November 10, 2022 • 42 mins
Today’s conversation takes us down the path of addiction and recovery. Steven Washington author of Recovering You: Soul Care and Mindful Movement for Overcoming Addiction generously shares his story with us. The energy around this conversation explores some of the feelings he endured before finding his path. The work needed to clear the shadow; in order to make space for the joy, to make space to honor his feelings and to feel good about them. Whether you struggle with substance abuse or something different that persuades you away from the healing process, Washington’s book is a guide for all readers through fear, shame, and regret and into community and gratitude.
Learn More: StevenWashingtonExperience.Com
Connect: @DeviBrown @StevenWashingtonExperience
Recovering You: Soul Care and Mindful Movement for Overcoming Addiction By Steven Washington Available Tuesday, November 15th.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M from grandmothers who whispered in their baby girl ill
two fathers on dimly lit street corners, instructing young soldiers
to always keep their eyes open. You be queen, you
(00:21):
were fired. You will pass through centuries on the hands
of your daughters. They called you wisdom. Proverbs on the
backs of diamond eyed school children who grew into hymnals
recited by amethyst holding urban philosophers who recited neighborhood commandments
out of the windows of restored Alchemedo chariots. To keep
the warmth of their blood, be wise, be smart, being black,
(00:46):
Opal Brown courts bloodstone and prayer. Be every form of
Jim see King told, scribe, scribe, told son, son, told wife,
wife told her daughter, and daughter told the as this is,
and the emphasis told me that you would come to
give wisdom. Thousands They said you would come. Dropping Dropping Jim. Hey,
(01:12):
Welcome back to another episode of the Dropping Jim's podcast.
I'm Debbie Brown. This is your soft place to land
where we bring beautiful conversations about higher consciousness to life
and we ground them in our everyday life. Today's show
we are exploring new territory and I feel so mm
(01:36):
hmm lucky to be able to talk about the things
that we're going to talk about today. It's our first
time exploring conversations around addiction and recovery. Today's special guest
is a dear friend, Stephen Washington. Stephen is the author
(01:57):
of the book Recovering You Your Soul, Care and Mindful
Movement for overcoming addiction. As a former professional dancer who
performed on Broadway and Disney's The Lion King, his love
of movement inspired him to become the highly acclaimed che
gung and pilates teacher that he is today. Stephen lives
(02:17):
a joyful life of recovery and is passionate about helping
others as they navigate towards health and happiness. He offers
che gong, pilates, dance, meditation, laughter, and more through his website.
Visit him online Stephen Washington Experience dot com. And I'm
so excited to dive into all the things. Welcome to
(02:40):
the show, my friend, Stephen Washington. Thank you so good
to be here. Wonderful to see you, Debbie. Always amazing
to see you. I'm so excited to share you with
my audience because I've had the privilege of having such nourishing,
beautiful expanse of conversations with you one on one where
you and I have both been able to talk about
(03:02):
some of the real complexities and nuance of this healing journey,
and especially as it relates to coming into an awakened
spiritual path with the background as a person of color,
or having other complex layers that add on top of
that to what this journey is um And so it's
(03:23):
really exciting to share you your book that is out
is Recovering You soul care and mindful movement for overcoming addiction. One.
It is just a radical, gorgeous vision to see if
I could be quite honest, a man of color who's
standing in his healing and standing in specifically healing overcoming addiction,
(03:49):
and to use a modality like che gung, you know,
this sacred, sacred, ancient work in medicine. It's just it's
a visual that we don't often get to see you
being able to be invited into spaces that are not
necessarily organic to all of us, depending on our past.
It's just really incredibly powerful. So I'm so happy to
(04:10):
have you here and to dive into the fullness of
this book. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to
be here to talk to you about this book. Um.
I love everything that you just said, and it is
not lost on me, just the importance of representation. Yeah,
representation and and that divine translation, right, because it's like
(04:31):
I think on on in a way, it's like, on
one end visually it's the representation, but then also knowing
that you are diving into this work through your divine
translation of your lived experience in a way that is
going to free others, It's just like, ah, yeah, And
I feel as though when it comes to recovery and
(04:51):
healing around addiction, no matter what it is, not everyone
who is going to listen to this podcast or read
my book will have the experience of having a problem
with alcohol or drugs like I did, but they might
have another thing that they are dependent upon that is
impacting the quality of their life. And so hearing stories
(05:15):
from other people where we share our experience, strength and hope,
then we're able to just tap into the feelings and
tap into the energy and don't get and not get
caught up in the details. The details don't matter so much.
What matters more is the is the feelings. The feelings
(05:38):
and that type of energy and and having someone provide
some sort of an example, a roadmap to go from
a place of um of not having a feeling like
you don't have any options or any tools two being
(05:59):
shown away that can take you to a different place
in your life where you can recover parts of yourself
that you've lost. M m m hmm. Would you share
a bit about your road to recovery and how you
use the practices that you really unpacking this book to
(06:20):
connect to that deepest, highest version of you. Oh? Sure,
I try to be as concise as I can be
telling my story, but I'm not asking for concise, Okay, okay, yeah, okay, alright, then,
well here's the deal. I come from a small family,
just my father, my mom, my sister, and I and
(06:42):
my parents got together went in like the sixties, right
in the sixties in Connecticut. They were part of that
migration from the South to the North, having fled the
South for the gym craw laws and and um and
all the races and and segregation that was happening there.
(07:03):
So when they when they got to Connecticut, they were
carrying a lot of trauma with them already of course,
UM and they met in high school, and they fell
in love, and they built this family, and and it
was an interesting family to grow up and because I
don't think anyone would identify what they were experiencing as trauma,
(07:25):
but I feel as though they were trying to navigate
it the best way that they could. And and substances
and addiction was a part of it. Um, It's all
over my family. So I grew up in this family
where where addiction was in the air, in the space
(07:46):
that we were in. And and you can imagine how
challenging that is for a very sensitive child, so very
sensitive child. Um. And as I was growing up, uh,
dealing with that sensitivity, dealing with the fact that I
was gay. I didn't have words for it at such
(08:08):
a young age, but I just knew that I was different,
and I knew that if I were myself that that
would be a problem. So stuffing that down right, And
the thing that brought me joy at a very young
age was movement. I would dance around the living room.
I would put Grace Jones on Stevie Wonder and just
(08:30):
dance around the living room and and transport myself. And
from there I found this connection to art and eventually
I became a dancer, and I studied theater in high
school and eventually found my way to New York and
and studied dance at n y U. And during that
time I came out. And part of my coming out
(08:53):
was this exploration of of of alcohol and drugs. I
had my first drink actually when I was sixteen years old.
I was in Germany with my dance teacher, Felicity Foot.
She was a German woman who had a dance school
in Greenwich, Connecticut, and she gave me a scholarship and
one summer she took me to Europe. Never been out
(09:16):
of the country before she took her students to Europe.
We performed all around Germany, in these little villages, dancing.
It was amazing. The very last night we had a
party at a pub. I had my first full beer.
Before that, I had to sit here and there. My
father used to give me beer when I was a baby,
When I was um cranky, he would give me a beer,
(09:39):
give me a six of it. But I had my
first beer, and I loved how it made me feel.
I love how it transformed me. I no longer felt shy,
I no longer felt so prickly because of my sensitivities.
(10:00):
I felt sexy, which is important to a fifteen sixteen
year old boy, right. I felt attractive, I felt funny,
all those things, and I literally chased that same feeling
until the day I stopped drinking at age like thirty
or thirty one years old. So um yeah. Moved to
(10:20):
New York, eventually became a professional dancer, sort of danced
on the stages of the Metropolitan Opera and City Opera,
and eventually ended up in Disney's A Lion King. Ah.
And around that time when I started doing that show
was when I crossed it, that invisible line where my
(10:41):
drinking and my drug use wasn't just for fun, it
wasn't a social thing. I did it because I had
to do it. I was I couldn't wait to get
home at the end of the day, to drink by myself,
to do drugs by myself. And I got to the
point where I would look at myself in the mirror
(11:02):
and and and and I couldn't recognize, didn't recognize who
I saw, and was so desperate for something to change,
but I didn't have the wherewithal to to make the change.
Um and, because you know, alcohol and drugs were my solution.
They were my solution. And and I feel as though
(11:24):
my own experience as far as my relationship to two substances,
was that I had a lot of trauma that I
was trying to manage. I didn't always know that that's
what I was doing, but I was trying to manage it.
And the using that I did h was a way
for me to self suthe and self regulate. And I
(11:47):
did that for as long as I could until it
didn't work anymore. So by the time I found recovery,
I I was just sick and tired of being sick
and tired. And I had already discovered that it was
taking a lot of energy for me to live the
life that I was living, and it was draining that
the life force energy from me. And ah and I
(12:14):
had thought that my using was unhealthy and that my
my relationship to alcohol and drugs was unhealthy, and and
and I thought about it many times, but like I said,
I didn't have that I didn't know what else to
do about it. I was powerless over it all until
I found a friend of mine who had long term recovery,
(12:38):
and he he worked really well. He was a beautiful
example of recovery and sobriety. And if it weren't for
the fact that he wore so well and I was
so desperate, um, I probably wouldn't have stopped that, probably
wouldn't have tried something new. But literally getting sober was
(13:01):
like the last house on the block on a dead
end street. So so my my journey began in two
thousand one and and it was great. Twelve step recovery
helped me tremendously. Therapy helped me tremendously. I had already been,
like I said, movement was always a big part of
(13:22):
my life, and I was doing energy work without knowing
I was doing energy work really with my dancing. But
it wasn't until I was ten years sober, throughout ten
years sober, that the practices that I teached in the
book came into my life. I wrote this book because,
in part, I wanted to share all the tools that
(13:43):
I've learned over the last twenty years to help people
help themselves. And I'm also I also wrote the book
because I wanted to create something that I wish I
had when I was first getting into recovery, trying to
get sober and trying to to so it all this
out for myself and um. And the book is filled
(14:06):
with movement, mindful movement like the chegong, but also other
tools that people can use to two manage their emotions.
I talk a lot about fear in the book, and
shame and isolation, but I also talk about how important
community is and gratitude and faith. There's a lot of
(14:33):
writing in the book. I think writing is an important
part of healing. I learned how healing writing can be
when I was doing twelve step work, because there's something
when you take pen to paper and you express your
thoughts and what's really going on for you, it changes something.
(14:53):
There's there's more clarity, more insight that come about. And
I wanted to provide opportunity for people to do that.
And I talked to a lot of my friends who
are in recovery as well, and I have a few
conversations that I share with with people in the book
because I wanted to create a sense of community. There's
(15:14):
no way in the world that I could have that
I could have entered this this path of recovery by myself,
because if I was going to do it by myself,
I would have done it before I actually did it. Yeah, yeah, okay, wow. Um.
I just want to say I the way that you
(15:38):
so generously described the process of how one even awakens
the first step too, the craving that eventually turns into
an addiction, that was incredibly powerful because I think that
is a piece that's so many and I know I
feel in my bones that there are so many connections
(16:01):
being made to those listening right now. Mm hmm. You know,
I think one of the things that that confuses people
the most about addiction it's there is so much shame.
There is so much blame placed on the person that
becomes addicted, right There's this from outside sources very often
(16:22):
because of the way it disrupts the lives of people
around them potentially, and there isn't enough There is beginning
to be thankfully um now that we are really in
the era of understanding trauma in a mainstream way, but
very little attention is paid to, well, what feels so
(16:44):
good about it? You know? And I think people often think, oh,
you just want to party, or you're just trying to
you know, you just like being presenting like you know,
maybe even like a jerk sometimes or like this, or
you're like there's people speak to the effects of how
it feels is when they're in the presence of someone
who is already deeply in an addiction. But the understanding
(17:06):
of why it feels so good that you keep doing
it to become addicted is so important, you know it
is it is that you don't know you're escaping. You
were actually being awakened to these new facets of you
that you can't experience on a day today basis without
(17:28):
that to begin with. And it's like, wow, the way
that you broke that down, it's a revelation, I think,
you know, it really is because for so long, so
many especially around those ages of like a you know,
adolescence or young adulthood, you have no idea what trauma is.
(17:48):
You have no comparisons, comparisons, you don't understand the nuance
of what it is to be in family or being
meshed within your family unit. So you're just noticed see
new freedoms that are starting to come online inside of
you and new ways that you're able to be who
you know you are without those other pressures. And very
(18:10):
often it's it's that experience that we are held in
this container of our nervous system. And for those of
us that the nervous system is not healthy and nourished,
it suppresses you. It limits your possibility of who you
can be and how you can behave and you know
what you can accomplish. And so I see how alcohol
(18:32):
and drugs can feel really beautiful at first. I really
get that. Oh absolutely, I mean it was, it was.
It was a miracle. It was really a miracle, Like
it really felt like the lights were turned on. The
lights were turned on, and it was joyous. Absolutely, And honestly,
(18:56):
I'm really grateful that that I've had my journey with
alcohol and drugs, that I've had my journey with addiction.
I'm so grateful because for so long it really helped.
It helped keep me alive. It helped keep me alive,
because had I not had it, I might I might
(19:19):
have not to say that active addiction and and people
at the far end of the spectrum as far as
addiction is concerned, isn't a risky, life threatening thing. Absolutely
for many of us, it's it's a slow killing of yourself.
(19:44):
For others it's it can be more quick and immediate, immediate.
But I know for me, it was my solution for
a long time until it wasn't anymore. Um, I couldn't imagine.
I couldn't imagine drinking and drugging another day. But I
also couldn't imagine not doing it at the same time.
So you're at that really strange place, jumping off point
(20:08):
right where you either stay where you are and go
back or you jump off into this unknown space, uh
and try something new. But it takes a some some
level of awareness that that something is off, something is
not right. I'm not living a life that feels good anymore. Um,
(20:33):
not living a life that's that's balanced, not living a
life that's healthy or or joyous for lack of a
better word. Yeah, yeah, you know. And I'm also noticing
that when you come into that space, especially because you
shared that this process, this addiction went on from I
(20:57):
believe like right around sixteen for ten years or more. Definitely. Yeah.
So when you when you committed to your sobriety and
you began that path of of knowing there is need
to change my life, how did it feel to begin
to get to know yourself for really the first time
(21:17):
as an adult, Because that had to have been such
a process of discovering yourself discovering your body, your thoughts,
your feelings, your likes, your dislikes without that filter. Yeah,
interesting that you say that you thank you for that question.
Its great. I want to add one thing is I
(21:38):
talked a lot about alcohol and drugs, but the first
thing for me was food. Wow. When I was a
kid um disordered, eating was something that I did to
help me deal with the discomfort that I was in.
My relationship to food was not It was not healthy. Ah,
(22:00):
But I just so, I just wanted to put that
out there. But your question was what was it like
for me too, to go from being an active addiction
to moving into recovery and getting to know myself that process?
(22:20):
It was? It was many things. It was many things.
There were some aspects of about it, about it that
were difficult, for sure, but they were also aspects of
it that were magical. Uh, getting to know myself without
(22:46):
this veil that that rested on every part of my
body and my my mind and my heart. Ah. It's
definitely a journey of self discovery, learning how to live
(23:10):
life on life's terms. Because I could plug four that
I could play with life in interesting ways through chemicals
right and through through mood and mind altering things. If
I didn't like how I was feeling in a certain circumstance,
I can always change that by taking a drink, or
(23:31):
doing a drug, or smoking a cigarette. Sometimes even by
having sex. I could change that. Yeah. But when you
when you enter recovery, you begin a process of responding
to life in a different way. And so there were
times that felt like they were full of wonder and
(23:56):
awe because I was I was having these experiences that
were like so revelatory for me. Um And if I
could think of one in particular, Ah, for instance, doing
things in life and my adulthood that I would normally
(24:17):
do under the influence, but suddenly during it without was
really a new experience for me. I could give you
one thing. When I lived in New York, then, says,
you know, as I was in my twenties, back in
the nineties, and rollerblading was in, and everybody was rollerblading
(24:38):
up and down the West Side Highway. And I remember
for years I would love to roller blade and get
high and roller blade and and just stroll around the
city in that way. And when I got sober, I
got to experience those things with out without that that
(25:04):
that elixir or that way for me to that alter
the way that I engage with the world. Um, when
I used it helped me to be more out in
the world, because essentially I'm a I'm a very shy,
introverted person, and when I used it helped bring me out,
(25:27):
pushed me out into the world. And so just getting
used to being uh connected to people, having relationships with people,
having conversations with people in social settings, and just truly
being myself unadulterated Stephen. That was revelatory for me, and
(25:49):
it helped me by having examples given by other people
who were doing the same thing and me being able
to watch them navigate those simple things in life. I
feel like the things I'm talking about are really mundane,
are really things that we take for granted. These actions,
(26:10):
are these activities that I'm describing, but for me, they
were challenging to do. And so that was one of
the things that that opened up for me when I
first got sober. And then also just my feelings. I
was starting to feel better to feel and my feelings, honestly, debby,
(26:35):
my feelings scared me. Yeah, yeah, sometimes I felt like
initially when I was first starting this journey, I was
afraid to feel my feelings fully. And I remember my
friend who was also my sponsor at the time. He
(26:56):
he just would reassure me that no matter what feeling
would come up, that I was going to be okay,
that my feelings weren't going to kill me, and that
my feelings weren't necessarily factual. They may be happening in
the moment, but it doesn't necessarily mean that, um, what's
underneath them is factual. Like I say that in reference
(27:20):
to fear, it's we can all be fearful of certain things,
but what we're fearful of and the fear that we're
feeling aren't necessarily based in in reality of what's happening
in the moment, right, especially for those of us with
with very sensitive nervous systems right where we easily can
switch on to fight flight freeze. I just learned that
(27:45):
I didn't have to be afraid of my feelings, and
then I can walk through difficult feelings and even joyous
feelings as well, because that was also kind of scary too. Yeah. Absolutely,
I mean you have to clear the shadow to make
space for the joy to be even able to feel
safe in that feeling. You know how they say, you know,
(28:16):
all feelings are valid. Yes, all feelings are valid because
they are being felt by you and your individual experience
in the way that you know yourself and your feelings.
But all feelings are not real and they're not true.
You know, you can be feeling something that is actually untrue,
and it doesn't mean to invalidate your experience. The feeling
(28:39):
is what is real inside of you, but where it
stems from and the power it holds, that's what we
have to investigate when we're doing some of that some
of that work. Um, you know, so wow, what a journey,
you know, what a journey, What a beautiful journey you've
been on, and what a d uh embodied knowing of
(29:02):
what that entire experience has been like. And I something
that I think that I love the way that you're
expressing your path and I think that this is so
powerful and I want to directly speak to listeners right
now and knowing as you think of soul work to
do around this episode or any potential journaling that you
may do, this is the way that Stephen is expressing
(29:25):
his experience. Is what it really is to be embodied
in your healing. It takes it the step past the
awareness or the identifying that there is something wrong, and
it's being able to look at all the facets of
how something affected you and I found for me in
my life like the sweet spot starts to come when
(29:47):
I've moved past some of those bigger moments and I'm
able to notice myself in those soft moments or in
what someone else may deem as you know, you had said,
it doesn't seem like a big moment, and I'm like, no, yes,
it does. You know, just someone that that is also
you know, has has spent so much time doing that
(30:09):
crevice work inside of themselves. So it just it's beautiful
in the way that you're able. And I want to
reflect this back as everyone is listening the way Stephen
is sharing some of the more traumatic parts and life
altering parts of what that long journey was, but from
a place of neutrality, from a place of ease. You know,
(30:30):
when I hear you speaking to it, there is not
active charge, and how you are resonating with those experiences,
and it's just it's so beautiful and it's so powerful.
You know how I'm so interested in how you came
to find chi gun. How did that medicine, that beautiful,
(30:52):
um ancient modality cross your path and how did you
translate your movement as a dancer into working with that energy.
Mm hm, that's such a delicious question. Oh my gosh.
I I was first exposed to che going when I
entered traditional Chinese medicine school, so back in I think
(31:17):
it was well was when I decided that I wanted
to go back to school and study Chinese medicine, and
I worked really hard to get into a school. I
had to clean up a lot of the wreckage of
my past in order to be able to get into
a school, and so I finally achieved that. I moved
(31:41):
to California to do to do that and I entered
the program, which was very exciting and also terrifying at
the same time. And it was an interesting experience because
shortly after I began the program, I started to fee
feel fear. I started to feel fear and a lot
(32:05):
of old stories came to mind and that things started
to bubble up to the surface. So I was very
much in crisis when I first entered that program, and
luckily what happened for me was she Gong was part
of the program was part of the curriculum, and it
(32:25):
helped me to deal with the fear and the and
the There are so many things that were coming up
for me. Fear, shame, ah, worry, anxiety, I was having
panic attacks, you name it. I was having I couldn't
sleep at night, couldn't concentrate. And once she Gong was
(32:50):
introduced to me, I was able to take that movement practice,
that mindful movement practice, and allow it to do what
it does, which is healing. It helps too to move
stuck energy in the body. That can be pain or
(33:10):
tension in your body, but that can also be emotional
energy that's stuck and also mental energy that's that's uh
stock are overactive and just to bring balance. I desperately
needed it. So between the movements and and breath is
a very important part of checking and also focused intention
(33:35):
mm hmm. It shifted everything for me. It provided so
much ease. It got my cheek on, gets my mind
unstuck right, It gives me space. It gives me space
in my body, but it also gives me space in
my heart and in my mind. When the practice was
(33:57):
first introduced to me, I was able to really work
with the medicine to get to a place where I
was able to pull out of the panic, pull out
of the worry, put pull out of the fear, and
just discover, Okay, Stephen, what's true for you? What's really
true for you? What is it that you want out
of this experience? And I came to a very difficult
(34:19):
at first realization was that I didn't want to be
a Chinese medicine doctor. I was so sure that that's
what I wanted to do, and I was so caught
up in this idea of while I've made that decision,
I can't change my mind. You can't change your mind.
If you make a decision, you just have to follow through.
What are people going to think if you change your mind?
All these things? Che Goong helped me to just let
(34:42):
all that fall away and come to a point of
peace and surrender, and it also helped me to focus.
I was only in the program for a semester, and
by the end of that semester, I was kicking ass
and I still knew that it was that it wasn't
(35:03):
what I wanted to do. Yeah, and I was. I
made peace with that. So that whole process, and within
that process, I was this close two relapsing because I
was feeling so much and I didn't know how to
deal with it, and and I was very afraid that
I was going to lose my sobriety over it. So
(35:26):
the the she going, along with all the other things
that I was doing, change everything for me. And it
told me that this is something that's going to be
a part of my life for the rest of my life.
And it's something that I want to share with others
because it's powerful medicine, and the medicine lives within each
and every one of us. It's there, it's available. We
(35:49):
just we just need to learn a little bit about
our energy and how to be mindful of it and
and and gain some skill around how to manage energy
and how to cultivate it and how to release what
no longer serves us. M m m. We have at
(36:09):
the beginning of my checking journey. We have all the
tools right. Everything is already within us. It's just lying
dormant until we're able to activate it or clear enough
away from its path for it to emerge. Mm hmm. Wow.
What are you hoping people take away from this book?
(36:31):
Where are you hoping it allows them to go on
their journey. Yeah, well, I hope that people what people
get from this book is a sense that they're not alone.
Mm hmm, that whatever it is that they're going through,
whatever challenges that they're facing, that they're not alone. I
(36:52):
also mm hmm. I also want people to to note
that they are worthy of change, recovery, transformation, because I
think there's an element, at least for me, there's an
element of feeling that a better life, that that a
(37:16):
new level of healing wasn't available to me because of
shame or some sense of not being worthy. And also
I would I want people two get a series of tools,
a basket of recovery toolbox, I like to call it,
in the book of tools that they can use to
(37:38):
help themselves live a better life, a more conscious and
joyous life, whatever that looks like for them. Mm hmm. Everyone,
do yourself a favor, get this book. And I have
a feeling that some listen mean there's somebody in your
(38:01):
life you've earmarked as this book could be really really revelatory,
and so everything will be linked as always beneath in
the summary. So if you're listening on your podcast, if
you scroll down to the summary, there will be a
link click it you'll be able to get the book
straight directly there. And Stephen, how can people connect with
(38:23):
you and how can they join you in Chi Gung? Yes,
so people can connect with me at Stephen Washington Experience
dot com. That is my website and there you'll see
that I also have a membership community where I teach
a Pilates Cheegong fusion class and I also create other
content with that community. And you'll also be able to
(38:46):
buy my book there. You can get it in paperback
the book also audio book as well, and you'll also
find all my online courses that I teach that are
available to everyone. So there's a lot there. So Stephen
Washington Experienced dot com and I'm still dying and I'm
gonna have to text you about this off interview because
(39:08):
I'm still dying to take a one on one class
with you. Um Pilates changed my life and it was
such a huge activator in my personal journey of learning
how to be in my body. It was my I
didn't initially connect to yoga UM I do now gratefully,
but my first pathway was actually Joseph Pilates. His system
(39:30):
of I believe to be a system of awakening. Um
that he shared. And it's so funny because I think
a lot of people hear about pilates from the much
more privileged perspective of it being very often very expensive
class to take any typically you know it it's been
portrayed and kind of stereotyped as being something that's luxury
(39:51):
maybe for white women, and you know, maybe you know,
if you have the freedom to do it, like it's
just trendy, But it is a powerful tool of awakening.
It teaches you how to know your body like nothing
I've ever known. It teaches you how to feel parts
of your body that you didn't know existed. Um, it
(40:12):
was just it was one of the most beautiful tools
I put in my toolbox in my journey. And then
that mixed with ch Gong, I'm just I can't wait
till I get to get in front of you and
get all of that medicine and magic. Thank you, Thank
you so much for joining us on dropping gems. Thank
(40:32):
you for writing this book once again, everyone recovering you
Soul Care and Mindful Movement for Overcoming Addiction by Stephen Washington.
So grateful for your time. Thank you for having me
and so good to lay my eyes on you. I know,
and I know so good, so good. Thank you, my friends,
(40:56):
thank you another big thank you for joining us on
this very beautiful episode. Once again, Steven's book it's available
November two, so very very soon and at post time
of recording this episode. And of course this book is
called Recovering You, Soul Care and mindful movement for overcoming addiction.
(41:20):
And in this book, you know, he shares his story
as well as a wide variety of tools that are
designed to help readers more intimately connect themselves with their lives.
So there's a lot of incredible practices in their Reflections movement. Uh,
definitely check that out. Share this episode with a friend
if you feel so called, give us a five star review,
(41:42):
write a little review. Big gratitude for everyone that has
taken time to do that. I had a chance to
catch up and read so many and deeply blessed me.
So grateful to be able to be here and grateful
to keep going all right until next time. Hey find
(42:02):
me on social Let's connect at Debbie Brown. That's Twitter
and Instagram, or go to my website Debbie Brown dot com.
And if you're listening to the show on Apple podcasts.
Please please, please don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe,
and send this episode to a friend. Dropping Jims is
(42:23):
the production of I Heart Radio and the Black Effect Network.
It's produced by Jackie's and me, Debbie Brown. For more
podcasts from My heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
M from grandmothers who whispered in their baby girl ill
two fathers on dimly lit street corners, instructing young soldiers
to always keep their eyes open. You be queen, you
(00:21):
were fired. You will pass through centuries on the hands
of your daughters. They called you wisdom. Proverbs on the
backs of diamond eyed school children who grew into hymnals
recited by amethyst holding urban philosophers who recited neighborhood commandments
out of the windows of restored Alchemedo chariots. To keep
the warmth of their blood, be wise, be smart, being black,
(00:46):
Opal Brown courts bloodstone and prayer. Be every form of
Jim see King told, scribe, scribe, told son, son, told wife,
wife told her daughter, and daughter told the as this is,
and the emphasis told me that you would come to
give wisdom. Thousands They said you would come. Dropping Dropping Jim. Hey,
(01:12):
Welcome back to another episode of the Dropping Jim's podcast.
I'm Debbie Brown. This is your soft place to land
where we bring beautiful conversations about higher consciousness to life
and we ground them in our everyday life. Today's show
we are exploring new territory and I feel so mm
(01:36):
hmm lucky to be able to talk about the things
that we're going to talk about today. It's our first
time exploring conversations around addiction and recovery. Today's special guest
is a dear friend, Stephen Washington. Stephen is the author
(01:57):
of the book Recovering You Your Soul, Care and Mindful
Movement for overcoming addiction. As a former professional dancer who
performed on Broadway and Disney's The Lion King, his love
of movement inspired him to become the highly acclaimed che
gung and pilates teacher that he is today. Stephen lives
(02:17):
a joyful life of recovery and is passionate about helping
others as they navigate towards health and happiness. He offers
che gong, pilates, dance, meditation, laughter, and more through his website.
Visit him online Stephen Washington Experience dot com. And I'm
so excited to dive into all the things. Welcome to
(02:40):
the show, my friend, Stephen Washington. Thank you so good
to be here. Wonderful to see you, Debbie. Always amazing
to see you. I'm so excited to share you with
my audience because I've had the privilege of having such nourishing,
beautiful expanse of conversations with you one on one where
you and I have both been able to talk about
(03:02):
some of the real complexities and nuance of this healing journey,
and especially as it relates to coming into an awakened
spiritual path with the background as a person of color,
or having other complex layers that add on top of
that to what this journey is um And so it's
(03:23):
really exciting to share you your book that is out
is Recovering You soul care and mindful movement for overcoming addiction. One.
It is just a radical, gorgeous vision to see if
I could be quite honest, a man of color who's
standing in his healing and standing in specifically healing overcoming addiction,
(03:49):
and to use a modality like che gung, you know,
this sacred, sacred, ancient work in medicine. It's just it's
a visual that we don't often get to see you
being able to be invited into spaces that are not
necessarily organic to all of us, depending on our past.
It's just really incredibly powerful. So I'm so happy to
(04:10):
have you here and to dive into the fullness of
this book. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to
be here to talk to you about this book. Um.
I love everything that you just said, and it is
not lost on me, just the importance of representation. Yeah,
representation and and that divine translation, right, because it's like
(04:31):
I think on on in a way, it's like, on
one end visually it's the representation, but then also knowing
that you are diving into this work through your divine
translation of your lived experience in a way that is
going to free others, It's just like, ah, yeah, And
I feel as though when it comes to recovery and
(04:51):
healing around addiction, no matter what it is, not everyone
who is going to listen to this podcast or read
my book will have the experience of having a problem
with alcohol or drugs like I did, but they might
have another thing that they are dependent upon that is
impacting the quality of their life. And so hearing stories
(05:15):
from other people where we share our experience, strength and hope,
then we're able to just tap into the feelings and
tap into the energy and don't get and not get
caught up in the details. The details don't matter so much.
What matters more is the is the feelings. The feelings
(05:38):
and that type of energy and and having someone provide
some sort of an example, a roadmap to go from
a place of um of not having a feeling like
you don't have any options or any tools two being
(05:59):
shown away that can take you to a different place
in your life where you can recover parts of yourself
that you've lost. M m m hmm. Would you share
a bit about your road to recovery and how you
use the practices that you really unpacking this book to
(06:20):
connect to that deepest, highest version of you. Oh? Sure,
I try to be as concise as I can be
telling my story, but I'm not asking for concise, Okay, okay, yeah, okay, alright, then,
well here's the deal. I come from a small family,
just my father, my mom, my sister, and I and
(06:42):
my parents got together went in like the sixties, right
in the sixties in Connecticut. They were part of that
migration from the South to the North, having fled the
South for the gym craw laws and and um and
all the races and and segregation that was happening there.
(07:03):
So when they when they got to Connecticut, they were
carrying a lot of trauma with them already of course,
UM and they met in high school, and they fell
in love, and they built this family, and and it
was an interesting family to grow up and because I
don't think anyone would identify what they were experiencing as trauma,
(07:25):
but I feel as though they were trying to navigate
it the best way that they could. And and substances
and addiction was a part of it. Um, It's all
over my family. So I grew up in this family
where where addiction was in the air, in the space
(07:46):
that we were in. And and you can imagine how
challenging that is for a very sensitive child, so very
sensitive child. Um. And as I was growing up, uh,
dealing with that sensitivity, dealing with the fact that I
was gay. I didn't have words for it at such
(08:08):
a young age, but I just knew that I was different,
and I knew that if I were myself that that
would be a problem. So stuffing that down right, And
the thing that brought me joy at a very young
age was movement. I would dance around the living room.
I would put Grace Jones on Stevie Wonder and just
(08:30):
dance around the living room and and transport myself. And
from there I found this connection to art and eventually
I became a dancer, and I studied theater in high
school and eventually found my way to New York and
and studied dance at n y U. And during that
time I came out. And part of my coming out
(08:53):
was this exploration of of of alcohol and drugs. I
had my first drink actually when I was sixteen years old.
I was in Germany with my dance teacher, Felicity Foot.
She was a German woman who had a dance school
in Greenwich, Connecticut, and she gave me a scholarship and
one summer she took me to Europe. Never been out
(09:16):
of the country before she took her students to Europe.
We performed all around Germany, in these little villages, dancing.
It was amazing. The very last night we had a
party at a pub. I had my first full beer.
Before that, I had to sit here and there. My
father used to give me beer when I was a baby,
When I was um cranky, he would give me a beer,
(09:39):
give me a six of it. But I had my
first beer, and I loved how it made me feel.
I love how it transformed me. I no longer felt shy,
I no longer felt so prickly because of my sensitivities.
(10:00):
I felt sexy, which is important to a fifteen sixteen
year old boy, right. I felt attractive, I felt funny,
all those things, and I literally chased that same feeling
until the day I stopped drinking at age like thirty
or thirty one years old. So um yeah. Moved to
(10:20):
New York, eventually became a professional dancer, sort of danced
on the stages of the Metropolitan Opera and City Opera,
and eventually ended up in Disney's A Lion King. Ah.
And around that time when I started doing that show
was when I crossed it, that invisible line where my
(10:41):
drinking and my drug use wasn't just for fun, it
wasn't a social thing. I did it because I had
to do it. I was I couldn't wait to get
home at the end of the day, to drink by myself,
to do drugs by myself. And I got to the
point where I would look at myself in the mirror
(11:02):
and and and and I couldn't recognize, didn't recognize who
I saw, and was so desperate for something to change,
but I didn't have the wherewithal to to make the change.
Um and, because you know, alcohol and drugs were my solution.
They were my solution. And and I feel as though
(11:24):
my own experience as far as my relationship to two substances,
was that I had a lot of trauma that I
was trying to manage. I didn't always know that that's
what I was doing, but I was trying to manage it.
And the using that I did h was a way
for me to self suthe and self regulate. And I
(11:47):
did that for as long as I could until it
didn't work anymore. So by the time I found recovery,
I I was just sick and tired of being sick
and tired. And I had already discovered that it was
taking a lot of energy for me to live the
life that I was living, and it was draining that
the life force energy from me. And ah and I
(12:14):
had thought that my using was unhealthy and that my
my relationship to alcohol and drugs was unhealthy, and and
and I thought about it many times, but like I said,
I didn't have that I didn't know what else to
do about it. I was powerless over it all until
I found a friend of mine who had long term recovery,
(12:38):
and he he worked really well. He was a beautiful
example of recovery and sobriety. And if it weren't for
the fact that he wore so well and I was
so desperate, um, I probably wouldn't have stopped that, probably
wouldn't have tried something new. But literally getting sober was
(13:01):
like the last house on the block on a dead
end street. So so my my journey began in two
thousand one and and it was great. Twelve step recovery
helped me tremendously. Therapy helped me tremendously. I had already been,
like I said, movement was always a big part of
(13:22):
my life, and I was doing energy work without knowing
I was doing energy work really with my dancing. But
it wasn't until I was ten years sober, throughout ten
years sober, that the practices that I teached in the
book came into my life. I wrote this book because,
in part, I wanted to share all the tools that
(13:43):
I've learned over the last twenty years to help people
help themselves. And I'm also I also wrote the book
because I wanted to create something that I wish I
had when I was first getting into recovery, trying to
get sober and trying to to so it all this
out for myself and um. And the book is filled
(14:06):
with movement, mindful movement like the chegong, but also other
tools that people can use to two manage their emotions.
I talk a lot about fear in the book, and
shame and isolation, but I also talk about how important
community is and gratitude and faith. There's a lot of
(14:33):
writing in the book. I think writing is an important
part of healing. I learned how healing writing can be
when I was doing twelve step work, because there's something
when you take pen to paper and you express your
thoughts and what's really going on for you, it changes something.
(14:53):
There's there's more clarity, more insight that come about. And
I wanted to provide opportunity for people to do that.
And I talked to a lot of my friends who
are in recovery as well, and I have a few
conversations that I share with with people in the book
because I wanted to create a sense of community. There's
(15:14):
no way in the world that I could have that
I could have entered this this path of recovery by myself,
because if I was going to do it by myself,
I would have done it before I actually did it. Yeah, yeah, okay, wow. Um.
I just want to say I the way that you
(15:38):
so generously described the process of how one even awakens
the first step too, the craving that eventually turns into
an addiction, that was incredibly powerful because I think that
is a piece that's so many and I know I
feel in my bones that there are so many connections
(16:01):
being made to those listening right now. Mm hmm. You know,
I think one of the things that that confuses people
the most about addiction it's there is so much shame.
There is so much blame placed on the person that
becomes addicted, right There's this from outside sources very often
(16:22):
because of the way it disrupts the lives of people
around them potentially, and there isn't enough There is beginning
to be thankfully um now that we are really in
the era of understanding trauma in a mainstream way, but
very little attention is paid to, well, what feels so
(16:44):
good about it? You know? And I think people often think, oh,
you just want to party, or you're just trying to
you know, you just like being presenting like you know,
maybe even like a jerk sometimes or like this, or
you're like there's people speak to the effects of how
it feels is when they're in the presence of someone
who is already deeply in an addiction. But the understanding
(17:06):
of why it feels so good that you keep doing
it to become addicted is so important, you know it
is it is that you don't know you're escaping. You
were actually being awakened to these new facets of you
that you can't experience on a day today basis without
(17:28):
that to begin with. And it's like, wow, the way
that you broke that down, it's a revelation, I think,
you know, it really is because for so long, so
many especially around those ages of like a you know,
adolescence or young adulthood, you have no idea what trauma is.
(17:48):
You have no comparisons, comparisons, you don't understand the nuance
of what it is to be in family or being
meshed within your family unit. So you're just noticed see
new freedoms that are starting to come online inside of
you and new ways that you're able to be who
you know you are without those other pressures. And very
(18:10):
often it's it's that experience that we are held in
this container of our nervous system. And for those of
us that the nervous system is not healthy and nourished,
it suppresses you. It limits your possibility of who you
can be and how you can behave and you know
what you can accomplish. And so I see how alcohol
(18:32):
and drugs can feel really beautiful at first. I really
get that. Oh absolutely, I mean it was, it was.
It was a miracle. It was really a miracle, Like
it really felt like the lights were turned on. The
lights were turned on, and it was joyous. Absolutely, And honestly,
(18:56):
I'm really grateful that that I've had my journey with
alcohol and drugs, that I've had my journey with addiction.
I'm so grateful because for so long it really helped.
It helped keep me alive. It helped keep me alive,
because had I not had it, I might I might
(19:19):
have not to say that active addiction and and people
at the far end of the spectrum as far as
addiction is concerned, isn't a risky, life threatening thing. Absolutely
for many of us, it's it's a slow killing of yourself.
(19:44):
For others it's it can be more quick and immediate, immediate.
But I know for me, it was my solution for
a long time until it wasn't anymore. Um, I couldn't imagine.
I couldn't imagine drinking and drugging another day. But I
also couldn't imagine not doing it at the same time.
So you're at that really strange place, jumping off point
(20:08):
right where you either stay where you are and go
back or you jump off into this unknown space, uh
and try something new. But it takes a some some
level of awareness that that something is off, something is
not right. I'm not living a life that feels good anymore. Um,
(20:33):
not living a life that's that's balanced, not living a
life that's healthy or or joyous for lack of a
better word. Yeah, yeah, you know. And I'm also noticing
that when you come into that space, especially because you
shared that this process, this addiction went on from I
(20:57):
believe like right around sixteen for ten years or more. Definitely. Yeah.
So when you when you committed to your sobriety and
you began that path of of knowing there is need
to change my life, how did it feel to begin
to get to know yourself for really the first time
(21:17):
as an adult, Because that had to have been such
a process of discovering yourself discovering your body, your thoughts,
your feelings, your likes, your dislikes without that filter. Yeah,
interesting that you say that you thank you for that question.
Its great. I want to add one thing is I
(21:38):
talked a lot about alcohol and drugs, but the first
thing for me was food. Wow. When I was a
kid um disordered, eating was something that I did to
help me deal with the discomfort that I was in.
My relationship to food was not It was not healthy. Ah,
(22:00):
But I just so, I just wanted to put that
out there. But your question was what was it like
for me too, to go from being an active addiction
to moving into recovery and getting to know myself that process?
(22:20):
It was? It was many things. It was many things.
There were some aspects of about it, about it that
were difficult, for sure, but they were also aspects of
it that were magical. Uh, getting to know myself without
(22:46):
this veil that that rested on every part of my
body and my my mind and my heart. Ah. It's
definitely a journey of self discovery, learning how to live
(23:10):
life on life's terms. Because I could plug four that
I could play with life in interesting ways through chemicals
right and through through mood and mind altering things. If
I didn't like how I was feeling in a certain circumstance,
I can always change that by taking a drink, or
(23:31):
doing a drug, or smoking a cigarette. Sometimes even by
having sex. I could change that. Yeah. But when you
when you enter recovery, you begin a process of responding
to life in a different way. And so there were
times that felt like they were full of wonder and
(23:56):
awe because I was I was having these experiences that
were like so revelatory for me. Um And if I
could think of one in particular, Ah, for instance, doing
things in life and my adulthood that I would normally
(24:17):
do under the influence, but suddenly during it without was
really a new experience for me. I could give you
one thing. When I lived in New York, then, says,
you know, as I was in my twenties, back in
the nineties, and rollerblading was in, and everybody was rollerblading
(24:38):
up and down the West Side Highway. And I remember
for years I would love to roller blade and get
high and roller blade and and just stroll around the
city in that way. And when I got sober, I
got to experience those things with out without that that
(25:04):
that elixir or that way for me to that alter
the way that I engage with the world. Um, when
I used it helped me to be more out in
the world, because essentially I'm a I'm a very shy,
introverted person, and when I used it helped bring me out,
(25:27):
pushed me out into the world. And so just getting
used to being uh connected to people, having relationships with people,
having conversations with people in social settings, and just truly
being myself unadulterated Stephen. That was revelatory for me, and
(25:49):
it helped me by having examples given by other people
who were doing the same thing and me being able
to watch them navigate those simple things in life. I
feel like the things I'm talking about are really mundane,
are really things that we take for granted. These actions,
(26:10):
are these activities that I'm describing, but for me, they
were challenging to do. And so that was one of
the things that that opened up for me when I
first got sober. And then also just my feelings. I
was starting to feel better to feel and my feelings, honestly, debby,
(26:35):
my feelings scared me. Yeah, yeah, sometimes I felt like
initially when I was first starting this journey, I was
afraid to feel my feelings fully. And I remember my
friend who was also my sponsor at the time. He
(26:56):
he just would reassure me that no matter what feeling
would come up, that I was going to be okay,
that my feelings weren't going to kill me, and that
my feelings weren't necessarily factual. They may be happening in
the moment, but it doesn't necessarily mean that, um, what's
underneath them is factual. Like I say that in reference
(27:20):
to fear, it's we can all be fearful of certain things,
but what we're fearful of and the fear that we're
feeling aren't necessarily based in in reality of what's happening
in the moment, right, especially for those of us with
with very sensitive nervous systems right where we easily can
switch on to fight flight freeze. I just learned that
(27:45):
I didn't have to be afraid of my feelings, and
then I can walk through difficult feelings and even joyous
feelings as well, because that was also kind of scary too. Yeah. Absolutely,
I mean you have to clear the shadow to make
space for the joy to be even able to feel
safe in that feeling. You know how they say, you know,
(28:16):
all feelings are valid. Yes, all feelings are valid because
they are being felt by you and your individual experience
in the way that you know yourself and your feelings.
But all feelings are not real and they're not true.
You know, you can be feeling something that is actually untrue,
and it doesn't mean to invalidate your experience. The feeling
(28:39):
is what is real inside of you, but where it
stems from and the power it holds, that's what we
have to investigate when we're doing some of that some
of that work. Um, you know, so wow, what a journey,
you know, what a journey, What a beautiful journey you've
been on, and what a d uh embodied knowing of
(29:02):
what that entire experience has been like. And I something
that I think that I love the way that you're
expressing your path and I think that this is so
powerful and I want to directly speak to listeners right
now and knowing as you think of soul work to
do around this episode or any potential journaling that you
may do, this is the way that Stephen is expressing
(29:25):
his experience. Is what it really is to be embodied
in your healing. It takes it the step past the
awareness or the identifying that there is something wrong, and
it's being able to look at all the facets of
how something affected you and I found for me in
my life like the sweet spot starts to come when
(29:47):
I've moved past some of those bigger moments and I'm
able to notice myself in those soft moments or in
what someone else may deem as you know, you had said,
it doesn't seem like a big moment, and I'm like, no, yes,
it does. You know, just someone that that is also
you know, has has spent so much time doing that
(30:09):
crevice work inside of themselves. So it just it's beautiful
in the way that you're able. And I want to
reflect this back as everyone is listening the way Stephen
is sharing some of the more traumatic parts and life
altering parts of what that long journey was, but from
a place of neutrality, from a place of ease. You know,
(30:30):
when I hear you speaking to it, there is not
active charge, and how you are resonating with those experiences,
and it's just it's so beautiful and it's so powerful.
You know how I'm so interested in how you came
to find chi gun. How did that medicine, that beautiful,
(30:52):
um ancient modality cross your path and how did you
translate your movement as a dancer into working with that energy.
Mm hm, that's such a delicious question. Oh my gosh.
I I was first exposed to che going when I
entered traditional Chinese medicine school, so back in I think
(31:17):
it was well was when I decided that I wanted
to go back to school and study Chinese medicine, and
I worked really hard to get into a school. I
had to clean up a lot of the wreckage of
my past in order to be able to get into
a school, and so I finally achieved that. I moved
(31:41):
to California to do to do that and I entered
the program, which was very exciting and also terrifying at
the same time. And it was an interesting experience because
shortly after I began the program, I started to fee
feel fear. I started to feel fear and a lot
(32:05):
of old stories came to mind and that things started
to bubble up to the surface. So I was very
much in crisis when I first entered that program, and
luckily what happened for me was she Gong was part
of the program was part of the curriculum, and it
(32:25):
helped me to deal with the fear and the and
the There are so many things that were coming up
for me. Fear, shame, ah, worry, anxiety, I was having
panic attacks, you name it. I was having I couldn't
sleep at night, couldn't concentrate. And once she Gong was
(32:50):
introduced to me, I was able to take that movement practice,
that mindful movement practice, and allow it to do what
it does, which is healing. It helps too to move
stuck energy in the body. That can be pain or
(33:10):
tension in your body, but that can also be emotional
energy that's stuck and also mental energy that's that's uh
stock are overactive and just to bring balance. I desperately
needed it. So between the movements and and breath is
a very important part of checking and also focused intention
(33:35):
mm hmm. It shifted everything for me. It provided so
much ease. It got my cheek on, gets my mind
unstuck right, It gives me space. It gives me space
in my body, but it also gives me space in
my heart and in my mind. When the practice was
(33:57):
first introduced to me, I was able to really work
with the medicine to get to a place where I
was able to pull out of the panic, pull out
of the worry, put pull out of the fear, and
just discover, Okay, Stephen, what's true for you? What's really
true for you? What is it that you want out
of this experience? And I came to a very difficult
(34:19):
at first realization was that I didn't want to be
a Chinese medicine doctor. I was so sure that that's
what I wanted to do, and I was so caught
up in this idea of while I've made that decision,
I can't change my mind. You can't change your mind.
If you make a decision, you just have to follow through.
What are people going to think if you change your mind?
All these things? Che Goong helped me to just let
(34:42):
all that fall away and come to a point of
peace and surrender, and it also helped me to focus.
I was only in the program for a semester, and
by the end of that semester, I was kicking ass
and I still knew that it was that it wasn't
(35:03):
what I wanted to do. Yeah, and I was. I
made peace with that. So that whole process, and within
that process, I was this close two relapsing because I
was feeling so much and I didn't know how to
deal with it, and and I was very afraid that
I was going to lose my sobriety over it. So
(35:26):
the the she going, along with all the other things
that I was doing, change everything for me. And it
told me that this is something that's going to be
a part of my life for the rest of my life.
And it's something that I want to share with others
because it's powerful medicine, and the medicine lives within each
and every one of us. It's there, it's available. We
(35:49):
just we just need to learn a little bit about
our energy and how to be mindful of it and
and and gain some skill around how to manage energy
and how to cultivate it and how to release what
no longer serves us. M m m. We have at
(36:09):
the beginning of my checking journey. We have all the
tools right. Everything is already within us. It's just lying
dormant until we're able to activate it or clear enough
away from its path for it to emerge. Mm hmm. Wow.
What are you hoping people take away from this book?
(36:31):
Where are you hoping it allows them to go on
their journey. Yeah, well, I hope that people what people
get from this book is a sense that they're not alone.
Mm hmm, that whatever it is that they're going through,
whatever challenges that they're facing, that they're not alone. I
(36:52):
also mm hmm. I also want people to to note
that they are worthy of change, recovery, transformation, because I
think there's an element, at least for me, there's an
element of feeling that a better life, that that a
(37:16):
new level of healing wasn't available to me because of
shame or some sense of not being worthy. And also
I would I want people two get a series of tools,
a basket of recovery toolbox, I like to call it,
in the book of tools that they can use to
(37:38):
help themselves live a better life, a more conscious and
joyous life, whatever that looks like for them. Mm hmm. Everyone,
do yourself a favor, get this book. And I have
a feeling that some listen mean there's somebody in your
(38:01):
life you've earmarked as this book could be really really revelatory,
and so everything will be linked as always beneath in
the summary. So if you're listening on your podcast, if
you scroll down to the summary, there will be a
link click it you'll be able to get the book
straight directly there. And Stephen, how can people connect with
(38:23):
you and how can they join you in Chi Gung? Yes,
so people can connect with me at Stephen Washington Experience
dot com. That is my website and there you'll see
that I also have a membership community where I teach
a Pilates Cheegong fusion class and I also create other
content with that community. And you'll also be able to
(38:46):
buy my book there. You can get it in paperback
the book also audio book as well, and you'll also
find all my online courses that I teach that are
available to everyone. So there's a lot there. So Stephen
Washington Experienced dot com and I'm still dying and I'm
gonna have to text you about this off interview because
(39:08):
I'm still dying to take a one on one class
with you. Um Pilates changed my life and it was
such a huge activator in my personal journey of learning
how to be in my body. It was my I
didn't initially connect to yoga UM I do now gratefully,
but my first pathway was actually Joseph Pilates. His system
(39:30):
of I believe to be a system of awakening. Um
that he shared. And it's so funny because I think
a lot of people hear about pilates from the much
more privileged perspective of it being very often very expensive
class to take any typically you know it it's been
portrayed and kind of stereotyped as being something that's luxury
(39:51):
maybe for white women, and you know, maybe you know,
if you have the freedom to do it, like it's
just trendy, But it is a powerful tool of awakening.
It teaches you how to know your body like nothing
I've ever known. It teaches you how to feel parts
of your body that you didn't know existed. Um, it
(40:12):
was just it was one of the most beautiful tools
I put in my toolbox in my journey. And then
that mixed with ch Gong, I'm just I can't wait
till I get to get in front of you and
get all of that medicine and magic. Thank you, Thank
you so much for joining us on dropping gems. Thank
(40:32):
you for writing this book once again, everyone recovering you
Soul Care and Mindful Movement for Overcoming Addiction by Stephen Washington.
So grateful for your time. Thank you for having me
and so good to lay my eyes on you. I know,
and I know so good, so good. Thank you, my friends,
(40:56):
thank you another big thank you for joining us on
this very beautiful episode. Once again, Steven's book it's available
November two, so very very soon and at post time
of recording this episode. And of course this book is
called Recovering You, Soul Care and mindful movement for overcoming addiction.
(41:20):
And in this book, you know, he shares his story
as well as a wide variety of tools that are
designed to help readers more intimately connect themselves with their lives.
So there's a lot of incredible practices in their Reflections movement. Uh,
definitely check that out. Share this episode with a friend
if you feel so called, give us a five star review,
(41:42):
write a little review. Big gratitude for everyone that has
taken time to do that. I had a chance to
catch up and read so many and deeply blessed me.
So grateful to be able to be here and grateful
to keep going all right until next time. Hey find
(42:02):
me on social Let's connect at Debbie Brown. That's Twitter
and Instagram, or go to my website Debbie Brown dot com.
And if you're listening to the show on Apple podcasts.
Please please, please don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe,
and send this episode to a friend. Dropping Jims is
(42:23):
the production of I Heart Radio and the Black Effect Network.
It's produced by Jackie's and me, Debbie Brown. For more
podcasts from My heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Devi Brown
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