Speaker 1: Welcome to The Laverne Cox Show, a production of shand
Speaker 1: Land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. We were
Speaker 1: the kaiser of our people. We were the hm of
Speaker 1: the land. Both colonial oppresses, yes, they saw us from
Speaker 1: what we were. We were a vehicle to stop their progression.
Speaker 1: We bore both physical energy and thestical energy, energetic imergy.
Speaker 1: We know how to manipulate yours and the level. Hello everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. I'm Laverne Cox.
Speaker 1: On this podcast, I've invited you to go on a
Speaker 1: journey with me towards healing from shame, trauma, attachment shoes,
Speaker 1: adverse childhood experiences and more. But I believe there's another
Speaker 1: essential element involved in healing that we may be briefly
Speaker 1: touched on here that haven't really done a deep dive
Speaker 1: into yet, and that spirituality. Now let me be clear,
Speaker 1: I am not talking about religion. I am talking about
Speaker 1: spirituality now. I love Renee Brown's definition of spirituality. You
Speaker 1: know we love Renee Brown. Here. Renee Brown defined spirituality
Speaker 1: as recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected
Speaker 1: to each other by a power that is greater than
Speaker 1: all of us, and that our connection to that power
Speaker 1: and to one another is grounded in love and compassion.
Speaker 1: Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and purpose
Speaker 1: into our lives. I believe spirituality is a crucial part
Speaker 1: of our healing, and I have the very most perfect
Speaker 1: person with whom to have this conversation with you today.
Speaker 1: I first met Valerie Spencer in two thousand twelve for
Speaker 1: a panel I was moderating for the National Black Justice
Speaker 1: Coalition in Washington, d C. Valerie was a panelist. Now,
Speaker 1: Valerie Spencer owns every single room she walks into, and
Speaker 1: she truly owned that panel. She has a present that
Speaker 1: is undeniable, that is anointed, that is everything. She is
Speaker 1: just that girl. I was familiar with Valerie Spencer because
Speaker 1: I had seen this incredible documentary called Beautiful Daughters that
Speaker 1: documents the very first all transgender production of Eve Insler's
Speaker 1: The Vagina Monologues. Valerie was in the documentary and she
Speaker 1: stole the show. She was incredible and it was clear
Speaker 1: to me then that she was a superstar, and over
Speaker 1: the years we've become really good friends. Valerie is the
Speaker 1: creator of the Holistic Empowerment Institute an organization which addresses
Speaker 1: empowerment on a social, cultural, and holistic basis for lgbt
Speaker 1: q I plus communities. For over two decades, Valerie Spencer
Speaker 1: has worked in social services focusing on health disparities as
Speaker 1: they relate to transgender people and others within lgbt q
Speaker 1: I plus communities. In two thousand eleven, the California Legislative
Speaker 1: lgbt Q Caucus officially recognized her as a state and
Speaker 1: national leader in the movement for lgbt q I plus
Speaker 1: political and social freedoms. She has worked with the federal government,
Speaker 1: health departments, universities, conferences, and community based organizations all over
Speaker 1: the country. Please enjoy my conversation with Valerie Spencer. Hello, Hello,
Speaker 1: Hello Lari Spencer. Welcome to the podcast. How are you
Speaker 1: failing today, my sister, I'm alive, I'm illuminated. I'm prepared
Speaker 1: to serve, alive, illuminated and prepared to serve. Amen. Hallelujah.
Speaker 1: I miss you. I haven't seen you in so long.
Speaker 1: We had a zoom or something, but it it's not
Speaker 1: the same, so we need to hang out in real life.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about sisterhood and I was thinking about
Speaker 1: what that has meant in my life and how I
Speaker 1: have such incredible trans women in my life and you're
Speaker 1: certainly one of them. Where there's no there's never been
Speaker 1: any competition. And when I think about competition, I think
Speaker 1: about competition for jobs. Even in the not for profit
Speaker 1: world that you've sort of been in for for most
Speaker 1: of your life, there's competition and backstabbing. And then for men,
Speaker 1: I said, there was a trans woman online talking about
Speaker 1: this this man who I who seemed very editory, who
Speaker 1: put her in competition with another trans woman, and I
Speaker 1: was just like, this is not when I'm living. And
Speaker 1: I thought, before we get into the incredible work that
Speaker 1: that you're doing with the Holistic Empowerment Institute, can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about your experience with what that
Speaker 1: is in our community. I want the girls, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm talking specifically about trans young trans women now before
Speaker 1: anyone else who this might apply to, to not be
Speaker 1: in competition with each other and also to be well
Speaker 1: and whole. What comes up for you when I say
Speaker 1: all that, Well, Typically when people talk about the deficits
Speaker 1: in our community, particularly around trans women sharing or competing
Speaker 1: the space, we tend to focus on the trans woman herself,
Speaker 1: or the trans women themselves, or the community itself. But
Speaker 1: the problem is actually not connected with the women at all.
Speaker 1: The problem has to do with having to navigate through
Speaker 1: and in a culture of society that does not fully celebrate,
Speaker 1: embrace or seen the woman that you are right. And
Speaker 1: so you've got to rally a cage. You've got to
Speaker 1: shake your baby rattle to be seen, to be noticed,
Speaker 1: you've got to say to the culture, look at me,
Speaker 1: I can walk. You know, all of those things that
Speaker 1: children do, all of those things that we all do
Speaker 1: as human beings to struggle to be seen. And so
Speaker 1: when we fixed and do that completely, and and we're
Speaker 1: not just talking about Pride parade signs, and and I
Speaker 1: am so pleased with all of the activism that sort
Speaker 1: of spawned this trans inclusion um the Gap has changed
Speaker 1: its website, So many things have happened, but these are
Speaker 1: tertiary at bets. But ulture has to accept the fact
Speaker 1: that your sons won't me, Am, your father's won't me,
Speaker 1: your uncle Teddy and them they want me? Now, do
Speaker 1: they want me more than you? Well that's a conversation
Speaker 1: I'm not privy to. However, they won't me, and they
Speaker 1: also see my womanhood. Now, you may not see my womanhood,
Speaker 1: and he may not get on this pulpit and talk
Speaker 1: about my womanhood, and he may not get in the
Speaker 1: ballot box or in the legislation office and talk about
Speaker 1: my woman But up and here the sanctuary, he validates, celebrates,
Speaker 1: and expresses fully his appreciation for this woman's body. Now,
Speaker 1: when we're begin to move the culture to the place
Speaker 1: where trans women are truly on equal footing with every
Speaker 1: other woman, then we can revisit the conversation of sharing
Speaker 1: and jockeying for space. But if you notice all women
Speaker 1: jockey for space and do strange things to compete for
Speaker 1: sexual space, I think perhaps it's just a part of
Speaker 1: the blow of womanhood, the blow of being that caregiven,
Speaker 1: that nurturing, that woman that really wants to see this
Speaker 1: person in her life. We do those things as women,
Speaker 1: but it's transporting. Probably the reason why we do them
Speaker 1: because the society does not embrace our womanhood not fully.
Speaker 1: I wonder what just came up for me is I
Speaker 1: wonder if we enough of us as trans women haven't
Speaker 1: fully divested of patriarchy. What I believe is that it
Speaker 1: is the patriarchy and When I say patriarchy, I mean
Speaker 1: institutional sexism, and we don't We don't need men for patriarchy.
Speaker 1: Women engage in patriarchy as well, but patriarchy, that patriarchal
Speaker 1: system pits women against each other. I like to talk
Speaker 1: about systems and structures because it's really important. But in
Speaker 1: the face of that, what is my responsibility? What is
Speaker 1: what can I do in my life to change my circumstances?
Speaker 1: Because they're both both and right. So what do you
Speaker 1: think about that? In relationship with patriarchy, Ladies and gentlemen
Speaker 1: and family human families understand I am reven bellary spensively.
Speaker 1: Sometimes nothing conveys the truth like a little piece of profanity.
Speaker 1: So here it comes. I think women have just got
Speaker 1: to put some more respect on their pussy. Girl, you
Speaker 1: have got to put some more respect on the instrument
Speaker 1: that you possess. You're throwing your pussy out here to
Speaker 1: the wolves to be too needing and coming home straight
Speaker 1: cat it. And we vet these individuals based on the package,
Speaker 1: based on the spit of game, the swag, the smell,
Speaker 1: the attention. But girl, we got to have a little
Speaker 1: bit more. See I'm over fifty. Perhaps that's it. I'm
Speaker 1: almost there. Next year i'll be You're gonna love You're
Speaker 1: You're gonna love your It's an explosion of goodness. Truss.
Speaker 1: Your thighs go eastant list to welcome out. But other
Speaker 1: than everything else, you're gonna live you. And I just
Speaker 1: think that for me, when I see trans women going
Speaker 1: through all this, it makes me want to parent. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: That's the beauty of thing in your fifties. You realize,
Speaker 1: I know my thighs can't compete. Stop competing. Let's parent
Speaker 1: and pour into And when I see trans women going
Speaker 1: through all this, it tells me that somebody, a mother
Speaker 1: figure auntie, somebody has not told you the value of
Speaker 1: your pussy. Footnote pussy is a colloquial term. Therefore, whatever
Speaker 1: I say, it's pussy, it's pussy. Now. The man that
Speaker 1: I'm with, when I tell him, eat this pussy, he
Speaker 1: knows exactly what I'm And I don't have to do
Speaker 1: a thesis on anatomy and trans psychology. If I say
Speaker 1: eat this, Listen, I'm talking about my elbow. He's going
Speaker 1: straight to that elbow. He knows just what I'm talking well,
Speaker 1: And so do you really know the value of your
Speaker 1: trans sexuality. Have you been taught that you have your
Speaker 1: own sexual power, your own sexual pool and vibrational pool,
Speaker 1: and so you don't need to compeople with another woman's
Speaker 1: energetic pool. You have your own and it works every time.
Speaker 1: Now will he marry you? Perhaps not, But if you
Speaker 1: audition a further, that may not be him. Amen. Amen.
Speaker 1: What I love about what you're saying is you're you're preaching. Um,
Speaker 1: You're preaching a gospel and a different one, but a
Speaker 1: very important one, because it's about our inherent, our inherent worth,
Speaker 1: the spirituality, the God that we carry within us, the sacredness,
Speaker 1: the sacred each of us whole. Because I think about,
Speaker 1: you know, when I was younger. I think about a
Speaker 1: relationship I was in for four years and two thousand
Speaker 1: and two five with an alcoholic who is emotionally abusive.
Speaker 1: And I believed at that time in my life, because
Speaker 1: I was trans, that that was the best that I
Speaker 1: could do, that no one would love me, that I
Speaker 1: was not lovable because I'm a black trans woman and
Speaker 1: nobody's gonna want me. And this man wants me, and
Speaker 1: I've met his mother. So here's where I am in
Speaker 1: that narrator You're all right. I may not be able
Speaker 1: to find a man who loves me. I may not
Speaker 1: be able to find that. And I'm fifty five and
Speaker 1: I brushed up against it, but I have yet to
Speaker 1: lock arms with it. But the one thing I do
Speaker 1: know that I do have agency over is that I
Speaker 1: will not be disregarded. I will not be disrespected for
Speaker 1: even for the sake of my own ego desire, even
Speaker 1: for the sake of my own vanity, even for the
Speaker 1: sake of my heart's desire, which is to be loved
Speaker 1: and affirmed by a strong man. Valerie, have you always
Speaker 1: been there? I haven't. What was the ship? When with
Speaker 1: the moment when you were like, Okay, I'm gonna put
Speaker 1: some respect on this pussy. I'm not going to allow
Speaker 1: what I used to allow. What was the ship? Because
Speaker 1: that's what the girls need to hear. How to shift
Speaker 1: out of that thinking, out of that mindset, into the
Speaker 1: one where we value what we have. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: I know this, You're never gonna send enough pictures to
Speaker 1: make this thing work, right. You'll be sending pictures of
Speaker 1: your colon, your pinky toe. You're fleeing the inside of
Speaker 1: your vagina, the outside of vagina, your prostate, your old
Speaker 1: You'll be sending pictures forever. Eventually somebody will tell you
Speaker 1: that they want you or they don't. Now that's one thing, yes.
Speaker 1: The other thing is I've been skinny, I've been fat,
Speaker 1: I've been skinny, I've been a little thicker than I
Speaker 1: used to be, and I still poll I'm clear about this.
Speaker 1: You know, there are a lot of inconvenient instan well,
Speaker 1: not a lot of inconveniences, but there are a couple
Speaker 1: of really key inconveniences to being in a trans woman,
Speaker 1: and this whole loving relationship piece is one of them,
Speaker 1: but one of the blessings of being a trans woman.
Speaker 1: I can have a horn in the top of my
Speaker 1: head and a fang. I can have gray hair with
Speaker 1: one breast that wraps around my whole neck, and I
Speaker 1: can walk outside to my sidewalk and whisper sex and
Speaker 1: people will come from everywhere. I can always pull some trade.
Speaker 1: This is that you are a trans woman. You can
Speaker 1: pull sex. Now that may not be your appetite, and
Speaker 1: you must get to know I really want love and intimacy.
Speaker 1: I need to grieve that because that's not what I'm having.
Speaker 1: Or I'm hot and I want some sex. Click. So
Speaker 1: when men come to us, now, this is the power
Speaker 1: of mine. When men come to us and think that
Speaker 1: they're doing us a favor by wanting to have some
Speaker 1: sort of sexual relations with us, that's a chop for me.
Speaker 1: But we need to put that in its full content,
Speaker 1: because here's what I said. Okay, daddy, you're just talking
Speaker 1: about being screw buddies. Well, now let me put you
Speaker 1: in the queue, because in this culture, I don't have
Speaker 1: a husband, but I have several auditions lined up for
Speaker 1: screw buddies. I'm sorry, you're number forty eight on the list.
Speaker 1: I'll call him three weeks and see whatever. Because this
Speaker 1: is not going to be the night in shining Armor.
Speaker 1: And once you reach a certain age, a certain level
Speaker 1: of maturity, you begin to see that yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: and this one wants you to hear. Then you begin
Speaker 1: to go ahead and grieve that. And it's a grieving,
Speaker 1: it's maybe a reality. But on the other side of
Speaker 1: that grief is the pussy respect I speak. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think even when I was single, I don't send naked pictures.
Speaker 1: There's just things I just don't do. And it's part
Speaker 1: and part of that is about the respecting myself. Part
Speaker 1: of that is I'm a public figure. We're not doing
Speaker 1: that because before I met my boyfriend, I was like,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll just you know, have an f WB situation,
Speaker 1: you know, like I was, I was auditioning guys. Even
Speaker 1: for that, I need a certain level of respect, consistency.
Speaker 1: We're meeting in public. There's just there are things that
Speaker 1: have to become unacceptable in terms of how you treat me,
Speaker 1: because I understand that this is divine. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: we're giving trends women so many instructional messages about how
Speaker 1: to navigate their body, all to change and switch their body.
Speaker 1: But the one thing we're not telling trans women it's
Speaker 1: okay to have a standard. Yes, and if he really
Speaker 1: wants you, he will meet that standard. Listen, a man
Speaker 1: is a man. I'm sorry, I'm full disclosure. I am
Speaker 1: highly heteronormative, I am highly gend the specific. I am
Speaker 1: a woman under cut and clean. IMA's vanilla as it comes.
Speaker 1: So here's my point of view. If a man loves you,
Speaker 1: if he truly loves you, he will bite through a
Speaker 1: brick wall and get to you. And if somebody says
Speaker 1: to him, hey man, that's brick. He will say, passed
Speaker 1: me some hot sauce because my woman's on the other
Speaker 1: side of the wall. So all these things that we do,
Speaker 1: cuting our head off, getting new faces. It's fun if
Speaker 1: they make us so good, but if he wants you,
Speaker 1: he wants you, and we can't make them, and we
Speaker 1: can't make them want us. I was. I was on
Speaker 1: a discussion with the girls yesterday. They show us very
Speaker 1: early on all the ghosting. It's like, Okay, he's not
Speaker 1: that into me. I'm moving on. I can't the inconsistency,
Speaker 1: I can't do. The go away, come closer, I can't do.
Speaker 1: And I'm in a space now. It's I've been dating
Speaker 1: this man for a year. We fell in love in December.
Speaker 1: I am madly in love. It's a love that I've
Speaker 1: never known before. I feel like Stephane Males, I never
Speaker 1: knew that like this people and it's wonderful. And I
Speaker 1: think like, I'm like, how in the world did this happened?
Speaker 1: And I know I've learned from my other relationships, but
Speaker 1: I also energetic ling have shifted. There's an energy that
Speaker 1: is shifted where I are at a certain point, I
Speaker 1: just don't attract the f boys anymore. They just I
Speaker 1: repelled them because they know they're not running that game
Speaker 1: on me. You know, I've always been a rather a
Speaker 1: rather dignified kind of girl. I mean that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's just why, And that in and of itself is
Speaker 1: a repellent. Knowing yourself clear about the game that's coming.
Speaker 1: You know, people can sort of see that. But I
Speaker 1: think with you, Laverne, you have a different relationship with
Speaker 1: appreciation than most of us do. Your physicality is appreciated,
Speaker 1: your talent is appreciated, and most of us just simply then,
Speaker 1: So what's the lesson of that? Valerie? Are the rest
Speaker 1: of us curse? But lavern is gonna get it? No,
Speaker 1: The lesson is to surround ourselves with people who only
Speaker 1: see it, yes, and appreciate us, and not just intimate partners,
Speaker 1: but people who see our vision, people who see our talent,
Speaker 1: people who see our physical beauty, yes, but people who
Speaker 1: dig our logic. Get in a new relationship with yourself
Speaker 1: so that you don't see yourself as an outsider trying
Speaker 1: to push in. You see yourself as in an appreciating Now,
Speaker 1: you are a worthy magnet. I gotta take a teensy
Speaker 1: break here, but I'll be fast. That wasn't so bad, now,
Speaker 1: wasn't Let's get back to it. In the podcast we
Speaker 1: did with Dr Joe just spends that he talks about
Speaker 1: creating the future we want for ourselves, um, not from
Speaker 1: the known, but from the unknown, and living it in
Speaker 1: the present, practicing gratitude for the future thing in this
Speaker 1: present moment as if it's already happened. So we can
Speaker 1: begin to rehearse in our lives on a daily basis
Speaker 1: for that energy that we want to surround ourselves with,
Speaker 1: and we can begin to vibrate on that energetic field.
Speaker 1: And that feels like really super important and really comes
Speaker 1: to the work that you're doing as as a holistic healer,
Speaker 1: as a therapist. Is there's so many other things so
Speaker 1: you've found at the Holistic Empowerment Institute. Can we start
Speaker 1: off by defining what you mean by holistic because we
Speaker 1: hear that word all the time and I don't know
Speaker 1: if we really know what it means. How do you
Speaker 1: define holistic? Well, that's why you're my sister, because you're perfect.
Speaker 1: That one question, my sister La learned has been the
Speaker 1: reason why h g I has been manifesting for well
Speaker 1: over a decade. What is holistic? And and in defining that,
Speaker 1: I couldn't find a definition outside of holistic is encompassing
Speaker 1: of those sort of environmental piece so finance, family, peers,
Speaker 1: relationship and love and safety, housing, medical or physical safety.
Speaker 1: But that's not what I meant as holistic. In power,
Speaker 1: I meant spiritually integrated. Yes, empowerment. Now what does that mean? Well,
Speaker 1: in order to define that, I went on a quest
Speaker 1: to define a really good definition of one word healing.
Speaker 1: I looked and I wasn't satisfied with most of the
Speaker 1: answers that defined healing. So I had to create one
Speaker 1: of myself. Yes, and I call healing a psycho spiritual shift.
Speaker 1: That just brought up a lot of stuff for me.
Speaker 1: What is a psycho spiritual shift? That was you? Just
Speaker 1: that was some of the energy of it right there, right,
Speaker 1: because it's energetic. Yeah, And so for our people, people
Speaker 1: of color, we experienced that psycho spiritual shift all the time.
Speaker 1: We seek it out. We usually do that in hurt
Speaker 1: settings and religious settings. Right. I call it a touch.
Speaker 1: We need a touch, And I call it a psycho
Speaker 1: spiritual shift that leads to a new perspective of past
Speaker 1: experiences are redefining of self and it also leads to
Speaker 1: a whole new way of living and behavior. And so
Speaker 1: h G I does that in a number of ways.
Speaker 1: Some of them don't look religious. The problem with doing
Speaker 1: things that are spiritually inclusive is that people want to
Speaker 1: figure out, like where does religion fit and does it
Speaker 1: fit because it's not. I don't want to be bothered.
Speaker 1: And so I was sitting on the beach and I
Speaker 1: was just thinking, you know, God help and spirits spoke
Speaker 1: to me and said, take the God out. It's problematic,
Speaker 1: it's complicated. Take the God out and and replace the
Speaker 1: God with what we are pulling people into what I
Speaker 1: call their sacred core. There's a sacred core, teaching them
Speaker 1: about the sacred interior. We're moving people out of a
Speaker 1: God that's over on Cringshaw somewhere and pulling them into
Speaker 1: themselves because that is the relationship. And so we'll be
Speaker 1: doing that in a number of voice. The first way
Speaker 1: we're doing it, I've wanted to have a love letter
Speaker 1: to the trans women in my life and all over
Speaker 1: the world. We want trans women to lead from a
Speaker 1: full context of themselves, but also to see the community
Speaker 1: the transformune to that deleting in the full context of
Speaker 1: who they are. So we're taught that trans communities are
Speaker 1: disease burdened. I even saw a smoking sensation presentation where
Speaker 1: they quoted that trans people's trans women smoke more than
Speaker 1: anybody else. They have no data to support it. I said,
Speaker 1: I know several queens, and I know maybe two or
Speaker 1: three that's smoke. Where y'all finding this? fIF a queen's
Speaker 1: who will they be? Right? So we're gonna teach our
Speaker 1: people to not see trans women in terms of deficity.
Speaker 1: We want trans women to lead trans people from a
Speaker 1: place of knowing our people is powerful. Yeah, we want
Speaker 1: to know our people outside of the deficit narrative. Who
Speaker 1: are you? Who have you been in Africa? Who have
Speaker 1: you been in Native America? Who have you been in Brazil?
Speaker 1: Who have you been in Asia? Who have you been
Speaker 1: in Russia? Practice? Who are you? Glow? Who are you right?
Speaker 1: Not just this? I want to change my set. I
Speaker 1: don't like my breast, I don't like the shape of
Speaker 1: my thing. Who are you? That's not who you are?
Speaker 1: Are you suggesting all of who you are as your aesthetics? No,
Speaker 1: you have healing in your end, you are trans Your
Speaker 1: purpose is to be an intermediary between spirit and human God.
Speaker 1: That's who we've served, right, So we want to teach
Speaker 1: our people a whole new way, leading with skill sets,
Speaker 1: but also this thing, our compassion m hm, to really
Speaker 1: build this platform called spiritually integrated holistic empowerment. We're building
Speaker 1: the model as we speak, got it, spiritually integrated holistic empowerment.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? That means we know how our
Speaker 1: people heal. We use both evidence based practices and we
Speaker 1: merge them with the sacred. So we'll be using interventions
Speaker 1: in behavior health to relieve depression and anxiety, social anxiety
Speaker 1: and all those things. We'll be using some of those
Speaker 1: evidence based practices, but we also know that a good
Speaker 1: pot of greens is very healing. The process of cooking
Speaker 1: back is very hell. We also know that rocking and
Speaker 1: amone mm hmmm kept her out of prison and kept
Speaker 1: you alive. Right, So we'll be bringing to like the
Speaker 1: ways that our people heal. Our people heals through the vogue.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen him? Girl? I can't watch it
Speaker 1: in person. I don't go, but I can't after leave
Speaker 1: because I'm having a religious experience. Yes, ma'am, it's not.
Speaker 1: And you think about the vogueing and how that the
Speaker 1: connection to vogue in Africa, right, and that that the
Speaker 1: rhythms right, Vogueing is an an American art form that
Speaker 1: has gone all over the world. It's very exciting you're
Speaker 1: thinking about that lineage. I love how connected to to
Speaker 1: all of the spirit you are. But when you talked
Speaker 1: about rocking and moaning, what was really beautiful for me?
Speaker 1: As I love bringing in other things we've talked about
Speaker 1: on the podcast, that feels so in the parlance of
Speaker 1: the community resiliency modeling from the Trauma Research Institute, that
Speaker 1: rocking and humming is a resource that actually stimulates the
Speaker 1: vagus nerve and can reset our nervous system and then
Speaker 1: begin to facilitate that psycho spiritual shift. Right. That also
Speaker 1: is the power of the own, the power of the
Speaker 1: ome re centers. That nerve oxygenates the brain, the all
Speaker 1: in its full breath, right does that as well. Every
Speaker 1: culture has their way of sort of having a reset,
Speaker 1: right Nomi Horano, Nomi right, home shanty shanty home, shanty,
Speaker 1: shanty o. All of us have those ways of sort
Speaker 1: of reoxygenating the brain, re centering the snaps firing in
Speaker 1: the brain and coming together. I love those things and
Speaker 1: I love finding the connections between the I think we
Speaker 1: were Buddhism and a few other things in um the
Speaker 1: Baptist Church, and then integrating that with like Trauma Resiliency ORG. Right,
Speaker 1: that is the end, that is thematic that is connected
Speaker 1: to the body. Welcome to holistic compartment institute. That yeah,
Speaker 1: and for me that is really exciting. I have a
Speaker 1: holistic doctor here in l a doctor Henry, and she
Speaker 1: focuses on the physical part. In my therapist who's a
Speaker 1: trauma resiliency therapist sent me to doctor Henry. And what
Speaker 1: she illuminated to me I've been with her for um
Speaker 1: four or five years now, is that regular Western medicine
Speaker 1: basically like they can prescribe drugs or give you surgery.
Speaker 1: There's nothing really preventative. And what they do and so
Speaker 1: with Dr Henry, we talk about my gut help. We
Speaker 1: do acupuncture, we do microcurrent, we do heart rate variability,
Speaker 1: we do all these things that like, well, what's going on.
Speaker 1: If this is happening, Let's look at your diet, let's
Speaker 1: look at your sleep patterns, let's look at all these
Speaker 1: things like sort of on a physical level. Now, see,
Speaker 1: I want to take it further as the spiritually integrated therapists.
Speaker 1: I need to know more. I need to know do
Speaker 1: you know who your ancestors are? Who are the relationships
Speaker 1: with it? We need to repair, right, We may need
Speaker 1: you to do some ancestral repair work. And good god,
Speaker 1: I found that to be so useful. Ancestral repair work.
Speaker 1: That feat sounds like for people out there, what are
Speaker 1: you talking about? That's a little esoteric ancestral repair work
Speaker 1: or we're talking seances or so like, can you break
Speaker 1: that down for us? Because I find that really fascinating.
Speaker 1: So energy does not end, well, speak, he doesn't dissiplate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it always continues. It's not. It is only transformed continuous
Speaker 1: that always it transmutes the changes form. So Grandmama may
Speaker 1: not be Grandma, but that energy is still pleasant with us. Right,
Speaker 1: and we know that the divine doesn't really operate in here.
Speaker 1: There's then mouths, a penny, a million. The spirit of
Speaker 1: life doesn't really operate in those sort of limitations. So
Speaker 1: if you're having a relationship with yourself based on somebody's
Speaker 1: information that that was given to you about yourself, we
Speaker 1: may need to go and clear some that up, and
Speaker 1: we might need to I took one of my clients
Speaker 1: to the beach and we had a great talk with grandmama.
Speaker 1: I take a lot of my clients to water because
Speaker 1: I believe the water doesn't work. And she did. She
Speaker 1: begin to right, you were wrong about me not going
Speaker 1: to him. I'm gonna be okay. So now we can
Speaker 1: begin to build a whole new relationship with that ancestor.
Speaker 1: Because in the African tradition, we use our and in
Speaker 1: the Latin many traditions Ethano traditions, we use our ancestors
Speaker 1: as resource. They are a part of our ammunition. So
Speaker 1: when I do both therapy and spiritual council, I'm asking
Speaker 1: people about your therapeutic tools, like are you doing your
Speaker 1: affirmative work? Are you doing your writing? Are you doing journaling?
Speaker 1: Are you breathing? Doing mindful MI six? But I'm also
Speaker 1: asking are you engage? Have you engaged your ancestor on this?
Speaker 1: Have you spoke some a permitive I do teach a
Speaker 1: permitive prayer. What is the affirmative prayer? What an affermitive
Speaker 1: prayer is speaking from? So what you're friend talked about
Speaker 1: earlier about sort of navigating yourself from a place that
Speaker 1: it is already accomplished. That is really scriptural, really call
Speaker 1: things that be not as it were. Permitive prayer speaks
Speaker 1: from a place of knowing already one's oneness with the
Speaker 1: spirit of life. Right, So we're not begging God to
Speaker 1: do something. We're stepping into who we are as citizens
Speaker 1: of the spirit and speaking our word expecting it to unfold,
Speaker 1: because that is the promise and that is the law.
Speaker 1: So we're very mindful of the prayer we put out.
Speaker 1: Like you know, in my training, we had to as
Speaker 1: a spiritual counsel, we had to write our prayers and
Speaker 1: have them critiqued. Oh yes, maybe, and they were. Christina
Speaker 1: Applegate sat next to me. We were like, dang, I
Speaker 1: got beat up critiquing a prayer Jesus Christ and grading
Speaker 1: a prayer and grading your science. Mind was no criteria
Speaker 1: for um for grading a prayer. So and reading our
Speaker 1: prayers your your comfortence this this this line here that
Speaker 1: speaks of separation. That is not unifying, That is not you,
Speaker 1: That is not affirmative. Okay, well this time this is denials.
Speaker 1: We don't use denials. We don't say things like God
Speaker 1: I don't want um, so we don't speak, and God,
Speaker 1: please don't let them be in a council. Wait wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: we're not doing denials. We're speaking in front of my
Speaker 1: body operates and complete vitality and overwhelming health. That is
Speaker 1: my DNA and my birth flight is the law of
Speaker 1: the spirit that I'm speaking. We speak that you don't
Speaker 1: speak no thing. I'm hot and behind a bush. Don't
Speaker 1: let him give me no. No, that's a power less prayer.
Speaker 1: Oh so much comes up for me. I think about
Speaker 1: negative self talk, which came up for me really strong
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, And it's just an old habit and
Speaker 1: that what we say can ship a thought, can shift
Speaker 1: us into trauma, can after our bodies into shame just
Speaker 1: a negative thought or negative self talk. So what is
Speaker 1: so beautiful about what you're saying now on a spiritual
Speaker 1: level is that um neurobiologically, it also begins to set
Speaker 1: up their nervous system for resilience. It's just a the
Speaker 1: nervous system for trauma resilience, for shame resilience. Can I
Speaker 1: say that another way? Absolutely, you begin to set up
Speaker 1: a whole another pattern of habituation in terms of how
Speaker 1: to process trauma, how to encode trauma, how to resist trauma?
Speaker 1: Asked trauma? Right, when you live your life from a
Speaker 1: place of knowing fully who you are, some things just
Speaker 1: don't affect you like they affect other people, or how
Speaker 1: they used to affect you. Why because you don't see
Speaker 1: yourself as this weak, needy, vulnerable, wanting to be loved transperson.
Speaker 1: I really think that language for us has become toxic. Right,
Speaker 1: This whole wanting to be trans is trying to be trans.
Speaker 1: Quit trans will be you. The definition will catch up
Speaker 1: to you and wrap itself around you. You don't need
Speaker 1: to wrap yourself around the definition of trans. It's gonna
Speaker 1: change in ten years anyway. I want to fortify you
Speaker 1: so that you see yourself as powerful, as beautiful. That
Speaker 1: you know what your skill sets are, that you know
Speaker 1: what your talents are, that you know what your triggers are,
Speaker 1: but also you know your weapons are not to fire
Speaker 1: back at the attack, but to form a worthy shield.
Speaker 1: You can't call me a man in a dress, and
Speaker 1: that shodow my existence today. I mean, well, first of all,
Speaker 1: I have proof that it's not true. I do have
Speaker 1: a stunning mirror. However, however, I've been through too much.
Speaker 1: I know myself too much. I know the source of
Speaker 1: the attack. That's the other piece we don't teach our well,
Speaker 1: the source of the attack. Hey, look y'all, that's the
Speaker 1: man that was never about you. That was a protective
Speaker 1: factor that people do for themselves. That was a trigger
Speaker 1: response because many Cistean women, when trans women walk into
Speaker 1: a room, we become very self and dieting for sisteent women, right,
Speaker 1: for some thank you for that. I don't want to generalize.
Speaker 1: You know, she's like that. Why am I like this?
Speaker 1: And many people process it through attack instead of just saying, wow,
Speaker 1: what a beautiful another form of woman as I am
Speaker 1: as well. Right, But when you begin to fortify yourself,
Speaker 1: you have a different relationship to abuse and that psycho
Speaker 1: spiritual shift, it really does happen, and it changes, It
Speaker 1: just changes everything. I always think about what gets in
Speaker 1: the way for some of the some of the girls,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of our young trans sisters may
Speaker 1: be dealing with like survival, sex, work and just in environment.
Speaker 1: Environment is so key. My my boyfriend always says, we're
Speaker 1: part of of our environment, and so it's that who
Speaker 1: do we surround ourselves? With and we're talking about spiritual fortification.
Speaker 1: We have to be surrounded by people and energy. We
Speaker 1: that that that is going to reinforce that that force
Speaker 1: spiritual fortification. So we may need to let some people go.
Speaker 1: We may need to like move out of this home
Speaker 1: that is not you know, that's toxic if we can, right,
Speaker 1: We may need to get out of this relationship or
Speaker 1: let this girlfriend go who doesn't see really see it
Speaker 1: for us to find that spiritual fortification and to step
Speaker 1: into what we're meant to be. And you know, I
Speaker 1: always think about when you talk like that, I think
Speaker 1: about my angelus poem for our grandmother said for often
Speaker 1: quotes she says that I come as one, but I
Speaker 1: stand as ten thousand and you just pulled up my girl.
Speaker 1: Now waitman, you talk about my mama. Now hold up.
Speaker 1: But that statement that maya made. When I read that,
Speaker 1: that came why I love being a transformer, because I
Speaker 1: am not just this diagnostic physicality that you see. M hm.
Speaker 1: I am so lady Java that beguiled your granddaddy. I
Speaker 1: am Christine Jurgensen. That said a whole new conversation about
Speaker 1: body physicality. Right, My value goes beyond Valerie Senser. My
Speaker 1: value goes beyond this thing called trans. I have been
Speaker 1: so useful and fought after throughout cultures. So I'm not
Speaker 1: just this queen who was teased and ostracized in south
Speaker 1: central Los Angeles. That's the factual merit. The truth of
Speaker 1: it is, Oh, honey, I am the Faa. I am
Speaker 1: the Burbadash. I am the Hezra, I am the truth spirit.
Speaker 1: I am the Shaman. I am the who do priestess.
Speaker 1: I am the priestess. I have been on than Santaria
Speaker 1: and Budom Catholicism, So we know ourselves differently. We have
Speaker 1: been given it's very narrow margin of understanding about ourselves
Speaker 1: and the link between that and colonialism. It's so important
Speaker 1: to always emphasize and to always talk about that, that
Speaker 1: that the way European colonialism colonized so much of the world,
Speaker 1: where we were viewed as sacred beings right and indigenous
Speaker 1: cultures all over the world, and and and European colonialism
Speaker 1: came in and said, what is this, This is not
Speaker 1: of Jesus Christ and marginalized us. And I always invite
Speaker 1: young trans people to connect with that history and realize
Speaker 1: that they are anointed and I feel like that's what
Speaker 1: you're talking about now. When when I had a look
Speaker 1: on this on this podcast, the local was saying to
Speaker 1: trans people always been spiritual leaders. That is what we
Speaker 1: are here for. And and you know we can step
Speaker 1: into that or not. They're the reason why they saw
Speaker 1: us as even as and pagan. There's a reason why
Speaker 1: they saw us as out. Of course, we presented certain
Speaker 1: gender physicality that they did not understand. But the receipts
Speaker 1: were the receipts. And here's what I mean by that.
Speaker 1: The receipts were when the trans woman went over their
Speaker 1: growth house, that baby don't have their code nor move.
Speaker 1: The receipts were when the trans woman showed over at
Speaker 1: that dry crop. It was a dry clop. Not six
Speaker 1: weeks later they got all kind of corn over there.
Speaker 1: The receipts were the receipts. We were the kaiser of
Speaker 1: our people. We were the hm of the land. Those
Speaker 1: colonial oppresses, yes, they saw us for what we were.
Speaker 1: We were a vehicle to stop their progression. We bore
Speaker 1: both physical energy, ancestral energy, energetic energy. We knew how
Speaker 1: to manipulate the earth and the Let we ship. It's
Speaker 1: time for a short break when we come back more
Speaker 1: with our guest. Alrighty, then let's just dive right back in.
Speaker 1: And when I think about the current sort of anti trans,
Speaker 1: like vigorous anti trans push from conservatives, it's like, can
Speaker 1: we just allow us to be great? Allow us to
Speaker 1: step into the divineness that we are? And I think
Speaker 1: we can give ourselves permission. One of the many things
Speaker 1: I love about you is that you have not You've
Speaker 1: not waiting for anybody to give you permission to like,
Speaker 1: to to be great, to be well. I must consess.
Speaker 1: I did. I did, now, let me tell you. In
Speaker 1: my late thirties, I had a huge resentment because I
Speaker 1: just thought, if I just stay bright and cunning and
Speaker 1: smiling and nice and upbeat, that Oprah is gonna come
Speaker 1: get me. I'm telling you ad At about thirty eight,
Speaker 1: it occur to me that Oprah was not coming to
Speaker 1: give me. That I was actually gonna have to produce this.
Speaker 1: That's why I went back to school, because I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: well she came and got I come get me once
Speaker 1: I really got and the other piece of earn. And
Speaker 1: I really want your listeners to connect with this, Assess
Speaker 1: yourself and be honest, because sometimes the current lanes in,
Speaker 1: as bright and shiny and seemingly successful producing as they
Speaker 1: may be, they just don't fit for you. I was
Speaker 1: somebody just trying to learn how to diagnose and and
Speaker 1: Department of Mental Health and all those things that I
Speaker 1: was not asking questions like like where are you feeling
Speaker 1: this in your body? The somatic questions. Who came to
Speaker 1: you last night and talk to you about this? You
Speaker 1: know what ancestor have you been to me? And after
Speaker 1: a while I had to give my my self permission
Speaker 1: to let my freaking flag fly. I just have to
Speaker 1: because it felt like work and I can't do work.
Speaker 1: I learned that years ago. I just I can't work.
Speaker 1: And what I think you mean is that when you're
Speaker 1: doing something that you love, when it is aligned with
Speaker 1: a purpose that is bigger than you, it doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like work. It feels effortless and fun and oh my god,
Speaker 1: they sent me money, right, And you know, there are
Speaker 1: sometimes in that you may clean a toilet, you may
Speaker 1: have to pick up a chair and move it. You
Speaker 1: you know, the ease and difficulty of whatever task is.
Speaker 1: That's not really irrelevant. The relevance is that I feel
Speaker 1: so appreciated and valued. Here, I appreciate and value all
Speaker 1: these people. I feel safe. It doesn't feel like work,
Speaker 1: but I've had jobs that felt like and it feels
Speaker 1: like work, and part of that toxic I want to
Speaker 1: listen to such a self free baby, because part of
Speaker 1: that toxic work is getting yourself together to get up
Speaker 1: every day to go deal with that toxic work. You
Speaker 1: need to do some work that's not work. Some of
Speaker 1: us just can't do it. And I think I've been
Speaker 1: thinking a lot about toxic stress in my life. And
Speaker 1: I have lived a very stressful life over the past
Speaker 1: few years, and there's a lot of pressure on me
Speaker 1: and my job, and I'm just like, how do what
Speaker 1: does it look like for me to let that go?
Speaker 1: But the toxic stress actually proceeds me being famous Leaver
Speaker 1: and Cox. It goes back to childhood stuff. It's historical,
Speaker 1: so like trying to make decisions now for my healing,
Speaker 1: for me to be more connected to the ancestors, connected
Speaker 1: to to love, being in love now, it's really all
Speaker 1: about love that when you really are in love or
Speaker 1: feel love, it's not even just about romantic love, feeling
Speaker 1: love for music, or feeling love for acting, or art
Speaker 1: and being creative, that there's something that shifts in my
Speaker 1: body that is just so connected. And when things go awride,
Speaker 1: I get in my head I'm not I'm not feeling
Speaker 1: allowing myself to feel the love in my body, and
Speaker 1: I'm not allowing myself to be connected. It's maybe a
Speaker 1: connection to my girlfriends, a connection to the love I
Speaker 1: have preparing for this podcast. I have love. I have love.
Speaker 1: Really doing the work for this podcast has been so
Speaker 1: joyous for me, and I feel connected when I do
Speaker 1: that connection to another human being, connected to a power,
Speaker 1: the energy of the universe, that that is bigger than me,
Speaker 1: connected to a purpose, that this same thing is not
Speaker 1: just about me looking cute on Instagram it's a glare
Speaker 1: or or low wive or whatever, that there is a
Speaker 1: purpose attached to it. In connection, then that begins to
Speaker 1: shift the energy in my body, that begins to like
Speaker 1: to heal, It begins to heal, and that that that
Speaker 1: that's the one there it is. Some of them will
Speaker 1: dis over if we're honest that self awareness alone did
Speaker 1: not quite do it. Academic cognitive critical understanding didn't do it.
Speaker 1: We needed something that wasn't religious, and religion has been
Speaker 1: really oppressive for our people, specifically LGBT, and actually for
Speaker 1: everybody religion all overlooking what's going on global as we
Speaker 1: have so hijacked God and may God out to be
Speaker 1: this evil motherfucker that's like, you know, my daddy was
Speaker 1: like this temp with to have on you. Don't do
Speaker 1: it in my way. I'm gonna not to hell out
Speaker 1: you where my money at? Is this the energy that
Speaker 1: said let that be light? Or was it like it's
Speaker 1: turned to goddamn lights on me and I'm programmed to
Speaker 1: learn life's lessons by way of mistake and you're gonna
Speaker 1: burn me forever for that. That's why God said to me,
Speaker 1: take take me out, you know were I want to
Speaker 1: offer a frame to what you were saying earlier. However,
Speaker 1: I think it also requires safety and honesty because if
Speaker 1: I feel safe, if I feel safe, I'll allow myself
Speaker 1: to connect with those things or to do those things.
Speaker 1: And if I'm honest. Now, that one is a big, big, big, big, big,
Speaker 1: big big, because we've got a lot invested in those
Speaker 1: narratives and they are multi variant and dynamic, they are
Speaker 1: organic and living, and I always like to ask my clients,
Speaker 1: what's the truth. We need that. Okay, what's the truth?
Speaker 1: We need that? Okay, what's the truth? Be needs that
Speaker 1: until we hit a hard layer of I was trying
Speaker 1: to buy love. And so if I feel safe, then
Speaker 1: I will feel so safe that I'll be honest. And
Speaker 1: when I'm honest, a whole bunch of magical things start happening.
Speaker 1: First of all, when I'm honest, those ancestors present themselves
Speaker 1: to you and say Hi, I'm here with your name
Speaker 1: and Marcus bags. Are you ready? They become like spiritual concierge. Right,
Speaker 1: the difficulty of life is taken out because we've got
Speaker 1: other resources. Right. I don't have a personal assistant, I
Speaker 1: do have prayer. So I'm trying to promote people feelings safe.
Speaker 1: The other thing that you mentioned leads into this. Those
Speaker 1: Instagram posting don't need a purpose what the heck for?
Speaker 1: They're fun. They are they are, they are, they are
Speaker 1: Laverne being. That's that, And so should anyone look at
Speaker 1: that and say, well, what's the meaning behind that? Nothing
Speaker 1: on Instagram getting my entire life because my body is fabulous.
Speaker 1: I'm in a fabulous place, and I came to check
Speaker 1: them up. I can't. I'm the instrument in illumination, get
Speaker 1: into it. I am the instrument and illumination. I love
Speaker 1: the you. We have to wrap up soon, but I
Speaker 1: love that you talked about safety, because none of this
Speaker 1: work is possible without safety. The point of trauma resilience
Speaker 1: found work is to move out of the fight flight
Speaker 1: or freeze. If our nervous systems are in the constant
Speaker 1: fight flighter freeze, if we've experienced trauma discrimination. I believe
Speaker 1: that our LGBTQ community, particularly transmarine of color, are constantly
Speaker 1: in that survival fight flighter freeze where we never feel safe.
Speaker 1: And so if we never feel safe, we can't do
Speaker 1: any of this work. We can't do any work because
Speaker 1: we're in the Olympic brain. We're not in our prefrontal cortex.
Speaker 1: We're not in that resilient place. So we have to
Speaker 1: get ourselves out of that heightened fight flight or freeze.
Speaker 1: I'm in danger that we've been talking about this on
Speaker 1: the podcast since we started. It becomes a fog, that
Speaker 1: fight flight response that you speak of. It becomes like
Speaker 1: a permanent existence fall and so it sounds like illogical
Speaker 1: decision make it sounds like a questionable impulse control. It's
Speaker 1: just that fall of the trauma in survival, trauma, survival
Speaker 1: and affirmation. Too much trauma, not enough survival, complete depletion
Speaker 1: of affirmation. This culture does not affirm us unless we
Speaker 1: are bionically beautiful. Everybody can look like y'all, and then
Speaker 1: it's still contingent because we age because we want to
Speaker 1: get fat. You're never gonna a patriarchy, You're never gonna age,
Speaker 1: and you know you're never gonna get sat Please stop
Speaker 1: anyway before I ask the last question that in the
Speaker 1: podcast with I just want to um what I love,
Speaker 1: always loved about you is that there is something deeply
Speaker 1: connected to the earth, to spirituality, to something that is bigger,
Speaker 1: that's just something that is divine, and that that is
Speaker 1: deeply necessary for us going forward as trans people. There's
Speaker 1: were so visible now in ways that we have never
Speaker 1: can never really imagine. But we really desperately need this
Speaker 1: spiritual component as we go forward. We really do. We
Speaker 1: need deeper capacities to love people who are coming for us.
Speaker 1: But we can't do that if we're not loving ourselves.
Speaker 1: And what you have given us today is like a
Speaker 1: deep understanding of like the ways in which we can
Speaker 1: love ourselves that are deeply connected to our ancestors, to
Speaker 1: the earth, to the God that that is within us.
Speaker 1: And this is crucial right now as we face the
Speaker 1: battles of just everyday life. And so this is out
Speaker 1: there and it's available, and it's waiting. It's it's right here,
Speaker 1: and it is who you are already. So the inheritance
Speaker 1: sound is the trends soul. Let let me be clear
Speaker 1: before let me get my commercials there. The truth sound
Speaker 1: is the you. The inheritance sound is this thing called transgender.
Speaker 1: We also, in our loving of ourselves, we have to
Speaker 1: examine our relationship to this terminology. M I retired from
Speaker 1: being trans. I stepped back in where it pays, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's become lucrative in some spaces. But in my
Speaker 1: life every day, oh my god, being transgendous too much
Speaker 1: work on my word? Right, where's the appreciation? Where's the validation?
Speaker 1: It has me living in social anxiety, thinking that people
Speaker 1: want to attack me or harmy And that may be true,
Speaker 1: but that keeps me from blocking that attack with my
Speaker 1: sickening nous, right because I'm so busy focused on Am
Speaker 1: I enough trans and invite people to yes, appreciate the
Speaker 1: legacy the lineage of being trans. But who are you
Speaker 1: A No, that's the harder question to answer. That's the
Speaker 1: deeper point of inquiry. Who am I? I'm more than
Speaker 1: that Now. I see myself as much more than trans. Therefore,
Speaker 1: I see myself as having the availa ability to experience
Speaker 1: something beyond the trauma that is trans. But bemind you,
Speaker 1: I want to make it seem like I've gotten off
Speaker 1: trans trauma free. In my life. The trauma was like
Speaker 1: a miss. You didn't know why you didn't get the job,
Speaker 1: but you didn't get the job. Right. You were interviewed
Speaker 1: by a man. Oh my god, that man was handsome
Speaker 1: and he said all the great things that you know
Speaker 1: you were gonna get the job. You blamed yourself. You
Speaker 1: didn't know it was about him. He liked queens. He's
Speaker 1: always like queens. If he hired you, he was gonna
Speaker 1: get clocked, so he couldn't have you here. You didn't
Speaker 1: know that. There's that's a whole podcast. But that's the
Speaker 1: beauty of being a thing. Oh, I know the team.
Speaker 1: Some attacks don't attack you like they used to because
Speaker 1: you know you know that the attacker. It's like I
Speaker 1: know that if I let you into my house, I
Speaker 1: know exactly what position you will be getting into within
Speaker 1: sixteen men, I know exactly who you are. So I
Speaker 1: know who you are, so it doesn't bother still, couldn't
Speaker 1: I know what you want? The Reverend Reverend Reverend s Mencer, Girl,
Speaker 1: we gotta end this podcast. I love you so much.
Speaker 1: I love this spirituality. With the key key we end
Speaker 1: the Laverne Cock Show with this question what else is true?
Speaker 1: And it's taken from my somatic therapy through the community
Speaker 1: resiliency model, and it's the idea of both. And if
Speaker 1: there's something challenging in my life, something else is true.
Speaker 1: If I'm feeling pain in one part of my body,
Speaker 1: there may be a part of my body where it's
Speaker 1: neutral and positive. So if I can focus on that
Speaker 1: other thing that is true, I can lift the pain
Speaker 1: anxiety of this thing that is weighing me down. Reverend
Speaker 1: Valerie Spencer, for you today, on this day, what else
Speaker 1: is true? For you? I am always supported. I may
Speaker 1: can't see the support, I may can't even smell the
Speaker 1: support or even have an internal navigation of where it is.
Speaker 1: But if I can just get still for a nano
Speaker 1: second and remind myself, heyy, you know that you're supported, Bryan.
Speaker 1: We feel often alone, We feel that we have to
Speaker 1: navigate theseselves by ourselves. I often feel like if I
Speaker 1: admit my unknowing, you know, people will see me as
Speaker 1: a failure or not enough, and let them see that
Speaker 1: I am always supporting. I'm always gonna be okay, even
Speaker 1: if I'm penniless and broke, because I'm a queen. I
Speaker 1: can make pennies and broke look like the mett gallant. Dear,
Speaker 1: I'm a queen, So don't you know, please don't see
Speaker 1: your transness as a deficit. That's your battery, that's your power,
Speaker 1: that's your songs. Valerie Spencer, I love you so much
Speaker 1: or ever you look good. Thank you. Okay, bye, y'all.
Speaker 1: Y'all gonna make me ms Joey read in the CBC. Okay,
Speaker 1: be well, Lebern call me here. I will call you
Speaker 1: be well. Be well. M M. That was good, right.
Speaker 1: I love me some. Valerie Spencer. She's a key, key,
Speaker 1: but she's so spiritually grounded and she always has been.
Speaker 1: And the phrase that just knocked me on my on
Speaker 1: my booty, I go spiritual shift the way Valorie talked
Speaker 1: about it reminds me of sort of getting the spirit,
Speaker 1: you know, when the preachers preaching and some some truth
Speaker 1: comes over you. If the spirit hits you, when you
Speaker 1: get the Holy Ghost, that's what a psycho spiritual shifts
Speaker 1: or feels like. But then like taking it out of
Speaker 1: the context of of church and and also thinking that
Speaker 1: we all have a sacred core, that her work is
Speaker 1: about inviting us to tap into our sacred core, and
Speaker 1: it's it's inside of us, but it is also connected
Speaker 1: to ancestors, it's connected to an energy that's bigger than us.
Speaker 1: I think it feels like she's talking about the quantum
Speaker 1: field the way Dr drum Joe dispense I talked about,
Speaker 1: Like you know, she's talking about the spirits and how
Speaker 1: they can speak to us and live within us. I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is like a quantum model that she's talking about,
Speaker 1: but she's using spiritual language to talk about it. I love.
Speaker 1: So it is all related that there's just different approaches
Speaker 1: that we can take to get where we need to get.
Speaker 1: But I think ultimately stepping into the divine within us
Speaker 1: doing all the trauma work that we've been inviting through
Speaker 1: the course of this podcast, so that we can feel safe,
Speaker 1: so that we can be in our resilience zone, the
Speaker 1: sacred core, and allow that to manifest itself through our
Speaker 1: entire being. Is a beautiful, beautiful image, a beautiful, beautiful
Speaker 1: invitation and gift that Valerie Spencer has given us today.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to The Laverne Cox Show. Please rate, review,
Speaker 1: and subscribe and share with everyone you know. Join me
Speaker 1: next week for my conversation with Madame iris If, my
Speaker 1: voice coach and opera teacher for over twenty five years.
Speaker 1: Opera is a passion for both of us, and in
Speaker 1: our conversation we go into the dean died insane fandom
Speaker 1: that is being an opera queen, and we have a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of fun. Whether you're an opera fan or not,
Speaker 1: is the conversation not to be missed. You can find
Speaker 1: me on Instagram and Twitter at Laverne Cox and on
Speaker 1: Facebook at Laverne Cox for Real. Until next time, Stand
Speaker 1: Up Up. The Laverne Cox Show is a production of
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