September 1, 2025 • 49 mins
In this deeply personal episode of Naked Sports, Cari starts by honoring her grandmother, the woman whose love shaped your life in ways words can barely hold. Her passing is fresh, and the grief? It’s heavy. This episode is for her. For you. For anyone who’s carried that weight and still found the courage to speak. Cari reflects on how this podcast has become a place where she can step away from the polished TV persona and speak honestly, with vulnerability and truth. And that’s exactly what she does in today’s episode.
With the grace of the community, a new connection was formed during Cari’s recent visit to the vineyard this summer. Dr. Akua Boateng is a licensed psychotherapist and emotional wellness coach who helps Cari to unpack the complexities of grief, especially for high-functioning individuals. She shares how grief looks different for everyone and reminds us that ambition doesn’t cancel out the need for emotional care.
Together, they touch on how collective traumas like COVID-19 reshaped us, how athletes and high achievers carry hidden weight, and why healing in community is everything. Dr. Boateng’s words land like balm:
“Grief is the body and mind’s way of responding to the absence of love.”
“We are hurt in relationship, and we heal in relationship.”
The conversation is layered, healing, and exactly the kind of dialogue that helps move through pain with purpose.
Connect: @CariChampion @DrAkuaBoateng
Learn More: DrAkuaBoateng.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Naked Sports. I'm your host, Carrie Champion. We
are rounding out season four. Believe it or not, this
would probably mean we have four or five more episodes
left before we take a brief break and come back
for season five. But it isn't to me. I think
everything is divine. I don't believe that I have this podcast,
(00:25):
I have this platform, and then I have moments where
I feel like I'm talking to you as a family
because I do. And I'm really grateful for this podcast
because it allows me to do something I don't normally
do on TV, which is just talk as myself, not
worried about the camera to turn angles to the left, just
to have this moment to talk to you all. That's
(00:47):
what it is. So with that being said, on August
twenty first, one week ago from the moment, I am
recorded at twelve wow forty nine, and that's the exact
(01:08):
time it is Pacific Standard time as I record this podcast.
It's twelve forty nine. A week ago Thursday, my dear grandmother,
ninety five years old passed away, and I have been
telling people that I don't know, well, she lived ninety
five years, so it must be wonderful, like she had
a full life. She had a full life, and it
(01:29):
would be wonderful if I really believe that, But I
don't think that.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I do.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I think that she could have been ninety six years old,
ninety seven years old, one hundred years old, and I
would still feel the same pain that I feel. And
if you follow me for any period of time, you
know that my grandmother has been so instrumental in my life,
in every aspect of my life. I often tell the
(01:55):
story of how when I was a kid, I would
go to Laker games with and Clipper games, but Lakers
games more specifically, because she loved the Lakers. She grew
up in the segregated South and she played basketball, you know,
in high school. Could you imagine she was born in
(02:18):
the thirties and she was playing basketball, probably late forties,
early fifties, and she loved it. It was her favorite sport.
There was never an idea of her being professional or
even going to college, but she just loved the sport.
She would often joke and say, I used to do
a three pointer before three pointers were a thing, And
(02:39):
I guess to see that she planted in me when
I was a child, really made its way through my
life and ultimately left me with a really beautiful blessing
of a career and a wonderful platform, and beautiful friends
and a great life. I don't think that I would
be in sports if it were not for my grandmother,
A Stale Manning has been sick for some time, but
(03:02):
she truly has been the matriarch of our family. And
I don't think in my adult life that I have
ever dealt with such grief losing someone who means so
much to you. I'm lucky. Look, I've lived a full
life and I've never ever experienced loss in this way,
(03:23):
and so I consider myself lucky to have her in
my life for all of my life. But now I
am learning how to deal with grief. I have been
sad before. I have lost friends, I've lost I've been
in and out of relationships. I've had a lot of
sad things happen to me. But this is something that
(03:48):
I don't think I was ever prepared for. And grief
is very tricky. It ebbs and it flows, and anyone
who's ever dealt with that knows that you can have
a good day and a really bad a good day
and a really bad day, a good moment, and a
really bad moment, and I have had so many wonderful
people and my community really hold me during this time.
(04:12):
Magic Johnson called me because he met her once because
he knew that she was a huge Laker fan, and
he just wanted to check on me and make sure
that I was okay. And I was grateful because one
of the best moments in my life that I was
able ever to provide for her was her meeting Magic Johnson.
I've had people call me, I've had people send me things.
(04:33):
It's so wonderful. And the wonderful part of the grief
is that you realize that you have a beautiful community.
You realize, without even trying to create a community, you
have a community of people who understand and have incredible
empathy and compassion for you. And what I mean by that,
(04:54):
I mean my producer of the podcast who's reached out
to me a few times, right and just checking on
me and gently making sure I'm okay, or it could
be you know, the doorman in my building, or whatever
it could be. There is something that I am realizing
about the community you create without even realizing you create it.
(05:16):
And if I've given an ounce of the compassion that
has been given to me, then I've done my job
and I'm super super grateful. And so it got me
to thinking. Shout out to Jack Quiza was her idea.
It got me to thinking, and my producer, let's do
something on grief. How athletes are able to compartmentalize, how
(05:39):
high functioning people are able to compartmentalize. How this world,
how we as humans are living in today's America, and
we are compartmentalizing because it's not normal what we're dealing with.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
People.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
If we just talk about the world that we live
in and the things that we see on our timeline
versus how we are functioning day in and day out,
none of this is normal and we should normalize it.
And every now and again, a moment will happen, and
a moment will come to you as it has come
to me with the loss of my dear, dear grandmother,
where I am stuck. I'm frozen with my thoughts and
(06:13):
my emotions, and I look around and I'm like, none
of this is normal. And I'm so grateful that I
am having experiences with people that allow me to say,
none of this is normal and it's okay. To feel
everything and process everything, and I'm really at the beginning
of this grief journey. But I feel my grandmother holding
(06:37):
my hand the whole way as she always has. I
feel her excited about a life where she can watch
over me and watch me flourish and do things that
she's always wanted for me. I mean, it feels good
(06:59):
to think and to really know that you have an
angel on your side. Until on today's podcast, I have
the opportunity to speak with a doctor, a therapist who
explains grief, what it looks like, how it may feel
(07:21):
in different people, how it looks differently for different people,
how we process grief. But her specialty is for high
functioning people, ambitious people who want wellness, because that's the balance,
because I could continue on in my life and do
(07:42):
TV and do my podcast and live like there's no
big deal, nothing happening. It's the same thing that I
see with certain athletes who lose loved ones and they
go out on game day and drop fifty or perhaps
they continue to play in a football game and they
outperform and get more yards than they ever had. See
it day in and day out. In my profession, I
see highly functioning people do well in tragedy, in very
(08:07):
tragic moments, and I always have wondered why, And today
doctor Boughton will explain it all to us. And I
appreciate her giving me the patience in pronouncing her name,
because you guys have to forgive me. You know, I
don't always get the names right, doctor Watton. I'm good
with that, right, I hope. So so sit back, relax,
(08:28):
enjoyed this edition of Naked Sports and allow me, as
the host of the show, just to be completely vulnerable.
Thank you all for being here. And may my grandmother A.
Stelle Manning, rest in peace.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
My name is doctor Aquia K. Wotton. I am a
license psychotherapist and emotional wellness coach for many folks, mainly
at the intersection of ambition and emotional wellness. High achieving
people that are doing well in their life professionally and
want to balance emotional wellness, which means.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I must hire you after this. That's what I've decided. Okay,
so you know, first I want to talk about this
thing called grief. Probably last year, dear friend of mine
lost his mother suddenly suddenly, and he found her basically comatose.
But he said he just went into this space where
(09:36):
he had to save her life and ultimately he wasn't
able to. And I sent him a message and I said,
grief is a tricky lady. She ebbs and she flows,
and so the days will come where you're fine, and
then you could just be having a donut and start crying.
You don't know where it comes from, but it comes
from somewhere, I often say, and you've heard this before,
(09:59):
it's all the love you for someone. You just don't
know where to place it emotionally. Can you talk to
me about the definition of grief and what that means.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Grief is a amorphous kind of formless experience that we
all go through and we lose something that is dear
to us, whether that be a person, whether that be
an experience, It could be a location, it could be
an identity. But grief is really the body and BrainsWay
(10:32):
of dealing with the absence of the love and bond
that we've just had.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Grief is the body's way and the mind's way of
dealing with the absence of the love that we have.
So how do we deal with that with grief? How
does it appear? How does it show up?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
It shows up in different ways for different people, right,
and sometimes depending on what it is that you done
to metabolize emotion throughout your lifetime, grief is really going
to kind of fall in line with that. There are
many people that don't really take a lot of time
to metabolize their emotion. They don't feel their feelings, and
so when grief arrives, it kind of falls in line
(11:16):
with that. We can have moments where we are working
our tails off, right, we cannot feel anything for years
and years, sometimes months, and then all of a sudden,
it hits us like a brick, right, and we might
physically feel it. Somatically, we might have moments of depression
(11:36):
and deep, deep grief in that way. It's really hard
to say exactly how grief will hit your life, but
we do know that when it does, it's important to
take your time with it right, allowing yourself, allowing your body,
allowing your brain to recalibrate to this new reality of distance,
(12:00):
of absence of not having the thing, the person, the
experience that you have relied on for so long.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
When I think about America, I do feel like there
is a grief that we have been dealing with in
this country collectively because of where we are, maybe not
just the pandemic, but there's always been this thing to
in my spirit about the pandemic we have lost. We
(12:30):
lost millions of people in the pandemic, and it almost
felt like it was a blanket of an eye and
we forgot. Living in New York, you would see these
refrigerated trucks with bodies piled high because there was nowhere
you couldn't bury the body, and loved ones couldn't put
their loved ones to rest appropriately, or the way in
(12:51):
which they felt. A good friend of mine her mother
was sick in the hospital and she couldn't see her,
and she was like, let me just take her home
and care for her as she prepares for her last
days in the home. You know, there are so many
different ways to describe what we were experiencing fast forward
to where we are today. I wonder if you have
(13:12):
thought about and or talked about the grief that we're
experiencing collectively as a society, not black or white, but
just as a whole a human being.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, absolutely thought about it a lot. I think most
of us have thought about it because we had to.
We were home, we couldn't work the way that we
used to. We couldn't socialize in the way that we
used to, we could not live in the way that
we used to. And so grief is not only individual,
but it is collective. We can feel the loss of
(13:45):
our norms, of our comfort zones, even our identity as
a nation shifted and changed the way that we thought
about mental health and emotional health. Whereas it may have
been a side thing, it became central focus. Everything that
is essential in your life comes to the full front
(14:05):
when grief is on the scene.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
So, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
So what would you describe that as that time? How
would you describe the pandemic. I don't even think that
we took time, or maybe I didn't take time, but
I don't think people took time to process. We were
so consumed with trying to get out of the house
and leave and do more.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Absolutely, we're in survival mode. We were in. It is
a collective pause, a freeze that happened internationally. There was
never a time in our lifetime where the entire world stopped.
Everything that we knew, everything that we knew the world
to be, our nation to be, was frozen, and so
(14:47):
it was a collective traumatic experience. It was a collective pause,
and the cascading impact of that moving forward is our nation,
our identity as a globe, global world and economy is
really still trying to grapple with what happened? Could it
(15:08):
happen again? Right? And so it is a really really
tough thing to quantify. I think we're still trying to
find language for where we are as a nation, but
I do know that it was a collective traumatic experience
followed by a collective grief experience.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
What do you mean when you say we are trying
to find language for where we are as a nation?
I agree with that, but I don't have the language.
What do you mean?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah? I think we're trying to find our core, right,
which is a part of a traumatic experience, Right. It
scrambles everything that we know that we find comfort in,
that we can reliably predict day to day. I think
(15:55):
that we have been trying to get that right. We
were working out of the home, most of us for
much of our careers and then went home, Right, We're
still trying to find what does work look like? Are
we hybrid? Are we going back?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Are no?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Maybe? We should stay home. Are we more productive as
a society? Right? We're still trying to name that, understand
that right. Socially, are we people that get together in
the way that we used to or is that actually
not a good idea anymore? Are we socially awkward? Are
(16:34):
we not quite sure who is a friend and who's
not a friend? How do we make a friend? Do
people come over our house? Do we want them to
meet us outside? We don't know just yet, And so
everything in our life we are renaming and finding language.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
For you just described my whole existence since the pandemic?
Am I socially awkward? I feel like I'm looking for
that definition, but I'm not. And I'm social, but I'm
also awkward. And I don't know how to interact all
of these things. And I don't know because quite frankly,
I can't remember if there was a Is it a
different behavior for me? Was there a different behavior? And
(17:13):
I hear this question often and I have always wondered,
because it's as described, grief is something that you have
to experience and we process individually. But in the world
that we live in today, there seems to be when
you described this earlier or called it survival mode. Survival
mode can look like what in different people and different experiences.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I am asking, right, fight, flight, freeze, right, we can
be in those ways of coping. So the ways that
we may respond to being in survival, we might freeze.
That means the things that we're used to, we're not
quite able to concentrate, We're not quite able to find
(17:58):
words through the things that we're going through. We may
not be able to work in the way or at
the highest demand, Like with my clients as we used
to why can't I get out the bed? Why can't
I just you know, figure out what I want to
do today, what's going to happen this fall? I can't
plan it? And so we might actually freeze when we're
in survival mode. Some people don't. They take flight. They
(18:20):
work their tails off, right, they overwork, they can't relax,
they can't sleep right, and so they are really kind
of an overdrive as a response to being in survival right.
And so there are many ways that it may manifest.
But at the heart of it, we're not present. We're
not present in our body, we're not present in our mind,
(18:43):
and we are just really in this defense mechanism that's
beautiful the body has for us to survive. But at
the same time, we're not meant to stay in survival
too long, right. It is there's all of these effects.
We know that now. It impacts our body when we're
in quarters all too long. Right, It's connected to a
(19:05):
lot of diseases and our immune system going down, and
so survival mode again gets us through, it manifests in
many ways, but it's not meant to be here with
us too long.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
And what examples? Can you look around the country and
see everyone in survival mode, whether it be politicians, whether
it be your neighbors, whether it be you know what
happened just recently there's a horrible school shooting in Minneapolis,
and I'm like, do we not draw the line? And
kids praying where do we draw the line? When do
(19:40):
we say enough is enough? And we find ourselves reading
and seeing these experiences and we're inundated, especially if it's online,
We're inundated with what appears to be the bad of
the world. How does that manifest in survival mode for
people who are trying to process how this country is
(20:01):
is existing.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I find that a lot of people are moving to
disassociating and distracting. It is not natural to look through
your timeline and see people dancing and laughing and then
see baby starving and people that are you know, fleeing
and shooting, and then you know something about lipstick and
(20:25):
that It's just very difficult for our consciousness to metabolize
all of these things, and so what we might find
ourselves doing is distracting, not really sitting with our emotion,
not sitting with what does this mean to me? What
do I think about it? And how do I want
to respond right, Or we're disassociating, meaning I'm not even
(20:49):
going to think about it. I can't watch it, I
can't talk about it, I'm going to start working, I'm
going to do something else completely. I literally can not
do it. And so if there is someone that is
struggling with that, it is natural for us not to
be inundated with all of these stories and information and
(21:12):
fears and risks all at the same time. Our brains
actually cannot digest it right, and so we have to
take breaks. That's why I am a big believer in
the digital detox and taking moments away from it just
to be able to metabolize and process. Where are you?
What is happening right? Are you distracting? Are you disassociating?
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Your voice feels like a comforter, a pillow, a blanket.
It feels very calming, and so I am grateful that
you exist because it can help. I often wonder, and
this is as experienced and sharing with you the grief
(22:05):
that I have been dealing with. I have often wondered
how people can get up and go, and especially in
my world of sports, most recently, I'll use the example
of Steph Curry. He lost his grandmother and obviously the
game is not here and he's not playing in a
day to day game. But I've seen athletes go through
so much and deal with the loss of a child,
(22:25):
or a loss of a wife, of a horrible accent,
or a best friend or a mother, and they get
up and they perform at the best of their ability
on game day. And I think you talked about this
a moment ago. Is that considered a survival distraction and
showing up in a way where you overwork yourself? What
(22:48):
would you call that compartmentalization?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Well, it's quite interesting and high achievers, right, So that's
kind of my population, right, people that are quite ambitious
and they have achieved a lot in life, whether that
is professional sports and entertainment and business. They have excelled
in their life because of their ability to compartmentalize right.
(23:13):
If we think about it, if you have a surgeon
in your life that is working on your family member,
you want them to have a healthy level of compartmentalization
that they can go into a zone to be able
to do something that if they were fully present with it,
they may not be able to do right. Same thing
(23:34):
with an athlete or someone that's doing professional sports, there
is an elite performance mode and it has really helped
that person throughout their lifetime and it comes into full
focus in times of tragedy. We see performance swings during grief,
but we also see this high level of compartmentalization the
(23:56):
ability to do that to have what we can exceptional
play right, and oftentimes it's centered in the psychology that
most of the folks that are working at this level
have meaning and purpose connected to family. They have meaning
and purpose connected to tribe, to culture, to a lot
(24:20):
of things that have helped them develop and so when
they lose a person, you will see them move into
this exceptional play to be able to meet the moment
with that sense of meaning and purpose for that person,
they drop fifty points and it's like, what does that mean?
But really it was always for them all along, whether
(24:42):
that be for the tribe, whether that be for the person,
whether that be for the idea of family right to
move the tribe forward, to do what something had someone
or do something that someone else has never been able
to do right. And so in these moments of tragedy
we see the compartmentalization that's always been there, but that
(25:05):
deep sense of purpose and meaning meeting the moment for
that exceptional play.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Is there anything about that that's dysfunctional and or hurtful
as you if you don't, if you only compartmentalize and
not process correct right.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And so that's why you know, often people work with
me on being able to balance emotional wellness right because
this idea that there's a lot of technical pieces to it,
but it's been with that person for a long time
and that's why they're exceptional. But now in their adult life,
hopefully it is one that they begin to infuse with
(25:46):
emotional wellness. How do I actually connect with a partner,
whether I'm working with someone that is off you know,
season and having trouble with their partner, right, and being
able to be a family person or a person that's
just retired and I don't know who I am, I
don't know my identity, what do I do now? What's
(26:08):
my next move? Right? And so being able to balance
emotional wellness is the healthiest we can be as well
as there are a sect of people that their work
just demands a different layer.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Of Oh, this is so good. So when you find
yourself in these spaces, and I think a little bit
about what I wanted to do today is let people
know because I've been getting this conversation for so long,
but I haven't been tapped in enough to feel that emotion.
(26:44):
When my friend loses his mom and he finds her
and he has to try to resuscitate her and bring
it back to life. And my other good girlfriend loses
her her mother and she has to be the one
to take care of her as she's dying during the
pandemic because she did want her to be in the
hospital byerl another I'm just thinking about all of these
forms of grief that people experience but continue to get
(27:07):
back up and go to work. Yes, it makes them
feel as if they need to be high achiever. But
is it because of of the world that we live
in today that shows you on your phone that everybody's
getting it, that everyone's going out and hustling and doing
and winning and winning no matter what at all costs.
Is there a part of that that is just not true?
(27:27):
Like where does the And the question might be as
I search for it, when are people okay to feel?
When does that movement become popular or it's okay to
pause and feel? Where does that happen? When does that happen?
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Rather, it happens with us, hopefully with us And when
we sell on the alarm, when we you know, put
down the cape, when we break the seale, when we say,
you know what, I'm going to talk about the grief
I'm going through with my family. I'm going to talk
about the fact that I had a hard time getting
back to work this month. Right, I'm going to talk
(28:10):
about it. I'm going to also share that with my
friends in small circles.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It takes us each individually becoming brave to be vulnerable. Right,
it also takes us collectively that have platforms to be
able to talk about our own personal experience and the
utility of emotion. Oftentimes we don't think about the utility
of emotion. There are so many things that being able
(28:37):
to feel your feelings does for us and with us
that is powerful and productive if we're aware of it.
And so I hope we're in that season right now.
I hope we are. You know, as mental health and
emotional health has taken the center stage, I'm hoping that
we are in a space where, you know, people that
(28:59):
especially people in sports, that are taking the you know,
taking the arm up. I'm in a Brandon Marshall, I'm
thinking of even in entertainment, Charlotte Mayne, like, we are
here talking about humanity, right, your humanity first, right, and
that's really where we start.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
What does the utility of emotion mean?
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Yeah, the utility So oftentimes people that come to me
that say, I really feel like I don't know myself,
or they may say I don't know what direction to
go next, or how do I know if this is
the right person for me, or I don't know if
I should take this job. Oftentimes, our emotionality is that
(29:49):
internal guiding system that allows us to know what it
is that intuitively we need where to go what's important
to us and who we are. When we sit in
the center of our emotion, we find ourselves. We meet ourselves,
(30:11):
and so we know in the middle of that date
when we're I don't feel settled right, or I feel
anxious around this person, or I don't know, I feel
down and low when I might leave that circle of
friends right, or there's something about this job that I
(30:31):
can't I can't sleep. We're dild dialed into that navigation
then internal. That's why we say it's our gut feeling right.
It's that intuitive, intuitive sense of power and wisdom that
we can follow to guide us in our life.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Everything you say makes so much sense, So I'll only
want to make sure that our listeners can understand and
it by example. So I will talk about doing CNN right.
So when I finish this podcast, I will prep to
do CNN tonight. And I have made deliberate choices on
(31:21):
when I go on and who I will go on
with because my spirit does not feel right. I don't
want the hour of TV time if I'm up all
night thinking about my interactions and what I said or
who I interacted with, or or whatever it may be.
Like this doesn't feel right. This doesn't feel like what
(31:43):
I'm doing. I mean, and I've been tussling with this
in a real way. So I've been allowing myself and
with the help of the network, figure out what it
looks like for me like and I think there's some
honesty with where we are in the world today. You know,
you can't discuss anything about pops without some I'm putting
you on the left or the right. But it doesn't
(32:03):
calm my nervous system. In fact, it does the absolute opposite.
And it also does that for friends of mine. I've
heard them say, oh, no, I'm just so uncomfortable before
I go on. But another friend reminded me that the
truth still matters, and so we still have to with
our platform us high achievers or not even high achievers.
(32:24):
But perhaps you are remember that truth still matters. Yeah,
But then I get this conversation from people telling me, yeah,
but not right now. Are you suggesting that if someone
is struggling internally with the do or that don't of
(32:44):
a life circumstance, work, friendship, love relationships work again, do
we trust this? And you're saying that our internal our
internal guide is usually the right is the right space
to listen to. Or could it be confusing because sometimes
I find it confusing.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, it is confusing at first, right, and maybe even
by design it's confusing because it requires you to lean in,
it requires you to spend some time with it. It's
just a queue. It's your body telling you something's up.
(33:26):
Then may be down right, let me sit down, let
me spend some time there, Let me allow it to
wash over my body and just fully be in it
and gain the wisdom on the other side of that arc.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Oftentimes people don't get the wisdom because they don't sit
through the arc of it. We got to sit through
the arc of the pain in order to let it
teach you something on the other side of it, right.
And so yes, if you're struggling, something is up, sit
with it, get clear about it, talk to people about it,
right so that you can recognize, Oh, are is this
(34:02):
the nerve and you know, the system that comes together
before I do something great? Is this resilience kind of
mounting up right? Or is this something else? This is
the disturbance? Right, This is a wrestling, This is a
You are not in line with the divine order. You
are not in line with where you should be right
(34:27):
and so why we listen to that is because that
is where we find our peace. That's where everyone finds
our peace.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Listening gosh, that requires us to be so patient and
not distracted by the world around us, and that, to me,
in itself is a tall order in a world that
makes you feel like you have to constantly perform. You
mentioned Brandon Marshall, and I think of that, and I've
interviewed him a few times and he said this obviously,
you know, he's very open about his his his struggles
(34:59):
with mental health. Charloe Mane two, we've talked about it
as well. I think that what I'm curious about and
high performance people athletes as well. There is this what
you're saying, listen to what we should be doing, but
there's also still the requirement of I have to perform.
(35:20):
There's I don't know where the balance is in that
for them and or myself. Where's the balance of listening
and sitting with it? And how do you listen and
sit with it when you're worried about performing, or when
you know that you have to perform, or there is
something innate in you that says we got to perform.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
That's why you know, doing the work to be able
to have an integration of the two is really where
you get into like a power space, right. And so
oftentimes when I'm working with folks right, if they're in season, right,
there's a different way of doing right. And so we're
kind of microdocing these moments if you were right, And
so it could be after aim, it could be on
(35:57):
a couple of days where you have off, where it
could be in a couple therapy session, and we kind
of make sure it works that way so you're not hanging.
It's not hanging over you for the next forty eight hours.
But again we're taking time, We're taking those microdosing moments
of meditation. Journaling morning pages is really something I really
(36:17):
really like three pages in the morning, just allowing your
brain to go, don't you know, edit it, just let
it go, right, because really what it comes it comes
to is can I let the stuff out? We are
so used to suppressing and repressing what is happening within us,
(36:39):
not feeling the feelings, not actually going through what it
is that we're thinking in our mind and writing it
down or expressing it right, And so taking those small
moments to do that is really important. Right. Also being
able to give yourself breaks from the performance you're going
to perform. It's innate, that's where that's why you are
(36:59):
where you are.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Let's go, yeah, it'll come, It'll have fact that.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Okay, that's gonna come. Right. But we also we don't
want to have performance crash, right, and that also happens
right when you, you know, suppress your emotion or bypass what's
happening within, so microdosing, having those moments where you actually
can feel talk it out, express it, get it out
(37:27):
of your body, let it metabolize through you, and then
you get locked into that zone. That zone is empowered
by your clarity. It's empowered by the moments where you
can be in peace because you're not in a wrestling
or turmoil.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Internally, when I talk to athletes a special, well women too.
I'm not gonna just give it mail male, but women too.
So when we have these these topics where we see
incredible pain, I think of the most most obvious one
(38:07):
where I think I saw people really embrace what they
felt was when Kobe Bryant passed away and there was
this collective mourning because it was felt so deeply across
the globe. There was there was no shame associated with
crying or saying that you were sad. There was no stigma. Everyone.
(38:33):
These athletes didn't feel like they have to be gladiators.
And I and I and I even reference athletes, but
humans in general. What you just described are people feeling
like they have to push through and be gladiators. And
when you don't, when you realize that you don't have
to do that, there's this there's this relaxation that overcomes
your body. How would you describe that moment? Because I
would love if we could have more moments like that
(38:55):
where we could just honestly get everything that is off
our chests and into the world and share it so
that we know we're not alone.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
I don't know why. They just reminded me. Have you
seen these videos online where they have either there's like
a man that's partner is filming them before they see them,
and then after like, oh I haven't seen those, No
make goodness. So it's usually these videos of you know,
this man, super masculine guy, you know, at an airport
and kind of like walking through the space and then
(39:25):
as soon as they see their girl they're like, ah,
they're space meaner changes. We need sacred spaces, Karen. We
need sacred spaces where we can fully be ourselves, where
we can unwind, where you don't have to be on.
We don't have to be anyone, and most importantly, we
(39:46):
don't have to be the person that we're known publicly.
One of the things I think that is the most
powerful essences of working with people that have public lives
is their ability to not be that person. In session M,
that you can kind of curl back up into just
(40:10):
that childhood version of yourself, that that version of you
that doesn't have to be on, that doesn't have to
be known for any single thing except for just who
you are. And so that is how we heal. We're
hurt in relationship, and we heal in relationship.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
And say that again, Wait, say that again.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
We hurt in relationship, Yeah, and we heal in relationship.
One of the most foundational parts of our psychology right
most of the things that are happening to us right
now are happening with us originated really early in our
life in relationship M.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
And so the healing in the relationship is finding community
and allowing us to be free. And that is whether
it could be in the locker room, it could be
in the boardroom, it could be with your friends, in
a meeting room, whatever the space is. Oh wow, that's
so powerful.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
A lot of people feel like they have to be
taught that.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
What do you want?
Speaker 2 (41:16):
How do I teach me how to relax, teach me
how to achieve the sense of balance and peace. It's
not something that has to be taught. Your body is
naturally inclined to it. We have to unlearn the ways
that we stop it from healing, that we stop it
(41:38):
from feeling. It's the resistance that is the issue. It's
not our body's capacity to heal or relax or recover, right,
And so when you get in the space, the body
will know what to do.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Why does the body resist it so much? Why does
the body and mind resist that?
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Because of pain, because of our history, because of trauma,
Because there is also a lot of muscle memory and
sensory memory in the body right where we may have
been unsafe in relationship with someone. And so now we
get into what feels like potentially a safe space, but
we block it. We're not sure if it's going to
(42:23):
be safe. Maybe it's going to be exactly like that
last time, right? Or I really want to be myself,
but I'm not sure how people are going to feel
about me as this person, this known person doing this
thing that I really want to do. Right, Maybe I
want to sing, maybe I want to do art, But
(42:45):
what are they going to think about me? And so
we block it? What is naturally occurring in you will
manifest if we don't block it.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Wow, well I didn't know that. So the unlearning is
the less here. The unlearning of are of probably the
instinct of not wanting to feel the pain and or
whatever the case may be. We just have that at
the ready, as opposed to instinctually allowing and surrendering and
letting it happen absolutely so intense. We move into a
(43:19):
space like as this season comes along, I've noticed that,
and this is something that I've been talking about with
some of the ladies of the WNBA. They have made
a case and I can relate to that because it's
not even so much that it's sports, but they have
made a case that they are being described with more
adjectives that lean to their emotions as opposed to it
(43:43):
being an athletic instinct. She's being emotional on the court.
I went to the you know last night, we they
you know, by the time this heirs, everyone has seen
what happened with Taylor Townsend and I'll stink up. And
so we were having this conversation about these two women
and one woman being emotional because she didn't handle losing
(44:04):
well and the other woman being you know, defensive and
being like, oh, you're attacking me. Now I've noticed with
male athletes is that really wouldn't have been It would
not have made that much of a rise because men,
it's okay for men to do that, but when women
do that, it's a big deal. I wonder why athletes,
especially men versus women, Why why do we separate the two?
(44:27):
Why can't we just have And I've said this on
so many, so many in so many stories and ways.
Why do we associate women being athletes with their gender
when they have these moments not as much as we
do with men.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
I think it parallels our culture, right, our society right.
I think Serena talked about this some time ago, about
the idea of being hysterical, that this happens in our
everyday life, it happens in the boardroom, It happened you
know at home, right, it happens with your family. And
so I think it really just mirrors our mirrors our
(45:06):
society and our perceptions of women.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Right.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Our perceptions of women are really connected to our emotional selves, right,
and there are there's a lot of work that needs
to be done and how we see women, how we
acknowledge the power, the strength, the resilience, the productivity, all
of the things that also are centered within the women, right,
(45:33):
And we'll be able to do that. As we talk
about sports, right, it's still exceptionalism in a way, right,
that female athlete meaning it's it's out of the norm
or it's something right, it's something I have to underline.
So you know that there's a.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Male athlete as opposed to athlete.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And some of our emotional selves are
powerful and important too, right, they are agree, right, Our
full selves are important, just like the emotional selves of
male athletes are important. And so there needs to be
work to create a holistic way of seeing humans in
(46:13):
general that will hopefully be integrated in the way that
we do sport, in the way that we are elite,
in the ways that we're competing. We're still human doing.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
That, how do you And by way of background, and
this is what I'm really curious about, and we'll rap soon,
but tell me your background. How do you find yourself
at this intersection of emotional wellness and ambition?
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Yeah? I know it, right. I think growing up as
a first generation American, right, a Gandian or you are
really really encouraged to be your best less and so
it's something that I think personally I get, I understand
(47:02):
as well as in the work that I've done for years,
seventeen years, I think at this point the majority of
people that come to me are just in this lifestyle, right,
And so I've heard hours and hours and you know,
had hundreds of clients just telling me their stories, their experiences,
(47:24):
and oftentimes I found that high achieving folks are wrestling
with the balance of ambition and emotional wellness, and so
it was a natural flow. I think I always ask God,
what was this? Why do I have these folks in
my life? But I feel like it's by design. And
(47:47):
I think also the work that I've done with athletes
as well as in entertainment has been uniquely special to
me because of the ways that mental health and emotional
ways has started to take center stage and people are
more able to talk about it in the public center.
(48:08):
And it really does change the way that we see ourselves.
And if I can have any hand in being able
to change the way that we see each other, we
see humanity, we soften towards each other, the ways that
we actually enrich our experience on Earth. I feel like
(48:29):
that's what I'm here for.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
I love that so much, Doctor Wotton Boughton, perfect.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
You're honorary good being.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Boz Ofma says that to me, not fully but almost almost.
Thank you so much for being so so willing to
me so early. I had to have to rechange my
whole schedule, That's why it was so quick, and I
and I apologize for that, but thank you so much
for this. So we really really really needed this conversation.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
I know I did, absolutely, And I want to thank
you for kind of entering into this space even while
you're going through It's not easy. It's not easy to
be vulnerable to show yourself in service of other people,
and so thank you for your ministry, for your platform,
(49:23):
for your voice, and also thank you for your pain.
Pain Pain.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Naked Sports written and executive produced by me Carrie Champion,
produced by Jacquise Thomas, sound design and mastered by Dwayne Crawford.
Naked Sports is a part of the Black Effect podcast
network in iHeartMedia
Welcome to Naked Sports. I'm your host, Carrie Champion. We
are rounding out season four. Believe it or not, this
would probably mean we have four or five more episodes
left before we take a brief break and come back
for season five. But it isn't to me. I think
everything is divine. I don't believe that I have this podcast,
(00:25):
I have this platform, and then I have moments where
I feel like I'm talking to you as a family
because I do. And I'm really grateful for this podcast
because it allows me to do something I don't normally
do on TV, which is just talk as myself, not
worried about the camera to turn angles to the left, just
to have this moment to talk to you all. That's
(00:47):
what it is. So with that being said, on August
twenty first, one week ago from the moment, I am
recorded at twelve wow forty nine, and that's the exact
(01:08):
time it is Pacific Standard time as I record this podcast.
It's twelve forty nine. A week ago Thursday, my dear grandmother,
ninety five years old passed away, and I have been
telling people that I don't know, well, she lived ninety
five years, so it must be wonderful, like she had
a full life. She had a full life, and it
(01:29):
would be wonderful if I really believe that, But I
don't think that.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I do.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I think that she could have been ninety six years old,
ninety seven years old, one hundred years old, and I
would still feel the same pain that I feel. And
if you follow me for any period of time, you
know that my grandmother has been so instrumental in my life,
in every aspect of my life. I often tell the
(01:55):
story of how when I was a kid, I would
go to Laker games with and Clipper games, but Lakers
games more specifically, because she loved the Lakers. She grew
up in the segregated South and she played basketball, you know,
in high school. Could you imagine she was born in
(02:18):
the thirties and she was playing basketball, probably late forties,
early fifties, and she loved it. It was her favorite sport.
There was never an idea of her being professional or
even going to college, but she just loved the sport.
She would often joke and say, I used to do
a three pointer before three pointers were a thing, And
(02:39):
I guess to see that she planted in me when
I was a child, really made its way through my
life and ultimately left me with a really beautiful blessing
of a career and a wonderful platform, and beautiful friends
and a great life. I don't think that I would
be in sports if it were not for my grandmother,
A Stale Manning has been sick for some time, but
(03:02):
she truly has been the matriarch of our family. And
I don't think in my adult life that I have
ever dealt with such grief losing someone who means so
much to you. I'm lucky. Look, I've lived a full
life and I've never ever experienced loss in this way,
(03:23):
and so I consider myself lucky to have her in
my life for all of my life. But now I
am learning how to deal with grief. I have been
sad before. I have lost friends, I've lost I've been
in and out of relationships. I've had a lot of
sad things happen to me. But this is something that
(03:48):
I don't think I was ever prepared for. And grief
is very tricky. It ebbs and it flows, and anyone
who's ever dealt with that knows that you can have
a good day and a really bad a good day
and a really bad day, a good moment, and a
really bad moment, and I have had so many wonderful
people and my community really hold me during this time.
(04:12):
Magic Johnson called me because he met her once because
he knew that she was a huge Laker fan, and
he just wanted to check on me and make sure
that I was okay. And I was grateful because one
of the best moments in my life that I was
able ever to provide for her was her meeting Magic Johnson.
I've had people call me, I've had people send me things.
(04:33):
It's so wonderful. And the wonderful part of the grief
is that you realize that you have a beautiful community.
You realize, without even trying to create a community, you
have a community of people who understand and have incredible
empathy and compassion for you. And what I mean by that,
(04:54):
I mean my producer of the podcast who's reached out
to me a few times, right and just checking on
me and gently making sure I'm okay, or it could
be you know, the doorman in my building, or whatever
it could be. There is something that I am realizing
about the community you create without even realizing you create it.
(05:16):
And if I've given an ounce of the compassion that
has been given to me, then I've done my job
and I'm super super grateful. And so it got me
to thinking. Shout out to Jack Quiza was her idea.
It got me to thinking, and my producer, let's do
something on grief. How athletes are able to compartmentalize, how
(05:39):
high functioning people are able to compartmentalize. How this world,
how we as humans are living in today's America, and
we are compartmentalizing because it's not normal what we're dealing with.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
People.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
If we just talk about the world that we live
in and the things that we see on our timeline
versus how we are functioning day in and day out,
none of this is normal and we should normalize it.
And every now and again, a moment will happen, and
a moment will come to you as it has come
to me with the loss of my dear, dear grandmother,
where I am stuck. I'm frozen with my thoughts and
(06:13):
my emotions, and I look around and I'm like, none
of this is normal. And I'm so grateful that I
am having experiences with people that allow me to say,
none of this is normal and it's okay. To feel
everything and process everything, and I'm really at the beginning
of this grief journey. But I feel my grandmother holding
(06:37):
my hand the whole way as she always has. I
feel her excited about a life where she can watch
over me and watch me flourish and do things that
she's always wanted for me. I mean, it feels good
(06:59):
to think and to really know that you have an
angel on your side. Until on today's podcast, I have
the opportunity to speak with a doctor, a therapist who
explains grief, what it looks like, how it may feel
(07:21):
in different people, how it looks differently for different people,
how we process grief. But her specialty is for high
functioning people, ambitious people who want wellness, because that's the balance,
because I could continue on in my life and do
(07:42):
TV and do my podcast and live like there's no
big deal, nothing happening. It's the same thing that I
see with certain athletes who lose loved ones and they
go out on game day and drop fifty or perhaps
they continue to play in a football game and they
outperform and get more yards than they ever had. See
it day in and day out. In my profession, I
see highly functioning people do well in tragedy, in very
(08:07):
tragic moments, and I always have wondered why, And today
doctor Boughton will explain it all to us. And I
appreciate her giving me the patience in pronouncing her name,
because you guys have to forgive me. You know, I
don't always get the names right, doctor Watton. I'm good
with that, right, I hope. So so sit back, relax,
(08:28):
enjoyed this edition of Naked Sports and allow me, as
the host of the show, just to be completely vulnerable.
Thank you all for being here. And may my grandmother A.
Stelle Manning, rest in peace.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
My name is doctor Aquia K. Wotton. I am a
license psychotherapist and emotional wellness coach for many folks, mainly
at the intersection of ambition and emotional wellness. High achieving
people that are doing well in their life professionally and
want to balance emotional wellness, which means.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I must hire you after this. That's what I've decided. Okay,
so you know, first I want to talk about this
thing called grief. Probably last year, dear friend of mine
lost his mother suddenly suddenly, and he found her basically comatose.
But he said he just went into this space where
(09:36):
he had to save her life and ultimately he wasn't
able to. And I sent him a message and I said,
grief is a tricky lady. She ebbs and she flows,
and so the days will come where you're fine, and
then you could just be having a donut and start crying.
You don't know where it comes from, but it comes
from somewhere, I often say, and you've heard this before,
(09:59):
it's all the love you for someone. You just don't
know where to place it emotionally. Can you talk to
me about the definition of grief and what that means.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Grief is a amorphous kind of formless experience that we
all go through and we lose something that is dear
to us, whether that be a person, whether that be
an experience, It could be a location, it could be
an identity. But grief is really the body and BrainsWay
(10:32):
of dealing with the absence of the love and bond
that we've just had.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Grief is the body's way and the mind's way of
dealing with the absence of the love that we have.
So how do we deal with that with grief? How
does it appear? How does it show up?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
It shows up in different ways for different people, right,
and sometimes depending on what it is that you done
to metabolize emotion throughout your lifetime, grief is really going
to kind of fall in line with that. There are
many people that don't really take a lot of time
to metabolize their emotion. They don't feel their feelings, and
so when grief arrives, it kind of falls in line
(11:16):
with that. We can have moments where we are working
our tails off, right, we cannot feel anything for years
and years, sometimes months, and then all of a sudden,
it hits us like a brick, right, and we might
physically feel it. Somatically, we might have moments of depression
(11:36):
and deep, deep grief in that way. It's really hard
to say exactly how grief will hit your life, but
we do know that when it does, it's important to
take your time with it right, allowing yourself, allowing your body,
allowing your brain to recalibrate to this new reality of distance,
(12:00):
of absence of not having the thing, the person, the
experience that you have relied on for so long.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
When I think about America, I do feel like there
is a grief that we have been dealing with in
this country collectively because of where we are, maybe not
just the pandemic, but there's always been this thing to
in my spirit about the pandemic we have lost. We
(12:30):
lost millions of people in the pandemic, and it almost
felt like it was a blanket of an eye and
we forgot. Living in New York, you would see these
refrigerated trucks with bodies piled high because there was nowhere
you couldn't bury the body, and loved ones couldn't put
their loved ones to rest appropriately, or the way in
(12:51):
which they felt. A good friend of mine her mother
was sick in the hospital and she couldn't see her,
and she was like, let me just take her home
and care for her as she prepares for her last
days in the home. You know, there are so many
different ways to describe what we were experiencing fast forward
to where we are today. I wonder if you have
(13:12):
thought about and or talked about the grief that we're
experiencing collectively as a society, not black or white, but
just as a whole a human being.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, absolutely thought about it a lot. I think most
of us have thought about it because we had to.
We were home, we couldn't work the way that we
used to. We couldn't socialize in the way that we
used to, we could not live in the way that
we used to. And so grief is not only individual,
but it is collective. We can feel the loss of
(13:45):
our norms, of our comfort zones, even our identity as
a nation shifted and changed the way that we thought
about mental health and emotional health. Whereas it may have
been a side thing, it became central focus. Everything that
is essential in your life comes to the full front
(14:05):
when grief is on the scene.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
So, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
So what would you describe that as that time? How
would you describe the pandemic. I don't even think that
we took time, or maybe I didn't take time, but
I don't think people took time to process. We were
so consumed with trying to get out of the house
and leave and do more.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Absolutely, we're in survival mode. We were in. It is
a collective pause, a freeze that happened internationally. There was
never a time in our lifetime where the entire world stopped.
Everything that we knew, everything that we knew the world
to be, our nation to be, was frozen, and so
(14:47):
it was a collective traumatic experience. It was a collective pause,
and the cascading impact of that moving forward is our nation,
our identity as a globe, global world and economy is
really still trying to grapple with what happened? Could it
(15:08):
happen again? Right? And so it is a really really
tough thing to quantify. I think we're still trying to
find language for where we are as a nation, but
I do know that it was a collective traumatic experience
followed by a collective grief experience.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
What do you mean when you say we are trying
to find language for where we are as a nation?
I agree with that, but I don't have the language.
What do you mean?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah? I think we're trying to find our core, right,
which is a part of a traumatic experience, Right. It
scrambles everything that we know that we find comfort in,
that we can reliably predict day to day. I think
(15:55):
that we have been trying to get that right. We
were working out of the home, most of us for
much of our careers and then went home, Right, We're
still trying to find what does work look like? Are
we hybrid? Are we going back?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Are no?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Maybe? We should stay home. Are we more productive as
a society? Right? We're still trying to name that, understand
that right. Socially, are we people that get together in
the way that we used to or is that actually
not a good idea anymore? Are we socially awkward? Are
(16:34):
we not quite sure who is a friend and who's
not a friend? How do we make a friend? Do
people come over our house? Do we want them to
meet us outside? We don't know just yet, And so
everything in our life we are renaming and finding language.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
For you just described my whole existence since the pandemic?
Am I socially awkward? I feel like I'm looking for
that definition, but I'm not. And I'm social, but I'm
also awkward. And I don't know how to interact all
of these things. And I don't know because quite frankly,
I can't remember if there was a Is it a
different behavior for me? Was there a different behavior? And
(17:13):
I hear this question often and I have always wondered,
because it's as described, grief is something that you have
to experience and we process individually. But in the world
that we live in today, there seems to be when
you described this earlier or called it survival mode. Survival
mode can look like what in different people and different experiences.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I am asking, right, fight, flight, freeze, right, we can
be in those ways of coping. So the ways that
we may respond to being in survival, we might freeze.
That means the things that we're used to, we're not
quite able to concentrate, We're not quite able to find
(17:58):
words through the things that we're going through. We may
not be able to work in the way or at
the highest demand, Like with my clients as we used
to why can't I get out the bed? Why can't
I just you know, figure out what I want to
do today, what's going to happen this fall? I can't
plan it? And so we might actually freeze when we're
in survival mode. Some people don't. They take flight. They
(18:20):
work their tails off, right, they overwork, they can't relax,
they can't sleep right, and so they are really kind
of an overdrive as a response to being in survival right.
And so there are many ways that it may manifest.
But at the heart of it, we're not present. We're
not present in our body, we're not present in our mind,
(18:43):
and we are just really in this defense mechanism that's
beautiful the body has for us to survive. But at
the same time, we're not meant to stay in survival
too long, right. It is there's all of these effects.
We know that now. It impacts our body when we're
in quarters all too long. Right, It's connected to a
(19:05):
lot of diseases and our immune system going down, and
so survival mode again gets us through, it manifests in
many ways, but it's not meant to be here with
us too long.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
And what examples? Can you look around the country and
see everyone in survival mode, whether it be politicians, whether
it be your neighbors, whether it be you know what
happened just recently there's a horrible school shooting in Minneapolis,
and I'm like, do we not draw the line? And
kids praying where do we draw the line? When do
(19:40):
we say enough is enough? And we find ourselves reading
and seeing these experiences and we're inundated, especially if it's online,
We're inundated with what appears to be the bad of
the world. How does that manifest in survival mode for
people who are trying to process how this country is
(20:01):
is existing.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I find that a lot of people are moving to
disassociating and distracting. It is not natural to look through
your timeline and see people dancing and laughing and then
see baby starving and people that are you know, fleeing
and shooting, and then you know something about lipstick and
(20:25):
that It's just very difficult for our consciousness to metabolize
all of these things, and so what we might find
ourselves doing is distracting, not really sitting with our emotion,
not sitting with what does this mean to me? What
do I think about it? And how do I want
to respond right, Or we're disassociating, meaning I'm not even
(20:49):
going to think about it. I can't watch it, I
can't talk about it, I'm going to start working, I'm
going to do something else completely. I literally can not
do it. And so if there is someone that is
struggling with that, it is natural for us not to
be inundated with all of these stories and information and
(21:12):
fears and risks all at the same time. Our brains
actually cannot digest it right, and so we have to
take breaks. That's why I am a big believer in
the digital detox and taking moments away from it just
to be able to metabolize and process. Where are you?
What is happening right? Are you distracting? Are you disassociating?
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Your voice feels like a comforter, a pillow, a blanket.
It feels very calming, and so I am grateful that
you exist because it can help. I often wonder, and
this is as experienced and sharing with you the grief
(22:05):
that I have been dealing with. I have often wondered
how people can get up and go, and especially in
my world of sports, most recently, I'll use the example
of Steph Curry. He lost his grandmother and obviously the
game is not here and he's not playing in a
day to day game. But I've seen athletes go through
so much and deal with the loss of a child,
(22:25):
or a loss of a wife, of a horrible accent,
or a best friend or a mother, and they get
up and they perform at the best of their ability
on game day. And I think you talked about this
a moment ago. Is that considered a survival distraction and
showing up in a way where you overwork yourself? What
(22:48):
would you call that compartmentalization?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Well, it's quite interesting and high achievers, right, So that's
kind of my population, right, people that are quite ambitious
and they have achieved a lot in life, whether that
is professional sports and entertainment and business. They have excelled
in their life because of their ability to compartmentalize right.
(23:13):
If we think about it, if you have a surgeon
in your life that is working on your family member,
you want them to have a healthy level of compartmentalization
that they can go into a zone to be able
to do something that if they were fully present with it,
they may not be able to do right. Same thing
(23:34):
with an athlete or someone that's doing professional sports, there
is an elite performance mode and it has really helped
that person throughout their lifetime and it comes into full
focus in times of tragedy. We see performance swings during grief,
but we also see this high level of compartmentalization the
(23:56):
ability to do that to have what we can exceptional
play right, and oftentimes it's centered in the psychology that
most of the folks that are working at this level
have meaning and purpose connected to family. They have meaning
and purpose connected to tribe, to culture, to a lot
(24:20):
of things that have helped them develop and so when
they lose a person, you will see them move into
this exceptional play to be able to meet the moment
with that sense of meaning and purpose for that person,
they drop fifty points and it's like, what does that mean?
But really it was always for them all along, whether
(24:42):
that be for the tribe, whether that be for the person,
whether that be for the idea of family right to
move the tribe forward, to do what something had someone
or do something that someone else has never been able
to do right. And so in these moments of tragedy
we see the compartmentalization that's always been there, but that
(25:05):
deep sense of purpose and meaning meeting the moment for
that exceptional play.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Is there anything about that that's dysfunctional and or hurtful
as you if you don't, if you only compartmentalize and
not process correct right.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And so that's why you know, often people work with
me on being able to balance emotional wellness right because
this idea that there's a lot of technical pieces to it,
but it's been with that person for a long time
and that's why they're exceptional. But now in their adult life,
hopefully it is one that they begin to infuse with
(25:46):
emotional wellness. How do I actually connect with a partner,
whether I'm working with someone that is off you know,
season and having trouble with their partner, right, and being
able to be a family person or a person that's
just retired and I don't know who I am, I
don't know my identity, what do I do now? What's
(26:08):
my next move? Right? And so being able to balance
emotional wellness is the healthiest we can be as well
as there are a sect of people that their work
just demands a different layer.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Of Oh, this is so good. So when you find
yourself in these spaces, and I think a little bit
about what I wanted to do today is let people
know because I've been getting this conversation for so long,
but I haven't been tapped in enough to feel that emotion.
(26:44):
When my friend loses his mom and he finds her
and he has to try to resuscitate her and bring
it back to life. And my other good girlfriend loses
her her mother and she has to be the one
to take care of her as she's dying during the
pandemic because she did want her to be in the
hospital byerl another I'm just thinking about all of these
forms of grief that people experience but continue to get
(27:07):
back up and go to work. Yes, it makes them
feel as if they need to be high achiever. But
is it because of of the world that we live
in today that shows you on your phone that everybody's
getting it, that everyone's going out and hustling and doing
and winning and winning no matter what at all costs.
Is there a part of that that is just not true?
(27:27):
Like where does the And the question might be as
I search for it, when are people okay to feel?
When does that movement become popular or it's okay to
pause and feel? Where does that happen? When does that happen?
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Rather, it happens with us, hopefully with us And when
we sell on the alarm, when we you know, put
down the cape, when we break the seale, when we say,
you know what, I'm going to talk about the grief
I'm going through with my family. I'm going to talk
about the fact that I had a hard time getting
back to work this month. Right, I'm going to talk
(28:10):
about it. I'm going to also share that with my
friends in small circles.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It takes us each individually becoming brave to be vulnerable. Right,
it also takes us collectively that have platforms to be
able to talk about our own personal experience and the
utility of emotion. Oftentimes we don't think about the utility
of emotion. There are so many things that being able
(28:37):
to feel your feelings does for us and with us
that is powerful and productive if we're aware of it.
And so I hope we're in that season right now.
I hope we are. You know, as mental health and
emotional health has taken the center stage, I'm hoping that
we are in a space where, you know, people that
(28:59):
especially people in sports, that are taking the you know,
taking the arm up. I'm in a Brandon Marshall, I'm
thinking of even in entertainment, Charlotte Mayne, like, we are
here talking about humanity, right, your humanity first, right, and
that's really where we start.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
What does the utility of emotion mean?
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Yeah, the utility So oftentimes people that come to me
that say, I really feel like I don't know myself,
or they may say I don't know what direction to
go next, or how do I know if this is
the right person for me, or I don't know if
I should take this job. Oftentimes, our emotionality is that
(29:49):
internal guiding system that allows us to know what it
is that intuitively we need where to go what's important
to us and who we are. When we sit in
the center of our emotion, we find ourselves. We meet ourselves,
(30:11):
and so we know in the middle of that date
when we're I don't feel settled right, or I feel
anxious around this person, or I don't know, I feel
down and low when I might leave that circle of
friends right, or there's something about this job that I
(30:31):
can't I can't sleep. We're dild dialed into that navigation
then internal. That's why we say it's our gut feeling right.
It's that intuitive, intuitive sense of power and wisdom that
we can follow to guide us in our life.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Everything you say makes so much sense, So I'll only
want to make sure that our listeners can understand and
it by example. So I will talk about doing CNN right.
So when I finish this podcast, I will prep to
do CNN tonight. And I have made deliberate choices on
(31:21):
when I go on and who I will go on
with because my spirit does not feel right. I don't
want the hour of TV time if I'm up all
night thinking about my interactions and what I said or
who I interacted with, or or whatever it may be.
Like this doesn't feel right. This doesn't feel like what
(31:43):
I'm doing. I mean, and I've been tussling with this
in a real way. So I've been allowing myself and
with the help of the network, figure out what it
looks like for me like and I think there's some
honesty with where we are in the world today. You know,
you can't discuss anything about pops without some I'm putting
you on the left or the right. But it doesn't
(32:03):
calm my nervous system. In fact, it does the absolute opposite.
And it also does that for friends of mine. I've
heard them say, oh, no, I'm just so uncomfortable before
I go on. But another friend reminded me that the
truth still matters, and so we still have to with
our platform us high achievers or not even high achievers.
(32:24):
But perhaps you are remember that truth still matters. Yeah,
But then I get this conversation from people telling me, yeah,
but not right now. Are you suggesting that if someone
is struggling internally with the do or that don't of
(32:44):
a life circumstance, work, friendship, love relationships work again, do
we trust this? And you're saying that our internal our
internal guide is usually the right is the right space
to listen to. Or could it be confusing because sometimes
I find it confusing.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, it is confusing at first, right, and maybe even
by design it's confusing because it requires you to lean in,
it requires you to spend some time with it. It's
just a queue. It's your body telling you something's up.
(33:26):
Then may be down right, let me sit down, let
me spend some time there, Let me allow it to
wash over my body and just fully be in it
and gain the wisdom on the other side of that arc.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Oftentimes people don't get the wisdom because they don't sit
through the arc of it. We got to sit through
the arc of the pain in order to let it
teach you something on the other side of it, right.
And so yes, if you're struggling, something is up, sit
with it, get clear about it, talk to people about it,
right so that you can recognize, Oh, are is this
(34:02):
the nerve and you know, the system that comes together
before I do something great? Is this resilience kind of
mounting up right? Or is this something else? This is
the disturbance? Right, This is a wrestling, This is a
You are not in line with the divine order. You
are not in line with where you should be right
(34:27):
and so why we listen to that is because that
is where we find our peace. That's where everyone finds
our peace.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Listening gosh, that requires us to be so patient and
not distracted by the world around us, and that, to me,
in itself is a tall order in a world that
makes you feel like you have to constantly perform. You
mentioned Brandon Marshall, and I think of that, and I've
interviewed him a few times and he said this obviously,
you know, he's very open about his his his struggles
(34:59):
with mental health. Charloe Mane two, we've talked about it
as well. I think that what I'm curious about and
high performance people athletes as well. There is this what
you're saying, listen to what we should be doing, but
there's also still the requirement of I have to perform.
(35:20):
There's I don't know where the balance is in that
for them and or myself. Where's the balance of listening
and sitting with it? And how do you listen and
sit with it when you're worried about performing, or when
you know that you have to perform, or there is
something innate in you that says we got to perform.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
That's why you know, doing the work to be able
to have an integration of the two is really where
you get into like a power space, right. And so
oftentimes when I'm working with folks right, if they're in season, right,
there's a different way of doing right. And so we're
kind of microdocing these moments if you were right, And
so it could be after aim, it could be on
(35:57):
a couple of days where you have off, where it
could be in a couple therapy session, and we kind
of make sure it works that way so you're not hanging.
It's not hanging over you for the next forty eight hours.
But again we're taking time, We're taking those microdosing moments
of meditation. Journaling morning pages is really something I really
(36:17):
really like three pages in the morning, just allowing your
brain to go, don't you know, edit it, just let
it go, right, because really what it comes it comes
to is can I let the stuff out? We are
so used to suppressing and repressing what is happening within us,
(36:39):
not feeling the feelings, not actually going through what it
is that we're thinking in our mind and writing it
down or expressing it right, And so taking those small
moments to do that is really important. Right. Also being
able to give yourself breaks from the performance you're going
to perform. It's innate, that's where that's why you are
(36:59):
where you are.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Let's go, yeah, it'll come, It'll have fact that.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Okay, that's gonna come. Right. But we also we don't
want to have performance crash, right, and that also happens
right when you, you know, suppress your emotion or bypass what's
happening within, so microdosing, having those moments where you actually
can feel talk it out, express it, get it out
(37:27):
of your body, let it metabolize through you, and then
you get locked into that zone. That zone is empowered
by your clarity. It's empowered by the moments where you
can be in peace because you're not in a wrestling
or turmoil.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Internally, when I talk to athletes a special, well women too.
I'm not gonna just give it mail male, but women too.
So when we have these these topics where we see
incredible pain, I think of the most most obvious one
(38:07):
where I think I saw people really embrace what they
felt was when Kobe Bryant passed away and there was
this collective mourning because it was felt so deeply across
the globe. There was there was no shame associated with
crying or saying that you were sad. There was no stigma. Everyone.
(38:33):
These athletes didn't feel like they have to be gladiators.
And I and I and I even reference athletes, but
humans in general. What you just described are people feeling
like they have to push through and be gladiators. And
when you don't, when you realize that you don't have
to do that, there's this there's this relaxation that overcomes
your body. How would you describe that moment? Because I
would love if we could have more moments like that
(38:55):
where we could just honestly get everything that is off
our chests and into the world and share it so
that we know we're not alone.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
I don't know why. They just reminded me. Have you
seen these videos online where they have either there's like
a man that's partner is filming them before they see them,
and then after like, oh I haven't seen those, No
make goodness. So it's usually these videos of you know,
this man, super masculine guy, you know, at an airport
and kind of like walking through the space and then
(39:25):
as soon as they see their girl they're like, ah,
they're space meaner changes. We need sacred spaces, Karen. We
need sacred spaces where we can fully be ourselves, where
we can unwind, where you don't have to be on.
We don't have to be anyone, and most importantly, we
(39:46):
don't have to be the person that we're known publicly.
One of the things I think that is the most
powerful essences of working with people that have public lives
is their ability to not be that person. In session M,
that you can kind of curl back up into just
(40:10):
that childhood version of yourself, that that version of you
that doesn't have to be on, that doesn't have to
be known for any single thing except for just who
you are. And so that is how we heal. We're
hurt in relationship, and we heal in relationship.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
And say that again, Wait, say that again.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
We hurt in relationship, Yeah, and we heal in relationship.
One of the most foundational parts of our psychology right
most of the things that are happening to us right
now are happening with us originated really early in our
life in relationship M.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
And so the healing in the relationship is finding community
and allowing us to be free. And that is whether
it could be in the locker room, it could be
in the boardroom, it could be with your friends, in
a meeting room, whatever the space is. Oh wow, that's
so powerful.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
A lot of people feel like they have to be
taught that.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
What do you want?
Speaker 2 (41:16):
How do I teach me how to relax, teach me
how to achieve the sense of balance and peace. It's
not something that has to be taught. Your body is
naturally inclined to it. We have to unlearn the ways
that we stop it from healing, that we stop it
(41:38):
from feeling. It's the resistance that is the issue. It's
not our body's capacity to heal or relax or recover, right,
And so when you get in the space, the body
will know what to do.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Why does the body resist it so much? Why does
the body and mind resist that?
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Because of pain, because of our history, because of trauma,
Because there is also a lot of muscle memory and
sensory memory in the body right where we may have
been unsafe in relationship with someone. And so now we
get into what feels like potentially a safe space, but
we block it. We're not sure if it's going to
(42:23):
be safe. Maybe it's going to be exactly like that
last time, right? Or I really want to be myself,
but I'm not sure how people are going to feel
about me as this person, this known person doing this
thing that I really want to do. Right, Maybe I
want to sing, maybe I want to do art, But
(42:45):
what are they going to think about me? And so
we block it? What is naturally occurring in you will
manifest if we don't block it.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Wow, well I didn't know that. So the unlearning is
the less here. The unlearning of are of probably the
instinct of not wanting to feel the pain and or
whatever the case may be. We just have that at
the ready, as opposed to instinctually allowing and surrendering and
letting it happen absolutely so intense. We move into a
(43:19):
space like as this season comes along, I've noticed that,
and this is something that I've been talking about with
some of the ladies of the WNBA. They have made
a case and I can relate to that because it's
not even so much that it's sports, but they have
made a case that they are being described with more
adjectives that lean to their emotions as opposed to it
(43:43):
being an athletic instinct. She's being emotional on the court.
I went to the you know last night, we they
you know, by the time this heirs, everyone has seen
what happened with Taylor Townsend and I'll stink up. And
so we were having this conversation about these two women
and one woman being emotional because she didn't handle losing
(44:04):
well and the other woman being you know, defensive and
being like, oh, you're attacking me. Now I've noticed with
male athletes is that really wouldn't have been It would
not have made that much of a rise because men,
it's okay for men to do that, but when women
do that, it's a big deal. I wonder why athletes,
especially men versus women, Why why do we separate the two?
(44:27):
Why can't we just have And I've said this on
so many, so many in so many stories and ways.
Why do we associate women being athletes with their gender
when they have these moments not as much as we
do with men.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
I think it parallels our culture, right, our society right.
I think Serena talked about this some time ago, about
the idea of being hysterical, that this happens in our
everyday life, it happens in the boardroom, It happened you
know at home, right, it happens with your family. And
so I think it really just mirrors our mirrors our
(45:06):
society and our perceptions of women.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Right.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Our perceptions of women are really connected to our emotional selves, right,
and there are there's a lot of work that needs
to be done and how we see women, how we
acknowledge the power, the strength, the resilience, the productivity, all
of the things that also are centered within the women, right,
(45:33):
And we'll be able to do that. As we talk
about sports, right, it's still exceptionalism in a way, right,
that female athlete meaning it's it's out of the norm
or it's something right, it's something I have to underline.
So you know that there's a.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Male athlete as opposed to athlete.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And some of our emotional selves are
powerful and important too, right, they are agree, right, Our
full selves are important, just like the emotional selves of
male athletes are important. And so there needs to be
work to create a holistic way of seeing humans in
(46:13):
general that will hopefully be integrated in the way that
we do sport, in the way that we are elite,
in the ways that we're competing. We're still human doing.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
That, how do you And by way of background, and
this is what I'm really curious about, and we'll rap soon,
but tell me your background. How do you find yourself
at this intersection of emotional wellness and ambition?
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Yeah? I know it, right. I think growing up as
a first generation American, right, a Gandian or you are
really really encouraged to be your best less and so
it's something that I think personally I get, I understand
(47:02):
as well as in the work that I've done for years,
seventeen years, I think at this point the majority of
people that come to me are just in this lifestyle, right,
And so I've heard hours and hours and you know,
had hundreds of clients just telling me their stories, their experiences,
(47:24):
and oftentimes I found that high achieving folks are wrestling
with the balance of ambition and emotional wellness, and so
it was a natural flow. I think I always ask God,
what was this? Why do I have these folks in
my life? But I feel like it's by design. And
(47:47):
I think also the work that I've done with athletes
as well as in entertainment has been uniquely special to
me because of the ways that mental health and emotional
ways has started to take center stage and people are
more able to talk about it in the public center.
(48:08):
And it really does change the way that we see ourselves.
And if I can have any hand in being able
to change the way that we see each other, we
see humanity, we soften towards each other, the ways that
we actually enrich our experience on Earth. I feel like
(48:29):
that's what I'm here for.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
I love that so much, Doctor Wotton Boughton, perfect.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
You're honorary good being.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Boz Ofma says that to me, not fully but almost almost.
Thank you so much for being so so willing to
me so early. I had to have to rechange my
whole schedule, That's why it was so quick, and I
and I apologize for that, but thank you so much
for this. So we really really really needed this conversation.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
I know I did, absolutely, And I want to thank
you for kind of entering into this space even while
you're going through It's not easy. It's not easy to
be vulnerable to show yourself in service of other people,
and so thank you for your ministry, for your platform,
(49:23):
for your voice, and also thank you for your pain.
Pain Pain.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Naked Sports written and executive produced by me Carrie Champion,
produced by Jacquise Thomas, sound design and mastered by Dwayne Crawford.
Naked Sports is a part of the Black Effect podcast
network in iHeartMedia
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