Season 1 Episode 1 William Moore : Doula Public Health Worker and Advocate

William Moore is an ex Semi Professional Football player, an artist, a public health professional, a doula and most importantly a man who cares about his community. Find out more about William professionally at https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamrmoore360/ for more on his creative work go to https://consciousvanguard.wordpress.com.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
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(00:25):
Learn more about fresh Books by goingto Black Yoga Magazine dot com slash
fresh Books. A huge thank youto our sponsors, and let's start the
show. Welcome, and this isthe Black Yoga Experience. Hey everybody,

(00:53):
this is Ashley and you are listeningto the Black Yoga Experience podcast. Thanks
for joining us tonight on our firstepisode of this season. I'm looking forward
to bringing you interviews from people allacross the yoga community of color, sharing
what they do, how we impactthe community, how we connect with one

(01:14):
another in some amazing ways, andtake care of each other basically in this
crazy, crazy time that we're callingtwenty twenty. So my guest tonight is
William Moore. He is an amazing, amazing person. I'll allow him to
do his own intro, but ifI can share a little bit about him

(01:34):
from my perspective, he's out heredoing great things in the world, taking
care of folks and really being oneof those people that is boots on the
ground, connecting with those that arein need in throughout our community, and
yeah, just making good things happen. So I'll turn it over the will
to kind of introduce himself to everybody. Thanks for having me on, Ashley,

(01:56):
much appreciated. That was honored foryou even asked first and foremost,
my name is William Moore. Iam and I work in public health.
I am a health educator working incrime disease prevention in Minnesota, and I'm
also a doula lactation educator. I'vebeen in public health for all together total

(02:23):
maybe about four to five years.I've been at my current public health department
for, like I said, alittle over three years. I absolutely love
it. It is also something thatif you had asked me, I don't
know, four or five years agothat if I be doing this work,
I would tell you absolutely not.And if you'd asked me even two and

(02:46):
a half years ago, if i'dbe a doula and liketation educator. I'd
probably asked you what that was,but here we go. You know,
I'm enjoying it. I love it, and I couldn't think of anything else
better to do with my time.That is absolutely wonderful. So of course

(03:07):
I know I'm not the only onethat has this question. How did you
get to that in the first place? Like, that is not something that
you see men doing. That isnot something you see black men doing.
So how did you get to bethe lactation consultant doulah, you know,
superman type of job. Well,so it's kind of a long story,

(03:30):
but I'm gonna i'll give you don'tgive you a CliffsNotes version. So at
my job in public health, likeI said, I do kind of disease
prevention work. But it was alsoI was also given an opportunity to help
facilitate and code facilitate a monthly men'sgroup run by the Family Health Division of
our Public Health department. That groupwas called a Club Dad. It runs

(03:54):
at the same time during a oncea month women's group called Club Mom,
where once a month we provide dinnerchildcare for mothers and fathers to kind of
come. They're split up the motherswith the mothers just together and the fathers
together in a separate room, andwe kind of just especially as far as

(04:14):
the Menican turn, we really justdiscuss things that really affect males, you
know, specifically African American males.And our group is not relegated to just
African Americans, but we do havea strong African American and people of color
focus, and it's a space whereblack men can really come to a managing
you can come to and feel safe. Right, I've talked, uh,

(04:39):
you know, I've had offline conversationswith you before and just talking to other
people in general, how the worldthat we live in is not really engineered
or built for black people, muchless black men to feel safe, not
even around each other. We arein our communities, we are built two

(05:00):
to really be hardened individuals and childourselves. And so it's a safe space
for us to come to, inventand talk about relationship issues, getting gainful
employment, further in our education,getting mental you know, addressing mental health
issues, but really develop life skillsand learn how to constructively really express ourselves
and unleash some of the emotions thatwe hold in because at the end of

(05:23):
it all, no matter what wesee, no matter how we see ourselves,
no matter how the rest of theworld sees us. At the end
of it all, we're human beings, and human beings have to express their
emotions. But we are conditioned insuch a way to believe that men can't
express can't express their emotions at all. Only emotions we're allowed to express our
happiness or anger or rage. Andunfortunately, for all too many you know,

(05:47):
so you know, too many blackmen, we're very rarely put in
positions to experience happiness, but onlyrage. And so what happens when you're
not when you're you know, whenyou're bred from a very young age and
not able to not be able toexpect express that constructively, right, it
comes out of negative ways. AndI tell this all the time with clients

(06:09):
and men that I work with,like, you have to be able to
express yourself because it's going to comeout one way or the other. And
if you don't learn how to expressyourself in a constructive manner, it's going
to come out in a destructive manner, and you may not want to experience
the consequences that come with that.And I think that that's you know,
that's very often what we see outof men in our community. So that's

(06:34):
what the group is all about.But over time, you know representatives,
uh from club Mom who actually developedand created Club Mom and club Dad said,
you know what, will we needsome we need to male representation in
beck BECKS certain stands for Birth EquityCommunity Council and it is a monthly group

(06:56):
where people from the community, professionalsno matter what, feel there and community
members kind of get together and troubleshootand think about ideas to address the address
the disparities and the infant mortality rateand the maternal death rate. Community.

(07:18):
I want the rate of twice asmuch as white babies and on a national
level, black women die because dieat a rate of two hundred and forty
three percent more than white women becauseof childbirth related issues. So that's huge,
that's absolutely huge. And so thefunction of this group was to really

(07:40):
get together and talk about ways thatwe can really constructive ways and strategies that
we can use in a community andget ideas from different people's lenses of how
we can address and issues that wecould do in the community to address those
issues. Well, one of theideas that was proposed by Leader of mine
named Miss Timiko Rawson, was totrain men to be doulas and lactation educators

(08:05):
because one of the biggest when wedid a brainstorming session, one of the
biggest things that came out of thatwas there weren't really any parenting resources for
men or any resources period for men. And as public health professionals would ask
what resources were out there for womenfor children, we could go on and
on and on and on, eventhe community members naming all the different resources

(08:28):
there were for women and children.But when we asked about resources for men,
nobody could say anything. It wasquiet. And so the idea was,
if we could train men to becomedoulahs and lactation educators, not only
are we in dealing them with informationto feel competent and strong enough to speak

(08:50):
out and be involved in that birthprocess, but they can also advocate for
their significant others during the birth processbecause they know more about it, they
feel empowered and encouraged, and theycan empower and encourage their significant other because,
like I said, with the datastatistics that I kind of gave you
earlier, medical professionals and direct careservice providers aren't listening to black women or

(09:13):
women of color when it comes toany anything but especially childbirth issues. And
anytime anybody wants to argue that withme, especially a direct care service provider,
you know, one thing that theydo pay attention to is numbers.
And I always tell him, listen, two point fourty three percent difference or
disparity. We could chalk that upto an anomaly, twenty four point three

(09:35):
percent. We could say, hey, we can look at social determines of
health. Two hundred and forty threepercent difference. Though, that to me
is medical malpractice. And I'll standby that because as far as I am
concerned, and it's you know,I'm you know, I'm not a doctor,
but I'm pretty good with biology andhuman anatomy. There isn't really any
difference between a black woman's body anda white woman's body. So there's absolutely

(09:56):
no reason why black women's to bedying at the rate of twenty and forty
three percent more likely than white womenas a result of childbirth issues, right,
And so that was the idea behindit. And so although I am
licensed to work with women, oneof my primary goals actually is actually to

(10:16):
work with men. So work withwomen, men or families altogether. But
what I you know, the originalpurpose of training men to be dealers and
like tation educators so that we canmentor and educate other men in the community.
So the idea was, after workingwith us for so long, we
didn't even have to be in thedelivery room. These young fathers will feel

(10:39):
comfortable and confident enough to be inthat delivery room theirselves advocating for their significant
others, making sure that their careservice providers were paying attention to the ones
needs the desires of black women,so that we would we could really take
a big chunk out of the maternaldeath rate in the central mortality rate with
making sure that they understood think differentthings about say sleep, messaging, so

(11:03):
on and so forth. So it'sreally tackling and tackling or facing if you
will, this problem head on,as opposed to you know, hear a
few books to go read, gowith God kind of approach that it seems
to reality, what woman, whatwoman is in position to take and read
these volumes upon volumes of books,especially if your first time mother, after

(11:26):
giving birth, you're exhausted physically mostlyand physically right mentally and mostly and physically
you come from and then you gotthis new little life you gotta take care
of. Man, they're gonna bookupon manual upon manual. Read this,
you know, pantis of this,you'd be all good to go. Likebody

(11:46):
attention to that nobody has. Youdon't have the time, you don't have
the energy for it. And thefunniest the baby doesn't have the patience for
you know, the baby does notcare about The baby is like you and
whatever life you had prior to mebeing here. This is my show,
and y'all are just living in it, right, That's right, That's right.

(12:11):
So it's uh, I'll never forgetthis. I had been giving,
the had been given the book wasmy first child. You know what to
expect when you're expecting, and it'sall this crazy like like medical things that
could go wrong, right, andme, it was just making me super
neurotic. Now I'm like a highintensity person to begin with, when you

(12:33):
know, when when something's going on, I'm here to solve the problem.
We're charging for it, right,So it's just making me crazy. So
I got to month five and I'mlike, I'm not reading a stupid book
anymore. I'm not reading this book, I just put it away and I
didn't read the dumb book anymore becausethis conclusion the baby showing up. Whether
I read this dumb book or not, I'm putting this away. And my

(12:54):
experience may not look like anything ofthe experience that's in this book, none
of it, right, yep.But let me ask you this, how
much different would that experience have beenhad you had a dueler, a midwife,
to talk to you about what youcan expect, different strategies to mitigate
the feelings, emotions and physical thingsthat are going on with your body,

(13:18):
to expect what type of questions toexpect to coming from doctors, but also
defending you and advocating for you inthat delivery room or that prenatal or postpartum
visit when that doctor seems to becombat of or And on top of that,
how much different would it been ifyour significant other was also there,
imbued with the same knowledge, thesame courage to advocate and be there and

(13:43):
go through it with you during thesame time, in real time, so
you did not feel like you're battlingthis all by yourself. It would have
been a night and day experience.And when I got What I ended up
doing was I started going to acenter that had duelas available is they've actually
closed and some which is kind ofsad. It's called Labor of Love and
it was in clue order and theyhad duelists. It was a little it

(14:07):
was a little touchy feely, butit was also there are pieces and parts
of it that I really needed.Like I found a practitioner there. Her
her name was actually Ashley as well. Clearly is why I remember that,
and uh she she was so greatand we had visits where we just talked
and she filled in these gaps thatI was not getting from my ob just

(14:31):
because he doesn't have the tools forthat. That's not that's not his training,
and it's he's he's not built thatway as a person in general.
So seeing her was very very helpfulthroughout a good good portion of my experience.
However, the roadblock I ran intowas my insurance. We were going
back and forth as to whether ornot the insurance was going to pay and

(14:52):
how many visits and what they weregoing to do, and feel with that
myself, as you know, andit's to the point to where actually my
services and it's not just because ofthe insurance part. It's also because I
have the moral belief and it's notto say that anybody else who does charge

(15:15):
has you know, there's issues withtheir morals and anything. I feel like
families, especially black mothers or youknow, a lot of the families that
I deal with a low income shouldnot have to choose between making sure they
can have a positive childbirth experience andbringing their child into this world healthy and

(15:35):
paying the bills. So I havenot actually charged any of the families for
my services. Where I do charge, it's actually I actually do consulting for
direct service providers, whether be clinics, doctors, nurses, public health nurses,
home visiting nurses, all the above, and I do consulting and trainings,
and so that when I charge organizationsfor my consulting services, but when

(16:00):
as I work with individual families,I will not charged any families, even
though I have contracts constructed and builtup so that I could charge individual families.
So far, the families that Ihave been working with really just aren't
of economic means to be able topay, and I just don't feel comfortable
doing that. And so as longas I can make my money off of
you know, consulting, you know, with these other direct service providing organizations

(16:23):
and making sure that they are trainedand prepared the best that they can to
provide optimal care to my clients andto other minority families that they may run
into out there. That I'm happywith that right now. That's absolutely amazing
because there's so much space that's availablefor that and for families that need that.

(16:48):
And I mean, and let's faceit, having a child is not
a cheap endeavor. At a minimum, it's ten thousand dollars just for all
y'all who don't know out there whohaven't had to have children before. At
minimum, the hospital ordeal is goingto start at about ten grand. And
if you do it outside of thehospital, you take on a whole other

(17:11):
set of stress, right that existsas far as navigating the insurance portion of
that, because insurance has some verystaunch rules about what they will and won't
pay for and what they doo medicallynecessary, and on and on and on.
In my case, I have abouta fifteen year of health insurance and
life health annuity and also property andcasually insurance background to back up my knowledge

(17:37):
and navigating that system. So Iwas able to enable visits where I could,
but that was just my knowledge tobe able to do that. And
on average, the most people thatwe run into living their lives, that's
not something that's in their bag,you know. So to hear you say
that, you know you're charging thosewho need to be charged, right and
taking care of those who don't havethe means is a is a wonderful thing,

(18:00):
right and ultimately like another thing thatmakes me feel comfortable with that because
I do charge, you know,these these providers. I look at it
this way, especially if there's anybalking at my right, I wouldn't have
to do with what I do.If you did your job better, period,

(18:21):
there'd be no need for you.If they took care, there'd be
no need for me. If youknow black women weren't dying at a rate
of two hudred and forty threer percentmore likely than that white counterparts, there
would be no need for me.If the experiences of women of color were
could could match those of their whitecounterparts when they come in and deal with
the doctors, there would be noneed for me. If fathers who actually

(18:45):
are trying to be involved during thechildbirth process could look at me and tell
me that a doctor actually spoke tothem and worked with them instead of talking
over them, around them, orthrough them and pretending like they did not
exist. Right, there would beno need for me if doctors a direct
care service providers actually worked with familiesin a way in which it wasn't just

(19:07):
I'm going to send you home withyour kid with a bunch of different manuals
and stuff like that, but Ican actually sit and talk with you about
safe sleep messaging, you know what, you know, how you should you
be cold sleeping and not cold sleeping, what should be in a baby's crib,
you know that sort of thing,in a way to make sure that
we've actually had a dialogue about it, and then you actually understand and comprehended

(19:30):
that conversation, and whether or notyou even had the means at your residence
to carry out a lot of theseRight, if all that stuff was being
done, there would be no needfor anybody like me. But those things
aren't being done, so therefore myservices are needed, and I'm going to
make sure to the best of myability that they're taking care of our women

(19:51):
and children the way that they should. And I agree with you wholeheartedly.
There's no Ah, and good onyou for do doing that and saying that
is saying something that's so desperately needsto be said and needs to be understood.
I'm amazed at the number of peoplethat take for granted what they have

(20:11):
versus what others don't. Right.It is always this conversation about, oh,
well, you'll just get a basinet, or oh just put them in
the in the the the bumbo,or put them in the whatever. You
know, as though as though peoplewho are already struggling have access to all
of these this baby gear and thesegadgets and this and then that. I
was very fortunate that I have thisamazing writer or die family. There's a

(20:36):
billion of them that back me upone hundred and ten percent, and they
still help and pay and take fordto take care of my kids with me.
Even to this day. I'm deeplyinternally grateful for that. But I
am and am the exception in manyof cases and not the rule. There's
a lot of folks out here thatco sleep because that may be the only

(20:57):
bed that is in the house exactly, you know. Then they become then
the then the then the conversation becomesdo I shame that mother for that,
or do I get for strategies andthings to do so to make sure that
that's something That is, if shehas to sleep in the same bed with

(21:17):
her child, how can she dothat successfully without accidentally suffocating her child?
You know what I'm saying, inthe middle of the night, how can
we do that successfully? Yeah,there's a I'm trying to think of what
it was called, like a babylike box, Like it's a small box
that's given that uh that they weregiving away to mothers that were coming into

(21:40):
to the wick office and then getaway indiscriminately, whether you needed it or
not, just to make sure theyhad a place for the baby. Because
I know this is going to soundstrange to folks. In the chaos of
having a child, sometimes you don'tthink, well, what am I gonna
do with what I get? You'reyou're carrying it, You have the car
seat, you have all this sufftheir stuff, and it doesn't occur to

(22:00):
you, Well, they have tohave somewhere safe to sleep, not just
anywhere to sleep, somewhere safe tosleep. Having them sitting up in the
car seat is not a safe sleepingspot, you know, just there are
things that don't necessarily hurt you,especially when you knew you don't know what
you're doing. You know what thebooks have told you, you know what

(22:21):
Hollywood has told you about being aparent. If you're lucky, you know
what your your mother or your grandmotherhas told you, which I would take
their advice over the rest of itin many cases. But you don't have
many, you know, quality resourcesat your disposal, So you don't know
what your what you'r quote unquote upagainst until you're you're in it. So

(22:41):
and I know all of your likey'all are having this deep conversation about rearing
children and safely bringing them into theworld. What does this have to do
with yoga. It has to dowith yoga in terms of being able to
hold space for others, but actuallya lot it has a lot to do
with it, actually because a lotof the lessons that I learn in my
yoga practice is a lot are alot of the same lessons that I am

(23:07):
you and conversations that I have withmy families, with with with with with
mom and dad or mom and partner. But however that family may look.
Because we also have to be realabout the fact that that traditional nuclear family
isn't the norm these days either,right, And so you know, my
yoga practice has been one of somethingthat really has me looking inward. And

(23:38):
I if I was to describe myself, I would describe myself as at a
mental and emotional cosmonaut or astronaut,like somebody who's always like in the dark,
exploring more and more and more,trying to learn more and more and
more about life. I'm a lifelonglearner, but also digging deep and learning

(24:00):
more about myself, like what iswithin and dealing with my emotions and stuff
like that because I, as anAfrican American man, wasn't really taught how
to necessarily deal with my emotions asa kid. I don't blame my families
for that. I mean, inrealistically speaking, it can be said that

(24:22):
that it's almost a necessity sometimes insome of the communities we are are reared
in because showing the type of communitiesthat we live in with a lack of
resources. Anytime you live in anenvironment that has a severe lack of resources,
that environment becomes predatory, right,And in a predatory environment, you

(24:44):
cannot show weakness, right, Andfor a man to show weakness or show
emotions. Any emotion at a angeror rage is a sign of weakness.
So in a way, you know, some of our families look at that
like, I can't right, Ican't teach I can't teach my son how
to be vulnerable. Now we knowthe negative effects that that has. It's

(25:07):
going to come out one way orthe other, sometimes in a negative way,
and we have to deal with thatand hope that the way it manifests
itself later on in life is thenin a self destructive way. When we
just talked about earlier, sometimes itis in a very self destructive way.
But my yoga practice helped me toreally sift through that and really discover a
lot about who I am, becauseyoga really is about The best way was

(25:30):
to describe to me by a practitionerwho have been doing it for decades,
was Yoga isn't about necessarily about stayingfit. Yoga isn't about who can be
the most flexible, how many howlong you can hold a pose, what
postes you can get into. It'sabout doing the inward work. It's about
really, if you're a competitive personlike me who's played sports my whole life,

(25:51):
it's about competing with yourself to figureout how deep you can go,
to really sift through that muck,right and figure out what makes you tick,
why you respond certain ways, butto also like love and forgive yourself
for some of these things that youfind too, because that's one thing that
a lot of us do not do, even those who so called have the
good life, A lot of usdon't self reflect. We don't genuinely self

(26:12):
reflect. We look ourselves in themirror a little bit, but we don't
really peel back the layers because wedon't want to see the ugly stuff that
lies beneath, right, and andand what we find out is that ugly
stuff that really lies beneath comes outin times of stress and turmoil, right,
And when you're about to have ababy, you're going to have a

(26:33):
lot of that stress are turnoil,right, especially not only just with you
know, figuring out how to bea parent, but also with your significant
others. You haven't had some ofthese conversations before you, you know,
bring children into the world. Andso really a lot of that is our
conversations that I have with my familiesabout like, let's peel back the layers.

(26:53):
Really all right, And I haveto explain to some moms like you,
you want him to be you wanthim to be comforting, You want
him to be welcome, and youwant him to be there for you want
him to be a support. Butyet anytime he shows that he's vulnerable.
And I've dealt with some women likethis, like you say, you you

(27:14):
question his masculinity, you question hismanhood. You can't, Yeah, you
can't program him to be hard.You know what I'm saying. Three twenty
three hours, fifty nine minutes todeath and then at one minute he's gonna
be He's supposed to be able toflip that switch and then all of a
sudden be tender and loving. Itdoesn't work that way. It absolutely does

(27:37):
not. And so having that conversationwith women, having that conversation with men
of let's dig deep, like thisis the way you are, but where
does that come from? So,for instance, one of the there's a
series of questions I asked all themen, and my men through there's a
question that you could also ask yourselfin a yoga practy the questions I have
asked myself on a yoga pri alwaysask my men this, what is your

(28:00):
definition of masculinity, and I getdefinitions from all over the place, from
all these different men. Right A. They ask everybody answers this question,
ask them where did you get thatdefinition of masculinity from? Those answers range
everywhere from a dad or grandparent,older brother, maybe a cousin, somebody

(28:22):
out in the street, TV,a coach, whatever it may be.
The third question is does that individualmechanism that laid the foundation of masculinity do
they live up to that standard themselves. Then you start to see people respond
a lot slower. Right now,they're starting to actually think about it,

(28:42):
right, And then what they startto find is a lot of times that
example of masculinity that was given tothem from someone that person doesn't really live
up to that example themselves. Andso the fourth question is the fourth question
is all right, so you sayyou're a man, and one of the

(29:03):
common things about masculinity is they cando what they want to say what they
won't move, how they want allthese Right, you say you're a man,
and you say this is how masculinityoperates or functions. So then why
did you just tell me your wholelife you've been living by somebody else's standard.
Wow, Then most of the timeyou get absolute silence because then you

(29:29):
can kind of see the gears turningin their head, right, because it
contradicts everything that to think about masculinity. Right, I'm a man, I
can do what I won't say whatI want be. But the whole time
I've been behaving in a manner inwhich somebody else told me to behaved and
they don't even do it themselves,because that's what we do as human beings,
right, especially insecure human beings.Whatever limits we have, whatever standard

(29:52):
that we can't live up to,we place those limits and we project them
on other people. I was neverable to succeed this way, so you
can't succeed them way. You don'ttry this, you don't try that.
And it ain't all about people beinghaters either, because everybody says, no,
that's a hater. Nope. Sometimespeople who love you do that,
right, amen. Yes. Andthe way in the way that the parallel
the analogy I drive to that isso I have a personal mantra motto.

(30:17):
It's and it's called suave swav dbda, and that stands for so what have
audacity and vision? Divine beings dodivine acts and what that and where that
comes from is even people who loveyou. Sometimes you got to have the
courage to do your own thing,have your own vision. And I had

(30:37):
somebody ask me what that meant once. I said, So let's think about
it this way. I said,you trust me, right, I said,
yup. Then let's say I putyou in a car and I blindfolded
you, and let's say I'm drivingone hundred and fifty miles an hour down
a freeway. I'm swerving everything.I said, are you nervous? Are
you scared? You go, yeah, you ain't supposed to be driving that
fast. So you making these crazyturns and this, that and the other,
and I go, yeah, butI'm know where I'm going. Sometimes

(31:03):
I feel like my yoga practice reallyhelped me to see that. Right.
Sometimes people are not gonna want youto make a move or do something certain
things. Some times people are gonnatry to put limitations on you. You
gotta have the courage and the audacityto keep going because you see your vision.
Sometimes it's gonna be people who justare just like you said, they're

(31:25):
just haters and they don't want tosee you succeed because misery loves company sometimes
though sometimes it's gonna be people wholove you, and it's not because they
don't want to see you succeed.They're afraid to see you fail because maybe
they have. You still got tohave the courage aka as in yoga practice,
do the inner work, indeed,to go your own path and do

(31:45):
what you need to do. Andthese are a lot of the conversations that
I have with our families and especiallyour men, because them doing that inner
work is what enables them to letthem the guards and all of a sudden,
be more supportive for their significant others, be there for their children when
they have sons, to allow themto process their emotions instead of teaching them

(32:07):
to shield them and stuff like that, or not cry or what or to
not cry. These are the typeof lessons that I work with men,
and I tell women that how canhe be there for you when he doesn't
even feel comfortable or feel vulnerable enoughto be there for himself. He hasn't
even dealt with his own traumas,he hasn't dealt with his own work.

(32:27):
If he lived in an environment heexperiences life in a way you know is
you and I have had conversations before. When you are black, you live
in a world where you live ina world that wants to destroy you because
what you look like, and youfunction and move withinside systems, legal systems,
economic systems, political systems that wantto destroy you based on what you
look like. That is a traumaand trauma and stress that you are born

(32:52):
with that you know and feel beforeyou can even articulate what it is or
where it comes from. You can'tsay what it is, but by as
soon as you're aware as a child, you feel something and you know what
that is. If you cannot properlydeal with that, if you're not dealt
with those traumas, if you wantan environment where you don't know some of
the men I was talked to andsaid, you know, you know,

(33:13):
I do a check in and sayhow are you doing, and say it's
been a good day because I camein because I'm ten toes down. If
you live in an environment where yourgoal is just to be alive when you
come back home, the last thingyou are going to be able to do
is look after a family or lookafter your wife or significant other apartment.
Right, it's just not a priority. Yeah, you're dealing with traumas.

(33:36):
Yeah, Yoga allows you to digdate teaches you these life lessons to create.
First, be selfish and create spacefor yourself the process traumas and things
for yourself. And then after you'vedone that, you're able to be an
example and create space and hold spacefor others. And that's what you need
to do to be a cohesive,healthy family. Because even that's even something

(33:58):
that I have to discuss about families. A lot of them don't even know
the difference between know what the actualrelationship is. They don't know the difference
between a symbiotic relationship with it's ahealthy relationship that both people are growing together,
building with one another, nurturing oneanother. A parasitic relationship where individuals
one person is growing or not itgrowing at all, but one person is

(34:22):
just constantly feeding the other and theother one dying off. We're just cohabitating.
You just exist in a space together. You're not doing anything for one
another. I've literally had a coupleswhere they were having issues, weren't able
to make it work, and wehad to see them and have the conversation
about what a relationship is. Andafter it was discovery that you've never even
had a relationship. Y'all were justhooking up. And now she's pregnant.

(34:45):
Right now we can start to buildfrom a place of understanding versus conflict and
say, what, we have achild coming, How can we build together
where what commonalities do we have togetherto build this relationship where it be together
there's a couple, or just coparenting, because a successfully co parent doesn't
mean that you have to be together. Co Parenting happens whether you're together in

(35:07):
a relationship or not. How canwe co parent to make sure that this
child grows up and reaches all theearly childhood mousetones exactly. And it's absolutely
huge to define those things. Andif you could do them before the baby
shows up, that's even better.You know, if you can if you
can figure out how to hold spacein this way, be it through coming

(35:28):
to a yoga class and setting offon this journey on your on your own,
or setting off on this journey asa couple, or however you get
there. It's worth it to beable to get there, but you have
to have the tools to do it. You have to be in an environment
that allows you the space to beable to be shown to be able to

(35:51):
be shown that there's another path availableright that may not necessarily in it being
the way for you, but justthe fact of knowing that it's out there
is worth it. Right, Justknowing that this is something that's there for
us is a really big deal.That's one of the reasons why I wanted
to produce Black Yoga Magazine. Thisis why we do the Black Yoga Experience

(36:14):
podcast because our I feel like ourcommunity needs to know that these things are
here for us to write the allthe healing, woonness, whatever you want
to call it. Right, thesethings are available for us to use to
combat the trauma, to combat thestress that exists in life, in space,
and just in general in a countrythat has not come to terms with

(36:40):
the US as people. It's actuallyfoundations and and and if anybody you know
asked or wants to know, yes, it's important for us to address our
traumas, because this is what happenswhen you don't address your traumas, It
perpetuates itself, and it stays solong that trauma becomes culture, and you

(37:01):
pass it down from generation to generation. You deal with trauma so much that
it becomes part of your culture andyou don't even realize that you're being traumatized.
That's right. And then another byproductof that is, once you've been
traumatized so much and it becomes yourculture, their original perpetrator doesn't even have
to traumatize you anymore, because you'lltraumatize yourself, right, and you'll traumatize

(37:22):
your own people, right, becausethat behavior has now been normalized. And
it's it's how you begin to moveand function in the world. From the
yoga perspective, it is the thingof finding yourself and finding the space.
It's you know, yoga is saidto be the journey to the self through
the self, and it's because there'sno other way to go, right.

(37:45):
You don't create space inside from anexternal perspective, you have to do the
work. And in order to dothe work, it is messy as shit,
it's hard, it's it's ugly lookingin the mirror and realizing the fact
that in this space in life,I ain't chick and I have to do

(38:07):
something about it, and that's notanybody else's responsibility. But one of the
byproducts of that is once you're ableto do that inner work, and because
the key about the key with yogais about. We just kept talking about
digging inside and mastering yourself. Andthis was the funny thing for somebody like

(38:30):
me who was all about like Iwas never one for having to be like
controlling a relationship, none of that. That's not the type of person I
am. But I had to controlmy environment like I always needed to know
what was coming, you know whatI mean. That's a part of I
think it's a part of trauma stufftoo, Like never really care for the
unpredictability, even though I could bea very unpredictable. Once you are able

(38:52):
to master yourself, it's almost asif you were able to master the world
around you. Yes, because itcreates it creates this ability for you to
still be able to control yourself nomatter what's going on around, be able
to process what's going on around you, analyze how it makes you feel,

(39:16):
and then control how you wish torespond to it. After you process all
of that, because processing is important. Processing, going through and digging through
all that month is important. Yogahas you do that. It's all a
process. It's really digging deep andlooking within. It's all a process.
And this is all this work,all this we're talking about doing when we're

(39:37):
talking about being there and holding spaceand being there for a family, or
as a father being there for ababy and a mother, or as a
mother being there for a baby andyour father and your husband or significant other
or partner or whoever it may be. To be able to control how you
react to different stimuli and events andstuff that go on and chaotics situations,

(40:02):
you can become almost you become thisamazing like foundation of support for for your
that like that little familial ecosystem thatyou live within within and that's so healthy

(40:22):
and such a great example of environmentto raise a child there, And that's
that, at the end of theday, is the gratification that I would
hope we are all seeking, forthose of us who are parents who are
listening to this right that whatever thatecosystem looks like, it does not have

(40:43):
to be you know, one man, one woman, It doesn't have to
you know, it doesn't have Theyall will not it will all they will
all not look the same. That'sone thing that I hate, and it's
one thing where I feel like alot of what's hurt a lot of black
families. We have always tried tomodel what our family unit looks like after

(41:08):
the stereotypical nineteen forties nineteen fifties whitefamily, right, And it's just not
culturally speaking, that's just not whatand who we are also like from the
standpoint of like, every every familyjust looks and functions completely different. This

(41:30):
is why I don't agree with likestereotypical gender roles right, right, because
I know I know a family inwhich the father feels more comfortable and like
does better in a more domesticated role, and the mom thinks so too,
and she is really driven and wantsto do so much more like career wise,

(41:52):
right, and that's agreed upon withthem. I always tell every family
that I that I work with.Whatever both of you agree upon, that
is the role for your family.Those are the roles you play in your
family. Now from the outside lookingin, if they were trying to live
up to somebody else's standard, arepresentation of what the family should look like,

(42:15):
they'd be unhappy. That relationship wouldnot last. Why because they're not
living They're not living in their preferage, in their roles or the agreement of
one another. They're living up tosomebody else's standard. And again, oftentimes
we find out that whoever tries aplace to stand it upon you has not

(42:36):
lived upont that's lived by that standardand a very successful manner themselves. So
why would you, why would youeven attempt to do that? They were
just told by somebody else that thisis what is what it's supposed to be
in Unfortunately they took it as gospel. And it's just sad because people have
to live their truth and work throughtheir relationships however it works best for them.

(42:58):
And there's no one size it's allto any of this. There's there's
just not you know. The otherquestion that I would that I would love
to hear feedback on from your men'sgroup too, is once they've gathered these
beliefs and figured out where they've gottenthem from, ask how do they how
do these belief system serve you?How has it served you thus far in

(43:22):
life? Where has where has notformed your own beliefs and your own ideas
about these things brought you to?And are you happy with it? Yeah?
Well, one of the byproducts fromthat, one of the a lot
of the answers and responses that I'vegotten from that is a lot of them
really start to realize that they haven'tbeen living their own lives. They've been
living somebody else's life. And forsomebody like me who's very much about doing

(43:45):
their own thing and like this constantexplorer, so like that that would be
like a slow depth for me.Yeah, that would be absolutely miserable.
Right. So, once you usuallyget and what you usually see as a
sense of freedom, it's almost likeyou can see like some of them walk
out of the room and like await, is the that off their shoulders?
Because now life looks completely different.Now, Yeah, now I can
start doing what makes me happy,doing what makes me happy and while also

(44:08):
being productive in my commun right becauseit's not about wilding out and being destructive
or whatever, you know, thattype of thing. But when you find
when you do that work and youstart to you stop fighting your own nature,
living for yourself is you're free tobe productive and flourished in the way
that you were meant to be.It's like I heard this one where yoga

(44:30):
practitioners say that if your yoga practiceisn't comfortable you know what I mean,
like, or if it if youdon't find peace in your yoga yoga practice,
that means you're doing it the wrongway because you're copying somebody else's practice.
And I found that to be veryvery synonymous with the lessons that we

(44:51):
that we have in the men group, but also when I'm working with families
who are expecting, right, it'sit's not supposed to be. It's not
supposed to be be easy. Whenwe say peaceful or anything like that,
we're not saying easy because before yougo, before you reach peace, you
got to go through Monck and trialsand tribulations. Teaching piece isn't easy,

(45:13):
right, But you're always going tofeel some sort of like discontent if you're
trying to do what's not meant foryou or what's what's meant for others.
Right. And the overall arching messagein all of this, with the services
that you provide, myself as ayoga teacher and having the magazine and studio

(45:37):
and all those types of things,the overall arching thing for me is just
to say that we're here to helpbe facilitators of the things that our community
needs to move itself forward. Right. That's that's the space that we are
attempting to hold, and we wantpeople to utilize, utilize us and the

(46:00):
things that we've learned and are willingto share and want to connect the community
to like their support out here foryou. You know, you don't have
to do this work alone, butthe work is still yours to do.
So it doesn't just because, youknow, just because you get in with
a great yoga teacher and find astudio that you love. The work's still

(46:21):
your responsibility, right And then morelike, those are still the rules still
apply. You know, nobody escape. Your goals are still your goals exactly
exactly and and and I'm no differentin that will is no different in that
it is still ultimately our responsibility.One of the things I heard as far
as you know, really understanding thathow much of it is is your journey.

(46:43):
We're in a super busy yoga classand it was some really high end
instructor was coming in to teach theclass, and she made the joke that
everybody, keep your eyes on yourown paper, meaning keep your eyes on
your own mad. Don't worry aboutwhat the person next to you was doing,
because their practice is theirs and yourpractice is yours, and it's okay.

(47:05):
You know that it doesn't have tolook the same. So I used
to have a mentor, so Ialways say what's on your plate? Right?
Stop worrying. I would talk aboutsome you know, I was upset
about how I wasn't reaching the successI thought I should have had or did
this. I was like with suchand such a like, what's on your
plate? But ain't your meal?Those aren't your blessings? Yeah, like

(47:31):
let them have that, you know, let them be great over there was
whatever they have. Yeah. Sofor for you, moving moving forward through
your practice and as you grow asa as a yogi, how do you
feel that or excuse me, wheredo you feel that this journey will take
you as far as your work isconcerned in the doula space and and your

(47:54):
yoga practice as well well. Oneof the reasons saw answer that in a
kind of a roundabout way. Butyou'll see where the connection is by the
time I get to the end ofit. So people always ask me,
and like I said at the beginningof this, I absolutely love my work.
I love everything I do about mywork. Since I've been doing this
work for the past three and ahalf years, I've probably been offered six

(48:16):
or seven jobs, and I kidyou not, I've not hesitated and turning
every last one of them down.Just like that because I'm happy. I'm
doing great work. I'm doing awesomework in a community. I work with
amazing people who support me, whoput me in position to help elevate me
and my skills, and I goto work every day and I don't feel
like I work. I can worktwelve fourteen hours and not feel like I

(48:38):
work. My dad used to alwaystell me, know when you win it
if you roll sevens, walk awayfrom the table, right, you roll
sevens walk away from the table.There's no guarantee that I can go to
another position. They can pay memore, which I've been offered more,
but I could not be able tostand the work environment, not be able
to stand the people. That's aposition I've been in before. I could

(48:59):
go to another work environment and Ican maybe like the people, but I
not be really be able to makeenough money to find for myself. And
now I'm working two and three jobsjust to eat and that's a stress and
workload that I don't need. ButI have the perfect combination. And there's
not many people who can really evensay that, right. I don't know

(49:19):
many people who can say that theylove their work that much and are really
happy and content with their work.So it have to be an opportunity that's
just so massive and that I wouldknow in my heart that is such a
great opportunity, new challenge and abilityfor me to learn. Plus I would
have to reach the point where Istopped growing in my current position to leave,

(49:40):
to leave and to go that route. And I love my work.
And one of the reasons that Ilove my work and I've got to that
point so much is because I'm growingand I'm learning so much about myself doing
the work. See. The thingis that one of the biggest reasons why
I love this man group, thisman's and while I love doing my doula

(50:01):
work, is each time I workwith somebody, family or individual, I
learned so much more about myself.There's times where I'm sitting in sessions and
I'm talking with individuals and I'm talkingwith folks and I'll say something to them
and the light bulb is going onfor them, but it's going on for
me at the same time, becausenow I found the piece of the puzzle
of something that I was dealing with, or a question that I had about

(50:23):
my past or whatever, and nowthe answer is there. Okay, I
see I am able to do mywork because I'm growing. Like at the
very beginning, I said, I'ma lifelong learner. I'm always exploring,
always looking to dig deep. Ina way, my practice is almost self
serving as far as my work goes, because I'm learning so much more about

(50:44):
myself as I'm working with other people, and they don't I don't know if
they understand it, but I alwaystell them we're learning from each other,
We're growing together. I may haveexpertise or talents in a certain area that
benefits you as far as being ableto as an individual and and raising and
bringing a kid into this world andbe able to co parents in a successful

(51:07):
manner. But during this whole timethat I'm practicing, you know, Iron
Sharper's iron right, I'm learning morethings about myself. I'm growing as an
individual. So when the time comeswhen I find that woman that I'm about
to marry and I have kids,I'm confident in what I'm about to do.
I'm confident in how we're going toraise these kids and the conversations that

(51:29):
we're gonna have so on and soforth. Well, how that goes full
circle, and that goes back toyoga is every time I get down on
the map and I have to andI and I and I go into my
own practice, I'm looking to learnand explore and dig with them myself.
I see it, I read abouta new pose, or I explore,

(51:51):
and I'm very present and thinking abouthow my breaths feel right, how my
breath work is, how my musclesfeel, how my bones feel, how
my tendence feel in certain positions.I'm unlocking different things about myself. I'm
learning how to be more present andpay attention and be an active listener to
my body, which turned into mebeing an active listener with men or with

(52:15):
women or with couples in my workand so to you know, for other
people, maybe it might seem abstract, but to me, it's very linear.
It all makes sense to me inmy mind how my yoga practice contributes
to my dula practice and my publichealth work. And the funny thing about

(52:37):
it is as I started my publichealth work and my dula practice practice before
my yoga worork. But things startedto really like exponentially grow once I started
doing yoga, and once I startedto feel and sense and internalize the work

(52:59):
that I was doing in yoga andsee the parallels between the work I was
doing on myself emotionally, mentally,and physically and yoga and how that transferred
over to the rest of the restof my life and my work. So
remember maybe like fifteen minutes ago whenI said the amazing thing about yoga is
once you learn how to master yourself, and as you're mastering yourself, it's

(53:21):
almost as if you're starting to mastereverything else around you. Right right right,
I feel like that's exactly what's happening. That is absolutely just amazing.
I couldn't ask for like a betterresponse to that than what you just gave
us. That is so deep andso appreciate it, and it's so so
true. The ability to take yourpractice off the mat is then when the

(53:45):
yoga starts, right, that's that'swhen you really you have found that you're
now talking that talk, right,you know, it's it's really it's really
where the magic happens. If youwill so so well, if people want
to reach out to you, getin touch, find out I know more
about you, where they where canthey find you? In the outdoors?

(54:07):
Internet? Oh goodness, So Ido have a website. It is w
r more Uh uh Certified Parentatal Educatorsuh in Consulting LC. If you wanted
to email me for services or tolearn more about what I do, email

(54:30):
me at w r more dot cp E dot consults at gmail dot com.
If you wanted to really see moreabout, you know, any of
the any of the work I do, see any of the publications, or
anythings that I've been been been apart of. W R More consult dot

(54:53):
com would be where you would goto. And I also have a podcast
called Chill Time as will Time.You can find that on any podcast platform
that you listen to. If youhad any recommendations or wanted to come on

(55:13):
the podcast or interview w A thatthat would be Chill Time pot at gmail
dot com. But that's I mean, that's pretty much it. That's as
you could support me or find outmore about my work. I'm always pretty
much an open book. I loveto I love to talk about my work.

(55:34):
I love to talk about the peoplethat I work with. I love
to talk about the successes. Ilove to talk about where it's going.
I love what I do period.I love collaborating and working and meeting people
like you who are out doing amazinggreat work in the community across the world,
and all I really want to dois to continue to grow as an
individual, personally, mentally, emotionally, girl as a professional. But also

(56:01):
what I said, how it sayslike grow as a citizen? Really could
you know, collaborating, connecting anduplifting other folks like yourself who are doing
great things and doing better because youknow, another thing that you know you
learn through yoga and whatnot is youknow, it's a lot of individual work,
but we're all kind of connected,right, So so why wouldn't I

(56:22):
want to uplift others those around me? I mean because the more that I
can uplift others around me and inmy environment, the environment all of a
sudden becomes more fertile for myself sothat I can grow and reach higher heights
and create new things and go todifferent places, and we can and we
can in essence like really really developa symbiotic relationship. And it's just what

(56:45):
I'm all about. So, yeah, if you want to learn more about
my services and contact me, youwant to you know, work with a
family or consult with any direct serviceproviders w R or more console dot com
that is b R M O OR e c O, N c U
l T dot com. That's whereyou can find my work and I hope

(57:08):
to hear from some of you all. And I love being on today.
I guess all I say about that, I feel like I've just been on
and no, it's great. We'llput all the links in the show notes
so you guys can catch up withwell email. We'll put all of his
info in the show notes, soyou guys have that available for you.

(57:29):
And Well, I just want tothank you so much for being on the
show. I really appreciate it.Keep finding the good fight, keep doing
the amazing work that you're doing.And and for those of you who have
not told your friends about the show, please do we appreciate it. You
know, make sure you let themknow that we're out here, that we
are in these internet streets trying tomake people's lives a little bit better at

(57:52):
a time. All right, guys, we'll catch you on the next next
episode. Have a good one,yeah,