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38. Learning to Advocate for Yourself in a Dance Career with Brittney Feit
17 Plays25 minutes ago
In this insightful conversation, I speak with Brittney Feit, a former professional dancer with Tulsa Ballet turned nationally certified school psychologist pursuing her Ph.D. Brittney's journey is one of resilience, reinvention, and using her artistry to help others.
We discuss Brittney’s unconventional path in the ballet world, overcoming physical challenges, and navigating interpersonal dynamics as a young dancer cast in principal roles. Brittney opens up about her decision to retire from professional dance due to persistent injuries and how she found fulfillment through education, creative writing, and psychology. She also shares how she now combines her love for movement with her role as a school psychologist, developing neurodiversity-affirming interventions and artistic self-expression programs for her students.
This episode is filled with inspiration, practical advice for dancers facing burnout, and thoughtful perspectives on self-advocacy and mental health in the performing arts.
Key Moments:
- Brittney’s early dance training [1:10]
- Her experience auditioning for companies and signing her first contract with Tulsa Ballet [8:17]
- Brittney’s favorite roles she danced during her pro career [23:12]
- Why Brittney chose to step away from her professional dance career [24:19]
- What led Brittney to study psychology [27:34]
- Brittney’s current work as a school psychologist [36:21]
- Brittney’s biggest mental health struggle during her dance career [41:55]
- How to know if you’re burnt out (and what to do about it within your dance career) [45:42]
- What Brittney believes needs to change in the dance industry [56:37]
- Her biggest piece of advice for dancers pursuing a career [1:02:30]
Connect with Brittney:
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/brittneyfeit
WEBSITE: www.brittneyfeit.com
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@BrittneyFeit
Links and Resources:
Set up ticketing for your next event with DRT (Make sure to mention that The Brainy Ballerina sent you!)
Get your copy of The Intentional Career Handbook
Second Act Mentorship: https://www.secondactnetwork.org/
1-1 Career Mentoring: book your complimentary career call
Let’s connect!
My WEBSITE: thebrainyballerina.com
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thebrainyballerina
Questions/comments? Email me at caitlin@thebrainyballerina.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Self-Advocacy and Agency
00:00:00
Speaker
when you start to have that voice for yourself and you start to advocate for yourself. And this is something I talk to my students about all the time. Self-advocacy is so important because it teaches you, you're listening to yourself, have agency and have control to some degree over things that maybe aren't fully in your control, but you can at least express where you're at within that situation.
Caitlin's Journey from Ballet to Mentorship
00:00:24
Speaker
I'm Caitlin, a former professional ballerina turned dance educator and career mentor. And this is the brand new ballerina podcast. I am here for the aspiring professional ballerina who wants to learn what it really takes to build a smart and sustainable career in the dance industry. I'm peeling back the curtain of professional dance world with open and honest conversations about the realities of becoming a professional dancer. Come along to gain the knowledge and inspiration you need Succeed in a dance career on your turns.
00:00:59
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Brainy Valorina podcast. I'm your host, Caitlin Sloan, and I am joined today by Brittany Fite. Brittany danced professionally with Tulsa LA and is currently a nationally certified school psychologist working toward her PhD. Brittany, I'm so excited to have you on today and I want to start by asking the question I ask all my guests when we start, why did you take your very first dance class?
00:01:24
Speaker
First of all, just thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be on. Yeah, I took my first dance class because really, you know, my parents put me in a lot of different things when I was growing up. They wanted me to be able to explore and see what I was really interested in. So one of those things was dance and I tried a lot of different styles of dance and eventually I just gravitated towards ballet.
Brittany's Ballet Beginnings and Training Challenges
00:01:45
Speaker
And then it became the kind of thing where it was passion of mine and I was dancing around my living room to classical music. I was really the true definition of a bunhead growing up. So they really supported that. They sort of ran with it. And so I went from going to a commercial dance school where I was taking all the different styles to sort of a local ballet school that was just really focused only on classical ballet.
00:02:10
Speaker
You know, I had the opportunity to perform a lot. Our teacher choreographed on us. It was very sort of unique experience as a child to have that. But yeah, that's really where it all started. Can you elaborate a little bit on your training growing up? Sure. So, you know, in addition to you know that time when I was sort of in a local ballet school, at that point,
00:02:31
Speaker
what I was really working on. I was working on my artistry, right? And I was working on my style as a performer and the idea of storytelling in ballet, which I'm very passionate about. But at the end of the day, I really needed to hone in on my technique if I was going to make a career out of it, right? Eventually, I joined Ellison Ballet.
00:02:50
Speaker
Alison Ballet was, and then still is, in New York City. I'm from New York City, so, you know, I had been living sort of on Long Island when I was growing up, but I was born here in the city. So, you know, the idea is that kind of made full circle, made a pact from Manhattan, and I trained with Edward Alison. At the time, Alison Ballet was really I would say 12 students. I think it was 10 girls and two boys in the entire school. It was a pretty unique experience in that we really had one-on-one attention from Edward Ellison. Not to say that students that work with him now don't have that, but when you think about the entire school being that size of population, yeah it's pretty unique. And so I trained with him for three years, two years in high school, one year after high school.
00:03:38
Speaker
I actually started a little bit late in terms of my pre-professional training. I was, I believe, 16. That's kind of late. i mean I think your listeners will know that most maybe not most, but a lot of dancers start their pre-professional training, whether it's in summer intensives or going and sort of you know moving to another state. like I know a lot of your your guests have talked about moving to be able to train in a pre-professional program.
00:04:02
Speaker
at a younger age. So for me, it was a little bit of a late blooming situation, but that meant I really needed to put in the work. You know, it's almost like a boot camp for me. Those three years, I really honed in on my technique. It's a Vaganova style training program. It was very much in line with some of what I had already learned from my teachers in the local ballet school that I went to. But You know, it was very much thinking about form and technique and really just very clean lines. It was a great experience. I really don't think I would have had the career that I had if it wasn't for my time at Ellison Ballet.
00:04:39
Speaker
How did you decide to spend an extra year there after high school? That's a great question. I think it really started with just knowing that I needed that extra time since I was kind of starting my pre-professional training a little bit on the later side. My technique wasn't quite where I wanted it to be when I was done with my second year when I was graduating high school. I think it's notable also just to think for the context of what was going on at the time. I was attending professional children's school, which is a high school that allows students to have a flexible schedule and be able to train sort of during the day. But that was really like my choice. I really felt very strongly about my education. And I felt very much like at any given moment, I might hurt myself. Something might happen where, you know, my career would be over and I wanted to have an emphasis on my education.
00:05:34
Speaker
That being said, I was also aware of my physical limitations. I have scoliosis near my neck. I think ballet actually helped me be able to strengthen the muscles around my spine. and sort of even I wouldn't say corrected, it's just that it's it helped it. It really helped me be able to be strong and have that sort of posture.
00:05:54
Speaker
that we know comes from ballet, but it also was a hindrance to me to have the scoliosis. So, you know, I had the scoliosis. I did not have natural turnout. It was really sort of a challenge in terms of some of these physical limitations.
00:06:09
Speaker
And so I did have teachers telling me growing up, like, you probably won't make it in terms of a professional career. you know i don't I don't know about that. And I really just would not listen to that. I would just really was very determined. And so you know I used every visualization method in the book. I just really pictured myself being able to either turn out or you know lift my leg a certain amount. like I was so determined. But that being said, I think that really ties into why I wanted to kind of have an education and be focused on that as well. Because in the back of my mind, I knew this is a limited run potentially with my physical challenges. So that being said, after the second year, I thought to myself, I'm not quite where I want to be. You know, I'm able to stay another year.
Professional Ballet Experiences and Challenges
00:06:57
Speaker
let's do it. Let's use it as a boot camp kind of situation and get the technique where I want it to be. And it was the best decision that I could have made. I mean, Edward Ellison famously tells people that I came into the school as sort of the worst, technically speaking, and like left at that time, maybe one of the best. And that's just to say that when I came to him, it was really a ah situation where you almost couldn't see beyond, obviously, there was the artistry, there was the the intention, the passion, all of that was there. But on a technical level and on a physical level, I almost didn't get into the school, really. He told me it's pretty much at the time, you know, what's your plan B? Because I really don't know if I can take you. And I said, you're my plan B. He saw my passion. He saw that I was very adamant about working with him. And but I think he really just had to take a gamble on me and
00:07:53
Speaker
ultimately it worked out but I worked very very hard with him so that being said it's a testament to the kind of teacher he is though too he's a wonderful wonderful teacher sometimes we just need to sort of be honest with ourselves about like maybe the timeline isn't what everyone else is doing and that third year is what I really needed.
00:08:12
Speaker
from Ellison, did you go straight into auditioning for companies? What was that transition like? Essentially, what happened in my third year was during the time that audition season was coming around, I started sending out and this is going to age me started sending out DVDs, you know, with my sort of really just to kind of get the feelers out to see where I could audition in person. Of course, I was prepared to go for what we call the cattle call auditions like kind of where hundreds of people of show up. But really, I was hoping to have some in-person company class auditions. I mean, I had a couple of companies tell me that I was too short just based on my resume, don't even bother coming, which actually, when you think about it, is quite a blessing because, you know, I think in particular, there were companies in Germany that
00:09:03
Speaker
kind of gave me that feedback. And if I had flown to Germany for them to turn around and say, well, you're too short. That's pretty rough. So I think that honesty was appreciated. But really what happened was I sent my video around and I got I think ah a phone call from Tulsa ballet to I believe it was the director of Tulsa ballet to who initially reached out.
00:09:26
Speaker
eventually I would talk to Marcello Angelini, the director of Tulsa Ballet as well during that process, but they saw my video and they were sort of excited about what they saw. And I actually got a position in TB2 through the video. It was kind of wild and very fortuitous because at the time I really wasn't in a position to be flying around and doing a lot of auditions, even though I was sending my videos out as if I would.
00:09:54
Speaker
do that, but financially speaking, I really was not in a position to do the audition tours that some people have the capability of doing. In the end, being able to land a job where I didn't necessarily have to travel there first, travel back, the whole thing um was very, very lucky. And then really I think what it took was me doing the summer intensive with, I think it was like a mix of TB2 and the Tulsa Ballet Center for Dance Education.
00:10:24
Speaker
It did like a sort of, I don't want to say like a hybrid situation, but they brought in TB2 to kind of prep them for all the new dancers for the season. And so that was how it was sort of introduced to the director of TB2 at the time. And then slowly but surely, you know, I got to meet the artistic staff for the company and it was a very exciting time. So I really, I started in the second company and that's where it all began. What was that transition like for you from student to professional?
00:10:52
Speaker
Yeah, so I think that I probably had a little bit of a unique transition. When I started with TB2, I would say within, so you know, if you're starting, let's say, not thinking about the summer intensive, but the actual season for the company, because at the time, we would take company class, probably two or three times a week, and then we would have our own TB2 company class, if you will, separate.
00:11:20
Speaker
Thinking about a season that's starting in August or September, right from the get-go, I think it was probably October, we were starting to think about Nutcracker, as you do, and got it was a very interesting situation, an opportunity to learn the principal role of Marie in the Nutcracker.
00:11:42
Speaker
within my first season in TV2. And so the way that kind of looked was basically Marcello approached me during a company class where TV2 was sort of invited to be there and said, I need you to stay in Studio C after class. And I was like, okay, great. I thought I was going to be like an angel or some like cameo kind of thing, you know, basically what wound up happening.
00:12:05
Speaker
was that I was a sort of third cast understudy situation for this lead role. I think because of that, if you can imagine being sort of the lowest rank at the time and then learning a role that is the highest rank, the interpersonal dynamics between myself and the rest of the company and the rest of the second company became very challenging. I think after a while, people knew that I had no bad intentions. i was very much a team player. I was not out there to step on toes or anything like that, but they didn't know me. So it was like my transition into that role as a professional was very challenging because of that. Would I trade that experience? No, absolutely not. But it did teach me to really persevere when you have the pressure of learning a principal role.
00:12:55
Speaker
And actually our second cast, someone within that second cast got hurt. And so we became the second cast from third. So the pressure was really even more on, you know, and so it became more real. And then it became even more frustrating for people in the core and soloist rank and the Demi soloist, the soloist. ah you know It was like a whole dynamic. I'll never forget our ballet mistress. She took me aside and she said, you know, you need to go into your own world with my partner, Claudio at the time. like you know, you need to go in your world with him and just be a part of that storytelling thing, like just really go into the character and not pay attention to the rest of the quote unquote noise of what's going on. Ultimately, we didn't perform that first year. And it was very good that we didn't necessarily because Marcello was very, I think this was a very sort of open and honest thing for him to come to me and say, you know, if you don't, you're not necessarily ready to do a principal role.
00:13:50
Speaker
I don't want your first experience to not be good. I want it to be a good experience for you. And so we wound up performing at the following year. But again, I was still in the second company. So a very interesting dynamic. And so that's why I say this transition from so student to professional was rife with challenges that maybe you wouldn't see right from the get go. But everyone, I think, as a dancer has situations where They either get an opportunity to learn a role or they have to deal with that interpersonal challenge of you're trying to persevere and maybe be the one to get selected by the choreographer coming in or anything like that. But you also, you want to be liked by your peers and there's that social component. It it can be quite challenging. So I hope that in sharing my story, it's more to speak to the fact that in the end, once my peers did know me for who I was,
00:14:44
Speaker
it was much better in the sense that I was able to navigate that and come together as a team player and we could coexist happily. It was hard for everyone all the way around. But I think it just shows dancers that, you know, you can persevere through those situations and come out the other end. That's so tough as a young dancer. You were just asked to learn a role. And that's so tough to feel like pulled between the two of wanting to make friends and find your people and be in a new place and then also you're asked to learn a principal role and that's a really big deal. You should feel proud of that and excited for that and to have that kind of weighing you down. That's really tough. It was a very interesting and challenging situation and like I said, I'm eternally grateful for it in the sense that
00:15:32
Speaker
the artistic staff felt that they had enough confidence in me as an artist to take that on. However, you know, I had plenty of conversations with my peers years later about them. It really started with them maybe kind of like apologizing or thinking like, Oh, I really didn't give you a chance. Like I, I kind of just saw you as the girl that came in and took the role. It was a very interesting thing. But I mean, at the end of the day,
00:15:58
Speaker
that also happens in other workplaces too. Even I think about my role as a school psychologist, I have an idea, I might speak up in a meeting, something like that. And if I'm like sort of the newbie school psychologist around, maybe someone might take that as being a little bit too ambitious. But I think as long as you can make it clear that you're not trying to A, step on anybody's toes, B, like get ahead in some kind of um nefarious way, right? Like you're really just there to lend what you feel is ah either an idea, and just be flexible around, you know what, like I have this idea, but you don't have to necessarily run with that, you know, like, ah same thing with dancing, right? Like you have a role, maybe some people might feel a little bit strange about it, right? But just showing people who you are, and where you come from, I think is always really important. Yeah, I agree. You said you were in Tulsa Valley, too, for two years. And then were you promoted into the main company?
00:16:56
Speaker
Yes, after that I was an apprentice and then I was in the core. you know I spent two years in the main company, but during my time in TV2, I was really doing a lot of main company roles, almost like more than our TV2 season, if that makes sense.
00:17:13
Speaker
I did like in the middle someone elevated as a second company member like these really big pieces. It's a very interesting dynamic. It's one thing that's maybe still happening in companies today. I'm not sure, but this necessity to go through the ranks in a way that is maybe not aligned with the roles that you're doing it's it's a very interesting thing and again i'm very grateful for the opportunities i had so it's it's really not so much a complaint but it is a very interesting dynamic or paradigm where you're sort of brought in at that level and then perhaps used in ways that when i say used i mean like put in roles that sort of say otherwise
00:17:55
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it's actually even gotten a little bit trickier since when I joined my first company, I was a trainee, but it was like there was three trainees and we were side by side with the company. We took company class every day. We were in company pieces. We did the same things.
00:18:12
Speaker
like the same quarter ballet roles. You know, we were Willys, we were swans, we were snow and flowers. And then we also had evening classes on top of that with the school. So we had extra training. But as far as our training program went, I felt like that was the beginning of my professional career because I was dancing with the company in the sense that it was the same type of day. And as opposed to now where you see a lot of training programs where it's like very much a school program. And then you go through the, I mean, the ranks are never the same in every company, right? It depends. But it's like, yeah you go through apprenticeship or second company, or however, that company runs things. But I feel like there's, there's more ranks to go through now, than there even used to be. And it's just like, companies will put dancers like you said, they just start them at the lowest one and move them up through it, whether or not what they're performing matches that. And
00:19:06
Speaker
I just see dancers it takes so long to get that paid contract because they just kind of know they keep you in that level. Yeah, and not pay you for however long because there is just that expectation as a dancer. And it's not getting better. I almost just feel like it's getting worse when I talk to about dancers that I work with and it's It's frustrating you know to yeah to hear that.
Reflections on Career and Retirement
00:19:28
Speaker
It's true. and and Hearing what you're saying, i mean i I have heard this from peers that are still in the in the ballet world more than I am, even thinking back to my time in the second company. i mean We did have a stipend. It wasn't completely unpaid. I remember having a conversation.
00:19:44
Speaker
with Marcello, who is the artistic director, about how my opportunity to learn that role was really a way to see where I could go. Like, what were the limits in terms of where he could push me? And and that's artistically, technically, all of that, right? And so for that, I understand, you know, you're thinking about an 18-year-old, a 19-year-old, something like that.
00:20:06
Speaker
clearly not necessarily at the peak of their dancing career and artistic capability. You can understand it from the artistic staff point of view where you're clearly young and you're clearly you know not quite at that rank. And there was no way that I would ever consider myself a principal dancer at that age in terms of thinking, oh, well, because I'm doing this role, I should be a principal dancer. No way did I think that.
00:20:34
Speaker
But in getting back to your point, the pattern that we're seeing today is that whether or not dancers are doing sort of these high ranking roles, even if they're doing like you said, they're doing core roles, they're doing, you know, demi soloist roles, but then they're not being paid, that can also psychologically be very difficult for a dancer because, you know, you spend so much time training, breaking your body in some respects and to build it up, right? And to think that you are doing these roles and then maybe not being compensated, that can be very challenging. And I think like it takes a very strong constitution to get through that time and hopefully have the light at the end of the tunnel where You do have that contract, but also if you don't get that contract, that you can still be whole as a person and know that you're in a system that is unfortunately, in my opinion, driven by a lack of funding for the arts. Whether it's external funding from foundations or government grants or donors, generally speaking, it is a problem right now. There's not a lot of funding in the arts. And so does that make
00:21:47
Speaker
all of the things we're talking about you know in terms of being a dancer and not being compensated, okay. No, it doesn't make it okay necessarily, but that is part of the dynamic that we're dealing with. hu When it comes to dance ticketing solutions, I have tried them all and honestly, none can hold a candle to DRT, the premier online ticketing provider for dance studios.
00:22:11
Speaker
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00:22:32
Speaker
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00:22:55
Speaker
Do you have a favorite role that you danced during your career? Well, I mean, of course, I have to sort of think about Marie when I was doing this principal role. It was really pivotal for me, you know, and it was very special because at the time, the Nutcracker at Tulsa Ballet was set in the 1920s in Paris. Everything was sort of art deco, you know, like in terms of the sets and the costumes, and it was really very different than your typical Nutcracker. It was a really fun experience. But I would say a close second would be either, you know, in the middle of somewhat elevated, which I mentioned before, or even nine Sinatra songs. You know, I had the opportunity to do the something stupid, a role where it's like, it's a really fun and kind of humorous pas de deux. All of those roles were really special to me, but you know, it was great. We did sort of a mix of classical and contemporary roles.
00:23:50
Speaker
and choreographers were coming from all over the world. And so, you know, my experience with the company was really very special to me. I was blessed with a good experience all the way around. But yeah, I mean, if I had to pick probably it would be Marie just because it was a very special time. How did you decide it was time to retire from your career as a professional dancer?
00:24:14
Speaker
That was tough. I mean, as you can imagine, it's a huge decision. In my third year, I was starting to have injuries that were really persisting. And I was having different injuries pop up. And as I mentioned before, you know, I have scoliosis. So when I would get injured, the injury would sort of heal and then something else would pop up. If you think about, let's say you have an injury in your ankle.
00:24:41
Speaker
and then it would like move up to my being a problem in my knee. And then later it would move up and sort of be a problem in my hip. And that's to some degree typical, but when you add in the factor of having scoliosis, it's almost like I wasn't working with a blank canvas in terms of a body. So I had all these other things that would pop up. And so as I was healing, it would just take that much longer. I think in that third year, I was in pain a lot. i was kind of on workman's comp and having to sit out. I was really frustrated. Basically, I said to myself, you know, I'm going to give myself another season. I'm not going to just make this decision sort of lightly, go to PT, try to address all the issues, you know, try my best, right. But ultimately, within that fourth season, I was getting injured that much more.
00:25:32
Speaker
I kind of like had a very strange situation with, I always had like issues with my peroneal nerves, which run along the outside of your calf, if you will, where I was on point and all of a sudden I would just like come down off point. It was like my shin bone was pushed forward and my peroneal nerve was injured. It was a whole thing. So you can imagine being a ballet dancer where out of your own control, you're on point. And then all of a sudden your foot just kind of like comes down. It was very disheartening and very frustrating for me.
00:26:01
Speaker
It's like anyone else, you know, you have a job, you're trying to do your job and and you feel like you can't physically do it. So there was the physical pain and then there was the mental pain of yeah being in the physical pain. And ultimately, yeah, I just decided that I kind of always knew that I would want to go back to school. I knew I'd want to explore other areas of my artistry.
00:26:23
Speaker
And it just, I guess, felt like the time to do that when I was at least not necessarily needing to get surgery or like something that was more extreme. and And a lot of people get surgery for injuries and that there's nothing wrong with that.
00:26:38
Speaker
But mentally speaking, I was at in a place where I needed to step away and not be in pain anymore and not go through maybe the trauma of trying to fix my body to go back and force it to do something that it really kind of almost physically is not meant to do. I do think that a lot of it was surrounding this concept of pain, physical pain. and That's where it came from. But at the same time, I was always very curious about what would I do after ballet? I always loved to write. I always loved learning just in general. I always loved school. So it's almost like i I just I knew that I would go back to school and go to college and all of that. But I just didn't know in what way. What made you want to study psychology in school? Yeah, you know, it's funny because when you look back, you can kind of
00:27:31
Speaker
sort of see how it all comes together and connect the dots. But like I said, you know, I really didn't have that as part of my plan when I left Tulsa Ballet. I moved back to New York City, and I think this is a testament to the fact that I see my identity as as an artist first versus a ballet dancer, and that's just a personal thing. But I really thought, okay, so I'm going to find my new my next best thing, my new avenue for my artistry. And so I was doing acting lessons, I was doing vocal lessons, I was auditioning for Broadway roles, and eventually, you know, I actually went up for
00:28:06
Speaker
the lead in america in paris which is really super cool the experience of that alone I think really when it came down to it, I still knew I wanted to go back to school. And so I went to Columbia School of General Studies. I know it's been mentioned on your podcast before. It's for non-traditional students, and a lot of them are dancers. And what that really means is that you have one year or more after high school that you're doing something other than school, right? So we had a lot of military veterans, we had people that were caring for
00:28:37
Speaker
a family member and had a break from school or were training, they were models, they were musicians, all all different things. And so, you know, I went to that program and I started studying creative writing. Because again, I saw myself as the creative artist and I always loved to write. I was writing poetry from the age of probably seven, something like that. Just was always writing. So I kind of thought that was the direction I was going to go in. And I studied nonfiction specifically because I was really interested in talking about my experience as a dancer and then I found myself sort of taking a dance criticism class and that led to becoming a dance critic with the village voice ah which was a very interesting situation being on the other side of the stage and sort of writing about the dancers and things like that but you know ultimately I think
00:29:31
Speaker
I knew that the life of a writer, you know unless you're if you' were an editor, which I was, I worked as an editor full time after I graduated from Columbia. and If you are in a position like that, then it can have some stability. But if you're looking to to write in terms of whether it's articles or something more like short essays or even a book, there isn't a lot of, I guess you could say like financial stability in that or just like the foundation is, it's just a little bit more freelance and in a certain way. You might not know exactly where your next paycheck is coming from, right? And that's true of the arts as well,
Transition to Psychology and Education
00:30:09
Speaker
right? Like when I was doing acting lessons and I was thinking about how I could turn that into my next big thing,
00:30:15
Speaker
It was challenging to think, okay, now I don't know if I get this gig, what will happen when that's over? And at that time in my life where I was having some struggles with walking away from the ballet world, having the physical pain still, I just, I needed a little bit of that stability. So to answer your question in terms of psychology,
00:30:37
Speaker
To get myself through Columbia financially, I was teaching a lot of private lessons and a lot of group classes for battling creative movement. And what that entailed was working with a lot of kids. And I was lucky enough to be asked to teach a couple of different private lessons to basically, I think it was between the ages of five and six, a couple of girls who had a form of neurodivergence. So one girl had autism and the other girl had ADHD and anxiety.
00:31:08
Speaker
you know They weren't necessarily going and taking a ballet class in a traditional setting because it was too challenging actually for them. And the class, you know let's say like in a local ballet school, wouldn't have been differentiated enough for them.
00:31:22
Speaker
And so I was sort of asked to come into the home and teach ballet for them, not being a clinician yet at that point in time, just being sort of the retired ballet dancer and Columbia student. I was learning so much about how they learned in a different way, how to create sort of behavioral interventions so that they could enjoy the class and get something out of it, but be respectful of like what they needed as individuals too. And sometimes that meant getting some energy out and running around and not necessarily standing in first position and just doing tendus over and over again, just really thinking about them as individuals. And so looking back, I think that's like a very foundational thing when I think about my role as a school psychologist now.
00:32:07
Speaker
working with neurodivergent individuals every day and differentiating instruction or, you know, program planning for students like that. But I didn't know that at the time. So really what it came down to was that I was just really interested in child psychology. And at the end of the day, I think really what happened was I was looking at how I could bring the intersection of child psychology and education. Again, I was really passionate about education, how it could bring those two together in a career.
00:32:37
Speaker
and so I think it really came down to like a search online like what careers are there that I could like bring these skills together. Ultimately through that research I was able to find school psychology. I had taken some psychology classes at Columbia because even though I was a creative writing major they have the core curriculum and you have to take a certain amount of things you know within different fields like I had to take a science class and to take quantitative reasoning all these things and that became very formative in the sense that you know, I had background knowledge to build upon when I went for my master's then in school psychology. So I mean, looking back, it makes sense in terms of putting the dots together. But going forward, I didn't necessarily have like a clear half set in front of me, but I just had to have faith, you know. And I don't think most people do have that clear path as a young person or even now actually, you think that you have to have
00:33:33
Speaker
this very clear idea of exactly what you're going to do. They need to work backwards and figure it out. I always do encourage dancers to have a plan so they can have goals and work toward it. But sometimes things just happen in a way that you could have never planned and going with it gets you to a whole different place where you're meant to be. And so I always feel like there's that marriage of having goals, having a plan, but being very open to other ideas and shifting. Like you said, you've had so many careers now.
00:34:03
Speaker
Instead of saying, well, I went to school for this, for English, I had to stick with this English career or I studied dance so hard. have to keep dancing for this long, you're able to say, well, this is interesting to me actually, and I see my path going here. Let's follow that. Yeah, absolutely. And I would also say that even thinking about right in this moment, I graduated with my master's in school psychology in 2023, became a nationally certified school psychologist started working at a private special education school in New York City, I had the opportunity because of the way
00:34:36
Speaker
my job was and the opportunity to take classes at night and with Fordham, I had this chance to go back for my PhD. The PhD is sort of an extension, I would say, of my master's. So it's not like you're starting from scratch. I went back with advanced standing. That being said, you know it is a fairly big commitment because now Not only were there classes to take, but I'm taking on research and eventually a dissertation and things like that. But even to this day, you know did I ever think I would be in a PhD program? No. I mean, on some level because of my love of school and my love of education, was it in the realm of possibilities? Sure, but you know I certainly couldn't see how that would have happened back in the day.
00:35:20
Speaker
But also now, I think about how things aren't necessarily black and white, right? And even today, I think about how I would love to explore performing again. And my artistry is a huge part of my identity. It will always be. I continue to, in my own time, dance and write and sing and all the different things.
00:35:42
Speaker
but in terms of it being out in the world, right? That's something that I'm working on now. It never stops. It's sort of a lifelong journey in terms of getting to know what you want to do as a person and for some as an artist or as an intellectual or both, right? It's just kind of lifelong.
00:35:59
Speaker
Yeah, can you tell us more about your current work and what you do as a school psychologist? Sure, I have a really kind of unique role where right now, you know, I'm working with a sort of older population. So traditionally, as a school psychologist might be in a school, let's say K through 12 setting,
00:36:20
Speaker
I'm working with 18 to 21 year olds and older. and So beyond 12th grade, that's a sort of unique about it. And that really just came from the fact that there was a job opportunity at that particular program within my private school. I never saw myself, you know, working with the older sort of young adult population. Not because I thought it wouldn't be good, but I just always loved kids and wanted to sort of work with kids. But then now I've had the opportunity to work with all ages. I really gravitate now towards the young adult population. And I i think that that is really because, you know, when you think about the age of 18 to 21, you're kind of more in touch with who you are as a person.
00:37:03
Speaker
you're kind of a little bit more introspective. So all the students I work with have disabilities and they have some form of either neurodivergence or a genetic disorder, you know, a lot of different things. They work with a lot of different profiles of students.
00:37:18
Speaker
But across the board, it's really inspiring to see that at that age, they're getting to know themselves. They're really gaining more independence. And that varies in terms of how much independence one might have. But every experience that these students have, everyone's experience is valuable, right? And so it's a really great thing to be a part of. I also have been able to bring my my love of movement My love of yoga, I'm also a certified yoga instructor. I've been able to bring that to my students, sort of use all of that as interventions for mental health and for creating sort of wellness environment in the school. You know, I was able to create what we call like a neurodiversity affirming.
00:38:04
Speaker
yoga and creative movement class. And really what that looks like is that I've designed it from the point of view of goal psychologists that understands not only the population, but some of the things that could be embedded in the curriculum that would be helpful to most of my students. So for example, a lot of my students have autism and with a lot of students who have autism, being able to preview what's coming next in the schedule or in the class is really important. So you're not sort of being surprised and you know what the schedule is. So I always set an agenda at the beginning of the class. Things like that, or the the ability for a student to stim. The idea is we're not repressing or stopping someone from doing what makes them feel calm and regulates their nervous system. If it means that they need to pace, walk back and forth in my class, and that's not what a quote unquote typical
00:38:56
Speaker
you know, yoga class looks like, that's okay. We're here to serve the students and what they need. It's been really special to be able to bring that to my role. As a school psychologist, you're doing cognitive testing, you're doing counseling, you're doing consultation with teachers and behavioral interventions. and those are all the bread and butter skills of a school psychologist. But at the same time, I've had this chance to explore how to really help the students on ah on a different level.
Mental Health and Career Resources for Dancers
00:39:25
Speaker
My next step is, as you can imagine, I'm very passionate about artistic expression and you know my research is really going to be centered on
00:39:33
Speaker
nonverbal self-expression for you know the neurodivergent population and specifically looking I think at first at autistic female or self-identifying as female students because we're only just understanding autism and females really within the last like maybe 10 years, maybe even less. So I would like to be able to center their voices and how they benefit from artistic self-expression like dancing, visual arts,
00:40:02
Speaker
music, things like that. Like how does it help them? What's the experience that they have using those modalities? So a very exciting time, but it's a very wonderful, and I guess you could say inspiring environment that I've been able to place myself in. I love that. There is so much dancers need to learn as they pursue a professional dance career. It can be completely overwhelming. Where do you even start?
00:40:29
Speaker
with your intention. To me, this is the first step in defining success on your terms. Once you have an intention for your career based on your core values, you can begin to hone in on a strategy to make your goals a reality. But without it, you will always feel out of alignment, out of control, and ultimately unfulfilled in your career. So how do you figure out what success means to you? With the Brainy Ballerina Intentional Career Handbook. This is not just your ordinary book.
00:40:59
Speaker
The intentional career handbook walks you through it everything you need to think about as you embark on your dance career. With over 50 guided question prompts, you will dive deep into determining what really matters to you in a dance career based on your individual core values. By the end of this handbook, you will not only be crystal clear on your goals, but in the mindset you need to make it happen. Tap the link in the show notes to download your copy today and start pursuing your dance career with intention.
00:41:29
Speaker
As far as all things mental health goes, what would be the biggest thing you feel like you struggled with during your dance career? Yeah. I mean, I think in terms of mental health, the thing that comes out to me, you know, the most is like just dealing with the physical pain.
00:41:44
Speaker
When you think about physical pain, when it's consistent over time, even if it's not the same injury, but you're constantly getting injured, you feel like kind of hit a wall all the time in terms of what your body can do. It's mentally exhausting. And I think it's about learning the balance between pushing yourself and knowing where what your limits are. For me, you know, I kind of alluded to this earlier, I was very, very determined as a young person to sort of make it as a ballet dancer and live out that dream, but also ballet was my vessel for my artistry.
00:42:20
Speaker
It was the way that I could express myself. It was the way that I could tell a story. I mean, especially growing up, I was a little bit more comfortable with expressing myself non-verbally through dance than verbally. So it was a ah multifaceted thing, but at the end of the day, the physical nature of ballet is very intense on the body. I know dancers who they're just they're born with like turnout and extensions and things like that where dancing into their 40s is not necessarily a huge ask, right? It's kind of like ah not as much of a challenge.
00:42:56
Speaker
For me, it would have been an enormous challenge. Knowing that and being honest with myself about that, it's like, okay, so there might have been a reason that some of these teachers when I was younger said, you might not have a career in ballet, just so you know. We could think about that as being mean and whatever, but it's also just truthful that I had physical limitations. And so it's interesting too, because I get a lot of comments, or I used to get a lot of comments, but what do you mean? You have the perfect ballet body, you're petite.
00:43:25
Speaker
right? Like you have the lines and the feet and all the things, right? And that was true. I'm a very petite person. If you think about these stereotypical things that people look for for ballet, sure, and that was there. But again, it's sort of like what I was born with. I was born with that, but I wasn't born with the turnout and I wasn't born with the sort of flexibility that you might expect. So everyone's different. Everyone's body is different. Everyone in terms of their limits mentally is different.
00:43:59
Speaker
what they're willing to take on and what they're not willing to take on. So you know knowing that about yourself I think is really important. From now as ah as a psychologist looking back, I think that you kind of have to know when you're going to burn out, right? When are you going to push yourself over the edge versus pushing yourself to achieve great things? In other words,
00:44:20
Speaker
There's the idea of let's keep improving, never ending improvement. That's great. But also let's not burn ourselves out to the point where now we can't even think about ballet without feeling some sense of regret or something like that. So it's a fine line, but I think it takes a lot of self exploration.
00:44:39
Speaker
burnout for me personally was like one of those things where if I look in the past, I can be like, oh my gosh, you were burnt out. But at the time I just thought, I either thought that I was lazy. I thought that I was just over it. Like I just had all these other thoughts about myself. When I retired, I don't know, looking back at the time, I felt like I was really ready to retire. And now years later, I'm like, I think I was just exhausted and burnt out and I maybe just needed a break.
00:45:01
Speaker
but I felt like I was done. How can you have a better idea in the moment of what's going on? Yeah, I mean, they say that when you're headed towards burnout, you know, one of the telltale signs is that there's a resentment that happens. You start to have this inner dialogue of, well, why do I have to do this? Or this is ridiculous, kind of like that negative self talk, but it's also about what you have to do versus just about yourself.
00:45:30
Speaker
Some of it could be about yourself as well. but it's like a negative outlook that starts to happen. And that can be really like a red flag. I mean, especially, this is why I like to practice mindfulness meditation because you're sort of aware, you practice being aware of your thoughts and thoughts come in and out all the time. We don't need to listen to our thoughts as dogma, right? Like you don't necessarily need to believe everything that your brain is telling you at at every moment. Sometimes thoughts, you know, involve self doubt and that's normal.
00:46:01
Speaker
But I think the thoughts that have to do with, you know, a resentment of what it is that you're doing, the overarching, like, what's the point of this whole journey? When you start having those like sort of existential questions come up, that's like a time to go, whoop, hold on. Let's think about this. Maybe I'm exhausted. Maybe we need to pump the brakes a little bit. Also, you can take into consideration too, like, how does my body actually feel?
00:46:27
Speaker
Am i getting injured more than not am i able to even go to a p t session without crying at the end or something you know i can always take into account what is the reality versus what is it that you want in a perfect world.
00:46:42
Speaker
to have happen because, you know, I always like to tell people I'm a recovering perfectionist, right? I mean, I still have those tendencies, but it's really easy to think like, well, everyone else is able to go and do the class, you know, on the weekend, like the ballet class to take that extra set of training. I had a lot of friends that did cross training, and I used to think like,
00:47:05
Speaker
I could never do that. I had to rest for the whole entire Sunday or whatever it was and that was for my body. I do think that like paying attention to what's really going on versus what you want in terms of what's expected, what the rest of the field kind of looks for. I think that's important. It's a very personal thing and burnout can look a little bit different for different people. Sometimes people tend to like shut down and withdraw even socially. And that's also something to pay attention to as well.
00:47:38
Speaker
That is the most concrete way of describing it ever heard. Wow, that's exactly how I felt. It's hard to have those feelings of resentment towards something you love so much and you know that you still love it and you can't figure out what's going on. And I guess my next question is, if you feel like you're starting to feel this burnout, you're noticing these telltale signs of resentment, what would you tell a dancer who's in a company? What is the pathway to kind of overcoming burnout within your career? Yeah, the main thing is so taking a little bit of that agency back and thinking about like, what do I need? That's not always a simple answer, right? Like if you're in a company and you're expected to perform 20 nutcrackers, you're going to perform the 20 nutcrackers, like unless you quit, which that's like a hasty thing to do. You have to take it day by day. What can I control in my day today?
00:48:29
Speaker
Okay, after my day of rehearsing, I'm going to take a a nice hot bath at the end of the day. And I'm going to try to do some kind of reflective either this is an example, but journaling or something that's self soothing, right? Maybe starting to prioritize your health in other ways, you know, what you're eating or what you're even ingesting it in the sense of the culture that you're surrounding yourself with like positivity versus whatever it may be even in the media right like just thinking about what is it that I'm giving myself. And what is it that I'm putting my attention into those are smaller steps along the way but then thinking structurally in terms of on a dancer level one and in the company.
00:49:11
Speaker
What can I do to preserve some of my energy throughout my day? Am I pushing myself too much in my morning company class? Maybe I don't wear the pointe shoes in the class. you know ah My feet are killing me at the end of the day. or maybe you know I need to tell my partner that the first go around we market first. I don't know. like Obviously, everyone's different. It's really just about communicating at that point. Communicating with you have a partner that you're working with, or if you have like a ballet mistress or someone like a rehearsal director, maybe if you have an injury, right you're telling them
00:49:48
Speaker
my left ankle is kind of wonky today. I just want to let you know. And so if I kind of stop at this one point where it really hurts my ankle, that's why. And I'm just trying to make sure that I don't push it over the edge. That means being able to self advocate. Is that easy?
00:50:04
Speaker
not always, especially in an environment where there's not a lot of verbal communication between the dancers and the artistic staff in a lot of situations. But when you start to have that voice for yourself and you start to advocate for yourself, and this is something I talk to my students about all the time. Self-advocacy is so important because it teaches you, you're listening to yourself, have agency and have control to some degree over things that maybe aren't fully in your control.
00:50:34
Speaker
but you can at least express where you're at within that situation.
Communication and Self-Advocacy in Dance
00:50:38
Speaker
If you have pushback, okay, then you're going to deal with that. But if you have the reception of, okay, so you have this injury, you have these challenges, let's work together to figure out a plan. Hopefully that's what happens, but you move forward from there. And the last thing I would just say is at the end of the day, it's thinking about like, what are your,
00:51:00
Speaker
passions and your intentions, your goals and why you're doing what you're doing. If you still have the love there in terms of either ballet specifically or expressing yourself or any of those things, then it doesn't necessarily mean like, Oh, well, I still love it. So therefore I'm going to push myself to stay in it. No, it doesn't mean that, but it just means reconnecting with your intentionality so that you can think about like, okay,
00:51:29
Speaker
either A, I need to figure out a way to have longevity so that I can continue to do this and live out my purpose, or B, figure out a different way to fulfill that purpose, right? And maybe that means not dancing. It really takes a lot of self introspection and getting comfortable with paying attention to your own thoughts and your own desires, it takes time, but it's really important. You said one thing that i I want to come back to because you said, you know, maybe your ankle is bothering you and you can tell your rehearsal director, Hey, this is going on. I feel like that is typically received well, right? Like a physical
00:52:07
Speaker
limitation. They're like, Okay, I can understand that. But how would you go about telling your director like something more mental, emotional, like that is a little bit harder to express concretely and as opposed to a physical limitation where that just makes more sense to our brains for some reason? Yeah, I think it makes sense to our brains. But I think it's also a little bit of ah societal and structural situation going on where like, we don't always talk about our mental health.
00:52:34
Speaker
And, you know, there's a time and a place. I'm not saying that every day that you go to work and this is not just in a ballet company, but in any, you know, work situation, you're not going to necessarily walk in and be like, okay, everyone. So, you know, it has this thing happen in my personal life. And so everyone, you need to know that I'm going to be in a bad mood today.
00:52:51
Speaker
like There's a fine line, but I think when you're really struggling and there's really something in your mental health that is stopping you from either performing in in the way that you usually do, showing up on a personal level in the way that you usually do, it helps to be able to like explain this to the people you're working with so that they're not sort of like questioning, well, what's really going on here?
00:53:14
Speaker
And again, it's not going to be an easy conversation because in general, when when you have to have these conversations, it's vulnerable. Inherently mental health becomes more, and this could be a societal thing, but it is more vulnerable or provoking of a vulnerable conversation than let's say like my ankle hurting. Getting a little bit more comfortable with that is important.
00:53:37
Speaker
But how you do it, I don't know if it's baby steps or if it's just trying it out, but really it's just, you know, asking for a time to talk to someone, right? just like a little bit of your time. I just wanna like express something that's been going on with me, just trying to be truthful. It doesn't mean that you need to tell them every detail of exactly what's going on either in your personal life, you can share as much or as little as you feel necessary. But I think most of the time it's really just a matter of expressing a challenge and a recognition that things have been off and things have been a little bit
00:54:15
Speaker
hard for me, you know, like that kind of ah standpoint. Most of the time when you're coming from a place of recognizing like things are different, the other person will potentially take that and run with it and say, yeah, I kind of noticed that things were a little bit different and I didn't want to say anything, but you know, what can we do? That's hopefully what would happen. Will that always happen? No, I mean, not everyone is well versed in talking about these things.
00:54:44
Speaker
But we as dancers and as professionals even, we are better served when we can be in touch with our own struggles and admit when something is going on. And sometimes I think too, it's it's finding out for yourself, what is it that I need in this moment? Because if you don't know what you need,
00:55:05
Speaker
your artistic director is not going to know what you need. And I don't mean to be so blunt about that. But let's say like, maybe what you need is to pull back on taking on so many roles. Or maybe what you need is to have a personal day, just one personal day, right? It's very different depending on the situation. But if you go into the conversation and say, I'm struggling, but then you don't necessarily know what you need it can be challenging for the other person to know how to respond and so maybe there is that dynamic that happens sometimes but you know overall it's really important that we're paying attention to our mental health because it's really all we have it's what colors our existence so it's very important.
00:55:51
Speaker
I like that idea of having a very clear ask so that you can have a productive conversation that will help the other person be able to help you. What do you think needs to change in the dance industry? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I've now been retired for 10 years. So I haven't been in a ballet company for quite some time. That being said, I mean, it probably comes down to communication, having dancers feel that they can communicate with the artistic staff and with each other, thinking back. I perhaps was a little bit more on the, um i don't I don't want to say unique, but I kind of was in the minority in terms of my level of comfort with talking to the artistic staff. And that, I think, comes from a lot of different things. It comes from you know the fact that i I was very grounded in myself as a person and like what I
00:56:50
Speaker
knew myself to be and what I needed and like all these different things. Not that that was so easily obtained, but it was a lot of soul searching and all that. But once I had that sense of self, it became easier for me to communicate with the staff because they're really just people. They are the holders of our contracts, which seems like it's the holder of your dreams, right? But they are people. And that was true of even like my working relationship with Edward Ellison as well, like my coach and I would go to him with my concerns or my challenges and things like that. And like, I think that's where the practice for that came. Being able to really like talk to him like one on one person to person, like this is what's going on with me and and this is what I need and this is what, you know, all these different things. But again, like not everyone necessarily comes into a ballet company feeling like they can do that. The flip side of that is having artistic staff make an environment that feels like it's open to having communication and having
00:57:47
Speaker
this validation of the dancer's voice when we would have choreographers come in or stagers, you know, people from all over. And the idea was like, oh, they're here. Everyone be quiet. Don't say anything. Part of that is because you want them to view you in a certain way. There's that culture of, I don't want to say like obedience, but let's just let my dancing talk for itself, right? You don't want to be the one to sort of speak up.
00:58:17
Speaker
And that's why we have unions sometimes because we need someone to say, hey, we need the five minute break because no one else is going to do it unless it's the union rep or something. Like there's just like a kind of like a hush that happens in a ballet company where there's not a lot of communication. And to some degree, that's what happens because of the nature of the rehearsals. It's just the structure that has been built over time.
00:58:39
Speaker
However, I think there's wiggle room in the way that we set up these environments and we can make them more welcoming to the idea of let's listen to each other. We should be able to speak up. We should be able to feel like our voice is valid. I mean, I had a lot of peers growing up like other dancers that were in ballet companies at the same time as me.
00:59:00
Speaker
We met at Columbia and we would be in classes together and I'm not sure if this is even something that has been brought up on your podcast before but I do think we as dancers would find ourselves like a little uncomfortable at first speaking up in class because it was this weird paradigm that we had been in where you don't necessarily do that even for me feeling like I could speak to the artistic staff and and advocate for myself, whatever, you're still in a time period where you're just mostly going through the day not talking. Maybe if you're doing a principal or soloist role, maybe you're talking to like your partner and the person who's staging the piece because there's that like one-on-one dynamic.
00:59:42
Speaker
But if you're in the core, there's like probably like a rare chance where someone raises their hand and says, Oh, you know what? I think actually that was on the count of six and not seven. Yeah. But you're really not talking a lot. You know, once we would get in these settings where we had to sort of speak our minds and our opinions and in front of other people, like what it's just, it's a bizarre thing being able to set up environments where dancers feel they have the ability to communicate and feel that their opinions and their voices are valid. That's important. That's so true. And I feel like you said this earlier, but we're so used to expressing ourselves physically. We're not always as strong at using our words. And it's ironic now that I have a podcast, but I was painfully shy at public speaking.
01:00:35
Speaker
would like be physically shaky to bad to get a speech when I was in school. I mean, I couldn't go up to somebody and start a conversation. I'd be so like nervous just like going to the dance studio and perform on stage. No problem. It is so interesting. And I do agree that there's a two way street of companies making sure that dancers know that their voices can be heard. And then dancers, like you said, just kind of practice communicating more and learning how to have that skill. The more I do it, the better it gets, the better I get, especially myself. But I still sometimes feel like I struggle to find the right words or know how to have a conversation. Or even just sometimes I'll be freaking out about something that's going on. And my husband's like, well, did you talk to them about it? And I'm like, no, you know, you're crafting a whole story in your head of what they're thinking. And you're like, having all this anxiety about it. And then once you have the conversation, it's all, everything's fine.
01:01:29
Speaker
Right. Having that communication is not my first instinct sometimes because it just feels uncomfortable still. So I really agree with everything you're saying in that context.
Closing Thoughts and Contact Information
01:01:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's a very interesting thing. Yeah. Okay, last question. What advice would you give to aspiring dancers pursuing a career?
01:01:49
Speaker
I would say my main advice is to get in touch with what you feel is your, we use the word passion a lot and it's maybe overused, but your passion, your intentionality, your purpose. And, you know, as a young person, that's very hard to sort of be in touch with that fully. I would never think that, you know, a young person is necessarily going to have that sense of self fully formed going into a dancing career.
01:02:17
Speaker
However, thinking about what it is that you love about dancing, what is it that you aspire towards, who are your role models, right? Like thinking about all those things and then trying to coalesce that into somewhat of a plan. And I think that's probably, you know, a lot of what you're doing when you're working with dancers one-on-one. But I think really what it comes down to is when you're thinking about a career as a dancer, as an artist, you are trying to get in touch with who you are as a person and what you want to put out into the world. That's sort of the deep answer, if you will, in terms of the intentionality. On a practical level, I would say if you want it, then you need to really work really super hard, but know your limits, know when you're starting to burn out, know when to take a break, know that everyone is different because, you know, again, during my training years, I had
01:03:17
Speaker
Here's that we're taking classes on the weekends and my body physically could not handle that and so it's Catching yourself when you have the negative self-thought when you say well I must not be good because I can't dance on the weekends and go to that open class in addition to my usual training schedule right like it's knowing that everyone's different and knowing that Your journey might not be exactly the same as the next dancer's journey and that's okay because everyone has different goals. For me personally, I had a very condensed career. If you look at the timeline, it was four years in Tulsa Ballet.
01:03:58
Speaker
with a lot of roles jam-packed in there. And I could maybe say to myself, oh, well, it wasn't a very long career, all these different things. But truly, like when it comes down to it, I'm very happy with my career and the time that I spent dancing. And it only informed that much more all the different things that came later in my life. And even now, as I explore performing again and all these different things. It's never sort of this black and white situation where it has to be one thing or the other. Going forward, I think as you embark on the journey of being a dancer and exploring all of that, just knowing that you're not going to know the end result. We have to sort of detach from outcome. And that's something you can practice in mindfulness. That's something I practice to this day.
01:04:50
Speaker
in mindfulness meditation, right? It's attaching from the outcome, knowing what your purpose is, knowing what your intention is. As long as you are enjoying the journey, really, then that's what matters. If you find yourself not enjoying it anymore, listen to that. At the end of the day, it's always going to be about not the destination. It's the journey along the way. That's beautifully said. If any of our listeners want to learn more about you or your work, where can we find you? so You can find me on my website, which is BritneyFight.com. Also on Instagram, which is just my name you know at BritneyFight. I have a lot of interesting projects coming up and I usually post them all through my social
01:05:34
Speaker
you know, if you go to my website, you can see what I'm doing as a school psychologist, as a yoga instructor, I create meditation videos on YouTube. So that's another one too is at Brittany bite on YouTube. You know, I'm also a second act mentor, which I know you are as well. And I'm just always more than happy to share my experiences, share my journey with people because everyone's journey is different. And we all learn from each other's experiences and take from it what we want and what we need. and And that's a beautiful thing. So certainly those are places that you can find me and feel free to reach out. Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge today, Brittany. This was a great conversation and I'm so thankful to have gotten to talk to you. Well, thank you so much. I really enjoyed it.
01:06:26
Speaker
Thank you for tuning into the Brainy Ballerina podcast. If you found this episode insightful, entertaining, or maybe a bit of both, I would so appreciate you taking a moment to leave a rating and hit subscribe. By subscribing, you'll never miss an episode. And you'll join our community of dancers passionate about building a smart and sustainable career in the dance industry. Plus, your ratings help others discover the show too. I'll be back with a new episode next week. In the meantime, be sure to follow along on Instagram at The Brainy Valorina for your daily dose of dance career guidance.