Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Alternatives to Higher Education
140 Plays6 months ago
In Episode 6 of Season 2, we're talking about alternatives to higher education.
In this episode we hear from...
• Kenjus T. Watson, who shares with us his challenges of determining whether or not to pursue the academy and what it meant to him to make that decision
• An intimate and sacred moment between Kenjus and his 2-year old daughter Ayaan
• Youth experts Jordyn and Angus, sit down with me for our Mic Check..1,2,3! round table segment and talk about the challenges of schooling, the pressures that come from adults, and what it would mean for them to have a valuable education
Drawing From The Well is hosted by Tiffani Marie.
The podcast is co-produced by Tiffani Marie and Jon Reyes with music by Jansen V.
DFTW is supported by Community Responsive Education.
Continue the conversation at youthwellness.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Drawing from the Well
00:00:01
Speaker
Drawing from the Well is a podcast series from the youth wellness movement. We are educators, researchers, healers, parents, and community members striving to repurpose schools to address the critical wellness gaps in our youth's development.
00:00:19
Speaker
Founded by Community Responsive Education.
The Grind Culture Dilemma
00:00:29
Speaker
I entered the teaching profession officially about 16 years ago. At that time, I believed that I had some of the greatest mentorship.
00:00:43
Speaker
and In many ways, I did. And I was following the framework of some of the greatest that I had ever seen do this work. And when I entered, had a clear vision of what it meant to be a teacher and what it meant to be a successful teacher.
00:01:00
Speaker
And at that time, it was a serious dedication to grind culture, to hustling, to working as much as you needed to do to ensure that all the young people who you were accountable to were well.
00:01:21
Speaker
And at that time, I didn't understand that as a sickness. But in time and through very particular personal experience, I had to. I was forced to confront certain forms of mentorship. I was forced to confront grind culture. i was forced to confront my own spiritual and physical health.
00:01:43
Speaker
So when I entered the profession, what it meant to be a successful teacher was to always be doing something. You were not just teaching in schools, you were also in graduate school.
00:01:55
Speaker
It meant you were a teacher researcher, which was huge in my group. So you were not just learning the ropes of pedagogical practice, but you were conducting youth participatory action research You were traveling the country, you were presenting at conferences, you were organizing events, were traveling with your young people.
00:02:12
Speaker
If they needed a place to stay, your home was that place. You worked after hours, you came in on Saturdays, you worked as long as you needed to, to ensure that they were well.
00:02:25
Speaker
This was the culture that I was a amongst in entering the teaching profession. When you were tired, if communities and children needed you, you said yes. You always said yes.
00:02:38
Speaker
And in some ways, no one explicitly said this to me, but this was definitely the culture that I was immersed within.
Struggles at KIPP
00:02:47
Speaker
And so remember working at KIPP in my early years. And what was so hard there is it was a a place where I was hired to work.
00:02:54
Speaker
And I knew that it was not a good fit for me. I knew that young people were being harmed there. And when I was attempting to quit to center my well-being, I was told by a mentor at the time that you can leave
00:03:14
Speaker
or you can ensure that these young people are taken care of. And I remember she said, if you leave, you will leave them in the hands of people who you know will harm them.
00:03:27
Speaker
And so at 22, I made a pivotal decision to stay and to center myself in that type of grind culture.
00:03:43
Speaker
And so while I was getting up at 5 a.m. every day, because we started school at that time at 7.15, because there was a belief that black and poor children needed to work longer hours.
00:03:56
Speaker
They needed to be more disciplined than others. They need to be tested more. And that when they could actually work harder and longer, these would be the pathways toward their
Health Crisis and Lack of Support
00:04:09
Speaker
freedom. This would be the pathway toward their sustainability.
00:04:14
Speaker
and So I was a part of that culture. Our children started school at 7.15 a.m. and got out at around 5, which meant I was there longer hours.
00:04:25
Speaker
But I couldn't just do that. I had to also ensure that because I did not believe in these frameworks, I had to create alternatives for them within this structure. So that meant that I was working more That meant that not only was I teaching English, not only was I teaching ethnic studies classes, but I was also director of student life. I was also creating structures within the school that would resist these oppressive forces that I was there to counteract in the first place. And so I remember doing all these things at 22, working all these hours. I'm in graduate school. I'm working from 6 to 3.30 at that time, and then I'm going to graduate school from 4
00:05:07
Speaker
to 10 p.m. my first year. And I remember I'm putting on these events and at one point as director of student life, I'm in the basement of the school or the gym rather. And we had just had a really powerful school-wide event that I led.
00:05:27
Speaker
And everyone had been dismissed. Teachers are gone. And here I am, per usual, tearing the space down. folding chairs. And i remember that my heart started beating uncontrollably.
00:05:40
Speaker
And all I could think of at that time was, I'm going to die at 22 alone.
00:05:50
Speaker
And I took some time to try to catch my breath. and I walked really slowly back up several flights of stairs to get to the office. And I told the office clerk, I need you to call 911.
00:06:07
Speaker
And at 22, I was experiencing health complications because of the compounding stress. At 22, they were extremely alarming.
00:06:24
Speaker
Now at that time, however, I didn't have the types of mentorship where I could be completely honest about my health scare.
Deconstructing Trauma and Identity
00:06:35
Speaker
I didn't have the type of community where I was advised to take a break.
00:06:42
Speaker
If anything, in that moment when I overcame my panic attack or whatever it was, I was conditioned to believe that I needed to figure out how to work smarter.
00:06:56
Speaker
And that that was a weakness being projected and not a sign that I was doing this wrong. And so out of fear to not let down my community, to not let down the folks who I knew were depending on me, or I had internalized that anyway, I worked harder.
00:07:19
Speaker
I now know that unmetabolized trauma can become personality. Or even unmetabolized cultural trauma becomes our racialized identity. And that at that time, as a black woman, I came to believe that it was my job, that it was a part of my purpose to die for the sake of others' wellness.
00:07:49
Speaker
to engage in hyper-production because that's a history that I come from. As black women, we were forced to hyper-produce literally children to participate in the enslavement process and then go into the fields and engage and utilize our labor to sustain a society that was invested in our undoing. And so this episode begins to deconstruct that trauma.
00:08:20
Speaker
that trauma that's embedded in our understanding of who we are as teachers, and that trauma that's embedded in those who are responsible for us and our sustainability and our mentorship.
00:08:38
Speaker
And it is our hope that the end of this episode, that these stories, these confessions, these reflections serve as disruptive factors to help us to all access wellness a little bit more.
00:08:58
Speaker
I'm your host, Tiffany Marie. Today's episode will center teacher identity and its relationship to wellness.
Identity and Wellness with Dr. Kevin Nadal
00:09:08
Speaker
We have Dr. Kevin Nadal, who emphasizes the importance for teachers to develop their identities and how bringing those identities into the classroom can impact student learning and wellness.
00:09:21
Speaker
Youth expert Angus reflects on his journey toward youth wellness by centering his cultural identity. And finally, have an important interview from poet extraordinaire Jari Bradley, who walks us through their journey of becoming a better educator through the process of developing a critical relationship to self.
00:09:45
Speaker
My name is Kevin Nadal. I am a professor of psychology at the City University of New York. I also use he, him pronoun pronouns. You know, when I think about identity, I think of many parts. Identity is essentially the ways in which people might be set apart from others, whether it's personality characteristics, whether it's demographic groups that you might be part of, whether it's likes and interests, so certain hobbies, talents that you have that might set you apart from other folks.
00:10:19
Speaker
And so identity is something that is so multifaceted. And when we think about our identities, we can think about all of these things, which when they all come together, make you who you are.
00:10:32
Speaker
Identity and wellness are so related, significantly related in many ways. If people have a strong sense of identity, especially young people in which they feel proud of who they are, they learn about their histories, they have been taught to love the groups that they belong to and the identities that they hold, they're more likely to feel good about themselves.
00:11:00
Speaker
I mean, it seems like ah it's so simple, ah but we live in such a world in which so many people, especially young people, are taught to not love themselves, where we see messages that are negative and harmful about different communities and groups, which then they internalize, which could then possibly lead to more mental health issues, ah more problems adjusting to various life situations, lower self-esteem, and many other difficult situations that
00:11:35
Speaker
affect wellness. And so I think one thing really, really important is from a very young age for young people to be taught to really love themselves and to learn about the different identities that they hold and to be accepted when new identities emerge in their lives.
00:11:56
Speaker
Because if young people especially aren't given those sorts of messages, then it can be really easy for them to fall into a hole of not loving themselves, which then leads to things like depression, and anxiety, trauma, and so forth.
Teachers' Role in Identity and Wellness
00:12:12
Speaker
You know, I think one of the things that's really important for teachers, educators, people who work with young people, what they have to realize is that their job is not just what is on paper. It's not just to teach them a curriculum or to coach them, mentor them, whatever it may be, but it's also really to understand the whole picture, to really recognize that this young person, this student that enters your classroom comes with a whole breadth of experiences, whole life of family, community, and perhaps even things like obstacles, struggles, and even traumas.
00:12:51
Speaker
um And so what teachers might need to do is really reflect on their own identities, their own experiences, how they may have certain privileges in their lives, and understand how those affect the ways in which they teach and even in interact with the young people that they serve.
00:13:13
Speaker
When teachers are able to really reflect upon their own identities, are really able to understand you know who they are as people, it could help to even forge more real, genuine, and authentic relationships with their young people.
00:13:31
Speaker
um And it works a lot of different ways, depending on who the teacher is, what their identities are, and so forth. You know, when teachers and mentors have a strong sense of identity, students can pick up on that.
00:13:44
Speaker
They can see and hear and feel how connected their teachers and their mentors are, not just to their own identities, but to just the general ideas of justice and racial equities and so forth.
00:14:00
Speaker
In previous years, education in the field in general would tell teachers, you have to leave your identities at the door. You have to teach from a colorblind model.
00:14:13
Speaker
We're not supposed to talk about race or gender or other marginalized identities. We're not supposed to talk about the history of re oppression. We're supposed to treat everybody exactly the same.
00:14:24
Speaker
But what research has found over the years is that discussions on race and oppression are actually very beneficial, that ethnic studies and critical race theory can be really instrumental in children's learning and especially and learning more about themselves and their identities, which then may result in increased wellness, increased positive self-esteem, and so many other positive outcomes.
00:14:52
Speaker
And so for teachers of color who walk into the room, you know even if they're discouraged from being their truest and most authentic selves in the classroom, I hope that they find the support that they need to recognize that that's actually valuable to talk about your Blackness, your Brownness, and even to talk about your womanness and your queerness and your transness.
00:15:13
Speaker
Through the act of even just modeling and representation, that can do a lot in which teachers and mentors, just by them being and doing ah their work in front of these young people can be a way for these young people to see that there is this possibility to integrate your cultural identities into your careers. There is this opportunity for teachers and other mentors to show us the importance of critiquing our systems and still teaching us some of the core things that we may need to learn.
00:15:53
Speaker
So that in itself, I think, is really important. And then on top of that, when teachers... are able to talk about themselves and their processes, share little little bits of their histories and their identities with their students.
00:16:10
Speaker
They also, you know, provide this model for how it is such an important thing to do. We oftentimes grow up in a world in which people are taught to not talk about your race or your gender or religion or any other of these identities.
00:16:28
Speaker
but But we're learning that it's so important for us to talk about them. We don't live in a colorblind world. We don't live in a world in which everyone is treated exactly the same. Ideally, we would live in a world in which people were treated the same, but but we we don't.
00:16:42
Speaker
And so this is why it's so important for young people to learn that their identities are so beautiful and valuable and things to be proud of.
Cultural Identity and Resilience
00:16:53
Speaker
And learning that from a very young age could help to build some of those protective factors that they might need when they actually do experience discrimination or when they do experience bullying or when they might experience microaggressions and not know what they are or not have the words to really you know articulate what they're experiencing.
00:17:18
Speaker
But if they're taught that from a very young age, then they're able from ah very young age to externalize some of these negative messages instead of internalizing them.
00:17:29
Speaker
They externalize by saying like, that's not me, that's the system, that's oppression, that's racism, that's sexism, as opposed to what so many of us, including myself, many people my generation, um where we internalize it.
00:17:43
Speaker
We say, oh, there's something wrong with me. Oh, my group is ah inferior or deficient in this way, or or the way I look isn't beautiful, or the foods that I eat, or the cultural traditions that I partake in are weird or different.
00:17:59
Speaker
You know, we want change that because, you know, I oftentimes think about if my generation was taught that from a very different age, like, would would it look differently? Would there be more of us in these leadership roles?
00:18:13
Speaker
Would people have the confidence to pursue other careers that maybe they didn't think they were able to? Would people have less what we call imposter phenomenon, more this notion that we constantly think that we're not good enough or that somebody is going to find out that we actually aren't the experts that we might paint ourselves out to be? And I think that's what they're charged to do.
00:18:38
Speaker
is to show them the possibility. Don't just teach them, show them. Show them the possibility and believe in them and affirm for them how important their identities are and how special and valuable their voices and their perspectives are.
00:18:59
Speaker
Next, we hear from Angus, a youth expert whose cultural identity provides him with a framework to navigate the uncertainties of teenage life.
00:19:11
Speaker
Looking back at it, I'm really uneasy with my future and confused due to the fact that society and like my family expectations are always pressuring me to go to college or maybe enter into the military.
00:19:28
Speaker
It seems like it's the only path to like success or like it's the only way in a sense. And it kind of creates a really limiting perspective for me.
00:19:42
Speaker
when I try to take care of my wellness it seems like I'm off track or like my other goals in my life I want to pursue it seems like they're not as important as as like college or like military so like it compromises my own happiness in a sense and I'm like always in a state of like anxiousness and like uncertainty thinking like is this really the right thing to do should I be really doing this It does eat a lot at me in certain parts of the day because it's been drilled into my head ah ever since I was in middle school. College this, getting a good job.
00:20:26
Speaker
There's no room for my wellness in a sense and what I really want to do in my life. And it's really confusing also because I don't know what to do with my life in a sense.
00:20:40
Speaker
I'm about to graduate high school and I don't have a clear path of what I really want to do in life. And I think this really applies to a lot of other teens too. I don't expect myself to just know what I want to do as soon as I leave high school.
00:20:56
Speaker
I feel like my current situation can reflect on my middle name, which is Kaijie. Kaijie means a warrior returning from war.
00:21:09
Speaker
somebody returning from like a hardship and coming back to successful. And I kind of see myself in that same particular story. um I cross roads and I'm really tense with like what I want to do how I want to measure my life out, what balancing I should do and stuff.
00:21:28
Speaker
In a way, I found wellness in learning about my own culture. I'm really non-fluent in a sense. I'm really broken in speaking Cantonese, Toysanese, and Mandarin.
00:21:41
Speaker
So I find it really hard to communicate with my relatives. It also adds more to the tension as like, if I go down this route, I might even become more disconnected with my own culture and my own language.
00:21:55
Speaker
And it makes it worse, but it kind of gives me a direction of really where I want to go. And it comes back to my middle name where I hopefully make the good decision and I come back successful with whatever I want to do.
00:22:12
Speaker
But this is a moment where it's a lot uncertainty, but at the same time, I have these principles and certain interests that guide me to where I want to go.
Jari Bradley's Journey of Identity Formation
00:22:27
Speaker
Next, I'm in conversation with poet, scholar, and mentor Jari Bradley. Jari speaks to their early experiences of using expression as a space for identity formation. The challenges of having mentors who are undergoing their own identity development and how reflecting on those challenges allow Jari to unlearn and relearn parts of their identity to better serve their young people.
00:22:54
Speaker
I am here with the one and only one of the best to ever do this thing called life. Guest, can you please tell us about yourself and how you identify?
00:23:08
Speaker
Sure thing. What's up everybody? My name is Jari Bradley. I'm a San Francisco native, black San Francisco native. I'm a neo soul 90s R&B enthusiast.
00:23:20
Speaker
poet, gender, queer person. That's pretty much the bulk of it. You gave us a lot of different variables or titles or identities.
00:23:31
Speaker
And so I want us to dive straight into that. And I'm hoping that you can talk a little bit about your journey with your identity, how you've even come to utilize any of these terms to describe yourself.
00:23:44
Speaker
particularly if you can walk us through like your journey as a child, then maybe as a student. And I know you mentor folks now, you're a teacher. So kind of give us that trajectory as it relates to your identity and your identity development.
00:23:58
Speaker
Yeah, when I was a kid, I was a tomboy. i was around a lot of boys at that time. So whatever they was doing, I was trying to do. You know, i didn't like girly stuff. That just was not my thing.
00:24:09
Speaker
i had all these Barbies, but I would like take the clothes off of them, take the heads off. but you know I was in a basketball. I really loved ah water guns at the time. So, you know, my dress, my style of dress was very, this was the 90s. So i was trying to wear all the stuff that the dudes was wearing.
00:24:29
Speaker
That's how it was. And my grandmother, you know, the blessing that she was, she didn't really police me too much. So she let me wear, you know, what I wanted to wear for the majority of that time period. And that's kind of how I was comfortable being, I remember i was like five years old. I was going Leonard R. Flint Elementary School. i don't know if folks know where that's but I had on this dress and it was some lady, it was this teacher that remembered me. and She told me this story.
00:24:57
Speaker
She said, I commented on your dress and you turned around and you stuck your tongue at me and you ran off. I hated dresses. I hated them. I was always veering on the masculine side of activity, interest,
00:25:11
Speaker
so forth and so on. I spent a lot of time being interested in what boys and men were doing and just kind of watching what women were doing in my family and that sort of thing, not really feeling very connected to femininity in the way that felt most empowering, but it often felt suppressive, submissive, those types of things that I never wanted to be associated with.
00:25:36
Speaker
Navigating that as a kid, I didn't have language other than i don't want to be perceived as a girl in the regular sense. You know, I'm something much more than that. And I'm a show you, you know, in high school, it was interesting looking back on it because i was still a tomboy, but you know, then you get into the whole thing about relationships and attraction and that sort of thing. So I was mostly watching other people kind of hook up as awkward as that was just being on the sidelines.
00:26:09
Speaker
you You see these people? This is crazy, right? With other folks who are, you know, on the outside of desirability in that way. It's funny to look back on that now because I really wasn't it tripping that hard about being connected to anyone in that way. And my expression at that time was the most important to me because that was when I was really into poetry at that time and really into expressing myself. And I was but always bookish.
00:26:36
Speaker
So I didn't really care too much about all that other stuff until much later.
Navigating Identity in Early Adulthood
00:26:42
Speaker
Much later came, you know, the classic thing that lesbians do, what folks do, fall in love with your best friend. You just, you start liking them, you know, you start feeling them.
00:26:54
Speaker
That was an indication to me that I had an attraction to women at the time, you know, and I didn't know. i would like do little stuff like, this is hilarious. But when I was atheist, I would like look at girls' booties and be like, oh, this is a game.
00:27:08
Speaker
I'm just looking, but I'm not really looking, looking, but I was looking. That was when it was like, okay, you know, this is a real thing for you. And I started to explore that. I, you know, I was like, oh I wonder if I can talk to a girl, you know?
00:27:21
Speaker
So I was like online in the Yahoo chat rooms. This is how, you know, we all, cause I was in the Yahoo chat room, spitting my piece, doing my thing, letting them know what's up.
00:27:34
Speaker
So yeah. um tricking people is what I was doing, really. and So yeah, but it was you know it was an exercise in, you know, can I talk to women? So that was like kind of like the first thing. And then I was in my first relationship in like 19, going on 20 with the woman had met via poetry, doing this thing again.
00:27:55
Speaker
at this point, I gained the language of masculine of center. What was that, 2009? So you had the documentary that just came out about aggressives.
00:28:07
Speaker
you know And this is a time where like with language around gender stuff, we didn't have that. And I didn't see that documentary until maybe a few years later. But you know what they called us at that time was like butch or aggressives or whatever.
00:28:20
Speaker
That's how I identified. I would go on YouTube. This was way back in the day when YouTube was in its initial stages. And I would look up masculine-centered folks on YouTube. And that like blew my world up around oh, there's other people like this.
00:28:37
Speaker
How do you act? How do you, okay, that's similar to what I do and my inclinations. And so I started to kind of see that there was a kind of community, at least online, and that provided me with some language and some identification around myself and what I was always experiencing and kind of how always expressed my gender.
00:28:57
Speaker
So, yeah. So it really wasn't until I got to grad school that I started to figure out what it meant to be genderqueer. You know, I was well in my 20s figuring that out because I never really felt like either or. For me, I just kind of felt like myself, whatever that meant, you know. And things started to happen to me when I was around maybe 15 or 16. I started getting hair on my face.
00:29:25
Speaker
That was a very hard time for me because I didn't know what was going on. And so I went to my usual tool, YouTube, go figure out women growing hair on their face, what is this? Can find out I have polycystic ovarian syndrome?
00:29:39
Speaker
You know, it's a hormonal issue, imbalance, but also, you know, a lot of women are plagued with this. It causes hair growth and all these things. And folks can go look that up. But in tandem with that, I also felt like just naturally who I am and how I expressed, I didn't really identify with male or female. And so Somehow I came upon through finishing San Francisco State in my undergrad in sociology.
00:30:08
Speaker
I think i took like an LGBTQ history class or something like that, was the first LGBT class I had ever taken. I was well within my 20s growing up in San Francisco, and that lets you know something, where that word came up. And I was that's more in line with how I felt this whole time. by time I got in grad school, I went to grad school San Francisco State as well.
00:30:32
Speaker
it's It fit. It fit. It made sense for me. And I felt most comfortable there. So that's where stayed. That's kind of how I, you know, went on to explain my being, my chemistry, you know, what I had going on. And that helped fuel my work as well as both a scholar and as a writer being of that kind of expression.
00:30:55
Speaker
Some listeners might not know there were times where you identified with me as a mentor. I first met you, I think when you were 16 years old. And what I know is that none of this journey that you just explained was I able to intentionally engage as someone who you even identified at some point as a mentor, which is deep.
00:31:18
Speaker
And that's the case for, unfortunately, a lot of people where folks have these journeys, these really important journeys as it relates their identities. And folks who are teachers, who are mentors, have nothing to do with it and maybe don't have the tools or resources to even engage and have not done the identity work themselves as educators to have the language to engage. So I'm interested in how you even understood our relationship as it relates to mentorship.
Mentorship Challenges and Growth
00:31:48
Speaker
And I'm going to push you to talk about some of the dope moments. And then I'm also push you to talk about some of the more challenging moments in that relationship. You know, that to answer some of that initial question, we met at Upper Bound, the college prep program through the Trio program.
00:32:08
Speaker
They're like, yeah, you're going to be in a special class. And I was like, huh? A special class? They're going to be in TIS class. And I was like, okay. All right. So we all in orientation. And then I just see somebody come in with cowboy boots on and a backpack. And I'm like, who is this?
00:32:28
Speaker
okay, all right, I guess I'm ready to do that. So yeah, that was the initial introduction. So I'm like, who is this person? First of all, where they had to like preface that I was going to be in this person's class.
00:32:39
Speaker
And upon getting in the class, it was very intense. I had never up until that point met anybody who was as forward as you were at that time, as young as you were at the time, but also like fucking brilliant at that time. Like I was like,
00:32:58
Speaker
so bored in school. I was so bored. And like, I was reading about the Black Panthers and all that, whatever, but I had never heard of Cornel West.
00:33:09
Speaker
And I just remember coming in and you were talking about Cornel West says something. And I was instantly like, damn, I have been thinking about some of that. But when I was with my friends, and this gets you into some of that dynamic that I'm going to get into,
00:33:25
Speaker
When I was with them, they were like, you into that? Man, let's go to the cafeteria and go get this. and do They was not tripping about that like that. They were not as mesmerized.
00:33:37
Speaker
So I was like, damn, okay, I guess I can't act into this. But also, I'm into this. This is my shit. I don't actually give a damn about what this lady is talking about. so y'all is tripping.
00:33:51
Speaker
But you know, The dynamic at that time, I mean, you know, I was super shy and I was super insecure. Upper bound made you so close to people. Like, I didn't realize this then, but like you ate with people, you slept around people, you were with people all the time. So like, it was constantly this thing of like, one, trying to prove that I was worthy to be hung around.
00:34:16
Speaker
Right. Because I was like kind of weird to people. you know what I'm saying? I was a heavier person. I was a heavier kid. My gender expression wasn't initially, you know, at that time, again, we did not have the language that we have now for gender expression. Like you had like gay people knew what gay was.
00:34:34
Speaker
And even if you were a girl or whatever, interested in other girls, you were still considered gay. You know, we rarely use like lesbian or something like that. And, you know, that's kind of how it was. And so I couldn't act too into the class. And also i was intimidated by Tiff initially because I was just like, damn, like, but Tiff's demeanor too at the time was like, you can't just step to me with anything. Like you have to kind of come to me with something worth coming it to me with.
00:35:08
Speaker
You can't just talk to me about nothing. Oh, no. No, because Tiff had a way. of flipping shit and you look stupid. Right there. Right there. And if you say something and then she'll ask you a question or something, it'll throw your whole shit off.
00:35:24
Speaker
And you'll be 16. 16. Talking about damn. What? I just came to say hi. You over here in existential crisis right now. And I just came to say hello.
00:35:37
Speaker
That's it was. So I was very intimidated. Thank you. i didn't know what to do with that at 16. All I knew was that I was impressed, but that I also couldn't just talk to Tiff or any adult at this time about how I expressed.
00:35:59
Speaker
It was more like if there was a common interest, we could talk about that. So yeah, like with Damon or somebody, I talked about music. all of us connected around music and they would give me CD. They would download stuff on my iPod at that time. That was encouraging. And we, so, you know, and then there was like a studio at upper bound and we would go to the studio and we would make music and play around in there.
00:36:23
Speaker
So that was the level of connection that I, as a young person was used to having with adults at the time. It was never like, Hey, I'm thinking about this.
00:36:36
Speaker
This is, I have an attraction to such and such. If I would have said that at the time, I probably would have like passed out because it just would have been too would have been overwhelming. It have been like, it would have too much.
00:36:49
Speaker
It was easy for us then to have these kinds of lives outside of the classroom that teachers didn't know nothing about until a scandal happened.
00:37:00
Speaker
Until somebody was caught in somebody's room or something happened. That's how people kind of found out like, oh okay. Case in point, I mean, this wasn't a scandal, but I remember um when I first got to Upper Bound, I was initially who gravitated toward me were these mean ass black girls.
00:37:17
Speaker
They were just mean. They were just mean. And that's okay. You know, and not all the black girls were mean, but there was at a particular clique that And it was mean and shit. And it was what it was.
00:37:28
Speaker
And I had to get up out of that. um don't know how it happened to me. don't know why they chose me. But I was like, okay, let me just sit somewhere else at lunch. And I remember this skinny black dude and this racially ambiguous person.
00:37:46
Speaker
And they were like, you should sit with us. And I was like, yeah, I should. you know If y'all invite me, why not? And they so happened to be the first... LGBTQ people, friends that I would have.
00:37:59
Speaker
Jonathan and Jocelyn. So hung with Jonathan and Jocelyn and it helped because we all had J's in our name. So, you know, but I remember one time we was kicking it in one of the dorms that Tiff would come through for tutoring.
00:38:14
Speaker
So Tiff came in there, saw all of us hanging out. Tiff asked me, don't know if it was in front of them. It probably was because it's how bold Tiff was at the time. You gay? And I was like, no.
00:38:26
Speaker
I said it so fast. I remember saying it like that. And I was like, nah, just because I hang with them don't mean. But I had no, i first of all, I didn't know what was going on. I was just trying to be cool. I was trying to be myself, you know, and not get bullied up here. Okay.
00:38:45
Speaker
But also, I was just kind of navigating what it was like to even maybe possibly be attracted to somebody or what any of that meant. You know, a lot of that wasn't even, it wasn't clear to me at that time. So yeah, I would say shit like no and where that's weird. And and I think, you know, that wasn't just happening for us.
00:39:09
Speaker
I think that was happening for a lot of people at that time too, because we didn't have that kind of dynamic where it was like, okay, I can come to you. you know, to talk about this. Like, cause I didn't see another out adult.
00:39:24
Speaker
That was the thing too. was like, you know, it was very rare, especially like, I can't remember in upper bound if there were any like out queer gay folks on staff at that time, everybody was kind of like heterosexual, cisgendered, that sort of thing. So we didn't even have the kind of examples that a lot of young people have now.
00:39:43
Speaker
So it was really like we were navigating that shit on our own. And this was in San Francisco. So, I mean, If it was hard there, ah can't imagine what it would be like to have grown up in the South or you know, whatever.
00:39:56
Speaker
So that's kind of how that was. And that's how we were able to have those anterior lives or whatever. There's so much there. And I appreciate it because it's so rich. And i don't even remember that interaction.
00:40:08
Speaker
and I don't even remember in part that part of me, which is so intense and, What I know from a lot of folks who I've been mentored by their presence with people is pretty similar to was the way that I met them, actually.
00:40:25
Speaker
There's these stories and people hear these stories and it's really consistent. And what's scary to me is I don't really know or remember that person you're talking about. And if you were, at which I want to happen one day, if you were to talk to some of my young people, there may be some elements around intimidation that may still seem kind of consistent, but there's a lot that theyre just they might even be shocked.
00:40:51
Speaker
And so it's really powerful for me to hear ah stories about me, particularly from other people's perspectives. What a lot of people don't know is that, how old are you now? 31 going on 32.
00:41:05
Speaker
So you're going on 32 and I'm going on 38 this year. and so always joke that we're in the same decade now. But a lot of people don't know that when I was teaching you, I was very, very young. We were very close in age.
00:41:17
Speaker
When I first applied for Upward Bound, I got a hard no. And i was told by the staff, you're way too young to do this work. And it's way too intimate. And I was so offended.
00:41:28
Speaker
I was so offended. And I went to Berkeley and did did some summer programs there for a couple years and came back. But in many ways, I get it. I get it today.
00:41:39
Speaker
And that there was so much about my own identity development that was not developed. And that greatly informed how blunt probably I was with young people. Like being that age, I'm like, I just got out of high school four years ago.
00:41:58
Speaker
And y'all were like juniors and seniors. Really, really weird dynamic. And this is the case with a lot of educators who come in as babies and who are teaching babies.
00:42:11
Speaker
and Another thing a lot of people don't know is that you and i fell out for years off of very particular dynamics around how we communicated to each other, how I communicated to you.
00:42:24
Speaker
And it wasn't until very recently where we were able to And I think oddly because of our own journeys and learning ourselves better and being more comfortable with ourselves, were we able to heal ourselves and actually show up ah meaningfully for each other?
00:42:42
Speaker
I think it's important for our listeners to know that this relationship has wounds that got some fresh, fresh Band-Aids on. But we, I believe that we both knew the significance of our work and who we are and what that means for me anyway, to be in relationship with each other and to continue to be in relationship.
00:42:59
Speaker
But I want to back up a little bit, like in many ways, there's this denial. And I'm also hearing that you were not given safe spaces to explore.
00:43:10
Speaker
And you're a writer, a prolific writer. And correct if I'm wrong, but your writing is part of your wellness. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So what I'm interested in is how...
Writing as a Tool for Validation
00:43:25
Speaker
those forms of denial and that lack of people, adults, teachers, curating spaces for you to safely explore, how that impacted your expression, your writing, and how that may have impacted your wellness.
00:43:42
Speaker
The first poem I ever wrote, I was 10 and I was like in fifth grade and my teacher really loved what I wrote. And she was just like, oh, you should write another one of those things.
00:43:52
Speaker
And at the time, I didn't know what I was doing was poetry. I didn't know that. I just read a lot. The first poem I wrote was about the Middle Passage and the ancestors. I don't know how I knew anything about all any of that.
00:44:03
Speaker
I tell that story to say that a lot of my gifts in my writing, I used to try to seek validation for people. So it was a way to get people into me.
00:44:16
Speaker
At that time, I hadn't really thought of it as anything beyond, ah this is a creative thing that I do to get people to like me. You know, I was so caught up in people pleasing at that time. And I was a young person and, you know, the the kind of dynamic that I came from as a child really kind of set the tone or set the pace for that.
00:44:38
Speaker
I was so young in my gift. I didn't know that I would be who I am today, you know, whatever that is, you know, so, When I was at upper bound again, yeah, I knew I could write really well.
00:44:50
Speaker
And I was like around folks at that time who were like doing music. I love music. And so a lot of what I was doing was really just trying to impress people. I was trying to impress people with my gift.
00:45:03
Speaker
That's kind of how I think it played a part in one sense to be a kind of tool to get validation. But in another sense, I wasn't doing my gift for me as a young person at the time, the way that I should have been or the way that I could have been, had I known better, had I felt safe enough to be myself.
00:45:27
Speaker
A lot of it was to, you know, to get people to like me and to find me interesting and I was brilliant and I was intellectual and all of these things, but I didn't know how to love myself when I was a kid.
00:45:45
Speaker
I'm in a space now where I can see that now. So everything that I was doing, I was trying to get love from these adults or these young people. you know what I'm saying? And so I was super prolific because that was my motivator.
00:46:02
Speaker
What it looked like was, oh, this kid is like really talented. But I was talented and I was hurting. A lot of that writing helped me navigate things that I couldn't say to people out loud.
00:46:17
Speaker
It gave me a way to interact with my emotional world. You know, just how I was feeling was super important because I couldn't go to anybody and tell them I felt.
00:46:29
Speaker
That just wasn't what we did then, you know. And I mean, even to some degree now, I mean, I think The internet is fascinating. We had, was it, MySpace at that time? So you go back after classes and then you rush to the little computer area, boot somebody off and go check your messages on MySpace and update your little profile. And that's kind of how, you know, to some degree you kind of got an inside kind of look into how people felt.
00:46:56
Speaker
But like, talking to people about that. That just wasn't what we did unless you know you had close friendships. You spent so much of your time trying to fit in. So that was a lot of it for me. I knew that I was really gifted. I knew that I could write well.
00:47:13
Speaker
But like inside, I was really, i don't know if I would say closed off, but there was a wall for me. And so in terms of wellness, you know that whole thing,
00:47:26
Speaker
Writing was a process for me to tap into the very things that I couldn't necessarily talk about with other people, but that was very real and was happening to me you know on a very consistent basis.
00:47:38
Speaker
And so I did stuff like You Speaks, I did Teen Poetry Slams, and all of that was like, oh my God, you're on the stage, you've got the city looking at you.
00:47:49
Speaker
How could they deny anything that I'm saying? Because I'm up here. i have the courage and the bravery come up here. Because, you know, a lot of my thing, too, was I would get up on stages with people and I would know that in people's minds, like, what you got to say?
00:48:03
Speaker
I knew how I was perceived to some degree because I was a studier of people, too. Like, I would watch people's reactions and responses to me.
00:48:14
Speaker
So I knew going in with my gift that I'm like, watch, I'm going to do something that's going to change my mind. And that used to be my thing. That used to be my high.
00:48:24
Speaker
So I would get on these stages and I knew how people would look. Oh, big. you What you got to say? And I would hush people. I knew that I could do that. That was clear for me.
00:48:35
Speaker
But the motivation for doing that was because I'm trying to get you to like You know, that later on developed into gigs and things. for nonprofits, community organizations, all of that.
00:48:49
Speaker
Go to schools, you do poems, you this, you that. started to kind of bleed into social activism for me, which was something I cared about. But again, i was not tending to my well-being, right? I was intending to like how I felt about me and how to use my gift in that way to kind of go back. And at that time, I couldn't because I was too young.
00:49:13
Speaker
I was like way too young to kind of do that work. So I spent a long time being great, being prolific and trying to please people. When you talk about being courageous, you're saying something that folks very late in the game would never it admit right about motivation in this work.
00:49:34
Speaker
And i think if we're honest, so much of our work is around this attempt to be seen, to be validated. And I don't really have judgment attached to it. I'm just interested in that.
00:49:46
Speaker
But i know that there's something very different in how you approach this work today.
Transitioning into Adulthood and Artistic Aspirations
00:49:52
Speaker
And now you are no longer in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is, you know, you talk about getting on stage and shocking people, people who grew up with you, people who helped to mentor you. We're shocked.
00:50:06
Speaker
by that, that shy Jari, you know, is living on another part of the country, the completely other side of the country, doing their thing, you know, sustaining themselves.
00:50:20
Speaker
More importantly, you have now become an educator. And whether it's graduate students that you have taught or or the folks who you are in community with, who you workshop with, how different is your approach now?
00:50:36
Speaker
as it relates to your identity, your courageousness, and your wellness. Yeah. It was so much from that kid to becoming an adult at that time. So, you know, in that transition of a of adulthood and trying to figure that out, so much of what worked as a young person then did not work for me in that transition.
00:51:01
Speaker
So, like, you know, when I was doing a lot of, my writing and everything, i wasn't facilitating that. Like in terms of like what to do it for, I wasn't facilitating that. Like other people were facilitating that. So working with you was like, okay, I still get a chance to write.
00:51:19
Speaker
I still get a chance to be in community. So for many years, I was just cool with that. And it wasn't necessarily bad to do those things because at that time, that's just kind of how it was.
00:51:31
Speaker
And i didn't have, the concept of the training to recognize at the time, like, oh, you're budding into this writer. And back home, you know, like, yes, like we have a literary community.
00:51:46
Speaker
And let me not say too much because don't want nobody to buy her i listen. because ah It's not like that. But it's just I'm just saying we had a literary community and and it was very local. What I wanted, my dreams were so big, but I didn't know at the time.
00:52:02
Speaker
glimpses of my aspiration and my ambition came from working with you. Because I didn't know you could create something out nothing. So I spent years watching Tiff like, yeah, let's do a TV show.
00:52:17
Speaker
And I'm sitting there like, a TV show? but How we finna do a TV show? I don't know how to write no script. This what we're going to And I spent years watching Tiff do that.
00:52:29
Speaker
So to see that example was incredible for me because I was like soaking that up. And at the time, it didn't really seem because I kind of was, you know, I used to mess up here and there.
00:52:42
Speaker
Just, you know, living my life, trying to get it together. But I was retaining a lot of that in watching that example. You know, it was hard to find that example anywhere else.
00:52:53
Speaker
But also in that, though, it was like I didn't have a sense of myself as an artist. I didn't have a sense of myself as a writer and like what I wanted to do.
00:53:06
Speaker
So while certain projects that we would take on would center me, that was like the beginning of me trying to figure out what I was made of. And so in terms of wellness and all of that, there were certain things I had to do.
00:53:24
Speaker
for my wellness that look shady to you and to other people. And then then it's back to the womb. So like, you know, with Tiff, it was like, because I was one of them kids who saw Tiff and was like, I want to work with Tiff forever.
00:53:40
Speaker
I just want to be a part of whatever that is because that was so influential to me. So I was Tiff's TA. I followed Tiff. I was come up to Kip from City College messing around.
00:53:53
Speaker
just trying to see what's up because I didn't have nothing else to do. So was yeah, why not? But you know, in the midst of all of that was like, it was a weird power dynamic too.
00:54:07
Speaker
Encountering that weird power dynamic at the core of it was like this whole thing about tough love. And i did not do well under that.
00:54:19
Speaker
Because at the time, who Tiff was, because Tiff was building upon her rep too. Like, Tiff was killing him in all these other areas, whatever. But what people didn't know was like, okay, but when you're really hanging with Tiff like that, you finna get burned. Because, you know what I'm saying? At the time, just like who we were, who we were developing into, we didn't have language for a whole bunch shit at the time. And I didn't know this was true for her at the same time.
00:54:47
Speaker
But it was definitely true for me. So like that tough love thing, I was suffering because my personality, my everything did not fit under that model of like, you just got to get up and you just got to do it.
00:55:04
Speaker
The push through a power through stuff thing, that didn't come natural to me. Emotionally, that was not natural. Like you have to push how you feel. That was not natural to me. And especially not as a writer because everything that I wrote was impacted by and informed by how I felt.
00:55:25
Speaker
So that was how I made sense of the world was through how I feel. So you telling me coming to you, no matter how you feel, is we going to do this or not?
00:55:37
Speaker
That was Tiff's thing. Whether we was going to finish the objective, get it done. And while I learned so much from that, that shit broke me. That's just not who I was.
00:55:50
Speaker
And that's not what I needed either. And the thing about it, I would want to say like, Oh, Tiff, like this doesn't feel good, but who Tiff was at the time, but there he is, and i don't know if people still do.
00:56:05
Speaker
I'm sure they do. And that's great. People idolize Tiff. Like Tiff was like infallible, like awesome. Like, Oh my God, you'll be around Tiff. Oh, and I'm like, yeah, yeah.
00:56:20
Speaker
Yeah, do y'all know? Okay. Ooh. So you couldn't say nothing. What could you say? By the time I look around, because it was like me, Tiff, and then young people. By the time I'm looking around, it's a team of other adults.
00:56:34
Speaker
So i'm like, shit. is You got a whole team that worship you. And I'm sitting here hurting. What do I say in the midst of that?
00:56:48
Speaker
If I was to come out and say anything, people would have looked at me like, what you talking about? So doing this thing around wellness, it's like, wellness for me then was my grandmother has been diagnosed with dementia.
00:57:04
Speaker
My family and me are having problems. You not understand it. And there's no way to come to you about that. got to go. And the thing was, I never imagined myself leaving H2O.
00:57:18
Speaker
I loved H2O. I loved everything about what we were to one another because I did not have that in my life.
00:57:28
Speaker
You know, that sense of belonging, the after hours kicking it. Those were some of the greatest times of my life because I did not have that belonging, that connection with anybody.
00:57:41
Speaker
Even now, like as an adult, I mean, there are things that have bonded me to people. but usually it's through like traumatic higher educational situations.
00:57:52
Speaker
you know So we prided over that. But like to be goofy, to kick it, to hang out, I didn't have that. So like having to walk away from that was one of the hardest things I had to do.
00:58:04
Speaker
But I had to go because we were not on the same page. It just was like, couldn't really get there. and I think in my way, I was trying to say,
00:58:17
Speaker
hey, I'm not in a good place. And the reasons why shit isn't looking the way it should on my end is because there's some shit going on. With Tiff, it was like, is we doing this or not?
00:58:30
Speaker
Like, you not coming the way I need you come? Bruh, somebody else can be in your place. Like, i remember that conversation. And this was at the peak of, like, my grand you know my grandmother had just been diagnosed with that.
00:58:44
Speaker
And I was like, in my early to mid 20s. And I was in my undergrad at San Francisco State. And I would come to leadership at that time, right after class.
00:58:58
Speaker
And sometimes I wouldn't have eaten or I wouldn't have had but I needed, but I knew I had to be here. And I was so depressed because there was a shit happening to me that I couldn't talk about.
00:59:12
Speaker
And you came in with this letterman jacket on, with somebody else one day ah you sat down and you looked at me and was like, are you happy here? do you want to be here?
00:59:26
Speaker
and I didn't know what to say.
00:59:29
Speaker
And then you were like, you know, cause somebody else could be here. Somebody else could take your place. And in my, everything in me, because I loved H2O because I love, but I was hurt and I was hurting and my grandmother was sick and she was my world.
00:59:46
Speaker
I said, silent to myself, you got it. I coming back. Because I couldn't. And there was no way to have that conversation.
00:59:58
Speaker
So wellness at that time looked a lot like doing shit that looked shady and looked a certain way on the surface. That if we would have just had a conversation, like a real conversation, it would have made a lot of sense.
01:00:12
Speaker
We just couldn't get there at that time. Yeah. Yeah. You just brought the real housewives version of mentorship to the podcast. This is what I'm here for.
01:00:25
Speaker
You just took the ratings through the roof, Jari, on that.
Healing and Forgiveness in Mentorship
01:00:28
Speaker
it You know, on a serious note, I'm only resourced now enough to hear that and not be defensive.
01:00:35
Speaker
Right. Two years ago, I would have still been able to give you a list of things, a rebuttal. And I'm like, yo What's most important is that you needed a very particular type of care and community and that was not present.
01:00:53
Speaker
And we did not offer that. I did not offer that to you. And I've said before and I've said on this podcast, like I am deeply sorry and hurt with you in hearing like that's just not cool.
01:01:07
Speaker
And hearing those direct quotes, that amazing. some accountability that god dang i need another six thousand dollars for the therapy you know to really show up meaningfully but what's really intense is like yep that was the hype and you know why that was the hype because that's how i was mentored i was mentored in a way where it was like yo we got stuff we got to do are you with us are you not you know mean
01:01:39
Speaker
And so hearing that now we have a language to know how toxic that is. yeah Now we had a language to understand that to your point, oh my God, that hit me so hard because yes, so many of us are mentored in a way to step away from feelings, to reach these end goals, to reach these objectives that we associate align with freedom.
01:02:01
Speaker
We align with liberation. We all align with community. And to your point, like that was a, gut punch right there is that your work is about feeling. All of our work is about feeling.
01:02:16
Speaker
And at some point, our activism, what is considered to be radical work, somewhere along the way, it became okay for that not to be centered. yeah And I have a lot of grief for all of us who are a part of that.
01:02:36
Speaker
who pass that on to other folks. And I love the way this is going because this is not what we envisioned necessarily. Maybe you did. Maybe you had some curveballs in there. I want to know, and maybe this is how we close, how do we get to where we are today then?
01:02:53
Speaker
a lot of people are not telling the truth about how they have been harmed through mentorship, how the core of their identities have been neglected in their relationships and doing this work. a lot of people are not honest or as you said, they just don't have a relationship to be able to communicate that.
01:03:12
Speaker
We at the beginning of stages of something really important, even as we talk sometimes, you know, it ain't what it was and it'll never be. and maybe that's a really good thing. Maybe that's a great thing because the foundation of that was not good anyway.
01:03:25
Speaker
But I believe that you and I are onto something really beautiful and powerful. And I'm hoping we can close with you sharing, like, how do you think any of this was even possible? Yeah, no, this is important because I didn't come out here to throw you under the bus. Hey, hey, hey, you told your truth. Ain't no throwing nobody under no bus.
01:03:44
Speaker
Facts. But I wanted to be real about that part of mentorship because that was a part of how I learned. And what changed the way I did things with my own young people. But, you know, in stepping away, i had a lot of other experiences and found myself really leaning on my craft more for me and being in spaces where that was the absolute necessity.
01:04:21
Speaker
It was like I had to unlearn everything to relearn new things. I started really trying to be serious about my writing. I really wanted to do this poet thing. And I was seeing examples of it across the country that I was not seeing in San Francisco.
01:04:37
Speaker
So I went to my first writing workshop at Kallalu. And I didn't know what the hell Kallalu was at the time, but it was a writing retreat, a very prestigious writing retreat for black writers.
01:04:50
Speaker
And that boot camp broke me open in a way that changed my life. It changed everything I thought I knew about writing and my intentions to write because when I first got there, the one thing that they hit me with initially was, we know you can write because you wouldn't be here if you couldn't, but we don't know nothing about you.
01:05:18
Speaker
You're not in none of this. And that shook me. And I began to recall all the work that we did, All the time that we spent, I was writing these poems.
01:05:31
Speaker
I wasn't writing by myself. I was having these experiences, going through these things, wasn't writing myself. Coming out of that, it didn't just change my work. It changed the way that i had to live my life.
01:05:44
Speaker
So coming back to the city, coming back to community, I began to look at situations differently in terms of Am I prioritizing myself? Am I prioritizing my my well-being?
01:05:58
Speaker
Do I feel good in my relationship with people? How is this growing me? And so after years and years of chasing that and like having different agendas that like was not facilitated by others, but like I'm chasing this thing. I'm chasing this.
01:06:16
Speaker
I'm chasing wellness. I'm chasing this through my craft. I'm chasing this. It gave me the space to be like, it's certain shit I'm not going to accept no more. It gave me a sense of that confidence that I lacked then.
01:06:31
Speaker
Just to kind of fast forward, therapy too is a thing. i was in therapy when I went to go do my MFA. I was in therapy way more consistently than I had been in my life but before.
01:06:44
Speaker
So a lot of stuff was coming up, just a lot of stuff. And you know, Stuff with you was so tough because it was like you were one of the most influential people in my life. And to this day, you know what I'm saying? Still. and so so knew i had a lot of love for you, but there was so much that had happened and that we had never talked about that it was like, I couldn't always access that love outside of being like, damn, but Tiff hurt me though. And that I felt like in those moments i had to protect myself.
01:07:15
Speaker
But what ended up happening was, I was toward the end of my MFA. I lost my grandmother. My grandmother died. That was really hard for me because she was everything for me. So losing her, ah felt like I didn't have any sex and that's anymore.
01:07:35
Speaker
just didn't have. So i started to think about forgiveness at a point. I was just so angry about a lot of things.
01:07:47
Speaker
And the work that I was doing when I was writing poems like dysphoria and some other poems that I was writing through my past, who I was as that kid, you know, seeking that love and not getting it.
01:08:06
Speaker
People who meant well, but had ultimately failed me then. All of my work, when I centered it around myself at that time, that's what was coming up. So,
01:08:17
Speaker
I knew in order to move past all of it, I had to access some type of forgiveness. So ended writing a letter because, you know, things were happening for me, like good things.
01:08:30
Speaker
I had gotten a grant at that time. i was graduating ah from my MFA at the time. And, you know, i didn't graduate from high school. So this was like a huge thing.
01:08:42
Speaker
And I was looking around. and I was like, damn, you know, i have all the success. This is what I wanted, but I'm not sharing it with who I wanted to share it with. You know, I wanted to share that with you. It took a lot for me to come back.
01:08:55
Speaker
And that was courageous. It was just so much courage to come back and say, yes, this person hurt me, but I'm in a space where I can recognize that I have a lot of love for them.
01:09:07
Speaker
And if there's something to be salvaged here, let's figure that out. But I had to come to that on my own. You know what I'm saying But that was really how we were able to get back. And so when we talked, it wasn't the same. you know what I'm saying? I noticed like, okay, you're listening to me.
01:09:26
Speaker
You ain't talking about I'm Cordell West. And in a bad way. And all that. All that rebuttal and all that was gone. You know? And I was like, alright, cool. And that was like, yeah my feet wet in that.
01:09:41
Speaker
But now, it's like, you and I can say that we love each other and it's not weird. It's not nothing. It's just facts. And that's powerful because I didn't grow up with that.
01:09:53
Speaker
But also like we came through so much shit that to be able to say that and mean it like our relationship now, the way I feel about you now, it's totally different from then.
01:10:05
Speaker
Like a lot of that is gone. you know what I'm saying? And by the grace of God like that, has been removed from my heart. Like that anger that I had, it's not there.
01:10:16
Speaker
And I think a lot of that came because we were able to come back and like do it again, start over again. and like me really meet in the middle because like you had gone through your own transformations, you know, back in the day, like that was not the thing, you know, Tiff was never really vulnerable unless it was like on some after hours tip, you know, and it was rare.
01:10:40
Speaker
But what really yeah shook me and coming back was like, yeah, Tiff was super vulnerable. You know what I'm saying? And I was like, okay, there's a lot of growth that I can see that like, you know, had that not have happened, like we wouldn't have been able to talk. You know what mean? Like, just so I think a lot of the pieces were in the right places at the right time for us to come back.
01:11:04
Speaker
And I'm really thankful for that. You know I'm saying? Like, Everything that happened, you know, it's like, man, I was watching other people, like people that I knew from like SF State and stuff, celebrating you and all this other stuff.
01:11:19
Speaker
And I was like, damn, bruh, I've actually known this person for forever and we're not talking. That's so crazy. You know, so I felt the way. I was definitely jealous of that.
01:11:30
Speaker
I was like, i don't like that. the hell y'all doing something? that I did not get the benefit from. And that you set the foundations to. And that as well.
01:11:42
Speaker
Because it took me to leave for y'all to get that. Hey, you always spit the truth, but I think it's being conveyed in a way that I just haven't heard.
01:11:55
Speaker
And so I have a lot of appreciation. And to your point, the work that, you know, you went off and did some work and I went off and did some work and therapy for me has become really vital in that, you know, I had a number of students. It was you and, you know, there was some other folks who were just like, yo, I am hurting.
01:12:12
Speaker
And yes, I benefit from this program. I benefit from the resources, but it does not have to be this way. yeah And i was able to learn from folks that we can experience greatness outside of pain, outside of pressure. And those things are valuable in certain spaces. And also, particularly as Black people, we have to create safe spaces for each other as much as possible.
01:12:43
Speaker
And whether or not you know that, you were my safe space as well. You know, I was, as I told you when we were coming back together, I was growing up with you. And I think people don't fully understand that.
01:12:57
Speaker
They assume the college degree means something, but I was growing up with you. And what an honor it was and still is to grow up and grow old together.
01:13:08
Speaker
We got to get out of here. But I don't know if you want to share something with folks because they may think I'm biased or something because of our relationship. But I'm trying to help them understand the GOAT status that is before them. You got anything you want to share real quick?
01:13:24
Speaker
Oh, man. Let me. ah Yeah, sure. Sure. ah I'll read this poem that's called Interior. It's one of the more joyful poems that I have.
01:13:36
Speaker
Interior. ah stroll the body's wilderness, those last truly wild places, an attempt to wrest joy from its hiding place, the body's expanse, its granular pleasures undisturbed.
01:13:54
Speaker
its strict reserves, its flora, its fauna. This is how I live with what has been done in the dark. Something inside me grows lips against the body's intolerable ravine, its treacherous gulches surely meant to drown me, an impossible sorrow, something within reaches toward the natural light, a wild phenomena, its act of witness,
01:14:24
Speaker
An untethering in the body's closed quarters. It's wild notes. A defiance. A disobedience. What I mean is joy is a wild thing.
01:14:37
Speaker
Interior. Rendered in the wilderness of my body when loosed.
01:14:44
Speaker
Oh. You know. There it is, everybody. know. Yeah. There it is. I tried to tell y'all. Definitely. Definitely. You can follow me at jab underscore poet on Twitter.
01:15:00
Speaker
You can follow me on Instagram at sojari, S-O-J-A-R-I, all lowercase, to find out more about what I'm doing. You can also go to my website to find out a little bit about what I've done at jaribradley.com.
01:15:14
Speaker
But for the most up-to-date information, you're going to want to follow social medias. So yeah, you know thank you so much, Tiff, for having me up here and also just allowing the world to know what we've been through, but also to showcase the love that we have for one another. And yeah, let's keep doing this thing.
01:15:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's been an honor, Jari. I love you and I love how you said it. When we say it, we mean it. I love you and thank you so much.
01:15:45
Speaker
Absolutely.
01:15:54
Speaker
In this episode, we explored teacher identity as it relates to wellness. Dr. Nadal reminds us of how critical it is for teachers to have an understanding of their own identities outside of just teacher.
01:16:08
Speaker
He reminds us that students can pick up on how connected teachers are to their own identities and how that modeling of identity can open up possibilities for the future.
01:16:20
Speaker
We explored and learned about cultural wisdom and expression as tools in developing and understanding our identities and how teachers should be critical of how they are mentored, especially if that mentorship does not center feelings of accountability or individual stories.
01:16:45
Speaker
And so as we close, I bring us back to my experience in that basement where my body was telling me this is not it.
01:16:59
Speaker
And we invite you today to somatically tap in to what your body is telling you about your work and the relationship that you have to it and how the identities that have come often from trauma, the positionalities that have come often from trauma are informing what your body is telling you right now in this moment.
01:17:28
Speaker
We invite you to do the sacred and spiritual work to unlearn what is necessary in order to ensure that both you and the communities that you serve are well.
01:17:45
Speaker
We say goodbye to the days of martyrdom. We say goodbye to the days in which one form of wellness compromises or is compromised for another.
01:17:59
Speaker
And today we hold fast to and seek to center for future generations our collective wellness.
01:18:21
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this episode of Drawing From The Well. I'm your host, Tiffany Marie. This podcast was produced by John Reyes and music by King Most.
01:18:35
Speaker
Join us as we continue the conversation at youthwellness.com.