Womxn of Color Summit Podcast

“Sex is natural and I truly believe that women, they're more sexual than men but we have to hide it because we're looked at as whores or you know - the stigmas that are out there. I hear comments sometimes when a woman is maybe a little seems “promiscuous” putting quotations when I say that online because she's showing her body and a lot of men would make comments saying like, ”oh, well, she looks easy no one will ever take her seriously.” And it's like, why is that? Why can't we take her seriously because she's expressing herself in a sensual way?”

-Excerpt from Summit Speaker Conversation with Amanda Diaz, Sex Herbalist.

Conversation Highlights:

• Honoring our sexual well-being.
• Exploring sensuality and expanding our understanding of self-pleasure.
• Sexual liberation.
• Sexual trauma and shame.

“We think props are only used in certain positions or whatever and I'm like no, no. Props can be used for the whole practice and even moving away from the word “prop,” like calling it a support.

“COVID is opening up a big dialogue for things that were happening before that got swept under the rug but now we can't avoid it. We can't avoid being more accessible as teachers and as practitioners as well.”

-Excerpt from Summit Speaker Conversation with Shanèl Dear, Movement and Meditation Teacher.

Conversation Highlights:

• How movement can create space for authenticity.
  
• Community building and accessibility.
  
• Movement for pleasure, not exercise for punishment.
  
• Showing up as our authentic selves in colonized spaces.
  

“When I think that's why we have these facial features, it makes me proud because it's proof that your ancestors survived this long. In order for us to come into this world and continue our family legacy, continue our lineage, continue to like survive and thrive and I feel like that has a deeper purpose. So when I look at beauty, yeah it’s spirit, but also the stories of our ancestors that are written all over your face.”

-Excerpt from Summit Speaker Conversation with Tamsin Lee, East Asian Medicine Doctor, Researcher, and Face Reader.

Conversation Highlights:

• Reclaiming the beauty narratives that we tell ourselves.
• The history of Gwansang, Korean face reading.
• How Gwansang can shift our modern perspective of “beauty.”

“Even when you're womxn of color, you're not always going to be personally in alignment with each other. Even if your collective goal is the same, it doesn't necessarily mean that on a personal level y'all make great friends. We're so diverse, like womxn of color, you're talking about different cultural backgrounds, different upbringings, different values of just like the home, and how we look at friendships.”

- Excerpt from podcast episode conversation with Ellen Bowles and Imani Quinn, Co-Hosts of The Woke Mystix and Co-Authors of Astrology SOS.

Conversation Highlights:

• Authentic partnerships between womxn of color.
  
• Toxic femininity.

“When we call somebody else a colonizer, we’re denying our ability to see or limiting our ability to see how those things live within us. It’s adhering to these binaries. It is limiting our ability to see the flexibility of identity.”

-Excerpt from Summit Speaker Conversation with Marika Clymer, Medicine Woman, Energetic Healer.

Conversation Highlights:

• The shadow of the colonizer within.
  
• Unpacking the traditional roots of Japanese Reiki.
  
• Shadows surrounding mainstream spirituality.

"It made me realize how screwed up all of this is and that it's not just me. It's everybody. Everybody's been fed this lie that we can control our health. That it is completely within our control."

-Excerpt from Conversation with Aisha Nash, Body Image Educator.

Conversation Highlights:

• How society and white supremacy affect how we view ourselves.
  
• Steps we can take to build an acceptance-based relationship with ourselves and our bodies.

“As soon as we are looking at our survival, that’s when that primal ‘you vs me’ tribalism, ‘by all means necessary,’ ‘it’s not personal, it’s business,’ ‘it wasn’t that bad of a deal, you got what you needed’ - like, that needs to stop.

When we choose to do ancestral healing and personal development, when we choose to believe that our humanity can be different than the way that it has been, we will do business different.”

- Excerpt from Summit Speaker Conversation with Ash Johns, Psychospiritual Life Coach, Ancestral Healer, Conscious Business Strategist.

Conversation Highlights:

• Showing up as our highest self in business and in work.
  
• It’s never just business.
  
• Healing ancestral wounds and creating freedom in life.

“What our Indigenous technologies and teachings share with us is that we exist in present, in past, and in future all at the same time.

There is no more poignant way to experience that than by connecting with a plant. So many of us, people of color, womxn of color, we walk around the world being like, ‘I’m not whole. My story is not complete. My parents don’t want to talk about my ancestors. There’s colonial shame.'

We all got very similar stories about our people not wanting to talk about the magic that we come from. There’s something about plants that I think break down the armor of some of our family members.”

- Excerpt from Summit Speaker Conversation with xóchicoatl bello, Ancestor-in-training, Ceremonialist, Circlekeeper, Healing Practitioner.

Conversation Highlights:

• Connecting to our ancestors through plant healing.
  
• Little Elders.
  
• Humanizing all our ancestors.

“Food is spiritual for me because it came from the land and the land is alive, it’s full of wisdom and spirits, and each aspect of nature is a Being. Humans are seen as the apex of some fictional hierarchy. If we were to really understand that the land is alive, then we would realize we’re actually not on this apex, if there is a hierarchy at all.”

-Excerpt from Summit Speaker Conversation with Mimi Young, Shamanic Witch, 巫 (Wu) Occultist.

Conversation Highlights:

• What is 巫 (Wu) Shamanism?
  
• Everyday rituals, everyday magick.
  
• Ancestral foods.
  
• Low calorie spirituality.

“We all want to be well and spiritually well but how can we also be reciprocal to indigenous communities?"

-Excerpt from Summit Speaker Conversation with Pınar Ateş Sinopoulos-Lloyd, Co-founder of Queer Nature & Indigequeers.

Conversation Highlights:

• Healing from colonization (depression and bulimia) with the support of indigenous medicines and community.
  
• Continued co-opting of Indigenous medicines by colonizers.
  
• Reciprocity with Indigenous communities.

“Right now the solution is do what we can to amplify dissenting voices everywhere and mutual aid is super key to that. Mutual aid within our own communities and also globally. And voting to make sure that incremental changes becomes more and more of a reality each day.”

-Excerpt from Summit Speaker Conversation with Joy Malonza, Founder of The Down Ballot.

Conversation Highlights:

• Neoliberal politics in US democracy.
  
• Myths we’ve internalized about voting and how voting does have a direct impact to our quality of life and the health of our local communities.
  
• Politically active womxn of color.
  
• The power of incremental change.

"I have access so it is my job, my right, my responsibility to make sure others are also gaining access. I'm working to create an opportunity for someone else even greater than the opportunity that has been created for me."

-Excerpt from Summit Speaker Conversation with Dr. Lourdes Ashley Hunter, Scholar, Innovator, Executive Director of Trans Women of Color Collective.

Conversation Highlights:

• Re-imagining new worlds.
  
• Building new models for care, wellness, and safety.
  
• Racial capitalism and state-sanctioned violence.

"Decolonization or what I call the process of remembrance can be a very lonely one at first. These are very painful things to look at but it's also something to celebrate because we have woken up. We realize there is nothing wrong with ME. I've been conditioned by this sick, toxic system."

- Excerpt from Summit Speaker Conversation with Keisha Delva, Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Entrepreneur, and Personal Development Coach.

Conversation Highlights:

• Internalized anti-blackness and oppression.
  
• Hopelessness relies on the oppressor.
  
• Privilege is just another illusion.
  
• Tangible ways to decolonize from oppressive belief systems of white supremacy, racism, and anti-blackness.

Yoga Teacher and Community Builder Rebeckah Price is the real deal. She founded I rise yoga + wellness as a way to connect and foster the inclusion of POC and other historically marginalized groups in the yoga and wellness spaces. Rebeckah trusted what her gut was telling her - that wellness for some should not come at the expense of wellness for all - and she did something about it.

You may have the car and the house. You may have the respect of your parents and peers. But what does outward success matter compared to inward success? Contemporary Artist and Poet Farah Billah shares her beautiful energy with us and her path to realizing happiness is not only a commitment to herself but to making the community around her more loved.

It was a pleasure to speak with Andrea Jin about her journey to becoming a comedian. Spoiler Alert: drop out of business school. We love Andrea’s honesty about learning how to be confident in herself and how to look at trying to do something creative that you love without fear of failure.

Prince Puja aka Puja Singh Titchkosky is a beautiful example of liberation who is here to share their powerful truths about gender fluidity.

Puja is a queer, nonbinary trans, Indian-Canadian, yoga, meditation, and music teacher based in LA. Their work focuses on helping people tune into the power of the Universe, slow down, practice presence and find their unique voice in order to more fully and joyfully express themselves in any and all areas of their life.

We are all seeking community where we are seen and supported for who we are now and who we will be in the future. Inner Child Advocate and Self-Trust Coach Tiffany Trieu spoke about the incredible energy of curiosity, and how sometimes listening to our inner child means knowing how to be vulnerable in community and ask for help.

Reclaiming our ancestral practices is deeply creative work. Listen to our conversation with Ellenie Cruz, on how she switched career paths from schoolteacher to Educator, Herbalist, and Doula. Ellenie promotes the art of ancestral practices to heal self, family, and community. She uses her given and learned talents to serve and impact her community through the Atabey School of Cultural Healing by offering courses that center BIPOC.

Reclaiming our ancestral practices is also deeply healing work, and Ayurvedic Alchemist, Navi Gill, shares with us why creativity needs a clear channel to come through for us to reclaim the medicine within us for transformational healing. Navi’s deep healing work is based on her ancestral knowledge of Ayurveda, yoga, and meditation and woven with life skills coaching.

Fear can hold us back from showing up in the world. It can keep us in a comfortable space but we do not (always) grow in the comfort zone. Discomfort is where the inner work happens. Decolonization and Liberation Educator Constanza Eliana Chinea knows this and shares her experiences in creating decolonized offerings.

Shirin Eskandani’s life, like all of our Summit Speakers, is an example of embodying her creative potential. Prior to building her coaching business, she was an award-winning opera singer performing at Carnegie Hall and the Met Opera before she realized life coaching was her calling. As Shirin says in our chat, dreaming is essential to creating the unimaginable.

It was a powerful experience to speak with Alishia McCullough, a millennial Licensed Clinical Mental Health Therapist and National Certified Counselor, about how shame can prevent womxn of color from walking in our truth. This one is for all womxn who were told to take up less space.