Christmas is over. So, it was the same thing. Some of these, I was like, all y'all did was paint these same characters, Black or even worse.I saw a couple from non-Black artists. And it was their concept of Blackness, which we'll just say it was off. It wasn't, it wasn't accurate. So anyway,Kris: Hashtag problematicDalia: Thank you! Then I actually saw you promoting your own art. I was just fascinated. So, I would love to hear about your journey into spiritualism and how you got to the point that you created this for the rest of us, who've been dying to have something exactly like this.Kris: Oh my gosh, you don't even know how many back flips my heart just did that you said that because, I mean, I felt the same way to be totally honest with you.I was looking for a deck that really resonated with me. And I was like, I don't want to feel like a part of me is left out. Like, this is very like cis- het in premise, even though it's Black or this is non-Black, but it's queer kind of thing. And yeah, so that really just warmed my heart. I just had to say, thank you.Thank you for that. So, my journey into spiritualism, well, I was like a very devout Christian when I was in high school and nobody made me go to church or anything. I think like some part of me just knew I needed something spiritual in my life. And then in college I started having like a crisis of faith and just started really questioning a lot of things about the foundations of Christianity.So I was in more of a place where I was like, I don't know what I believe. But in that time, my father's mother passed, and I started seeing and hearing her. And that was my introduction into ancestors, I would say. And that's probably the foundation of where like all my other connections with different spirits and energies and stuff really started.Dalia: How did you feel when that first happened? Because I know me growing up in a, I was made to go to church, so difference there, and there was always a lot of fear around anything that had to do with the dead. At least what I was told was that if you think you heard a deceased, loved one, it's a demon pretending to be them.So, I would have been alarmed, had that happen to me. But what was your experience?Kris: I think what this really came down to is that I was blessed to have relationships with both of my grandmothers while they were alive. So, it was like, I knew their energies. Both of them, like when they passed, I knew it was, they knew it was me kind of thing.And like right before my grandma passed a few months earlier, when we kind

Today we're joined by Jade Eloise. Jade self identifies as a fat Black, queer, artist, writer, and spiritual healer. Jade breaks down for us in this episode what body positivity truly means, what its roots are. Jade is a mental health and self-love advocate, but in this episode, breaks down the distinction between self-love and body positivity in its truest form.This episode we explore:The true definition of body positivitySeparating our worth from productivityIntersections of identity and creative freedomPushing back against social programing/conditioning This episode is too good to keep all to yourself. Episode Resourceswww.etsy.com/uk/shop/ArtbyBodiposipoet www.instagram.com/reclaimingbopo/www.daliakinsey.comGet your copy of Decolonizing Wellness A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body LiberationDalia: Hello and welcome to another episode of Body Liberation for All. I'm your host and decolonized wellness and body image coach Dalia Kinsey. I help queer folks of color heal their struggles with shame and self-acceptance through nutrition and self-care so they can live the most fierce, liberated, and joyful version of their lives.Today we're joined by Jade Eloise Jade self identifies as a fat Black, queer, artist, writer, and spiritual healer. A bunch of my favorite things there back-to-back. So, this is a fabulous conversation, Jade breaks down for us in this episode what body positivity truly means, what its roots are. Jade is a mental health and self-love advocate, but in this episode, breaks down the distinction between self-love and body positivity in its truest form. This was a really informative interview when it was originally recorded and listening to it again.So that I could transcribe it before it posted it here on sub stack. I got so much more out of some of these observations Jade shared about entrepreneurship.I've been learning so much about myself in terms of what a affirming business space looks like for me and what type of marketing feels authentic and genuine and natural for me as I continue to promote Decolonizing Wellness, I have had such a time reckoning with the difference between what success is in terms of what I wanted from this project- which is to share, to use it as another tool, to reduce the suffering of all kinds of folks with marginalized identities that have a difficult relationship with their bodies because of the systems that we've been raised in but then also having a lot of residual hang-ups from how I was taught to measure success as a child in the public school system, in the United States and in general as a working class person. So. It has definitely uncovered a lot of areas for more growth. And while I've accepted that growth as an ongoing thing, it's even something that I discussed in the book that it's really crucial for us to get comfortable with that fact that there is no finish line in order for revolutionary change to really have a chance to take hold in our lives.But still I've been finding this particular experience to be a real catalyst for growth sometimes in an uncomfortable way but listening back to Jade's take on what it really looks like to do something creative or entrepreneurial was really helpful for me. So, I hope you enjoy this episode as well.If you love it, please be sure to share it with other people. Now that the podcast is on the Substack it's so easy to forward this episode to others. Alright, let's get right into it.Body Liberation for All ThemeYeah. They might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them live your life just like you like it is.It’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.Dalia:  Hello. Thank you so much for taking out the time to come on the show.Jade: Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here.Dalia: When we did the livestream, I had nothing but positive feedback and there was just so much more that we could get into. But, you know, I didn't want us to make like a massive four-hour recording.So, I'm so grateful that you're able to come back again. So, we could talk about a couple of other areas. So, we already know that you're a gifted artist and that you are really leading the way and helping us reclaim body positivity. Can you give us a little bit of a rundown of where body positivity started?Then what happened to it? Like how it got hijacked and what you're working on now?Jade: Yeah. So, I think the general kind of misconception about body positivity is that it is synonymous with self-love. It's all about reclaiming your body image for yourself and learning to love yourself. And obviously self-love is so, so important.I'm a huge advocate for self-love. And I know how it affects your wellbeing. Actually, learn to love yourself. But body positivity is not in fact similar sort self-love. What if acidity is born from fat liberation movements which started to kind of back in the 20th century mid to late and it was mostly led by Black fat women and fat women in general as well, just leading the way in actually reclaiming their bodies.And just making the world know that they were tired of not having their needs as fat woman looked after of you know, medical discrimination, stopping them from getting the care that they needed of constantly being told that their bodies were wrong and needed fixing And, you know, moving into kind of the early 2000s, and then obviously the rise of social media platforms and Instagram in particular, that sort of led to this movement of Black fat women and fat women and femmes and people who lived in marginalized bodies actually saying, do you know what, we want to show people what our lives are like, that we're proud to live in our fat bodies and that we're reclaiming them for ourselves. So, then body positivity was then born into this community of people online just saying we're here. We deserve to be here. And look at us just living our best lives in our bodies exactly as they are.Which was beautiful for the time that it lasted. But with a lot of big movements, it always comes to the point where capitalism sweeps in, and corporations always try to find ways to make money out of movements. And I think, you know, that was the start of the decline of body positivity where of course, you know, we want fat people to get the bag and, you know, making their money from their movements.And that was great at the start, but actually as it started to being capitalized on, it also started being co-opted. And that was when we started to see the body positivity that we have today, where if you search body positivity online, you're mostly see slim white able-bodied women claiming self-love and claiming body positivity without knowing what body positivity really means.Dalia: That just makes so much sense. And it brings up a really big question. When it comes to people who are trying to do work, you're part of a movement. It affects you. It affects a population you belong to, but as we all know anybody who's trying to affect change in the world around them it can be very time-consuming.So, for it to be sustainable, it's really helpful if you're also able to earn an income working in that area. But how do you strike that balance of the need to survive, the fact that we all deserve to be able to take care of ourselves and live somewhat comfortably, and the desire to stop capitalism from completely running our lives.Someone made a point to me online recently that they personally didn't believe that there's any way to ethically make money because you're participating in a really broken system. But I also thought that was very convenient for them to say, because they have access to generational wealth. So, they technically can opt out of actively trying to support themselves.And so, it's like, okay. So where does that leave the rest of us who also know what it's like to live with intergenerational poverty and knowing that that is not it. Like that is not where we want to be.And you're also so limited as far as how much energy you can put into effecting larger change when you don't know where your next meal is coming from or how to keep a roof over your head from one week to the next.Jade: Yeah, I think, you know, that is a lot of problem for a lot of activists and advocates in all sorts of movements. There is no one right answer. Honestly, everyone is just doing their best to stand by their beliefs and their morals and the goals that they have. Whilst also caring for their own needs and the needs of their family.I think for me, I've realized that when I first started within self-love and then into body positivity movements. I was in that mindset of, you know, any opportunity that comes my way. I just want to grab it because I'm helping to perpetuate the message that I want to get out there whilst also looking after my financial needs.But then actually there's a beautiful woman on social media @michellehopewell over the last year. She's really inspired me to be looking at, actually am I questioning the companies and the people that I want to work with and looking into what are their morals, what are their ethics? Are they standing by the communities they claim to be standing by what are the motivations behind the campaigns and the things that they want to be running?And actually, realizing that I'm empowered to question that and by questioning that and by looking into in great depth the people that I want to work with, I can be selective about the work that I take on. And actually, you know, choose to work with communities and seek out communities that I want to work with.But of course, again, I understand that there's a hug

Consider this as an invitation to take your healing journey and personal development journey to the next level.Marina Nabão is embodiment coach dedicated to supporting people through a trauma-informed journey of somatic healing and empowerment. She is a Brazilian, biracial, Black, cis-woman living in the SF Bay Area, CA.As a daughter of a psychologist and a philosopher, curiosity and the search for a broader understanding of life is her natural state. So it’s no surprise that her own search to understand her inner world and grow in all areas of life – professional, relational, affective, sexual, and spiritual – have taken her on a very rich journey.This episode we discuss* How trauma remains in the body* Stages of healing* Healing through meaningful self-connection* Somatic work for non-binary folxEpisode Resourceshttps://marinanabao.com/www.daliakinsey.comDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body LiberationDalia: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Body Liberation for All. I'm your host and decolonize wellness and body image coach Dalia Kinsey. I help queer folks of color heal their struggles with shame self-acceptance through nutrition and self-care so they can live the most fierce, liberated, and joyful version of their lives.Today I have a special guest on the show to talk about a subject that's really been calling my attention a lot lately. I have been rereading The Body Keeps the Score and thinking about the ways that trauma and unprocessed emotions get trapped in the body.I've noticed myself some very strong reactions to seemingly minor incidents in my life at work clearly connected to previous negative experiences and racialized trauma is just like any other kind of trauma. You can have issues with purging these negative sensations from your body and having a very powerful instantaneous, negative trauma, like response to anything that reminds you of these past experiences.So, embodiment work and focusing on the body and those sensations and moving them along so that I can have a reaction that feels manageable to stressful things is what I'm focused on right now. So, I’m so excited to have Marina here, Marina works with them, body meant and trauma of all kinds. The things that Marina discusses, and this episode will be useful for everyone, but very useful for somebody working with trauma, you've already gotten other treatment for that you still aren't feeling peace around, because the embodiment piece has been missing from your healing work so far.This is such a good conversation. Let's jump right in.Body Liberation for All ThemeYeah. They might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them live your life just like you like it is.It’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.Dalia: Hello. Thank you for being on the show.Marina: Yeah. Thanks for having me so excited to have this conversation.Dalia: I am excited, always to connect with other folks of color from all over the world, but in particular folks of color that do healing work that come from different cultural backgrounds, especially anybody connected to the diaspora.  I just get super excited about that, because it's interesting to me to see how as you change, as you kind of become part of the country that your ancestors were pulled into and you become a blend of the different peoples that are from there. And then the people who colonize that area, we all have really interesting ways of manifesting some of the old healing traditions, you know, that we have no possible conscious way of connecting to.It's just beautiful to see how nothing is ever lost and keep coming back to the surface and it looks different on different people and in different parts of the world.Marina: Yeah. I love that cause I love that integration of the different ways that we can approach healing and really reclaiming the old ways of healing that have big been parts of generations of the original people of the planet.  Dalia: Right. Right, exactly. So I know you're based in the U S now and you're on the west coast. But can you tell us a little bit about where you were raised and when you were growing up, did you have a connection to healing practices or what was that relationship like with you?Marina: Yeah. Yeah, so I was raised in Brazil that's where I'm from and I think that's part of my upbringing was connected to receiving what we can call unusual healing.  There are many people who are, I don't even know how to say this in English I think it would be something like ‘the blessers’. So these old grandmas who actually developed such a beautiful connection with themselves and their intuition and their spiritual guides that they can bless other people. And we’d go there to receive a blessing. Then they share something that they feel called to share around the ways that you are treating yourself. The food you are eating the people that you're hanging out with and things that you could do so that you would find more balance in your life.So this is a big thing in Brazil, especially in communities where people are more integrated socially. So like Black communities, people who live in what we can call marginalized neighborhoods or something. And this has always been part of my life. I never even thought of a life without it.That's what you do. You feel you're feeling off. You're not so sure. You are feeling sad then you communicate with one of these grandmas, they will share their wisdom. So that is one thing, the other is that my mom was always  into what we can call integrative medicine.She was always into floral therapy, healing, our body and spirit, good eating habits, macrobiotic, whole food products, and things like that. So for me, I think part of my growing up was learning that our bodies have this self-healing capacity. That it's a matter of us being patient enough and aware enough to connect with it intentionally so that we can find ways to notice what a disease is trying to tell us, what a discomfort is trying to show us. To find ways to address the environment that is creating the disease, the environment that is creating discomfort not just the symptoms.  Dalia: Now it makes so much sense, but you said something really crucial it's being patient enough to wait for it to work because that I think is one of the hallmarks between western medication when we approach our symptoms that way. And sometimes those don't even work as quickly as you want them to, but typically you can expect to see a change maybe that day, maybe in a week, maybe two weeks and a lot of other approaches because you're not just putting a band-aid on one symptom, you're trying to get to the root of the problem, it can take longer. So in a culture where we feel like we don't even have time to sit down and feel unwell. We don't have time to take one day off, then what do we do? So, what has it been like for you coming to the U.S. do you feel a big difference in the pace that we're living at running counter to the way the human body actually functions and thrives?Marina: Oh my God. That was shocking. That was really shocking. To really notice this shift in the speed at which things happen here. Right. So, I don't know if I can speak for all Brazilians, but in our culture in general, we have this idea of the U.S as the land of opportunity, right? Hollywood sales that so beautifully to us.So you come here, you're nobody, you come with a dollar in your pocket and then you become this millionaire, blah, blah, blah. You know, and also the fact that in order to do so, there are no boundaries, no limits to the amount of work that you do. Because if you want to be a self-made millionaire you have to put all of yourself in it.Right? So there is this image, at least for me about the U.S. but it was not until I actually moved in here, and I didn't come here for work or anything. I came to the U.S. for love because my husband is American and that's how we ended up here. So it was very interesting to notice that everything is so fast.It's boom, boom, boom. Now, now, now, yesterday, it's not today its yesterday.  And no wonder people are so stressed out. No wonder people are so disconnected from themselves. No wonder people feel so lonely because they can not even connect with themselves much less meaningfully connect with others, right?So, when you say that here people don't have the time to rest or to take a day off. I would say, well, maybe that's actually why people are getting so sick. Maybe that's actually why people are feeling so, so many discomforts on a physical level, but also on a mental health level.Dalia: Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. And when we look at, when scientists look at other cultural groups that are living a lot longer than the average person in the United States, that's always a factor like prioritizing connecting to people, communicating with people and not prioritizing work over all other things, but that is a very, very American thing.If you're not working, then who are you? And even when people introduce themselves, their identity centered around, do you do? And I can understand that if what you do is something that you were called to do like if your healer, your preacher, your something that's central to your belief system.Okay, fine. I can understand that. But a lot of times people leave. Something that just signals to other people. I earn money and I work long hours because it has become a value here.You mentioned something really interesting when we were talking before the call, when we were just getting to know each other, after we'd come across each other in

This episode is a gift. Charlotte James and Dre Wright, the co-founders of The Ancestor Project share their knowledge of using sacred earth medicine as a tool for liberation. Dre and Charlotte make it clear that there is no such thing as a magic pill/cure all for the ills that systemic oppression cause us, but sacred earth medicine can be a life changing catalyst for growth. In the end the magic is within you. But if you’ve been feeling called to discover what role plant medicine can play in your healing journey you are going to love this episode. This episode we discuss* Using plant medicine or sacred earth medicine in your healing journey* Radical self-love as a major step in spiritual work* Safety and the importance of BIPOC integration circles* Catalysts for growth vs magic pills* Recognizing your lineage and ancestral healing tools Episode Resourceshttps://www.theancestorproject.com/www.daliakinsey.comDecolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body LiberationDalia: Hello and welcome to another episode of Body Liberation for All. I'm your host and decolonized wellness and body image coach Dalia Kinsey. I help queer folks of color heal their struggles with shame and self-acceptance through nutrition and self-care so they can live the most fierce, liberated, and joyful version of their lives.I have been interested in instant enlightenment for a really long time and through research and personal growth, I realized that there's no such thing, but that doesn't stop me from being distracted by or enthralled with any promise of short cutting personal and spiritual growth. So when I started hearing more about plant medicine and hearing all these over the top dramatic stories about how it's changed people's lives in one session, of course, I was interested.So this has been something I have had some personal lived experience with. And what has become really clear is that just like any area of wellness, where people have monetized something that does have true healing potential, you have to be an educated consumer. It's extremely helpful from the standpoint of a healer to encourage people, to keep their expectations in check, because just the way the human brain works and how susceptible so many of us are to suggestion there is massive potential for disappointment when we create specific expectations fir experiences that yield wildly varying results. I'm so happy today to share with you a conversation with two healers that really are invested in the liberation and the growth of the people that they work, who aren't just out here selling big promises. They're about the healing work and transformation. Dre and Charlotte from The Ancestor Project, give us some really helpful tips in this episode that I think will help anyone who's considering using plant medicine or sacred earth medicine to continue moving forward in their healing journey.I'm sure you're going to enjoy this conversation. Let's jump right.Theme SongYeah, they might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept. When the world is tripping out, tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them. Live your life just how you like it. It’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard.Look in the mirror and say it’s time to put me first, you were born win. Head up high with confidence. This show is for everyone, so I thank you for tuning in. Let's go!Dre: I am a spiritual being, having a human experience. My fundamental nature is pure creative power and unconditional love. I'm Dre a co-founders of the Sabina Project and we actually changed our name to The Ancestor Project, but we're honored to be here and yeah. Thank you.Charlotte: And I am Charlotte James, the co-founder of the now Ancestor Project.Dalia: Thank you so much for being here. That new name really resonates. I had to do a little research to try and understand where Sabina was coming from, but can you tell us about that? And what made you feel like a name change was more in alignment?Dre: You know, as healers, a big part of, being in our opinion to be an effective healer is to do a lot of self-reflection.So when we came up with the name, The Sabina Project, who was because we were Charlotte was at a talk and there was, uh, there was a mention of Maria Sabina. But it was mentioned in a very, like, they, they spend a lot of time deifying and all these white men and, you know, acting as if they discovered mushrooms and the, and these traditions and oh yeah we want to give a shout out to Maria Sabina. Right. And there's a, there's an important backstory behind that actually, you know, see there was a tremendous amount of pain and suffering. That she experienced, uh, after sharing this medicine with Watson who lied to her to get her to share a ceremony. You know, one of her children was murdered. The house was burned down. The Mexican government treated her like a drug dealer. It wasn't a good experience. Right. Watson came down there. He had an experience. He was supposed to keep it secret, but then he wrote this article in Life magazine and then all these westerners besieged her home village.And that was not good for the family. So knowing that, Charlotte stood up and started breaking this down. Like, oh, we couldn't, you need to do a little bit better job of venerating this ancestor. And so after the talk we were thinking about a name, she was like we wanted to name it Sabina Project.This was a great example of cultural appropriation, right. And how the west takes advantage. However, we didn't ask Sabina for permission to use her name. Right. We thought it was a good idea. And even though our intentions were good, we were in fact doing the same thing we're calling out in other individuals.So in self-reflection the changing. Charlotte: Yep. Yeah. It is some soul searching, some ego checking. Um, and yeah, we want to continue to be an example, um, in the psychedelic space and to not just talk the talk, but walk the walk. And also, you know, as we expand in this work, the truth is that the traditions that we practice, that we learned from that we venerate and that we come from are not just one tradition.And so we wanted to have a name that was more inclusive of all of the ancestors that brought us to where we are now. So yeah, we're The Ancestor Project.Dalia: That's fascinating that it came up for you in that context. What initially led you to be interested in using plant medicine as a healing tool?Was it first a tool you used personally? Or something you just wanted to explore because of some other reasons.Charlotte: So we definitely work off of the mindset that the medicine calls you in, and it happens in a number of different ways for different people. We both have really seemingly like on the surface, very different introductions into our path in this.I first started using cannabis when I was 14. I know that it was incredibly supportive in helping sort of chill out some unrecognized, high functioning anxiety tendencies. And really supported me and like moving through high school and college I think at that point, my mind was already very open.Uh, I had had a lot of mind expanding experiences. And so when other psychedelics or plant medicines like were offered up, I was open to the idea of exploring that. And yeah, whether I was doing it incredibly intentionally back then, it certainly was like key to getting me into where I am as a person today.Dalia: I know for me personally, it's always felt like everyone around me who is part of the dominant culture uses drugs recreationally at some point in their lives without fear of it completely changing the course of their life. But I always felt like I better not touch any of that with a 10 foot pole because the minute I even think about something that's restricted, I imagine the man's just going to pop through a wall or something like that.That was always my concern. And it feels even more outrageous that a lot of these medicines were in the hands of the people that now are not allowed to use it. On a level, the narrative is still that, oh, this is restricted, but no, it's only really restricted for some people. So how do you encourage folks of color who want to access the healing potential of plant medicine to do so?Because they know there are some things that are legal here in the states that maybe aren't as highly publicized, that could also be useful. And then there are places you could travel to where you can explore other types of medicine without as much worry. And then there's different worry about like, can you trust the provider? How do you set the setting? What advice would you give someone who is just starting to think about possibly exploring plant medicine?Dre: Good question. Great question. And then, you know, the answer is layered.You know, back to what Charlotte said before the medicine calls you when you're ready to answer, right? These medicines are millions of years old and wise. So that’s the first thing, the second thing is understand that all of the information that you have learned has been information that's been shared to you by the person who did and is currently imprisoning your black body, right. So why would you trust them? Right. And you should start asking the question. Why, why is it that, you know, an African-American male has, is 900% more likely to be arrested for simple possession of cannabis in the state like Maryland used to before it was legal.When in the United States, we use cannabis at a lower rate. So the reality is too, that there is a significant difference in the types of punishments that we receive or how these laws are enforced. Right. On the other hand we will not liberate ourselves from this oppression logically, right? We have to use both sides of our brain.Our superpower is from getting connected with these medicines. It is the path to our collective lib