WoC Summit Podcast: Alishia McCullough on Taking Up More Space
Welcome to Season 1 of the Womxn of Color Summit Podcast!
The Womxn of Color Summit podcast came from a desire to learn from WOC about how they are stepping into their power and embodying their life purpose while dismantling oppressive systems.
Join your hosts Harpinder Mann and Irene Lo as they support BI&WOC on their journey of self-love and soul-care by highlighting speakers who can speak to creative living. We are inherently creative beings with unlimited potential but we can forget the spark within ourselves. Creativity is an act of bravery and our hope with the podcast is to inspire BI&WOC to own their power and pursue their liberation.
Support this podcast by leaving us a review on Apple ITunes!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/womxn-of-color-summit-podcast/id1531995133
In this episode, we cover:
Removing creative roadblocks as womxn of color in a white supremacist & patriarchal society
Speaking openly about the issues we care about without fear
Unpacking the token Good Girl of Color mindset
Eating Disorder awareness in communities of color
The effects a lack of cultural representation in the media has on us as girls of colors growing into womxnhood
Transcript
Harpinder: [00:00:11] Hi, everyone. My name is Harpinder Mann.
Irene: [00:00:14] My name’s Irene Lo, and we are so happy to welcome Alishia McCullough here as today's speaker for the Art of Creative Living: Womxn of Color Summit. from it. So before we get started, please let everyone know who you are and what you do.
Alishia: [00:00:29] Yeah, thank you all for having me first! I just want to say that. My name is Alicia McCullough. I use she/her pronouns, and I am a therapist, as well as a writer, as well as a social media activist. I have a variety of things that I'm doing, and a lot of the work that I do revolves around mental health, racial trauma, intergenerational trauma, healing (racial healing as well). I write poetry and all of my activism work is based on social justice and decolonial practices. And so, that's a little bit about me, but I'm super excited to be here and just talk to these ladies here as well.
Harpinder: [00:01:06] Yeah! Before we sort of jump into the meat of it, how are you doing today?
Alishia: [00:01:11] Doing pretty good. Doing pretty good, I know that it's Monday and so, [I’m] kind of just getting back into the week. So, it's been different just kind of jumping back in. But also, it's been a pretty good day, been pretty productive. What about for you all?
Harpinder: [00:01:29] Yeah, same. I'm at home visiting my family, and I haven't seen them in seven months. So that's always, always interesting. I feel like I've done my own healing around my family, so it just feels like a different experience to be around them. And it's nice to be able to have that awareness and see it.
Irene: [00:01:50] Yeah, it's nice that it's Monday. I'm feeling really rested and recharged. I kind of took the weekend off of social media, and just kind of did my self-care rituals a little bit.
Alishia: [00:02:06] Sounds good! Self-care is so necessary and, as you were saying to Harpinder, family healing.
On Being A Vessel For Creativity…
Harpinder: [00:02:12] Yeah, I know, so important! A question that we're asking all of our speakers is: what does it mean to be creative to you?
Alishia: [00:02:22] I think that's a really great question, because creativity, to me, means life. You know, I think that it's the essence of where life comes from. And so, when I think about creativity in general, I think it's allowing yourself to manifest whatever's inside of yourself. Allowing yourself to be the vessel for whatever needs to manifest at the moment. For me, what I've really connected to is music. As a teenager, I didn't really have healthy ways of communicating or a lot of like resources to communicate my feelings to my family, and things like that. So, I would just go listen to music.
I just think it's so transformative that an artist can literally communicate their emotions, put it into words. But even outside of the words, just the beat, or the song, or the rhythm, and how that music can literally transcend, reach someone millions of miles away and really connect to them. That's what [music] did for me. So, when I think about creativity, I often think about music.
I think about even the work that I do with my plants that I'm really into. How do you connect with your source? How do you become more grounded? When I think about the plants that I I'm usually nurturing, I think, “wow, that's creativity. I got this thing, I'm watching it grow, I'm pouring into it and allowing myself to even be that vessel for growth and life”. I just think of those things when I think about creativity. It being life, but also that vessel to manifest whatever is needed in the moment.
Irene: [00:03:55] I love all that! Creativity is life. You are also a poet as well. Besides all the other work that you do, so that's so great that you've been able to find different channels to express your life and vitality.
Alishia: [00:04:10] Yeah, and for me too, like we were saying a little bit earlier with the plants, just being outside, even in nature, I've been doing a lot more hiking with everything that's been going on. And I think it's even externalizing the internal experience that has been creativity. Because when I look around me, although for me, it feels stuck just in this place where we are in the world. When I look out and kind of see the plants, or when I see the trees, or I'm going for a walk, it feels like, OK, things are still going, you know, life is still moving. And so, that is encouraging to me and, I think, really uplifting, especially during this time.
Irene: [00:04:48] Being one with nature is such a good reminder of taking life where it is. I want to switch gears a little bit. So, your work around body liberation: You do a lot of work around that. And we really love the work that you do, and all the truths that you speak that you share online. As much as we talk about self-care being a radical act, we also can't ignore the reality of being a womxn of color. So, when you think about creative roadblocks, what is holding us back, as womxn of color, from accessing and tapping into our creative power?
Tap Into Your Authenticity To Maximize Your Space In The World…
Alishia: [00:05:33] There's a lot of things. I think that oftentimes, just being in a society that is dominated by white supremacy and patriarchy, there are so many systems of oppression that really get in the way a lot of the time. I think that sometimes those systems cause us to internalize some of those messages. And so, even when I think about my own journey of really stepping into my truth, a part of that was undoing and unpacking some of those internalized messages that I had ultimately been fed and digested.
A few of those were, feeling the need to minimize myself and the need to take up less space. That's really centered in the body. The justice work that I do is really saying, as women, we have to take up space. We have to use our voice. We have to reclaim just being ourselves and walking in our truth because oftentimes those systems kind of tell us in order to survive, you have to do these things.
I even think about when I first published my first book of poetry. I was really scared. It was a super vulnerable experience to write about all the things that had been going on in my life. And I remember right before I published it, I'm like, “Oh, I have to go back through and take out some things and kind of make it sound cleaner”. You know, I read it and I was so embarrassed. I just think about that shame that I had internalized around not wanting to live in my truth. These are my experiences.
Harpinder: [00:07:11] That is incredibly powerful, and I really resonate with that. I was looking at one of your posts on Instagram, and there's a line where you shared, “In deciding that I wanted to share my lived experiences authentically, I said, fuck that! I stopped censoring myself, deciding that I’m writing as a way to reach others with similar experiences”.
For me, that really resonated because I know that I have had times where I want to share something or speak about a situation that I've had, where I have felt oppressed, or felt like there was a microaggression done against me, but I have paused thinking, “Will this mean I will not get some other opportunity if I'm speaking up against the powers at play?” What ultimately do you think allowed you to just be free and speak about things that are actually happening in such an authentic, open way?
Alishia: [00:08:08] I think it's the dissonance, which I know could be a therapy term. So, it’s the feeling that your lived experience is different from the way you're presenting and that creates anxiety, [and] that can create depression. For me, I noticed that kind internal… kind of war, in a way, and just got sick of it. To be honest, I got sick of kind of being at war with myself, and said, “Either I'm going to align with what other people want me to be or I'm going to have to step into my truth and align with that.” And so ultimately, I said, I'm going to step up to my truth. You know, some people won't like it. And some people haven't liked it, which that's fine! But being OK with that and saying, “Well, this is me, and that's OK”. And so that's what was really helpful for me.
I had years to unpack because, even growing up, I had always been the good girl in school. I always was well behaved and those things kind of got me privileges in classes and things like that in comparison to my peers. So, I had internalized the messages of, in order to be worthy, then I have to be good. I had to also undo what good means and what does worthy mean. You know, can I still be worthy if I'm not self-sacrificing myself? And so that took a lot to unpack as well along this journey. Some of the messaging that we received and some of the benefits that even come with some of that messaging, too.
Harpinder: [00:09:44] That's such a great way to look at it, where you're able to see the messaging and start to unpack. I really resonated with the, “I am a good girl, and the reason I've been a good girl is, it gets me x, y and Z”. But then it's like, what does it mean to be good?
I think, for a lot of, in my situation, being a Punjabi American, there's this idea of the model minority. Being a good Indian and how that gets us certain places. And I'm realizing now by doing that, I'm not being authentic. I am sort of ceding to, I guess, white supremacy, whatever it is, so I can get ahead, but that just doesn't feel authentic. That just doesn't feel real for me. So, I just really love your messaging and becoming authentic and sort of saying fuck that! We don’t care anymore!
Irene: [00:10:57] It's like at a certain point, fear just becomes boring. If fear is driving your life, there's a certain point where you’re like, “Nah.”
Alishia: [00:11:11] Yes!
Irene: [00:11:14] I mean, I wish I could put that more eloquently, but that's what I got, you know.
Alishia: [00:11:18] Yeah, that was perfect!
Harpinder: [00:11:21] Something else that me and Irene had been talking about around your work and some of the things you've been putting out is, we noticed that you do work a lot with the conversations or with the real lived experience of body trauma. And you work specifically around eating disorder recovery. What led you down that path?
Eating Disorders & Fatphobia in BI&POC bodies…
Alishia: [00:11:46] I think it really came from my own experience. I grew up in a household where I did engage in a lot of that minimization. And so for me, that looked like neglecting my body in a lot of ways. As I came more to terms with that and also came to terms with like the internalized fatphobia that my parents, grandparents and everybody around me had, I realized that we were all trying to fit this mold that we never were able to fit. There would be a new diet or a new workout style. Nobody can keep that up.
It's like, well something must be wrong, because not the people. I know they're doing what they have to do. So it must be the system, right? So, I went to graduate school and I had a professor who actually said this thing. She's like, “There's no bad food. There's all food is good for you.” And I was like, “Whoa, that's pretty extreme”! And I talked to her about it, and she explained that all food is good for you. It's all nourishing for your body, and when we demonize foods, we miss out on so much that our bodies need.
And so, through that, I got into my internship and I started working one-on-one with clients around body image and eating disorders. I led some eating disorders groups and I just started seeing some of the things that I had been hearing or seeing on social media kind of coming up. And I was like, this is a thing, you know? And then I had to stop and say, “Well, wait, this is a thing for people outside of me and the clients I'm working with. But what does it look like for me?” That started my own journey of unpacking my fatphobia, as well as looking at my own patterns of eating disorders or disordered eating. [Also,] looking at my family’s stuff because a lot of it is ancestral as well.
I'm really saying there's nothing wrong with our bodies. There's nothing wrong with the way that we're eating. That's our way of survival. It's just been demonized by our culture. And so that's why I fight so hard against the system of fatphobia and weight stigma, because it does matter. It's literally, the way we're surviving and living. It is our liberation to be able to embrace our bodies.
Irene: [00:14:05] So true about everything you just said about how we have to embrace and accept our body. We have to be at ease with the human suit that we were born into this world with. And when we're not, a lot of stuff comes up. A lot of it we put on ourselves too. We put so much shame and guilt on ourselves for not fitting into the system. And you know, there's so much to be said about toxic positivity and manifestation, how that feeds into how we perceive ourselves and our worth in society.
Alishia: [00:14:45] Absolutely. I think that is shame. Even when we think about the root of eating disorders, shame is a big piece that drives eating disorders. Oftentimes, when we are experiencing eating concerns, or body image concerns, we're not talking about it. And if we are talking about it, it's in a self-deprecating way with our friends, you know, or our family. A big piece of undoing that shame is being able to talk in spaces that are really productive. I think therapy, for example, talking to a therapist who is Health At Every Size aligned or body positive. I think that's really helpful as well as changing the narratives and people around you. I noticed that as I went on my journey, I unfortunately had to let some friends or family go due to it being toxic for my own healing.
Harpinder: [00:15:39] This conversation around eating disorders is so important because it makes me think of my own journey. I think when I was 13 years old, I got on to one of those [things at] the amusement park where you jump on and they guess your weight. And they guessed my weight. Which is fine, but it was 15 pounds heavier than I had been. And I just was like, “Whoa, what is that?” I put myself on this intense diet-- I'm 13 years old-- for four months, that resulted in me fainting a few times. Once in the bathroom, my head hit the tile. Once in a public setting, where I was in, not a grocery store, like a farmer's market, and all these people like rushed around me. But it's interesting how much we internalize this external beauty and the ideals that we try to match up to. Because looking back now, I realize I was trying to be this skinny woman, but based off of magazines where I was seeing just skinny white models. And a kid, not only did I want to be skinny, but I also was like, “Oh, I hope I grow up to have blonde hair, and blue eyes,” as this Indian girl with black hair, brown eyes! I'm like, “Oh, I hope, I pray that when I grow up, I'm going to have blonde hair!” It's just wild to like, looking back at my past at all these things I did to fit in or to be someone else. I was not at home in the body that I've been given.
Alishia: [00:17:24] Absolutely. And I can 100 percent relate to your story in that I was also inundated, as I'm sure we all were, with magazines at the time of, Seventeen or something like that where, like you said, there were the thin white celebrities on the cover. And so that was hard not to see yourself represented and saying, “Well, if this is beauty, then I must be that thing there,” you know? And even the whole other aspect of our skin tone or our hair texture and how all of that goes into body image and beauty ideals or white supremacy, and wanting to measure up in those ways. I hear a lot of womxn of color talk about, “I had to straighten my hair in order to be seen as acceptable”. I even think about that piece.
Irene: [00:18:10] It's so unfortunate because we spend all of that time and energy trying to straighten ourselves out to what we think society will value us as, we waste our time to be doing something with our skills and our energy.
Alishia: [00:18:28] Absolutely.
Harpinder: [00:18:30] What piece of advice or what would you say to women of color, black, indigenous women of color who aren't feeling at home in their bodies?
Alishia: [00:18:41] I do think the journey starts with that self-exploration of really figuring out, and maybe sitting with yourself and noticing and saying, “What is my relationship with my body?” “What is my relationship with food?” And so, starting with those intro questions and then expanding further and saying, “Where did I get those messages from?” “When was the first time I felt uncomfortable in my body?” You know, even as we talked about shame, “When was the first time I felt shame towards something or anxiety toward something, or even isolated?”
I think all of those things kind of drive the eating disorder patterns. And really sitting with those answers and just saying, “OK, these are the answers to what I'm feeling,” and not really doing anything to change it at first. Maybe just sitting with it, and noticing what comes up. Maybe journaling. So that would be what I would say. And then at some point, I always feel like we all have intuitive wisdom. So I always tell people, don't go Googling a self-help like, OK, now what I do, you know? But really sitting with that and saying, based on my intuitive wisdom, you know, even if you're into the ancestral word based on those ancestral wisdoms in a way, too, what can I do with this? What is needed in this moment for me? How do I need to heal for myself? You know, and then from there kind of moving forward with the journey, but first, just starting off with those gentle questions.
Harpinder: [00:20:05] I think that's really good advice. I feel like as a yoga teacher, I've had clients that have come in saying, “I have this problem, how do I sort of immediately fix it? Like, how do I go from like, I see this problem and then now I want a solution?” And there have been times where, as a teacher, I'm like, “Oh, have I failed?” Because I haven't helped them reach from point A to point B. and I was just like, “Well, that's not the journey.” There is no journey there. They're kind of hoping to get to the destination. So I really your approach of having those introspective questions and then allowing for that intuitive wisdom to guide you to the answers instead of seeking external validation of how do I fix this?
Alishia: [00:20:52] Exactly. And I just wanted to follow up. Even when you said your yoga practice and even thinking about as children, as babies, like nobody told us, “Hey, You don't like those peas”. We just threw them across the room because we were like, I hate this. And so I tell people that you knew even as a baby, when enough was enough, when you didn't want it, and what you didn't like. And so a big piece of that is kind of returning back to that child-sel in regards to our eating and being able to say, OK, when am I cool? When am I hungry? A lot of that does require reconnecting with our bodies because through all of these systems, we just become so disconnected. So, that does require kind of sitting with ourselves and just being in our bodies and really reconnecting.
Harpinder: [00:21:41] Yeah, I feel like that point around being disconnected from our bodies just rang so true. With the students that I have worked with and just within my own practice, I think it was just… maybe six years ago, I went to a yoga class in India, and then I just left crying because I was just like, “Oh my God, I have never connected to my body in a way where I'm appreciative of it or accepting that it is mine”. And that's sort of the journey that's led me to where I am now. But I think that piece of, we are disconnected from our bodies, is so real.
Irene: [00:22:30] Yeah, yeah. It's super powerful. We are so disconnected from our bodies because we think the mind is everything. We don't value our spirit. We don't value our heart. We think the mind can have its willpower over the body. But you know, if we need to integrate all the elements at play here, in order to have a much more fulfilled and embodied life.
Alishia: [00:23:02] Totally agree with that. I definitely do. I think it's really holistic.
Irene: [00:23:06] So how can people connect with you?
Alishia: [00:23:09] People can follow me on Instagram @BlackandEmbodied. I'm currently working on a website as well as a Patreon account. And so those things are to be announced soon. But yeah, they can find me there, and I actually have a healing collective for BIPOC folks who are looking for a safe space to heal. It's called the Holistic Black Healing Collective, and it's through a network that I have and it's in my links on my Instagram page. But that's another way if people want to get involved and just have a safe space or courageous space just to exist. That's another option as well. So those are some of the ways.
Harpinder: [00:23:51] And sort of as a way, I suppose, to conclude, is what brings you joy?
Alishia: [00:23:59] [Sigh] What brings me joy? Honestly, you know, I have a puppy. What brings me joy is spending time with her. She's just so sweet and so young and innocent and like, I could be having a bad day and she'll jump on the couch and kind of cuddle with me, and I'm like, OK, it's better. So, yeah, she really does bring me joy!
Irene: [00:24:24] What's her name?
Alishia: [00:24:26] Zora.
Irene: [00:24:28] Zora, okay, so cute. What kind of puppy is she?
Alishia: [00:24:33] Sees a toy australian shepherd, and so she's super tiny and everywhere we go, people are like, “Oh my God, what kind of dog is she?” She has this, like, unique kind of coloring pattern. But yeah, she's really sweet.
Irene: [00:24:49] Having a pet is the best! It was my best decision of this year.
Alishia: [00:24:57] What do you have?
Irene: [00:24:58] I have a cat named Kiki. She's a rescue cat. Yeah. When we found her, her nipples were full of dried blood and she had babies. They probably died and she's like a year. And they found her in the wild with frostbitten ears, and they just left her!
Alishia: [00:25:19] Oh yeah, I'm glad you found her.
Irene: [00:25:23] Yeah, yeah. I'm really happy. She's just great. She's a little bit feisty because she's a calico, but..!
Alishia: [00:25:31] Oh gosh, my sister has a calico and you are so right. They are so spicy! Like, they are just, I can't!
Irene: [00:25:39] Yeah!
Harpinder: [00:25:45] Well, thank you so much for such a great interview, taking this time, and for agreeing to be our speaker. I know Irene and I have been following your work for such a long time and we got your email when you're like, Yes, you would do it. We were just like, Yay!
Irene: [00:26:02] We were freaking out and we were so excited for more people to know about you and all the wonderful work that you do.
Alishia: [00:26:08] Thank you guys so much. I just appreciate being here. And of course, like anything involving uplifting womxn, especially womxn of color. I'm so here for it, and so I was super excited about the opportunity and have had so much fun with you guys today.
Harpinder: [00:26:22] Thank you so much again, and thanks everyone for tuning in. Bye!