Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The views and opinions expressed in the following programmer those
of the speaker and don't necessarily represent those of the station.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
It's staff management or ownership.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
A good morning, you'll find out with peting Poet Gold.
I'm Peter Leonard and I'm the Poet Gold and we're
on the air this morning with Jay Herman from a
bird Song Psychotherapy, which we're dying to get to. But
before we go to Jay, we're going to go to
Poet Gold for weekly prayer, poem, incantation, goal, let it roll.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
I'm going to read two short poems. They're in my
fear section of the book be the poem Living Beyond
Our Fears, which is a new book coming out this summer.
Poem one, Sometimes you choose solitude for protection. Poem two.
The wall between us is fear. This is where our
humanity separates.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Wow, those are your shortest poems of Gold, and they
punched two.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I have a couple of short poems in the poems
in the book.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah, you know, it's impossible Jay not to notice the
name of you practice bird Song. It's beautiful and I
imagine it might have some meaning behind you too. Can
you give us a sense of that.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Yeah, when I was on my own journey of self
discovery and exploring my own identity, I came to really
resonate with actually the name Jaybird. And my given middle
name is Lynn, and when I changed my first name
(01:38):
to Jay, and you put that together, Jalen, it actually
means jaybird. So it felt like this really kind of
like divine name and reference for myself. And when I
started my own private practice, because I work with folks
who are seeking to see LGBTQ folks, I work with
(02:02):
a lot of folks who have experienced trauma, and through
those experiences, we're coming to understand our own story and
our own identity and tell that story for ourselves. And
it feels like the reclamation and the freeing of our
voice is a key component of that. And so that's
(02:23):
what bird song is to me. Every bird, if you
When I can sit outside and I'm listening to the
birds in my backyard, even here in the city, I
hear so many different songs and sometimes they can kind
of sound the same, but if you really sit and listen,
they all feel just a little bit different. And I
think there's like this beautiful melody that we put together
(02:45):
when we all live our own truth.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
So birds we very often hear it as a clatter.
And yet you're saying, if you're attentive, you'll see, you know,
individual birds, different voices, and you're hinting that human beings
similar as to birds in that way.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Yeah, Yes, I think there's a I think there's a
beauty in our individuality and in our collectiveness as well.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I'd like to mention that Jay is not only a therapist,
but Jay is also a very good poet as well.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
The metaphor of the birds.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
I see, I see that man, but individual and collective
of that, which is really uh. You know, when we
think of a self, we think of an individual self
that we have inside of us, and our experience of
self is much more collective and it's outside of our body.
(03:53):
I mean. The simplest way to put it is language.
I mean, language is not something that happens echoes around
in your chest. Language is something you share or it
shaes even the wrong word, you join into in community.
And so when we try to heal ourselves, we I
(04:15):
think sometimes makes a mistake of going too much inside
of the our individuality rather than our collective. So you
have I mean obviously both mattered to you, and you've
mentioned it already, the way the collective which is ignored
in our thinking, although it's not at all ignored in
(04:37):
our experience.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Yeah, I think there's this, there's a value in all
of it, right, Like it's it's important to be able
to go inward and have the sense of self and
have some boundaries around what have other people said my
truth is or said I'm allowed to be, or what
words have I been told I'm allowed to use? Or
(05:00):
what have I been told is the truth about something
and be able to search within yourself and find that
inner truth yourself. And then it's also important to have
community and to have connection and to have people and
to have shared language as much as we can around connecting,
whether it's about our identities or our experience or under
(05:22):
the ways that we're putting together our story and our
understanding of what we have been through, our connection to
our ancestors, any of those things helps make us also
feel connected. And there's such a culture of isolation and
avoidance right now in a lot of ways, since I
(05:43):
think a lot of people are feeling that and struggling
and suffering from that. So I think there's that balance
of having that sense of self and it's okay to
not be the same as everybody in your community, and
also having that connection and place of belonging.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
As a therapist. I'm looking at a website. Is a
term I'm not I'm not familiar with f O l
X folks.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Oh folks, Okay, okay, you got created.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
I got okay. I was like, is this terminology or
is it okay? And now makes sense to me.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
You know, gold doesn't miss much.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
I was, you know, because I was very clinical in
my you know, looking at this and going, oh, this
is a term.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I don't know, this is new.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
So I studied linguistics in college, and so I love
to talk about how language is always evolving and this
is one of those things.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
This is one of those words. I love it. Just
be more Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Language thing? Uh you mentioned you study linguistics. Give me
a little more license to get another build another point
from what I said before. Even if you're a very
interior person and you're thinking about yourself in your deepest
was private way, you're using language, and language is public property.
(07:07):
The language is not You didn't make up your own
language and have meanings so even in the most private
thought you have, you're connected to your communities through the
language you're using as both a speaker and a listener.
And so to me, that's just the way of underlining
how inextricably bound we are to our communities.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Yeah, and why it's so important to have connection to
our historical knowledge, to knowing that our people have always existed,
to knowing that queerness and queer identities have always existed
in different forms even if those words weren't used, To
know that trans people have always existed across time. Even
(07:55):
though we people will sometimes say, well, non binary is
a new term, sure, because language is always evolving, because
that's a new term right now, But that doesn't mean,
especially if we look at pre colonization, that we haven't
seen the existence of people living outside of the binary
sex and gender system that we have so institutionalized in
(08:15):
modern Western culture today.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
And you know on language from your card, I know
she use they and them as pronouns. Yes, And so
right away you're bringing up the language, the issues of
identity and language, and the part where people in general,
(08:39):
and people my age have a hard time changing prograuns.
They can understand the concept by myself. I understand the concept,
but my language comes out in she terms unless I'm thinking,
and some people have the impression that what are my
(08:59):
what are you making such a big deal of? And
you want to explain how the pronouns are connected to
identity in a way that would make people not made
at you.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
I can't control everybody's feelings.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
That's my syp's responsible.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Yeah, So I mean first person singular day pronouns have
actually been around for centuries in English language. It's a
thing we use all the time without thinking about it. So,
for example, the example I'd like to give is if
I was to say, like I went to the doctor today,
(09:39):
you and you didn't know the gender of my doctor,
You'd probably say, oh, what did they say?
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
So we often all we already use this language. It's
already a part of how we loquially talk.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
I think that we because we have we have all
been really socialized to have down loaded this blueprint of
understanding that there is just two genders, there's just two sexes,
both of which are not true. That it's so ingrained
in us that it becomes a part of our blueprint
(10:13):
of our language and it's difficult for people to change
that language, especially because we're not just I think what
people understand is they don't feel like you're just asking
me to change to use a different word, but you're
asking me to change my belief system. And what I've
said to people is I actually don't need you to
(10:33):
change your belief system.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
I'm happy to.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Totally happy to have a conversation with you about it,
because I think that conversation is important and that we
need to do more bridge building instead of putting up
more walls. Going back to kind of your opening poem,
gold and about fear, and I think that a lot
of it is fear that people have. It's like fear
of being wrong, fear of being perceived as discriminatory, fear
(10:59):
to make that mistake. And also on the other side,
people who use they then pronouns. You know, it feels
really it does feel really important to one's identity. To
point it to your question, it's saying like, hey, I exist,
I'm real, I live outside of this system. Actually, this
is who I am and how I want to be
referred to. These are the words that matter to me.
(11:23):
I like to joke when my parents would miss gender me.
I would just call them the different parent as a joke,
like okay Dad, okay mom, and they'd be like huh oh, okay,
I got it. You know it's like, well, the words
you have words that matter to you too, right, we
all have words that matter to us. And I think
when we kind of take out the idea of like
I'm asking you to change your belief system, what I'm
(11:44):
asking you is, or what I'm telling you is, this
is how I feel respected and seen and left.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Hope that one second, if you're just tuning in, you're
listening to finding Out with Pete and the poet Gold,
and I'm the poet Gold and we're here today with
Jay Herman of bird Song psycho Therapy. Correct, Yes, okay,
got it, having a wonderful conversation, and.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
We don't want to lose that last line that's your
had where you said, this is the way I feel
seeing respected and love. Right and now, if the person
you're talking to you it has no interest in seeing,
respecting and loving you, they should be aware of that
for themselves, that that's who they are.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
And I like the way that you know you. I
don't know if you did this intentionally, but you started
with I'm asking you to I'm telling you.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yes, exactly, Yes, I I caught that as I was saying,
it's a huge, huge difference.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Yeah, it feels like I'm communicating like this, this is
my truth, this is my boundary.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
It's actually not just the thing I'm asking of you, right, right, right.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
And I think it's easy for people to be in
on them the sort of the chauvinism of being yourself
because they've always been myself and missing the opportunit if
somebody wants to be referred to in a way that
is grammatically uncomfortable for you. They're also saying here I am.
(13:08):
It's a very friendly thing to do, saying you know
a great deal about me if you know what I feel.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And it's a vulnerable place as well, you know. And
and going back to what you were saying about the identity,
you know, people resist it because of their belief system,
and they feel that if they lose their belief system,
they lose who they are, and so there's a huge fear,
(13:37):
you know, with that, and so so sort of take
that away from them and say, well, no, no, no, I'm
not asking you to, you know, give up these things.
I'm not asking you to give up who you are.
I'm just telling you how I've liked to be identified
and how I like to be respected.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yes, give us a sense.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Of how it is. I mean, like the one little
thing we call you, uh, your your your mother who's female,
you call her dad? I mean he makes the point you.
It's funny and it makes the points and it's But
how does that when you're doing something so simply unconventional? Okay,
(14:20):
and uh, and it's really reflecting the unconventionality of your
own individualism, uh, individuality? How how does that feel inside?
When you it seems to me like you're constantly not
only on God, but constantly in conflict or potential conflict.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Thank you. I really appreciate that question as a somatic
therapist and as like someone who's personally just done so
much work to recome, like come back to my body
after all the things like I've been through in my life.
I really appreciate that question about what it feel like inside.
(15:01):
I think it's a thing we don't focus on a
lot because we are so busy talking about the words.
So I really appreciate that. So I think that this
has shifted and evolved for me over time, and they'd
beginning of me sharing with my people in my world
that I'm non binary. I did this in the fashion
(15:23):
of releasing a poetry video and doing a gender reveal,
and the poem is called for every queer Kid, and
I wrote it as a love letter to my younger self,
and I just pretty much shared with everybody in my
life at once, like, Hey, I'm non binary. This is
what that means. This is the name I use, these
(15:44):
are my pronouns. Now, this is what love means to me.
This is my definition of love taken from Belle Hooks
and the book All About Love, And this is what
loving me looks like. And it was deeply vulnerable, I
would say, like a deep resonance of a buzzing and
(16:07):
electricity in my body. It was very difficult in some
spaces and very easy in other spaces. I have times
where and I think in general, I would say that
over time, as I've come to you know, part of
that vulnerability is the fear of rejection. It's the fear
(16:28):
of people's anger, and it's the fear of having to
justify yourself to people when you are still may even
have some doubts yourself from the place of like, this
is kind of wild for me to do this is
really vulnerable, and to step out and tell everybody this
(16:50):
deeply personal thing about myself in the face of having
been told for so long this isn't real and doesn't exist.
And so there's a lot of this like armoring and
self protection that has to happen. And I think over
time for myself as I have developed this less of
an armor in terms of like being ready to fight
(17:14):
and keep people out, but more of a like strong
boundary that says I know who I am that gives
me something to come back to when I feel thrown off,
and like I had the other day, someone was like girls,
and I just kept walking because I'm like, I don't
even it doesn't even occur to me that someone is
talking to me when they say that, And then I'm like, oh, okay, right,
(17:38):
that's how you perceive me, and you know, I'm able
to in those instances be like right, that's because that's
person's blueprint, that's not because of what my inner truth is.
And so over time, I think that has strengthened for me,
and I feel much more stronger in that truth without
having to feel like I'm armoring up all the time.
(18:02):
But that is not true in every space.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
While I say that, okay, yeah, and you know, so
having that understanding becomes really important in order to have
better understanding of others. You know, yes, you know what
people are going and what they're bringing to the conversation
and the table at the time, and you know, and
and and going back to that understanding is is so important,
(18:28):
I believe because you at that point can take into
account someone else's narrative.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Yes, yes, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Not only their narrative that they may have about you,
but the narrative that they're caring about them.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
And I would imagine, I mean, your parents have had
reactions to this, and I you know from my senses,
you know, from traditional perspective of you. For your father,
I think there would be social expectations that he should
(19:06):
be mad, disappointed or something like that. But my sense
is a man, I wonder if they levitate too. It
just seemed like such spiritual enlightenment to me. And I
know spiritual enlightenment where I assume it can be very exhausting,
but it's very thrilling to be around it. So, you know,
for your family to be around and somebody who's I
(19:33):
would say spiritually gifted. That's a different way of taking it,
you know. And and do you levitate, by the way,
you can't, it's therapist if they levitate.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
I want to say justin I know you. I don't
know that you had a clear question in there, but
I do want to say thank you for seeing me.
This does feel like a very spiritual journey. And I
think that again we get caught up in the words,
we get caught up in the what do you mean?
Like that's challenging everything I believe. And this is really
(20:13):
just as a and has for me at least, I
can't speak for everybody been a deeply spiritual journey.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
And it's you know, I'm going to add something.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
If you're just listening, you're just listening to finding out
with Pete and the poet gold and I'm the Poe
Golden and we're here with Jay Herman, a therapist. Whether
a company is named bird Song Psychotherapy. I had a
thought when when you were saying that, and it has
to come back to me though it was the last
thing you said.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
I said that thank you for spiritual journey. Yeah, you're
seeing me.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Right, and you know, and the point going back to
what what you had brought up before about the words,
you know, it's I think sometimes what people fail to
recognize it's it's not your belief system that's being challenged.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Yeah, you know, yeah, I yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
I mean I work with teens who's who you know,
are trans or who are exploring their gender identity, who
are questioning, you know, maybe identifying as non binary, and
parents who understandably are like, this is my kid, I've
known my kid this way, this is like you know,
(21:37):
and going through their own feelings of confusion, grief, all
kinds of things, all kinds of the common experience as
a parent would feel in that situation. And I think
people get hung up on fears about medical transition and
(21:59):
conf there's grief in names, right, If we've like named
our child, we many people can't say everybody. My parents disagree,
They have no idea. They have very different stories about
how I had gotten my original given name. But you know,
many parents put a lot of thought into naming their child.
It may even carry a family lineage, it may carry
(22:20):
a cultural significance for them, and so people talk about like, well,
actually this is the name that resonates with me now,
or this is who I am, or these are my pronouns,
or you know, my gender is different from what you
thought it. It isn't, But it also does question, like
the very existence of a non binary person does question
(22:42):
people's or challenge, right, It challenges people's beliefs about what is,
what exists, and what gender is and what gender looks
like and gender identity. So I agree, like, it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
I'm not.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
I'm not asking a challenge it. But I also kind
of am and in a in a like I'm here
and I get that my presence is doing that kind
of why.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I often ask parents and situations, you know, like this,
if your child died today, did the name matter? Or
did the love for your child?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
What? What? What is really more important here? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
The name you named your child or the existence of
your child, Yeah, you know, the mental health of your child,
the celebration of your child.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Well you already know the answer to that, right, I mean,
I mean, I think nobody's gonna say and nobody's going
to even experience the notion well the name wasn't matter.
I mean I think most people, most people in that
situation would just feel more foolish than they ever felt before.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
And and that's that's why the question is asked. Let's
unpack it. Let's let's unpack why you're really feeling, what
it is that you're feeling. Let's unpack that.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
You asked me if I had a question to my
little thing, and the answer is no, I feel free
of giving my impressions of things. Then I do actually
asking for informational question. So my impression is more something
(24:24):
few to react to. But in terms of you know,
straight people understanding non binary people would just gay people,
It's what I've always been sort of open on that thing,
like in a traditional uh like you know, liberal, left wing,
Catholic kind of way. And so, but I got such
(24:47):
an insight into just how different the life experiences of
a person who's not typical is because, like I said,
you know, I'm seventy five years old, I seventy two
twenty three. My son sim who just turned forty, he's
gay and he you know, we so this is you know,
(25:11):
just sort of a radio part of life. But he
always encouraged my wife and I to go to Provincetown
where he goes, and so I went, which is you know,
like the gay capital of America town. And so I
went to Provincetown and I had such a dramatic experience
and that was you know, nobody was mean to me
(25:34):
in Provincetown. But when I walked into the restaurant, you know,
for dinner and my wife and I was going and
all of a sudden, it was my impression was we're
the only two straight people in the place. And even
though people were polite to us, I felt strange and
I felt, uh in a way I never felt before.
(25:58):
And it gave me a sense of just how difficult
the enduring sense of coming out. Once you're out, it's
not like over going to go to a different restaurant
the next week. And so uh, you know, I really
felt poort. I even miss the actual point of feeling
(26:20):
different in every moment. And I you know, of course
I feel foolish about it, but I was almost surprised
by my foolishness. So I guess idium or something like that.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
You know, but a lot of people do.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
And and kudos for you for not getting up and
walking out the environment, because there are people who will
do that, you know, the moment they feel that sense
of uncomfortable uncomfortableness, they'll get up and leave, you know,
versus and a sense of acceptance. So how do I
grow through this at that moment and and become a
(26:56):
part of this, you know, because I love my child?
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Well maybe it would. But the thing that if I
got out and left in a huff and went to
another restaurant, right right, right.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
But I know that you.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
I believe you have an event coming up, or you
have some things coming up in your calendar. It would
you like to share some of that?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Well, I just released this tool on my care tools
for Uncertain Times. It's called on my website, and I'm
really proud of this resource. It came out of slowness
and stillness. Actually, so after the election in the fall,
I moved through a lot of stillness and slowness, and
I said, you know what is going to really help
(27:39):
me through this time? There's a lot of uncertainty coming up.
I have a lot of fear. Going back again to
your poem gold and how can I be How can
I resource myself? How can I help resource other people
and particularly my clients, but also people in my community,
(27:59):
Because I don't want to be the only one who's
resourced and have to take care of everybody else, because
actually that's not sustainable. I can't do that. I need
care too. We all need care. And you know, when
you were sharing that story, I was thinking about a
conversation I was having yesterday about how being in more
(28:20):
homogeneous spaces can make us feel safe in certain ways.
We're around people who we feel like, get us, get
who we are, have a shared experience with us. I
spoke to the importance of that earlier, and I think
that fear can keep us from building cross cultural I
(28:43):
mean culture in a lot of different ways when I
say that, alliances and community and organizing and activism, and
it's really important that we can build that bridge and
allow each other to be imperfect.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
We do it.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
And so one of the key things with that is
that people are able to be resourced enough and i'll'll
explain what I mean by that in a second, but
able to regulate themselves enough to take care of to
be grounded, to give people that space to not take
everything personally, and to be able to take action, to
(29:26):
be able to build community, to be able to get
up every day and do something that feels good in
your body. Otherwise we are going to feel really stuck
and helpless and we can't do anything during this time.
So I released this tool on my website. It's called
care Tools for Uncertain Times. I interview dozens of people
what is resourcing you right now? I did hours and
(29:48):
hours and hours of research, and there are tools for
self regulation, for community building, for political action, for basic needs,
and there's a whole section on joy and embodiment. And
it's all all these answers that people said of what
was what's resourcing them right now? Everything from dance classes
to mine, which is my two o'clock dance break. Every day,
(30:09):
I have a two o'clock alarm that goes off, and
right now it's Aberka Dabra by Lady Gaga and I dance,
and you know, it just helped to have a moment
where I'm getting to be in my body and feel
good and feel joy, because it's so important for us
to be able to do that at a time where
there's so much again uncertainty and threats to safety for
(30:31):
many of us.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
A nice suspects relationship between You're Worth Your Release and
Gold book be the poem. It would be a people
who work in tandem on that, but we're at a time.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
We're at a time, So Jay, thank you so much
for being with us here at finding Out with Pete
and the poel Go. Come back, you know, please and
visit us. It doesn't have to be you know, Gay
Pride Month, you know, just come back and visit us.
I think that you have a wealth of talent and
information to be able to offer people and to our listeners.
Thank you so much for tuning in once again to
finding Out with Pete and the Poe Go. We appreciate you.
The views and opinions expressed in the following programmer those
of the speaker and don't necessarily represent those of the station.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
It's staff management or ownership.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
A good morning, you'll find out with peting Poet Gold.
I'm Peter Leonard and I'm the Poet Gold and we're
on the air this morning with Jay Herman from a
bird Song Psychotherapy, which we're dying to get to. But
before we go to Jay, we're going to go to
Poet Gold for weekly prayer, poem, incantation, goal, let it roll.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
I'm going to read two short poems. They're in my
fear section of the book be the poem Living Beyond
Our Fears, which is a new book coming out this summer.
Poem one, Sometimes you choose solitude for protection. Poem two.
The wall between us is fear. This is where our
humanity separates.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Wow, those are your shortest poems of Gold, and they
punched two.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I have a couple of short poems in the poems
in the book.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah, you know, it's impossible Jay not to notice the
name of you practice bird Song. It's beautiful and I
imagine it might have some meaning behind you too. Can
you give us a sense of that.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Yeah, when I was on my own journey of self
discovery and exploring my own identity, I came to really
resonate with actually the name Jaybird. And my given middle
name is Lynn, and when I changed my first name
(01:38):
to Jay, and you put that together, Jalen, it actually
means jaybird. So it felt like this really kind of
like divine name and reference for myself. And when I
started my own private practice, because I work with folks
who are seeking to see LGBTQ folks, I work with
(02:02):
a lot of folks who have experienced trauma, and through
those experiences, we're coming to understand our own story and
our own identity and tell that story for ourselves. And
it feels like the reclamation and the freeing of our
voice is a key component of that. And so that's
(02:23):
what bird song is to me. Every bird, if you
When I can sit outside and I'm listening to the
birds in my backyard, even here in the city, I
hear so many different songs and sometimes they can kind
of sound the same, but if you really sit and listen,
they all feel just a little bit different. And I
think there's like this beautiful melody that we put together
(02:45):
when we all live our own truth.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
So birds we very often hear it as a clatter.
And yet you're saying, if you're attentive, you'll see, you know,
individual birds, different voices, and you're hinting that human beings
similar as to birds in that way.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Yeah, Yes, I think there's a I think there's a
beauty in our individuality and in our collectiveness as well.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I'd like to mention that Jay is not only a therapist,
but Jay is also a very good poet as well.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
The metaphor of the birds.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
I see, I see that man, but individual and collective
of that, which is really uh. You know, when we
think of a self, we think of an individual self
that we have inside of us, and our experience of
self is much more collective and it's outside of our body.
(03:53):
I mean. The simplest way to put it is language.
I mean, language is not something that happens echoes around
in your chest. Language is something you share or it
shaes even the wrong word, you join into in community.
And so when we try to heal ourselves, we I
(04:15):
think sometimes makes a mistake of going too much inside
of the our individuality rather than our collective. So you
have I mean obviously both mattered to you, and you've
mentioned it already, the way the collective which is ignored
in our thinking, although it's not at all ignored in
(04:37):
our experience.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Yeah, I think there's this, there's a value in all
of it, right, Like it's it's important to be able
to go inward and have the sense of self and
have some boundaries around what have other people said my
truth is or said I'm allowed to be, or what
words have I been told I'm allowed to use? Or
(05:00):
what have I been told is the truth about something
and be able to search within yourself and find that
inner truth yourself. And then it's also important to have
community and to have connection and to have people and
to have shared language as much as we can around connecting,
whether it's about our identities or our experience or under
(05:22):
the ways that we're putting together our story and our
understanding of what we have been through, our connection to
our ancestors, any of those things helps make us also
feel connected. And there's such a culture of isolation and
avoidance right now in a lot of ways, since I
(05:43):
think a lot of people are feeling that and struggling
and suffering from that. So I think there's that balance
of having that sense of self and it's okay to
not be the same as everybody in your community, and
also having that connection and place of belonging.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
As a therapist. I'm looking at a website. Is a
term I'm not I'm not familiar with f O l
X folks.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Oh folks, Okay, okay, you got created.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
I got okay. I was like, is this terminology or
is it okay? And now makes sense to me.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
You know, gold doesn't miss much.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
I was, you know, because I was very clinical in
my you know, looking at this and going, oh, this
is a term.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I don't know, this is new.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
So I studied linguistics in college, and so I love
to talk about how language is always evolving and this
is one of those things.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
This is one of those words. I love it. Just
be more Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Language thing? Uh you mentioned you study linguistics. Give me
a little more license to get another build another point
from what I said before. Even if you're a very
interior person and you're thinking about yourself in your deepest
was private way, you're using language, and language is public property.
(07:07):
The language is not You didn't make up your own
language and have meanings so even in the most private
thought you have, you're connected to your communities through the
language you're using as both a speaker and a listener.
And so to me, that's just the way of underlining
how inextricably bound we are to our communities.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Yeah, and why it's so important to have connection to
our historical knowledge, to knowing that our people have always existed,
to knowing that queerness and queer identities have always existed
in different forms even if those words weren't used, To
know that trans people have always existed across time. Even
(07:55):
though we people will sometimes say, well, non binary is
a new term, sure, because language is always evolving, because
that's a new term right now, But that doesn't mean,
especially if we look at pre colonization, that we haven't
seen the existence of people living outside of the binary
sex and gender system that we have so institutionalized in
(08:15):
modern Western culture today.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
And you know on language from your card, I know
she use they and them as pronouns. Yes, And so
right away you're bringing up the language, the issues of
identity and language, and the part where people in general,
(08:39):
and people my age have a hard time changing prograuns.
They can understand the concept by myself. I understand the concept,
but my language comes out in she terms unless I'm thinking,
and some people have the impression that what are my
(08:59):
what are you making such a big deal of? And
you want to explain how the pronouns are connected to
identity in a way that would make people not made
at you.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
I can't control everybody's feelings.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
That's my syp's responsible.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Yeah, So I mean first person singular day pronouns have
actually been around for centuries in English language. It's a
thing we use all the time without thinking about it. So,
for example, the example I'd like to give is if
I was to say, like I went to the doctor today,
(09:39):
you and you didn't know the gender of my doctor,
You'd probably say, oh, what did they say?
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
So we often all we already use this language. It's
already a part of how we loquially talk.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
I think that we because we have we have all
been really socialized to have down loaded this blueprint of
understanding that there is just two genders, there's just two sexes,
both of which are not true. That it's so ingrained
in us that it becomes a part of our blueprint
(10:13):
of our language and it's difficult for people to change
that language, especially because we're not just I think what
people understand is they don't feel like you're just asking
me to change to use a different word, but you're
asking me to change my belief system. And what I've
said to people is I actually don't need you to
(10:33):
change your belief system.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
I'm happy to.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Totally happy to have a conversation with you about it,
because I think that conversation is important and that we
need to do more bridge building instead of putting up
more walls. Going back to kind of your opening poem,
gold and about fear, and I think that a lot
of it is fear that people have. It's like fear
of being wrong, fear of being perceived as discriminatory, fear
(10:59):
to make that mistake. And also on the other side,
people who use they then pronouns. You know, it feels
really it does feel really important to one's identity. To
point it to your question, it's saying like, hey, I exist,
I'm real, I live outside of this system. Actually, this
is who I am and how I want to be
referred to. These are the words that matter to me.
(11:23):
I like to joke when my parents would miss gender me.
I would just call them the different parent as a joke,
like okay Dad, okay mom, and they'd be like huh oh, okay,
I got it. You know it's like, well, the words
you have words that matter to you too, right, we
all have words that matter to us. And I think
when we kind of take out the idea of like
I'm asking you to change your belief system, what I'm
(11:44):
asking you is, or what I'm telling you is, this
is how I feel respected and seen and left.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Hope that one second, if you're just tuning in, you're
listening to finding Out with Pete and the poet Gold,
and I'm the poet Gold and we're here today with
Jay Herman of bird Song psycho Therapy. Correct, Yes, okay,
got it, having a wonderful conversation, and.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
We don't want to lose that last line that's your
had where you said, this is the way I feel
seeing respected and love. Right and now, if the person
you're talking to you it has no interest in seeing,
respecting and loving you, they should be aware of that
for themselves, that that's who they are.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
And I like the way that you know you. I
don't know if you did this intentionally, but you started
with I'm asking you to I'm telling you.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yes, exactly, Yes, I I caught that as I was saying,
it's a huge, huge difference.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Yeah, it feels like I'm communicating like this, this is
my truth, this is my boundary.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
It's actually not just the thing I'm asking of you, right, right, right.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
And I think it's easy for people to be in
on them the sort of the chauvinism of being yourself
because they've always been myself and missing the opportunit if
somebody wants to be referred to in a way that
is grammatically uncomfortable for you. They're also saying here I am.
(13:08):
It's a very friendly thing to do, saying you know
a great deal about me if you know what I feel.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And it's a vulnerable place as well, you know. And
and going back to what you were saying about the identity,
you know, people resist it because of their belief system,
and they feel that if they lose their belief system,
they lose who they are, and so there's a huge fear,
(13:37):
you know, with that, and so so sort of take
that away from them and say, well, no, no, no, I'm
not asking you to, you know, give up these things.
I'm not asking you to give up who you are.
I'm just telling you how I've liked to be identified
and how I like to be respected.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yes, give us a sense.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Of how it is. I mean, like the one little
thing we call you, uh, your your your mother who's female,
you call her dad? I mean he makes the point you.
It's funny and it makes the points and it's But
how does that when you're doing something so simply unconventional? Okay,
(14:20):
and uh, and it's really reflecting the unconventionality of your
own individualism, uh, individuality? How how does that feel inside?
When you it seems to me like you're constantly not
only on God, but constantly in conflict or potential conflict.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Thank you. I really appreciate that question as a somatic
therapist and as like someone who's personally just done so
much work to recome, like come back to my body
after all the things like I've been through in my life.
I really appreciate that question about what it feel like inside.
(15:01):
I think it's a thing we don't focus on a
lot because we are so busy talking about the words.
So I really appreciate that. So I think that this
has shifted and evolved for me over time, and they'd
beginning of me sharing with my people in my world
that I'm non binary. I did this in the fashion
(15:23):
of releasing a poetry video and doing a gender reveal,
and the poem is called for every queer Kid, and
I wrote it as a love letter to my younger self,
and I just pretty much shared with everybody in my
life at once, like, Hey, I'm non binary. This is
what that means. This is the name I use, these
(15:44):
are my pronouns. Now, this is what love means to me.
This is my definition of love taken from Belle Hooks
and the book All About Love, And this is what
loving me looks like. And it was deeply vulnerable, I
would say, like a deep resonance of a buzzing and
(16:07):
electricity in my body. It was very difficult in some
spaces and very easy in other spaces. I have times
where and I think in general, I would say that
over time, as I've come to you know, part of
that vulnerability is the fear of rejection. It's the fear
(16:28):
of people's anger, and it's the fear of having to
justify yourself to people when you are still may even
have some doubts yourself from the place of like, this
is kind of wild for me to do this is
really vulnerable, and to step out and tell everybody this
(16:50):
deeply personal thing about myself in the face of having
been told for so long this isn't real and doesn't exist.
And so there's a lot of this like armoring and
self protection that has to happen. And I think over
time for myself as I have developed this less of
an armor in terms of like being ready to fight
(17:14):
and keep people out, but more of a like strong
boundary that says I know who I am that gives
me something to come back to when I feel thrown off,
and like I had the other day, someone was like girls,
and I just kept walking because I'm like, I don't
even it doesn't even occur to me that someone is
talking to me when they say that, And then I'm like, oh, okay, right,
(17:38):
that's how you perceive me, and you know, I'm able
to in those instances be like right, that's because that's
person's blueprint, that's not because of what my inner truth is.
And so over time, I think that has strengthened for me,
and I feel much more stronger in that truth without
having to feel like I'm armoring up all the time.
(18:02):
But that is not true in every space.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
While I say that, okay, yeah, and you know, so
having that understanding becomes really important in order to have
better understanding of others. You know, yes, you know what
people are going and what they're bringing to the conversation
and the table at the time, and you know, and
and and going back to that understanding is is so important,
(18:28):
I believe because you at that point can take into
account someone else's narrative.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Yes, yes, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Not only their narrative that they may have about you,
but the narrative that they're caring about them.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
And I would imagine, I mean, your parents have had
reactions to this, and I you know from my senses,
you know, from traditional perspective of you. For your father,
I think there would be social expectations that he should
(19:06):
be mad, disappointed or something like that. But my sense
is a man, I wonder if they levitate too. It
just seemed like such spiritual enlightenment to me. And I
know spiritual enlightenment where I assume it can be very exhausting,
but it's very thrilling to be around it. So, you know,
for your family to be around and somebody who's I
(19:33):
would say spiritually gifted. That's a different way of taking it,
you know. And and do you levitate, by the way,
you can't, it's therapist if they levitate.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
I want to say justin I know you. I don't
know that you had a clear question in there, but
I do want to say thank you for seeing me.
This does feel like a very spiritual journey. And I
think that again we get caught up in the words,
we get caught up in the what do you mean?
Like that's challenging everything I believe. And this is really
(20:13):
just as a and has for me at least, I
can't speak for everybody been a deeply spiritual journey.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
And it's you know, I'm going to add something.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
If you're just listening, you're just listening to finding out
with Pete and the poet gold and I'm the Poe
Golden and we're here with Jay Herman, a therapist. Whether
a company is named bird Song Psychotherapy. I had a
thought when when you were saying that, and it has
to come back to me though it was the last
thing you said.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
I said that thank you for spiritual journey. Yeah, you're
seeing me.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Right, and you know, and the point going back to
what what you had brought up before about the words,
you know, it's I think sometimes what people fail to
recognize it's it's not your belief system that's being challenged.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Yeah, you know, yeah, I yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
I mean I work with teens who's who you know,
are trans or who are exploring their gender identity, who
are questioning, you know, maybe identifying as non binary, and
parents who understandably are like, this is my kid, I've
known my kid this way, this is like you know,
(21:37):
and going through their own feelings of confusion, grief, all
kinds of things, all kinds of the common experience as
a parent would feel in that situation. And I think
people get hung up on fears about medical transition and
(21:59):
conf there's grief in names, right, If we've like named
our child, we many people can't say everybody. My parents disagree,
They have no idea. They have very different stories about
how I had gotten my original given name. But you know,
many parents put a lot of thought into naming their child.
It may even carry a family lineage, it may carry
(22:20):
a cultural significance for them, and so people talk about like, well,
actually this is the name that resonates with me now,
or this is who I am, or these are my pronouns,
or you know, my gender is different from what you
thought it. It isn't, But it also does question, like
the very existence of a non binary person does question
(22:42):
people's or challenge, right, It challenges people's beliefs about what is,
what exists, and what gender is and what gender looks
like and gender identity. So I agree, like, it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
I'm not.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
I'm not asking a challenge it. But I also kind
of am and in a in a like I'm here
and I get that my presence is doing that kind
of why.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I often ask parents and situations, you know, like this,
if your child died today, did the name matter? Or
did the love for your child?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
What? What? What is really more important here? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
The name you named your child or the existence of
your child, Yeah, you know, the mental health of your child,
the celebration of your child.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Well you already know the answer to that, right, I mean,
I mean, I think nobody's gonna say and nobody's going
to even experience the notion well the name wasn't matter.
I mean I think most people, most people in that
situation would just feel more foolish than they ever felt before.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
And and that's that's why the question is asked. Let's
unpack it. Let's let's unpack why you're really feeling, what
it is that you're feeling. Let's unpack that.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
You asked me if I had a question to my
little thing, and the answer is no, I feel free
of giving my impressions of things. Then I do actually
asking for informational question. So my impression is more something
(24:24):
few to react to. But in terms of you know,
straight people understanding non binary people would just gay people,
It's what I've always been sort of open on that thing,
like in a traditional uh like you know, liberal, left wing,
Catholic kind of way. And so, but I got such
(24:47):
an insight into just how different the life experiences of
a person who's not typical is because, like I said,
you know, I'm seventy five years old, I seventy two
twenty three. My son sim who just turned forty, he's
gay and he you know, we so this is you know,
(25:11):
just sort of a radio part of life. But he
always encouraged my wife and I to go to Provincetown
where he goes, and so I went, which is you know,
like the gay capital of America town. And so I
went to Provincetown and I had such a dramatic experience
and that was you know, nobody was mean to me
(25:34):
in Provincetown. But when I walked into the restaurant, you know,
for dinner and my wife and I was going and
all of a sudden, it was my impression was we're
the only two straight people in the place. And even
though people were polite to us, I felt strange and
I felt, uh in a way I never felt before.
(25:58):
And it gave me a sense of just how difficult
the enduring sense of coming out. Once you're out, it's
not like over going to go to a different restaurant
the next week. And so uh, you know, I really
felt poort. I even miss the actual point of feeling
(26:20):
different in every moment. And I you know, of course
I feel foolish about it, but I was almost surprised
by my foolishness. So I guess idium or something like that.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
You know, but a lot of people do.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
And and kudos for you for not getting up and
walking out the environment, because there are people who will
do that, you know, the moment they feel that sense
of uncomfortable uncomfortableness, they'll get up and leave, you know,
versus and a sense of acceptance. So how do I
grow through this at that moment and and become a
(26:56):
part of this, you know, because I love my child?
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Well maybe it would. But the thing that if I
got out and left in a huff and went to
another restaurant, right right, right.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
But I know that you.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
I believe you have an event coming up, or you
have some things coming up in your calendar. It would
you like to share some of that?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Well, I just released this tool on my care tools
for Uncertain Times. It's called on my website, and I'm
really proud of this resource. It came out of slowness
and stillness. Actually, so after the election in the fall,
I moved through a lot of stillness and slowness, and
I said, you know what is going to really help
(27:39):
me through this time? There's a lot of uncertainty coming up.
I have a lot of fear. Going back again to
your poem gold and how can I be How can
I resource myself? How can I help resource other people
and particularly my clients, but also people in my community,
(27:59):
Because I don't want to be the only one who's
resourced and have to take care of everybody else, because
actually that's not sustainable. I can't do that. I need
care too. We all need care. And you know, when
you were sharing that story, I was thinking about a
conversation I was having yesterday about how being in more
(28:20):
homogeneous spaces can make us feel safe in certain ways.
We're around people who we feel like, get us, get
who we are, have a shared experience with us. I
spoke to the importance of that earlier, and I think
that fear can keep us from building cross cultural I
(28:43):
mean culture in a lot of different ways when I
say that, alliances and community and organizing and activism, and
it's really important that we can build that bridge and
allow each other to be imperfect.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
We do it.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
And so one of the key things with that is
that people are able to be resourced enough and i'll'll
explain what I mean by that in a second, but
able to regulate themselves enough to take care of to
be grounded, to give people that space to not take
everything personally, and to be able to take action, to
(29:26):
be able to build community, to be able to get
up every day and do something that feels good in
your body. Otherwise we are going to feel really stuck
and helpless and we can't do anything during this time.
So I released this tool on my website. It's called
care Tools for Uncertain Times. I interview dozens of people
what is resourcing you right now? I did hours and
(29:48):
hours and hours of research, and there are tools for
self regulation, for community building, for political action, for basic needs,
and there's a whole section on joy and embodiment. And
it's all all these answers that people said of what
was what's resourcing them right now? Everything from dance classes
to mine, which is my two o'clock dance break. Every day,
(30:09):
I have a two o'clock alarm that goes off, and
right now it's Aberka Dabra by Lady Gaga and I dance,
and you know, it just helped to have a moment
where I'm getting to be in my body and feel
good and feel joy, because it's so important for us
to be able to do that at a time where
there's so much again uncertainty and threats to safety for
(30:31):
many of us.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
A nice suspects relationship between You're Worth Your Release and
Gold book be the poem. It would be a people
who work in tandem on that, but we're at a time.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
We're at a time, So Jay, thank you so much
for being with us here at finding Out with Pete
and the poel Go. Come back, you know, please and
visit us. It doesn't have to be you know, Gay
Pride Month, you know, just come back and visit us.
I think that you have a wealth of talent and
information to be able to offer people and to our listeners.
Thank you so much for tuning in once again to
finding Out with Pete and the Poe Go. We appreciate you.
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