Episode 69 - Candice Valenzuela: Decolonizing Performative Wellness While Healing Alongside Our Fertility Journey (Part 1)

Candice (they/she) is a Black and Indigenous queer human that is living and working at the crossroads of education, justice and community healing. In this first part of a 2 episode conversation, Candice and Josie discuss performative wellness and what healing and wellness really are in the context of oppressive systems. Candice also gives a glimpse into their birth experience and how it ties to their perspective on trauma and healing.

Part 2 coming soon.

[ID: A beige background and orange semi-circle. Text reads: The Intersectional Fertility Podcast Episode 69: Candice Valenzuela @education_healing_justice and Josie Rodriguez-Bouchier @intersectionalfertility.]

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Today’s episode opens with some words about the genocide actively happening in Gaza, and some ways you can take action.

You can find information on Candice's Instagram linked above.
Read and sign the call in statement in solidarity with Gaza by Nickie from Cornerstone Birthwork on Instagram.
Download the 5 Calls app to easily call your representatives. 
Contact Biden and the White House at (202) 456 - 1111.

Episode Transcript:

Disclaimer: This is an automatically generated transcript edited to be more readable. It may not be 100% accurate.

[00:00:00] Josie: I'm Josie Rodriguez-Bouchier, and this is the Intersectional Fertility Podcast, where ideas and identities intersect to deepen our understanding of fertility and ultimately our Whole Selves.

[00:00:32] Hi, friend. Welcome back to the podcast. I am sitting here just trying to locate myself in our current events and sorting through what I want to say today and what I want to offer you. Like you, I am in shock and horror and also kind of deep grief and dealing with real time world events unfolding in front of our eyes. This genocide happening in Gaza right now. 

[00:01:06] We're losing an entire people of our human race, it's terrifying. I just want to offer you inspiration to act. Now is the time we are, right now as I'm recording this, this is day 28 of this most recent occurrence of attacks on Gaza by Israel. And it's too long.

[00:01:32] And we have power as a people. We can use our voices, we can use our platforms. We can call our representatives, we can march, we can be visible. We can use our privileges. You know, as Americans or folks who are in cultures, where we have access, free access to internet, for example, we have our electricity, we have our visibility. 

[00:02:02] Let's use it, let's use it to show up for the Palestinian people right now who need our help. They need us to lift their voices and lift their cause for liberation and freedom. So I urge you to take action. And if you feel afraid to take action, you can reach out to me if you need support. I've just added a highlight on my Instagram profile of everything I've posted in regards to Palestine since October 8th.

[00:02:36] I will continue adding, you know, resources there if you feel like you need more tools or to learn more about the situation, what's unfolding. There are also just incredible, so many incredible activists Who knows so much more than me, and one of them is today's guest, Candice. Who's been an incredible teacher to me not only about this current situation unfolding in real time, but also dealing with trauma alongside our real lives.

[00:03:11] You know, trauma is not something that's in the past. It's something that we're all dealing with as, and especially as People of the Global Majority, especially as queer or trans or non-binary folks. You know, and those of us on a fertility journey are oftentimes trying to conceive while simultaneously dealing with trauma.

[00:03:32] So I think today's conversation is actually quite timely of talking about how trauma exists today. It's not something that is quote unquote "post traumatic," you know, something that's in the past for a lot of us. So yeah, I have learned so much from Candice. I highly, highly recommend following their Instagram.

[00:03:54] You'll learn the exact details of how to do that and connect with them and support them. But their Instagram is @education_healing_justice. And they have just incredible insight and direction on how to approach, you know, supporting Palestinians right now. And there are so many others as well.

[00:04:18] I recently signed a call in statement in solidarity for Gaza through a friend and comrade Nickie in the birthwork world over at Cornerstone Birthwork. Their Instagram is cornerstone. birthwork and you can check out their solidarity statement and sign it as well. They actually link to a couple other solidarity statements in theirs that you can find also.

[00:04:45] It's just so important that we all, you know, that we all bound together right now and use our collective strength to lift up this issue and the voices of the Palestinian people to fight for their freedom and their liberation. So keep calling representatives, keep calling the White House. I'll actually give you the number right now. 

[00:05:13] I recommend if you're in the U. S. to download the Five Calls app. It makes it so simple and easy to call your representatives. And the more you can call the better. You can also just call the direct line to leave a message for Biden. That number is 202-456-1111. And again, the more times you call, the better. Keep calling, keep marching, keep sharing information, especially directly from Palestinians and from people who are on the ground in Gaza.

[00:05:49] Keep having hard conversations with folks in your community. Keep speaking up. so We can do this and, you know, the people of Palestine need us to do this, to keep, keep caring, you know, we need to not look away and we need to keep caring and being loud about what's happening right now because what's happening right now is full on genocide. It's a humanitarian crisis.

[00:06:15] And we are complicit as taxpayers who are funding Israel and in carrying out this genocide right before our eyes. So hang in there. I'm sending you all so much love today and solidarity. I hope this conversation helps with that and is eye opening and helpful with all of this collective trauma and grief that we're all experiencing right now.

[00:06:41] This conversation was so rich and full that we decided to do a part two. So hopefully I don't, I'm not sure exactly when that part two is going to be coming to you, but it will be coming. And I hope you get so much out of today's conversation and again, head over to our Qmunity afterwards.

[00:07:00] You can go to my website, intersectionalfertility.com, click on Qmunity and join us there and either the free version or the paid version in either one, you can comment under today's episode and past episodes to continue the conversation. There are also, I just posted, for example, in the free Qmunity, I just posted a recipe for fire cider, which is a great tonic that you can use to prevent colds and flus during cold and flu season and to treat colds and flus.

[00:07:29] It's a very powerful medicine made by the people for the people. It's you know, been traditionally made in, in kitchens and, you know, it's in an wonderful accessible medicine that we can all make and help our communities during this time. so that's available for you in the free community.

[00:07:46] Yeah, and I will be there if you need some support, some help, some love on your fertility journey or otherwise. Feel free to come, come on over and join us. All right. Sending lots of love to you and I hope you enjoy today's episode.

[00:08:12] Candice believes that ancestral, community, and ecological healing are the most urgent issues of our time. They coach systems leaders, offer one on one counseling, and facilitate healing experiences at justice oriented institutions throughout the nation. In her free time, Candice enjoys writing, painting, and sharing their enthusiasm for nature with their seven year old.

[00:08:37] Welcome, Candice. 

[00:08:39] Candice: Thank you. Thank you for having me. 

[00:08:42] Josie: Absolutely. So happy to have you here. Will you share with us your pronouns and where you're joining us from today? 

[00:08:49] Candice: Yes. I use they, them, and she, her pronouns, but I prefer they, them. And I'm calling in from unceded Arapaho Ute and Cheyenne land, which we also call Denver, Colorado.

[00:09:04] Josie: Oh, you're in Denver. I did not realize. You know, I'm in Denver. How funny. 

[00:09:09] Candice: Well, play date? 

[00:09:12] Josie: Yes, play date for sure. Oh my gosh, I love that. That's like the best news I've heard all day. Yay.

[00:09:23] Candice: Likewise. 

[00:09:26] Josie: Oh, that's so funny. Okay, I would love to know just the story of you. Like what led you to the work that you do today? 

[00:09:35] Candice: Yeah, oh, you know, it's the most common question that I'm asked and it's honestly the hardest one to answer. Because it feels like there are so many threads, you know, so many ways to look at something.

[00:09:51] So each time I'm asked I'm sort of like I feel like I'm thrown into this quandary of like, 

[00:09:58] Josie: what is my story? 

[00:10:01] Candice: Which side of the looking glass am I going to look in today? But I think the simplest thing is, I think, the answer that I think probably most healing practitioners would give is just like my own woundedness, my own experiences of oppression, marginalization, and trying to find myself through that.

[00:10:24] And from a young age, I always had both a connection to nature and a passion for what I would later find out was like justice or liberation. It was very innate. It was very second nature. So I think, I don't like to give the oppressors credit, you know, it, it was my innate, you know. 

[00:10:47] I believe that we are born sort of with this purpose or this reason for being here that you know, we chose in the ancestral world and then we spend our lives, you know, trying to remember and stay aligned with that, you know, so I think that those cords are kind of what, have guided me through experience, deep experiences of loss, marginalization, and oppression.

[00:11:13] It's been, you know, and then creativity art, you know, I'm a very creative person. It's been hard to stay connected to that, but it is always been like an essence, if that makes sense. In terms of how I see things and the weaving together of that, the creativity with the drive, the drive for healing. The drive for liberation.

[00:11:31] And I can see even from my earliest times, like how I was reaching for that, you know, when there felt like there was a way out of no way, I get creative. And, and, and, and that being a very like journey of praxis where it's like, I reflect and have some creative musings and then I push myself to try some things on and then I learned some things through that.

[00:11:57] And then I, so I was sort of the student, you know, I always loved school and, and um, well not school, but education and learning. And I was always the kid who would be in class and all the way through college and even into graduate school where I'd be like learning concepts and be like, okay, yeah, that's, that's what I already knew.

[00:12:17] That's what I was like musing. And now I have like the language to, to layer or to, to articulate. 

[00:12:23] Josie: Totally, totally. Oh, that's so cool. 

[00:12:27] Candice: Yeah, so like being in such an engaged practice with myself and then finding the tools in the world to find community and other like minded people and resources to to feed that process I feel like it's been the heart of that journey and I know I'm not sharing specifics but it feels like if I do it's Like an avalanche.

[00:12:47] It's a book I need to write. 

[00:12:49] Josie: Yeah, for sure. Oh, I can't wait to read that book.

[00:12:55] Candice: So I'm like, if you start telling details, there's the podcast. It's over. 

[00:13:03] Josie: There's no end. Yeah, the waterfall. Yeah. I love that. I can really relate to that. I think I feel similarly that I felt like I loved learning. And, whenever, you know, when I would learn things and be like, Oh, that's the word for that. Or that's the, that's the practice for that. Like it's, it was very confirming, you know? 

[00:13:23] Candice: Yes. That, that's so much of what I feel. And I think being like perhaps. related to being like a neurodiversion thinker, you know, where we kind of see the world in these like different takes and and so then when I do learn something that is entirely new to me, it is like so exciting.

[00:13:41] I get, I like, Freak out. It's so rare. I'm like, that's what that's like! 

[00:13:53] Josie: Totally. 

[00:13:54] Candice: Yeah. I love learning. Love, love, love, love learning to throw that in there too. 

[00:13:58] Josie: Nice. Yeah, same. So I met you just the other night. You were a guest teacher for this class I'm taking called the Curanderx Toolkit with Atava. And you were an incredible guest teacher for us.

[00:14:12] And I just learned so much from you and had my mind blown over and over again. So inspirational and powerful. And when you were introducing yourself to us in part of your bio, you said that you were tired of performing wellness which I just, that stuck out to me so much and I thought, thank you for saying that.

[00:14:32] And I wish that more people would, acknowledge how difficult that is to perform wellness and actually how harmful it can be. Will you talk more about that and why performing wellness can be harmful and what that means to you? 

[00:14:46] Candice: Yes, absolutely. Oof, I mean. This is also something where I feel like it's really hard to pick a, pick a layer.

[00:14:56] But there's a quote that comes to mind and maybe you can help me remember it in its completion. Dr. Rupa Marya just posted this a couple of months ago. And it's something around, like, what does it mean to be well in like a profoundly sick society? And that's, those aren't the wordings, but something along those lines.

[00:15:18] And so I could say many things, but for me, that's actually the heart is grounding in the the structural conditions, the material conditions on the planet right now. And when we approach wellness from the ground up and understand ourselves as ecological beings who are of the earth are actually not separated in any way.

[00:15:41] I believe that the separations that we experienced from body and earth are not actually material. They are artificial. They're, they're constructed. So for example, you know, we're, we're speaking across these screens. So it looks like, Oh, I'm inside. I'm not in nature.

[00:15:56] The trees are outside, but like every single material with which we are interacting comes and is from nature. But it's just obscured. And it's obscured by the systems of oppression and the means of production, right? In terms of, I don't get to see who mined the materials. I don't see who transported and what fuel provided that I don't see what ecosystems were invaded and ecocided in the process.

[00:16:26] Right. Right. So, so what I have been pushing and you know, this language around like embodiment semantics, I trust I'll get back to the point, but.

[00:16:39] Is that I really pushed back against this language actually of like disembodiment. It's like, is that really what's happening? I don't think we're being disembodied. I actually think when are we never not in our bodies? We wouldn't be alive. It's, it's more of, and I talked about this in that talk, it's more of like, what's the relationship between these elements.

[00:17:02] Is it a relationship of egalitarianism, of love, of liberation, of cooperation, or is it a relationship of domination? And so I think that's actually what we've been inherited in the society as a relationship of domination to ourselves, our bodies and our earth. It's not disembodiment. It's an embodiment of domination.

[00:17:23] And that's helped me, this is again, how my personal process becomes like the world process. My process of the world, because I needed to do that for me. Because when I'm trying to, you know, I understand the need for like body based healing, but I kept experiencing this dissonance with somatic spaces.

[00:17:43] And like, what's happening for me, you know, and, and I didn't have the language where my body was saying I don't feel right, you know, and then at first I started at the layer of identity of like, Oh, I'm Black and Indigenous, this is like a white space, whatever, but that's just the surface, the surface, right?

[00:18:00] My Indigeneity and my Blackness actually knows that direct connection to the Earth. And that, that it's not being spoken about in an honest way. So when we're in these like somatic spaces that give only kind of like window dressing commentary around colonization and then proceed to do the rest of their training as if it doesn't exist in real time, in real space, That is confusing. And it is actually to come back to your question to me an example of the performance of wellness.

[00:18:35] So when the relation, when our true relationships to our world and one another are obscured and that is by design, right, they have to be obscured for us to consent to it, right? It's part of like the, I think of this as sort of like the psychology or like semantics of like domination and oppression. And I'm sure there are people who might be saying this better than I am. 

[00:18:59] Because as I shared with you, I have a lot of intuitive things and then that are coming from my lived experience, but there may be like scholars and things out there and I just haven't bridged that yet. And that'll come, you know, so if folks know resources and things feel free to, you know, I'm, I'm a learner, so I want to learn, but this is my intuitive language to describe what I feel in my body is that these relations are being obscured. 

[00:19:24] And so that is why I think the performative to the root of why wellness is often performative. It's less of an individual choice. I think although we are actors and participators with it, you know, but it's more of like if you're, if you're sort of given. Those of us who come in seeking health, healing, wellness, and know that we need it.

[00:19:48] We often receive it from sources that haven't unpacked their own colonialism. And haven't unpacked their own, this, this domination and how it exists in that system. And that's what I, my critique is for a lot of these like embodiment spaces is that they're critiquing the systems in the world.

[00:20:05] But it's always a challenge to critique how it's showing up in the vehicle we're in, right? That's harder because it requires a whole other set of things, right? Humility, introspection, grief, you know? But because we often get our wellness from these sources that are like obscuring the root causes of harm and suffering. 

[00:20:30] Then we internalize, I think that, that like kind of blankness can be internalized. And so then I see that feeding a construct of like wellness looking a certain set of ways that isn't actually matched to the historical moment. And then we internalize this inappropriate expectations of ourselves that I should be, like, demonstrating a level of calm, a level of presence, a level of embodiment, or it should look a certain way that tracks across, you know, all systems of oppression, right?

[00:21:04] Around, like, whiteness and culture and respectability. It's not a coincidence that being healed generally maps on to being a socially normative person. Right. That's not by mistake. But I think there are many nuanced layered processes that create it, right? And so that's why in our talk, we talked, I talked so much about the need to really unpack that because whether we intend to or not without that unpacking, I think it does an intentional unpacking and undoing and wrassling and reckoning and redefining and reclaiming of our indigenous healing practices.

[00:21:45] In a decolonial way, what else is there to perform? That's all that's left. Because you're not actually in contact with the historical moment. So it's a, I think of ways that a lot of healing and things actually are really revolving around either respectability or coping.

[00:22:05] Coping with this, with the systems of oppression and coping with the difficulties in our lives. And it's subversive to go underneath that because if we really start grappling with the reality, well, you know what's going to happen. We're going to be like, well, why the fuck aren't we changing this?

[00:22:23] Right, right. And I think that's the difference between like, what I subscribe to as like liberation psychology. Versus, you know, mainstream healing and wellness or even certain types of like multiculturalism again, where it's like maybe talking about identities, but you don't quite get to the ground of what's, because we have to, then we have to say out loud, what's making us sick and what do we have, what, what would it take internally and collectively to change that?

[00:22:57] And that is actually not that complex as we are feeling in this moment around genocide in Gaza. It's not complex, but it is terrifying. Yeah, yeah. I think that's actually what we're grappling with is that. We are scared. And so in many ways it's more comfortable to go on pretending and maybe like accessing this tool or that tool and then we get to feel so righteous about it and we're the healed ones because we can show up this way and that and the people in the street who aren't.

[00:23:31] As coherent are the unhealed ones. You see how that duplicates hierarchy there. 

[00:23:40] Josie: Right, right. Totally. It's like we then internalize that same dynamic that we're all steeped in. 

[00:23:48] Candice: Because, exactly, and it's just reifying the embodiment of domination. Right. And just maybe changing the terms of what that looks like.

[00:23:58] I'm dominant because I'm calm and I know how to self regulate in the middle of like, I'm like, Oh, cool. Right. In the middle of like, you know, climate collapse, you're self regulated, you know, that is not something to celebrate. Maybe if we were all more dysregulated, we'd get somewhere. 

[00:24:19] Josie: That's not it, right. Totally. 

[00:24:23] Candice: And so there's so much, and like again, I sometimes want to write these books and I'm like, I know someone has already written this and probably done a better job. 

[00:24:32] Josie: No. They haven't.

[00:24:34] Candice: You think so? I think they have.

[00:24:37] Josie: No. We need your book.

[00:24:42] Candice: But there's just so much on that. I could really, you know. There's a lot in there, I believe, you know, the, the way this maps. But yeah, that's what I feel like it's all performance because if you're not enraged, if you're not scared, if you're not fractured, if you're not all of those things right now, and this isn't to shame people.

[00:25:05] I'm saying this the most, like, I think there's a difference between like the way the systems are trying to manufacture our consent to all of this, which is not our fault. Versus also just being like numb in a coping kind of way. So I just want to say, I'm not shaming us for these feelings.

[00:25:25] I think they make a lot of sense and they are absolutely correct in that way. But more of like, what I'm, would like to challenge is more when we become identified with that as the semblance of healingis that. I don't heal or just like, you know, I just gotta say it. I was thinking, I want to say this, just like the level of social media, wellness influencers, some of which who are very credentialed people. 

[00:25:57] Doctorates, psychologists, social workers, et cetera, et cetera, who are coming, who haven't said anything political in their feeds for as long as I've been following them, but who are taking the time now in this moment to claim neutrality and express to others that it's okay to check out. That ain't it. That ain't it. 

[00:26:26] Josie: Yeah, totally. Oof. 

[00:26:31] Candice: And I think it's a perfect example of like what I'm, what I've been saying and then like seeing that in real time of like, nah, that's not healing. If healing doesn't bring us back to the earth, it doesn't bring us back in contact with the tools we need to create this, make this land livable for everyone.

[00:26:51] It's not healing. Period. Point. Blank. And we have different ways. We don't have to do it the same way. I'm not inviting, like, sameness. But whatever that route is, that's the only, the only modicum of healing. That anything could be in this profoundly sick society. 

[00:27:13] And anything else is performance. Not because we're trying to perform, but because it's just not real. It's not real. 

[00:27:22] Josie: Oof yeah. And there's just such a huge disconnect there between, you know, something that should be waking us up and mobilizing us to make change and to actually heal the world. And, you know, instead people who have influence are, you know, encouraging people to check out, like you said, I mean, that's. What a, what a missed major opportunity and the cost is huge. 

[00:27:54] Candice: It really is. I mean, some of these folks have like hundreds of thousands of followers, people who have been looking up to them for a long time for whom their opinions absolutely have weight and their words absolutely have weight, you know 

[00:28:09] And I personally experience a lot of rage, you know, seeing that and I have to kind of titrate myself around it. I've been doing a good job of not engaging in any debates whatsoever. Wichh for me is different than numbing, not the same. For me, this is a tactic for me to sustain in the long haul, but I am engaged with the moment.

[00:28:34] And in another sense, it's sort of like, actually gives me hope in a weird way, because it's like, you know what, I've been feeling this for so long, but now you're the veil is coming off. And this feels like that type of moment. And I hate that it's at the expense of so many lives. It shouldn't be this way.

[00:28:53] But those of us who, have been politicized, we all have those moments where we think back and say, this was something happening in real time. And it woke me up and my embodiment changed after that. What I was embodying, what I was practicing changed after that. And I remember those moments in my life and this.

[00:29:15] And I feel reawakened, even though I've had moments before, I still feel reawakened through this moment. And then I'm seeing that happen for other people as well. And, and, and in many ways, for those of us who want to see, it's being made clear that a lot of these platforms are not actually there to heal, but they are there to anesthetize.

[00:29:39] Yeah. Yeah. It's the, let me give you the tranquilizer dart while you're on your way out because the system has no intention of protecting our lives. And that's their role, just to be the anesthesia. Right. 

[00:29:54] Josie: Totally. Yep. I know. And just, and this really ties in well to what you were saying too, about how trauma is not in the past.

[00:30:04] It's actually present. It's in the present and it's especially for BIPGM or BIPOC. You know, it's not like this is, we're going to focus on healing our childhoods and whatever happened in the past or, you know, ancestor healing and all of that. But like now, literally now is the trauma is happening now.

[00:30:27] And what are we going to do about that? 

[00:30:28] Candice: Fam, like. I saw your question and I was like, oh boy, we're going in deep. I was like, how do I even speak to this? And it was ironic because again, with this social media thing, I am sorry to harp on this, but it feels like it's such a part of the terrain. Yes. Around healing and wellness, people are getting, I think, people who don't have access to therapy have access to social media.

[00:30:57] Right. Right. Or access to traditional healing, you know, or access to their own Indigenous cultural forms of healing. And you know, yesterday, right around the time I was looking at our, at our discussion, I came across another account because, you know, the algorithm like gives you, you know, who thinks you're like, and I was like, I don't like this.

[00:31:15] I hate this, you don't know me, Instagram.

[00:31:22] But it was this person. And there's been a lot of people being loud right now saying everything is not trauma, everything's not trauma, everything's not trauma. There's too much trauma, everything's not trauma. Right. And, you know, I, I have to wrestle with that because I really sat with that and I said, okay.

[00:31:39] What's, what's true for me? I, in the past have been someone who has rallied against the misapplication of the, of the term, but for me, that still feels different than saying everything is not trauma. If that makes sense, like sometimes we're using it in relationship to things like, you know, Oh, my coffee order was messed up.

[00:31:59] Oh, I'm traumatized. I need my pumpkin spice. That's silly and diminutive too. The real struggles. Totally. But when people say everything is not trauma, and I want to just really look in them in the eyes and say, are you alive today? Are you alive? Yeah. Are you breathing? Are you living on colonized stolen land? Is everything you touch, breathe, eat and do characterized by the blood of innocence?

[00:32:34] Totally. And even the fact that we feel that we can be removed from that. I'm looking at this person and I'm like, fam, looks pretty traumatized to me. Yeah. And there was, it was layered. It was layered as well. There were other things that were mentioned that I won't go into that I don't think are like, you know, connected to this conversation, but I have, I, again, I'm just like, oof, this feels gross.

[00:33:01] The ways that social media creates that kind of room for dislocated conversations to happen and then to be almost siloed with each other. Cause it feels like that person was like responding to like other, like trying to speak out against like other people. And I'm like, y'all, but y'all not in touch with the Earth. None of y'all, right.

[00:33:24] You know? Because my question is how could everything not be trauma? Tell me how. Cause we're not living in relationship with the land. We're not living in relationship to to cooperation and kindness and justice for all. Yeah. And, and then if you look at the research, trauma research, right?

[00:33:46] And so. I feel like,

[00:33:49] I think something I want to say as well in terms of contextualizing what I'm saying right now is that I also think it needs to be okay for there to be different interpretations of theories. And that's different than something being completely not evidence based. If you will. So there are people who make claims about trauma that are not evidence based.

[00:34:13] They have a case study of one, themselves. That's not very scalable, that's not very helpful. It is good to hear people's lived experiences, but that's the difference between saying, Now, therefore, all of you must do this. Right? So I absolutely speak against, like, folks providing ungrounded advice or perspectives. 

[00:34:37] However, even when you are familiar with the research and the data from multiple different perspectives, not even just white Western psychology, but also Indigenous psychology, and Black psychology, and queer psychology, right? There is a lot of room for interpretation. 

[00:34:58] And that's also what I didn't like about this claim of like, they're wrong, everything's not trauma. I'm like, that's more of a like I don't know the right term, is it epistemology? Or something in that, it's actually more about what theory, the ground of theory someone's coming from.

[00:35:11] Where do you, where do you place the beginning of your, of your inquiry? And I don't place that my, the beginning of my inquiry in the individual body. I place that in the collective ecosystem and honesty at the start of colonization. Right. So if I'm drawing my Understanding of trauma, 500 years back and then 10, 000 years back, but you're focusing on the individual body here in 2023, we're not having the same conversation. 

[00:35:44] Right. You know, and so to the thing around like trauma in the present, I can share why I think of it that way. One is what we just said. It's like really coming home to the moment we are in. And seeing ourselves as part of the collective crisis on the planet. That is traumatic. Meaning, not, not meaning pathological.

[00:36:12] Not meaning flawed. That is, I am not invoking those lenses. My definition of trauma is any time the nervous system, the individual collective nervous system is coping with something beyond its capacity to actually address in a holistic way. So then that means parts of the self have to be fragmented, cut off.

[00:36:39] We have to over rely on certain other parts of ourselves and diminish others. There's lots of different languages for what happens within trauma, but the most basic one is that like Something that is interpreted as very stressful and threatening Like to the nervous system beyond its capacity to cope meaning like you bring on your Defense those immediate like protective strategies like, you know, fight or flight sympathetic.

[00:37:08] That's not gonna get you anywhere. Then you are in collapsed in you know, freeze, fawn faint. So there's actually like a lot of them in there. And our body has the capacity to do all of that. Even after a harmful experience. But what provides healing is when we're actually able to recover what was lost or fragmented.

[00:37:34] So let's say it's a momentary thing that happens. We're frightened. We can't, we're aren't able to like collaborate with the people around us to like address the harm. And so we have to like use these internal, like our body has to literally kind of like change and alter itself to survive what's happening.

[00:37:51] But even that my friends, we have the capacity to, to recover from her body, like knows how to do all that. But only in community. So like once, if we're able to eventually do whatever we need to do to like get to safety, then there's an assumption that like, you know, safety is available. The resources for safety are available.

[00:38:12] Then we actually have millennia of histories of coming together to support each other through the earth, through plants, herbs, ceremony, songs, all of these like somatic, you know, but really ancient Indigenous technologies that we have, to heal the body, to help it remember that we are part of the land.

[00:38:30] Because when we have to fracture those parts of ourselves, that's actually what fractures the connection to the land. Now you, you can't, it's, you're still on the land, but you're not able to feel it. And I'm going to receive it because parts of you got cut off. And so we have technologies to heal one another and bring those things back online and allow the grief.

[00:38:49] And there's often a lot of like feelings that get suppressed in that. So like allowing the grief and the rage and all that to be expressed. And then the body actually is able in that, in that process to like release the stress energy, feel the emotions that couldn't be felt. And then with the help of these beloved others and safe others in community, eventually restore the wholeness. 

[00:39:12] And even better than that often there is a deep wisdom that arises So you don't just get your wholeness back you get a new version of yourself. That's the promise and the potential of trauma. I see it as a very natural, biological, evolutionary mechanism of protection, keeping us alive, but eventually bringing us back to Earth.

[00:39:39] That's what it could be. Now, as you're listening, you're probably noticing certain points where we never get to complete the cycle, right? And so we often don't have these safe others. We are living in contexts where we don't have like often extended family support systems to just, we often don't have our basic needs met in a day to day manner.

[00:40:00] We're separated through colonization, displacement, dispossession from the lands and the cultures and the spiritualities that hold the technologies to heal us. So I come again, who's not traumatized? 

[00:40:15] Josie: Oh my God, totally. 

[00:40:17] Candice: And how can that not be performative? And so that's, to me, the most important lens. But then when there is also more to be said about what's actually happening in the moment on a day to day basis when we are activated. And this idea of trauma being something in the past is an idea that really, I think, comes from White psychology. Not quite, number one, again, being completely removed from the day to day experiences of like everyday working class and poor people and oppressed people.

[00:40:55] Where we're undergoing active traumatization all the time. There is no past, it's ongoing, it's chronic, it's systemic. But even if by some miracle. Oppression stopped today. I would still argue that trauma is in the present. Because those, because often the way trauma is articulated is that something happens that reminds us of the past harm that hasn't been digested yet.

[00:41:23] Like the parts of ourselves that got cut off, the feelings that weren't felt, et cetera, et cetera. And the way we're often explained is that like, yeah. But the thing in the present moment isn't that past harm. It's reminding you of it, right? So then your body has sort of like a flashback, if you will, where it's re experiencing, re living this thing that's really in the past.

[00:41:44] And white psychology kind of explains it as like a disruption of memory, right? The way the body holds memory. One of my trauma teachers who I loved, by the way, talked about trauma as best understood as a memory disorder. Which is deep because it's an embodied description of memory.

[00:42:03] Not a here. But it's like the parts of the body that couldn't integrate that experience are still like living or kind of circling in that moment. So it's this thing of being cut off from the present moment, right? Which makes sense. But I even kind of wrestle with that of like, well, if I'm feeling it in this moment, it's in this moment.

[00:42:27] I didn't go back in time. I'm still here. Yeah. And so I prefer to view it that way versus this idea of like, we're stuck in the past. No, no friends. We're not, nothing's stuck in the past. I've been carrying that with me into the present. 

[00:42:45] And even in the moment where I'm reexperiencing something. That is present. That is what I am experiencing right now is the story that my body has to tell me right now about what I still need. Why does this matter? Why to me, this is more of the semantics because it's again about self love and being able to stop gaslighting ourselves.

[00:43:08] Because I think there's a lot of shame when it's like, Oh, I'm stuck in the past. Why can't I get over it? It just infers evokes. A lot of narratives when we think of trauma, it's, it's past totally a fault of myself. I couldn't put it down. I couldn't get over it. Fault of my body, my body's broken. And then, and I think I tried to, as a healing practitioner, I tried to release those binds of shame wherever I can or give people invitation to that to love ourselves fully.

[00:43:37] In this moment and have the courage to recognize, which I believe is a form of self love, all that We're actually truly hold holding and grappling with. And doesn't mean we don't need to take breaks or have times or we are a little Numbed out. I'm not against that those can be supportive. But again, like I said earlier It's the difference between an intentional supporting of the self to take breaks, versus an intentional dislocation.

[00:44:02] A choosing to not look at it at all. Or sit with it at all. Totally. And so, yeah, I think that, so that's why I think of it as being present. And for me, that view allows me to like meet it in the present. You know, I'm feeling this now, this is up for me now, what does my body need now?

[00:44:22] And that also naturally for me has allowed my body to actually start awakening to what's actually happening in my environment. So that's something that I do now. It's like when I start feeling, I feel this activation. I start with self love. I start with my needs. I start with what does my body need in a, just a super basic level. Food, water, laying down, tears, accompaniment.

[00:44:48] Start with that. And then that process naturally lends to me being able to open my eyes and look around and recognize that this moment is different than the other one. Interesting. And see what resources are available for me in this moment. And it's just another way of saying what, you know, a lot of traumatologists are saying is like being able to bring kind of that loving ventral energy to the parts of ourselves that still need it.

[00:45:14] And I also think it's important within the structural context to say that we're never not going to need that. Yeah. We're going to need it. We're going to always need it. We're going to need it. We're going to need it. Yeah. And we're going to keep on needing it from here until liberation and beyond.

[00:45:28] Josie: Totally. Oof. Yeah. Wow. And I'm thinking of this too, in the context of someone who's trying to conceive and trying to go on, you know, wanting to go on a parenting journey and how that, you know, ties in and how they're thinking about themselves as a healed enough person to do that. I feel like there's a lot of implicit or explicit messaging around that for folks who are trying to conceive.

[00:46:00] And especially queer and especially BIPGM folks. So yeah, I would love to kind of talk about like how that could, how folks can use that framework, you know, on their fertility journey to support themselves and healing alongside, you know, their fertility journey. 

[00:46:20] Candice: Yeah, thank you for bringing it around and I want to admit that I have so much to say about it. That I have another podcast I was on where they brought me for a part two, so. I just want to put that out there and be open to that because I think my personal journey around birth and birthing could give a lot of context. And it is very central to even why it was one of those pivot points in my life where I actually broke off from the performative wellness and realized it wasn't serving me because that is when time was up.

[00:47:00] It did. I had was in that before I was 33 when I conceived. And when I gave birth to my child was when that entire charade fell apart and it had nothing for me. And I was able to pull some resources and things to support myself, but it didn't come from that. And I would, I believe that it exacerbated my traumatization and made it harder for me to cope and heal, which was made me realize I had to put that down.

[00:47:28] So I just want to name explicitly like so much of what I shared today actually comes directly from my birth journey. And I would love to speak more about that. But for now, I would just say that, you know, I really affirm what you just shared around the need to have a commitment to heal alongside, and you know, I was someone who had this idea of like, I need to heal before I have children.

[00:47:57] And I think it comes from this very, very sweet, very honest place around like understanding so much of what we didn't have. 

[00:48:06] Josie: Right, right. 

[00:48:08] Candice: And after having, and having done all that work, I was still completely unprepared and rendered absolutely raw. And vulnerable and defenseless through the birth journey.

[00:48:21] So if I had to like encapsulate. What was missing or what I think is how I would like frame that now without going into the story. I would say Because healing does still matter. This is what I would say. Maybe it's not about being healed before having children, because that's not possible. We're never gonna reach this like fixed state of healed.

[00:48:49] And especially not in this context. But I do think it's about having a baseline understanding of who you are. What your traumas are, like how they show up in your body what you need in those moments and What your resources are, having a sense of your human and more than human resources and having, building that honesty matters more than anything. Is building those healthy relationships setting practicing in your relations is actually, I think way more important.

[00:49:25] It's like setting, learning how to set healthy boundaries. Learning how to like, you know Taking the time to really cultivate people who like have your back in your raw and dirty and who can see that. And distancing ourselves from people who shame us who question us who instill self doubt. Often those are like family members and we think oh, but I need them with my child and da da da da The people who created your childhood wounds Yeah.

[00:49:53] Are not going to be the people who help you raise a liberated child. 

[00:49:58] Josie: Right. Right. Wow. 

[00:50:01] Candice: So if you have some relationship to them, really wrestling with what, how to do that in a safe way. That matters more than anything. We need the people, cause you're going to go through it period. You're going to go through it.

[00:50:12] But your degree to come out of that as. Yourself and your parental version of yourself, is very situated in your support systems and your resources. And I think that's where like queer community has a lot of wisdom around chosen family. Like that's what we do. And that can also be really complex as well.

[00:50:33] But I think we have a baseline. We actually have a powerful baseline in that way. I think more than the like, cis hetero community. So really, really, you know, leaning into that and having those conversations in community and testing things out and being the kind of people who like bring each other soup when you're sick, you know, that, you know, that, that very practical type of support, you know. People who like rub your feet, people who you know, who, who, who break past that barrier of like obscurity into like what does it mean to be human? 

[00:51:08] You know, people that you can like burp and fart around, you know, this kind of stuff. This is what, this is what will support us through birth and birthing in a very practical way. and then using that to scaffold forward around like, okay, what's my what's the process of care?

[00:51:27] You know, my midwife Parteta Midwifery, who is used to be in Oakland, but now New Mexico based Indigenous queer midwife awesome person to follow. She talks about how people put so much emphasis in their pregnancy period and very little into postpartum. You know, and we really need to, the Indigenous way is really thinking about that postpartum.

[00:51:50] And then I learned a new word, and I would be curious to learn the like queer version of it. I haven't found it, but this word of matrescence. Of like, like adolescence where you're coming into adulthood, but matrescence where your Identity and everything about you is shifting into like, well, obviously it's around motherhood, but we need like a gender affirming one. 

[00:52:11] Of like coming into into parenthood and how that absolutely It changes everything and it's a developmental milestone, so I would take it beyond just like planning for that care system in postpartum, but into your patrescence or whatever we can call it, you know, right. Something beyond It's like your life changes forever.

[00:52:33] Yeah. And there was a grieving for who you used to be, but there's also an invitation to a whole different, amazing fullness of embodiment, you know, and my birth journey and my journey as a parent absolutely is core to the things that I believe now. What I've learned through through birthing and through my child, in that process, you know.

[00:53:00] So yeah, like know, know your body, know your resources, know what helps you to cope and build. Be actively engaged. Like if you're someone who wants children, be as engaged in like nurturing and developing and Decolonizing your support systems as much as you are invested in like fertility and the practical side of things.

[00:53:28] Josie: Yeah, totally. Great advice. Yeah, I have a similar, or I'm not sure how similar stories are, but just our, the feeling I had when I had my first, was that I felt like I could control so much before and then I was like, if I do all the things right. And if I do this and this and this and this order and these ways with these teachers, I'm going to have You know, I'm going to be able to get pregnant on this timeline. And then I'm going to be able to have this birth experience, and blah, blah, blah.

[00:54:06] Cause I'll be so, you know, healthy and together and healed and all this stuff. And oh my God, my birth experience. The first birth experience I had with my oldest was just, it turned everything on its head and it just went so South, so quickly, and it was just just surprised to me of how little control I actually had and how everything I thought was wrong.

[00:54:34] I mean, it was just this total upside down experience. But I realized, Oh, I have to like, respond in the moment to my healing journey instead of arriving somewhere and then going forward with my life, you know? 

[00:54:51] Candice: Yeah, and even hearing you, I relate to so much. Cause for me, it was this sort of like, if this, then that kind of mentality. Very causative, linear understandings of healing. When I think back now are just so naive and like colonized, honestly. If this then that, and it's like, babe.

[00:55:15] Josie: Yeah. 

[00:55:15] Candice: You control nothing. And birth itself is sort of like, I think can be, has the potential and has, I think, always been held that in this way, in Indigenous culture as, as a transformative experience of reckoning on every level, right? Your body in a, in a concrete way. If you are a gestational parent is going to be reckoned with, like the, the legacies, the histories that have lived in your body.

[00:55:44] I was not ready for that. On any level. And no one had prepared me for that. That conversation had never been there or maybe like in a very surface kind of way. That's why I would love to talk more about this with you because that was, that was mind blowing. There's a lot in there. And then your support systems, everything. Begets, gets, you know, wrecked for lack of a better word. 

[00:56:08] Josie: Yes, that was my experience. 

[00:56:11] Candice: There can be a lot of learning, but I do, I do sincerely wish I had more of this before. It would have helped me. 

[00:56:21] Josie: Well, I wonder, do you want to come back for a part two? 

[00:56:25] Candice: I would love to. Thank you for asking.

[00:56:26] Josie: Ok let's do a part two. Cause I'm like looking at all the things I still want to talk to you about. And I'm like, we're not going to get there. We're not going to get through all this. 

[00:56:38] I would love to just keep going on this conversation. Okay. So Candace, we are going to bring you back for a part two, cause this is just too good and I want to keep going and not feel rushed for time. So I'm so excited to have you back and we'll continue this conversation. 

[00:56:54] All right. So how can people find you, support you, buy all your things? 

[00:56:59] Candice: Oh, that's lovely. I don't have things for purchase now, but I hope to at some point. I have ideas, but for now I think I am most active on my Instagram, which is @education_healing_justice on Instagram, where I do the most of my posting.

[00:57:18] If you want to hear more of kind of like my musings and things there and I'm putting that into my newsletter, which is on Substack, called Both/and. And I post there infrequently, but when I do it's a little bit more like long form stuff. And also post updates of like when I am doing things in community.

[00:57:41] Most of my work is direct. Contracts with like organizations, but at least a couple times a year, I'll offer something that anyone can join. And so that would be announced on both my Instagram and my newsletter. And, you know, I move slow and trust the speed of things, but I am eventually wanting to cook up some more offerings to folks like yeah. 

[00:58:05] But for now that's the best way. And if you, if folks want to support me, I do offer like paid subscriptions through the newsletter. And I'm always accepting tips on my Venmo. 

[00:58:17] Josie: Nice. Yes. Absolutely. Good. Go tip, Candice. Yes. Good. Well, thank you so much for coming today and for being with us and sharing your wisdom and, and your bubbly, lovely, joyful self as well.

[00:58:35] And I can't wait to have you back for part two. 

[00:58:39] Candice: Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you for having me and being such a comfortable place to land. 

[00:58:45] Josie: Absolutely.

[00:58:50] Thanks for listening to the Intersectional Fertility Podcast. To get customized fertility recommendations based on your Whole Self Fertility Method element, join my mailing list at intersectionalfertility.com and get immediate access to my two minute quiz. 

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All content offered through The Intersectional Fertility Podcast is created for informational purposes only, it is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.