TRANSKRYPCJA 🔗
WEBVTT
00:00:13.119 --> 00:00:16.079
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Further Forward podcast.
00:00:16.239 --> 00:00:18.079
I'm your host, Ashley Mitchell.
00:00:18.239 --> 00:00:19.519
Thank you for tuning in.
00:00:19.679 --> 00:00:21.600
These are the final episodes.
00:00:21.679 --> 00:00:24.000
It's like its own little capsule collection.
00:00:24.239 --> 00:00:31.839
And then, and then we shall see how incredible.
00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:40.880
I mean, I'm someone who just given various events in my life, I seek safety and certainty.
00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:49.600
And we know that neither are necessarily guaranteed and in creative work, even more so, right?
00:00:49.759 --> 00:00:53.520
You just have to put it out there and see what happens.
00:00:53.600 --> 00:01:08.959
And so, regardless of how I come out of this maternity leave, I'm just super, I'm super proud of myself that I've been able to begin to climb up and over my own cringe mountain.
00:01:09.120 --> 00:01:26.799
I hope that if you've been listening to this podcast, you've heard that thread that uh from a lot of guests that there is a cringe mountain in their experiences or an insecurity mountain of some sort, or obstacles that they've had to overcome.
00:01:26.879 --> 00:01:32.799
And what it teaches me is that you can overcome damn near anything and everything, right?
00:01:32.879 --> 00:01:35.840
If you keep going, if you keep putting one foot in front of the other.
00:01:36.079 --> 00:01:39.200
How do you just take the small steps?
00:01:40.400 --> 00:01:44.400
It's kind of in a weird way what this episode is about, right?
00:01:44.480 --> 00:01:45.920
Like evolution, growth.
00:01:46.079 --> 00:01:52.719
You know, this is this episode specifically is for people who have experienced being the only in a room.
00:01:52.879 --> 00:01:58.799
And it's also for the people who hold power in these rooms and and who are willing to open them up.
00:01:58.959 --> 00:02:26.639
This episode came to me because some weeks back, a colleague in another city sent me a message thanking me for speaking up about my experience in 2020 about being black in fitness and how it inspired her, gave her permission to do the same thing and to take up space and to claim her gifts and her offering as a woman of color in her own city.
00:02:26.879 --> 00:02:36.080
And I was 100% so flattered and so appreciative that A, someone felt that way, but B that they would actually reach out and tell me about it.
00:02:36.719 --> 00:02:42.159
But I also had a moment to reflect back to that time, right?
00:02:42.319 --> 00:02:49.439
Here we are six years later, and I just feel so different.
00:02:50.560 --> 00:02:51.759
And I should, right?
00:02:51.840 --> 00:03:08.719
It's not, I shouldn't be standing in the same place that I was in six years ago, but but it made me kind of do like an internal investigation of why am I less bothered?
00:03:09.520 --> 00:03:14.319
Not necessarily less frustrated, not necessarily less angry at times.
00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:17.919
And I wouldn't say unbothered either.
00:03:18.639 --> 00:03:21.199
But why am I less bothered?
00:03:21.360 --> 00:03:23.039
I have seen things happen.
00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:29.680
I have seen more instructors of color and specifically more black women instructors.
00:03:29.840 --> 00:03:34.159
I've seen more folks creating their own stuff.
00:03:34.400 --> 00:03:38.159
Black led this, black owned that, BIPOC this.
00:03:38.800 --> 00:03:40.800
It's it's really incredible.
00:03:40.879 --> 00:03:52.560
And it gives me energy to know that that people are occupying lots of different spaces and lots of different lanes that I didn't see six years ago.
00:03:53.199 --> 00:04:01.120
And the other side of that is that very often I am still the only person of color when I am teaching.
00:04:01.439 --> 00:04:07.840
And if I'm lucky, there's a couple of us, but it's not something that is guaranteed.
00:04:08.639 --> 00:04:12.800
And so I started to think about just the the whole experience of it.
00:04:13.039 --> 00:04:18.560
I I haven't I haven't kept it a secret that living here hasn't been the easiest.
00:04:18.720 --> 00:04:23.040
It was a huge culture shock when I first got here.
00:04:23.519 --> 00:04:34.720
And now I think something that's always stuck out to me is that there's this, there's this promise, there's this like facade of being liberal.
00:04:35.680 --> 00:04:39.839
And it's not, I say facade, but it's it's not like that's not true, right?
00:04:39.920 --> 00:04:42.000
The the voting data is the voting data.
00:04:42.240 --> 00:04:53.040
However, just because an area votes a certain way, it doesn't mean that that belonging is felt in the people, right?
00:04:53.600 --> 00:05:08.399
So it's like maybe you don't feel physically unsafe, but that but but but feeling safe versus feeling like you belong versus having a feeling of home, like this is the place, right?
00:05:08.639 --> 00:05:13.439
The place that's gonna hold me and the place that I can hold, those are two different things.
00:05:13.759 --> 00:05:19.120
Thinking back, I'll never forget the microaggressions.
00:05:19.199 --> 00:05:22.000
I'll never forget the entitlement.
00:05:22.079 --> 00:05:47.839
I'll never forget how some folks would, and when I'm saying some folks, I'm specifically talking about white people and mainly white women, just so that we're clear how uh people would treat me, how people would talk to me, how people would talk about me, how people would touch my body, touch my hair, touch my muscles, refer to my body in my presence.
00:05:48.160 --> 00:05:50.480
Sometimes being treated like as if you're the help.
00:05:50.639 --> 00:06:02.639
Sometimes it's the people with like the most, the most money, the most this, the most that are arguing with you about pay or about, you know, what your rates are as a trainer.
00:06:02.959 --> 00:06:06.560
Um and and I swallowed it.
00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:24.240
I swallowed
Load full transcript
it all because I thought that I had to, because I thought that that was the only way that I was going to make a living, make a name for myself, get the prime time slots at a studio where you know the classes are most full, things like that.
00:06:24.959 --> 00:06:32.399
And the thing that no one tells you is that being the only one, it costs you something.
00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:41.199
And sometimes it is that very self-betrayal that costs the most.
00:06:41.360 --> 00:07:14.879
You're always on guard, you're always translating yourself for different audiences and living in that sort of fragmentation of how you walk, how you talk, how you present, how you joke, how you show different sides of yourself, how you tell stories about your life to be shape shifting all the time, several times a day, is not how or who we were meant to be.
00:07:17.279 --> 00:07:38.480
Always having to decide in the moment when someone says something that's off, whether that's it could be a little bit racist, might be a microaggression, it might just be uncomfortable, it might be downright sexist or misogynist.
00:07:38.720 --> 00:07:42.399
You're always deciding in real time like, do I say something to this?
00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:45.519
Am I safe enough to say something about this?
00:07:45.759 --> 00:07:48.160
Am I safe enough to stand up for myself?
00:07:48.399 --> 00:07:50.800
If I do, is anybody gonna have my back?
00:07:51.040 --> 00:07:52.240
Am I gonna lose my job?
00:07:52.480 --> 00:07:53.759
Am I gonna be punished?
00:07:53.920 --> 00:08:04.800
The the mental weight of just having to think through these things over and over again every day, in and of itself, is tough.
00:08:04.959 --> 00:08:17.120
And like the the funny thing about it is that when you peel all the layers back, and I I truly believe that what I do is so important and I live it and I breathe it and I love it.
00:08:17.279 --> 00:08:31.759
But at the end of the day, we're talking about fitness, all this work to fragment yourself and to be someone else to barely make enough money.
00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:36.879
It's right, so it becomes this mountain of stress.
00:08:37.120 --> 00:08:40.159
And and we know that stress leads to burnout, right?
00:08:40.240 --> 00:08:44.720
It's it's stress plus recovery that gives you capacity.
00:08:44.879 --> 00:08:54.240
But when you don't get that recovery, when you're living in that loop day in and day out, that stress starts to break you down.
00:08:54.399 --> 00:09:02.960
So we're not even just talking about a DEI problem or a race problem or an exclusion problem or a fairness problem or an equity problem.
00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:08.480
Capacity, burnout, stress, these are these are wellness problems.
00:09:08.639 --> 00:09:11.600
These also affect your quality of life.
00:09:11.759 --> 00:09:13.919
These affect markers of disease.
00:09:14.080 --> 00:09:22.960
This has a trickle-down effect, this constant feeling of not being safe in your body or in your environment.
00:09:23.120 --> 00:09:28.320
So I started to pinpoint what exactly are the things that are different?
00:09:28.480 --> 00:09:36.080
And right now I'm speaking directly to the folks who whose story mirrors mine in some way.
00:09:36.240 --> 00:09:44.720
This is why I said I'm less bothered, not unbothered, because I never know what I'm gonna get job to job, client to client, room to room.
00:09:45.039 --> 00:09:57.679
So for people like me always having to navigate the spaces and always kind of like needing to survey the land before fully stepping in with both feet.
00:09:57.919 --> 00:10:10.399
There are a couple of things that I think I unintentionally did that now I can I can go back and see the ways that in which I was trying to both grow and protect myself.
00:10:10.559 --> 00:10:12.960
So any of this feels like it would be helpful for you.
00:10:13.120 --> 00:10:13.840
Take the ideas.
00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:15.919
Take the ideas, take the feeling, take the thought.
00:10:16.159 --> 00:10:25.039
First, I stopped chasing some idea of success as it was handed to me coming up in the industry, right?
00:10:25.200 --> 00:10:29.759
All the messages were like, this is what a successful instructor looks like.
00:10:29.919 --> 00:10:37.360
This is the kind of content they post, this is the kind of money that they make, these are the kinds of people that they train, these are the kinds of people that they're friends with.
00:10:37.600 --> 00:10:43.759
This idea of success is very visible, very fame-centric, celebrity trainer-centric.
00:10:43.840 --> 00:10:48.000
And there's some just sort of imagined bullshit hierarchy, right?
00:10:48.159 --> 00:10:59.440
Lots of industries have this because lots of industries have their stars, their famous people, they're, you know, they're folks and frameworks that have become ubiquitous in culture.
00:10:59.600 --> 00:11:08.240
And when you start chasing that, you continue to lose who you are and why you started.
00:11:08.879 --> 00:11:17.600
And so there was certainly an energetic shift based on how I started to define what I wanted this to look like.
00:11:17.759 --> 00:11:37.679
And once my energy shifted, my experience of who I was attracted to in terms of like who I wanted to work for, who I wanted to work with, the kinds of clients that I gravitated toward, the clients that gravitated towards me, a lot of things started to shift into where it's really sitting right now.
00:11:37.919 --> 00:11:47.679
The second thing is that I stopped using my capacity to try to force a system or to force people inside a system to change.
00:11:47.840 --> 00:12:20.320
There are just several instances where I just went and and did the thing that I wanted to do, or tried to do the thing that I wanted to do, or collaborated with a person, a place, an organization that I wanted to collaborate with instead of chasing the industry, just going and doing what I knew to be true to myself and building things that felt
impactful instead of vapid.
00:12:20.480 --> 00:12:30.799
Hopefully building things or experiences that would stick with people, trying to be a real person and talking about the challenges of wellness and well-being, right?
00:12:31.039 --> 00:12:37.039
There's no, there's no magic pill or shot or whatever.
00:12:37.200 --> 00:12:41.840
There's no one therapist, one book, one thing.
00:12:42.080 --> 00:12:44.720
Your spouse isn't gonna make everything better for you.
00:12:44.879 --> 00:12:46.960
Your children are not gonna make everything better for you.
00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:50.399
We have to put work into this every fucking day.
00:12:50.559 --> 00:12:55.200
You're not just gonna wake up with an eight pack and suddenly all of your problems are solved, right?
00:12:55.360 --> 00:13:04.320
And and thinking long term like that, like what do people, what do I have that could actually help people?
00:13:04.480 --> 00:13:10.799
What are the skill sets, the strengths, the the passion that could actually do good in the world?
00:13:10.960 --> 00:13:14.080
Instead of it just being like, how can I put myself on a pedestal?
00:13:14.240 --> 00:13:16.000
What do I have to give?
00:13:17.279 --> 00:13:23.120
And then that's another part that brings you back into wholeness with yourself.
00:13:23.360 --> 00:13:27.600
Because then you also are able to start to let go of the anger.
00:13:27.759 --> 00:13:42.879
It's not like you stop fighting for justice, but you know that you don't have to hold the darkness all the time, that you are part of the light, that you hold a part of the light, and that there are other people out there holding that light with you.
00:13:43.039 --> 00:13:45.759
You're never, you're never alone.
00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:53.279
But you have to be able to give yourself some space and to start to create what you want in order to be able to see that.
00:13:53.519 --> 00:13:55.600
You have to have ownership.
00:13:56.080 --> 00:13:58.879
In the music industry, they say own your masters.
00:13:59.039 --> 00:14:10.960
If you're always working for someone else, if you're always um looking to someone else to tell you what right looks like, it's always going to be frustrating.
00:14:14.879 --> 00:14:19.279
We don't need to wait for people to tell us who we are and what we should be doing.
00:14:19.440 --> 00:14:24.960
This is something that was very, very present in my acting training as well.
00:14:25.600 --> 00:14:34.080
You know, sitting around waiting to get picked is really good way to have a shitty career, right?
00:14:34.559 --> 00:14:37.120
You don't you don't wait for people to pick you.
00:14:37.279 --> 00:14:40.720
You go create work, you go put your stuff out there in the world.
00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:43.200
You have the agency, you drive the bus.
00:14:43.519 --> 00:14:51.039
And I think like this was a huge thing for me of like there are so many choices.
00:14:51.519 --> 00:14:52.879
I'm not stuck here.
00:14:53.679 --> 00:14:55.919
Other people might be, but it's not going to be me.
00:14:57.279 --> 00:15:03.440
And for the people who hold power, so there's a couple of things.
00:15:03.600 --> 00:15:13.600
There's one, just sort of understanding the ways in which injustice works, especially when it's not overt discrimination, right?
00:15:13.759 --> 00:15:19.440
There are lots of different ways that people can feel excluded from spaces.
00:15:19.679 --> 00:15:25.600
Some of that is price, having scholarships, having sliding scales, community classes.
00:15:25.759 --> 00:15:28.799
This is the difference between equity and equality, right?
00:15:28.879 --> 00:15:37.039
It's equity is giving the people what they need versus giving everybody the same thing.
00:15:37.279 --> 00:15:40.399
Everybody doesn't need a discounted class.
00:15:40.639 --> 00:15:48.799
But some people, if they don't have some kind of access point, they're never going to make it into the room.
00:15:48.960 --> 00:15:59.519
And the point is to get the people in the room to have different kinds of bodies and perspectives and races and genders and all that stuff.
00:15:59.759 --> 00:16:06.799
Because at the end of the day, it makes your instructors better because now they're seeing more, right?
00:16:06.960 --> 00:16:08.240
They're able to work with more.
00:16:08.320 --> 00:16:09.600
And so they learn.
00:16:09.840 --> 00:16:13.600
But also the more you widen, who is welcome.
00:16:13.759 --> 00:16:19.519
You know, folks who come from historically marginalized identities, we talk.
00:16:20.080 --> 00:16:30.960
So knowing that your place is a safer place, knowing that your place has different access points for folks, we share that with each other, right?
00:16:31.120 --> 00:16:38.639
So then at the end of the day, it also affects the bottom line because now you have more people supporting your business.
00:16:38.799 --> 00:16:51.679
If you know that structurally folks are going to be excluded and discriminated against, then that means that you have an opportunity to find your lane of how you're going to participate and change.
00:16:51.840 --> 00:16:54.799
Another part of that is through community engagement.
00:16:55.200 --> 00:16:57.600
What does that, what does that look like?
00:16:57.759 --> 00:17:06.400
How are you embedded in the community, other than I attend the Chamber of Commerce meeting once a month, right?
00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:06.799
Great.
00:17:06.960 --> 00:17:08.480
But who else is in the neighborhood?
00:17:08.640 --> 00:17:09.759
What do people need?
00:17:09.920 --> 00:17:12.640
What services does the neighborhood offer?
00:17:12.880 --> 00:17:17.519
Is there a way to partner with a soup kitchen or a nonprofit?
00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:36.400
Or there's so many ways that you could be a part of where your business is that benefits people in a way that's that may not always affect your bottom line, but that's a part of your integrity and an act of service.
00:17:36.640 -->
00:17:44.559
The third thing that is that always needs to be talked about are recruiting and hiring practices.
00:17:44.799 --> 00:17:58.720
If you are in a place that's homogeneous, that means that it's going to take a little more effort to find, recruit, retain people who are different.
00:17:59.200 --> 00:18:10.160
And that means it might take a little more effort to create an environment where these people feel seen and safe and brave.
00:18:29.839 --> 00:18:42.000
But if you know anything about history, if you know anything about how change works, no one has ever been able to just sit around waiting for positive change to just happen.
00:18:42.480 --> 00:18:44.160
People have to go and do the work.
00:18:44.319 --> 00:18:45.359
They have to make it happen.
00:18:45.519 --> 00:19:03.440
So in the same, in the same vein of telling a person who's the only in the room, like, hey, you're gonna need to take responsibility to move yourself up and out of the space where you might be feeling like your life is fragmented and you're performing and you're code switching and like this is not healthy for you.
00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:07.440
You need to figure out how you're gonna move up and beyond that.
00:19:07.599 --> 00:19:09.359
It's the same thing on the other side.
00:19:09.519 --> 00:19:18.480
And then when you're holding the power, you have to figure out how to fucking dismantle these hierarchies, these systems of oppression.
00:19:18.640 --> 00:19:20.400
Everybody's got work to do, right?
00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:31.519
That's the real gag, is that nobody, nobody just gets out of this unless you're intentionally saying that it's not a priority, which is a completely different thing.
00:19:35.599 --> 00:19:38.240
I I don't feel like I chose fitness.
00:19:38.319 --> 00:19:39.599
I feel like fitness chose me.
00:19:39.680 --> 00:19:49.920
I feel like this has given me you know everything I've ever wanted since I was a little kid, since I can remember.
00:19:51.440 --> 00:20:06.799
There's been nothing in my life that hasn't been made better through moving my body, through sport, through physicality, through breath, through exertion.
00:20:09.440 --> 00:20:24.640
Every good thing has come from this because these are the moments where I learn how strong I truly am, how much endurance I truly have, how smart and strategic I am.
00:20:26.240 --> 00:20:38.480
And these are the moments where I also learn not to accept less than optimal from people, from jobs, and it's an ongoing process, right?
00:20:39.119 --> 00:20:43.440
We don't we don't get to a certain point in the gym and just stop going.
00:20:44.079 --> 00:20:48.319
It's like, okay, I can I can curl a 50-pound dumbbell, I'm done.
00:20:48.559 --> 00:20:49.839
That's it, right?
00:20:51.839 --> 00:20:56.400
Fitness, like life, everything always changes.
00:20:56.559 --> 00:21:01.359
It's like a series of of new lessons, of revisiting old lessons.
00:21:02.079 --> 00:21:03.599
This is why I love it so much.
00:21:03.759 --> 00:21:08.240
It's not just it's not just fitness, it's it's it's well-being, it's how to live a good life.
00:21:08.880 --> 00:21:11.440
And so, yeah, six years ago, I said a lot of things.
00:21:11.519 --> 00:21:13.039
I don't regret a fucking word.
00:21:13.279 --> 00:21:14.799
I know good came from it.
00:21:14.960 --> 00:21:16.240
I'm proud of myself.
00:21:16.480 --> 00:21:27.440
And the anger, the frustration, it's so useful because it reminds you of who you really are and where your values are and what you want to fight for.
00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:33.680
It lets you know that it's time to go be the light somewhere.
00:21:33.839 --> 00:21:39.279
So you just you see the signal and you follow that thread.
00:21:41.440 --> 00:21:41.759
Okay.
00:21:44.240 --> 00:21:47.759
Thanks so much for listening to this episode, and I'll see you next time.