In the Flow of Magic | Taking mid-life Goddesses, from Burnout to Bliss.
Education:Self-Improvement
Black Women Academics: Mental Health Solutions
IMAGE: Ai generated Illustration.
THIS IS NON-EDITED ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:
Hello, Hello. Welcome. Welcome.
And let’s be in the flow.
Now this might seem like an unusual episode for my podcast.
I usually talk about wellness and Woo, but I want to hone in today in this episode on women in academia.
Female academics because I was one, and I’ve moved pretty far away from that, but I wanna address what’s going on. So this episode will be of interest to any professional women, but especially to, as I said, female academics. So
You know, my subheading says taking midlife goddesses from burnout to Bliss, but before I was so into the wellness and the woo, I was a professor. And so I know what that’s like. So I wanna talk a little bit about that first before I get into some ideas of how professional women, academics can cope.
Okay? So first of all, you know, if you were in academia, especially if you are an educator, we tend to be super motivated, motivated also by improvement by growth by learning, obviously. Driven. Right, and the challenges that we face are balancing teaching, research and administrative duties. Right? And it’s all… We’re all, like, juggling all of that. Right? We’re juggling that all the time. And in many cases, if we drop one ball, it’s a catastrophe, in my case, I was at a community college, which it’s gonna be a little bit easier in some ways. My main focus was on teaching. Yet I was told, you know, you’re not exhibiting enough. I was teaching art. Well, okay. You’re you’re doing the teaching great, but yeah. Where’s this the equivalent of the research part? You know, you’re not doing that enough. Right? And I was told that very close to the time that I needed to go for tenure. So it’s a bit last minute to point this out to me.
Anyway, back on our course are the challenges. So academia, especially for women, statistically, shown scientifically, the numbers are there for women and especially for women of color, black and brown women. It is even worse. It is even worse. So, you all may not know. I’m Jamaican American, so I am a brown-skinned woman, and, so African Americans since I’m living in America. And was dealing with some of the stresses that I wanna talk about now in terms of the challenges. So that’s just professional challenges. Let’s look a little bit now at what especially black and brown women are facing recently. Now, I’m coming a little bit late to this discussion because I really… I just didn’t honestly wanna deal with it because it was so upsetting. But it’s about black women and academia under fire. Right? Suicide, having to step down being forced to step down, death, you know, dropping dead on the job, dropping dead early because of the incredible high levels of stress that are put on black and brown women again, especially.
It’s just next level. So you’ve got the professional challenges that are there. You know, that everyone has to varying degrees, and then you’ve got this additional burden, this additional layer when you are breaking into… What in my case was clearly a boys’ club. I wanna talk briefly about my experience. So at the community college, I was bullied by 3 or 4 men. I can’t remember the exact number now. 3 or 4 white males. Who had known each other for upwards, somewhere between 17 and 20 years. So you can imagine they were very tight-knit. That’s understandable, but they together performed the bullying on me as a black female and the lowest rung on the totem pole coming in, new faculty. Right? Assistant coming in at the lowest level, and so as I said, I just really didn’t want… I was so overwhelmed by seeing this happening that this was so… Widespread for other women that I just didn’t really wanna deal with it, but I think it’s time to just connect it to the work that I do because I always go to what’s the solution that we, women, what that we have control over.
Okay? A lot of this is systemic you see so much back. Oh, well, that’s not really true or… Oh, I didn’t mean it that way. He didn’t mean that to happen or, you know, there are all these sorts of ways to we a lot of responsibility for what clearly is a very bad situation for black and brown women. And so I want to look at in terms of the work that I do and the brilliance that I bring is what can we as individual women even in groups, what can we do?And my solution, and getting myself out of burnout was the first and to be very honest that took years. Because I got to the stage of complete burnout. Right? And so I don’t want that for other women to get to that stage. I definitely think it is a process. And so if you can catch yourself okay, as a woman in academia. If you can catch it before it becomes burnout out where you have to stop where you’re, obviously, that’s best. And you know that. You know that. And so what I’m proposing, as I said once I healed from burnout, I went back and restudied, learned and became a licensed massage therapist and put that together with all the other holistic modalities that I had studied. And so what I wanna propose to you, if you’re in a situation like this in academia is to consider that
Look at… All the systemic stuff, which I feel is like we’re looking at the problem. We’re looking at the problem. I always say my analogy is always this. If you were on a train track, you found yourself on a train track. You turn around, you realize the train is bearing down on you.
1 option is to… You stand there and you’re just staring at the train, bearing down on you, which is the problem. I always say, obviously, you look at the train, but you need… You, you know, you need to figure out if it’s gonna change tracks. You wanna jump in the right direction, but you need to figure out how to jump off. You need to look at the solution.
I have to say to the brilliance of the woman who ran the college when I was burnt out, that I ended up leaving. Was a woman president. She was talked about horribly by the same men who were bullying me they spoke about her with der, with… Just… It was it was horrible. It was offensive. But what I heard about her was that if you were to bring her a problem in a meeting or on private meeting or whatever, she would say, she’d listened but she’d say, well west solution you’re presenting me with. So she wouldn’t… You know, it’s like, you’re not going into her as a savior. If you think there’s a problem, you should have analyzed what’s the solution. So I’m saying the same thing. What is the solution that we can execute?
Without other people’s buy in. Right? Without their support and changing people and people being fired and educating and appealing to the humanity and all of that, what we can do.
And again, what has been scientifically shown to help with basically, we’re dealing with stress that then inflict health problems. So as I said, there’s stages. It can just be stressed. You feel anxious. It’s sort of mental emotional, but then if you do not,
and are not able to educate yourself and begin your healing, it becomes a physical issue.
The American Psychological Association, I don’t have that right in front of me, but they named all the systems of the body, the musculoskeletal, reproductive, respiratory—all are affected by stress.
Okay? So I… If you are not convinced, this is not something you’re aware of, I can help you. But if you are aware of this, my suggestion for the solution is to begin practicing meditation in a specific way.
I recommend strongly mindfulness meditation, okay? Because again, it has been studied the most, and it is secular. It’s working with the mind and the emotions, and it affects the mind-body because that’s where I… When I throw in the word holistic, it means you are not just a mind. Therapy is great. It’s and helpful in situations like this, stress and academia, where you might be being bullied, where your health is suffering, but meditation gives you the tools to be able to get mental clarity.
Okay? Which when you’re in a situation that is low-level bad or higher-level toxic, bullying, trauma, you need clarity because that’s the first thing that goes out the window when we’re under incredible stress. A lot of our intellectual capacities kind of shut down because we’re in a fight-or-flight. So meditation taught in a structured manner can be a practice that you have that resets you every single day. It’s been shown to have a powerful effect on the body’s response to stress, a measurable response to its effect on the hormones, right on cortisol.
What I also put in that is unique with my work, which I’m at this point trying to come up with an exact name, but what I mix in that takes it beyond only learning meditation, which as I said, is so powerful, is working with acupressure points. Think of them as points that we do on ourselves that affect your particular health issue. So many of you might be suffering from high blood pressure, lupus, digestive issues, heart issues—so many could whole con of issues. Alright?
This is not uncommon. You’re likely medicated for that. You’re taking medication, which is fine. That again, the issues with that, there are many issues with that. I won’t even start with that now. So what I blend in is the support for your body of self-massage, working on points that can release and support. You know, there are literally points that help with constipation. There are points that strengthen digestion, there are a series of points that help with sleep.
Many of us, like when I was in academia, as I started to get closer to burnout, I was not sleeping well. It was literally like what we’d say, a fitful sleep. I’d sleep, I’d wake up. I’d sleep, I’d wake up. I just didn’t wake up feeling rested. Right?
These points, if you’ve ever had, which I know some of you had, the World Health Organization is literally looking at and has put traditional Chinese medicine. There are modalities in it that while they don’t understand exactly how they work, they see that they work, and this is over thousands of years.
As a massage therapist, I had clients where I would see immediate results and then greater improvement over time. So what I want to suggest to you is to consider incorporating these practices into your daily routine. #
Rather than just brushing it off.
Medications is fine. I’m gonna do therapy, I’m gonna exercise when you’re really ready for more healing.
Of the stress, the anxiety in as an academic, again, this can apply to any professional woman, do reach out to me. I am gonna put my contact info below as a teacher as a coach. I don’t like the word coach as much. I always say I think of, like, a baseball coach. Right. I think of, like, AAA Chu man spitting and, like, calling over, you know, the player to talk to him whisper in his ear. I… Coach, I just don’t like coach as much, but it really is what I do.
Teaching you coaching you in how to meditate. In a 1 on online in a private setting, and then based on your health issues, your concerns, whether it’s psychological or physical, giving you your set of points, to help you with your healing. Okay?
This absolutely works. I have worked with many massage therapy clients in that way, and I worked with many meditation clients. And now really bringing it together to just increase the efficacy you know, and just bring it up.
And right now, the name that I’m using is mindful meridian therapy. I have not trademarked it, but again, working 1 online in a private setting with me, I can literally promise you that within the first session, you’re gonna feel less stressed than when you came in. I mean, I can promise you that.
There’s no way you’re gonna leave more stress than when you entered a set the very first session with me. And then typically over 8 sessions, you’re gonna have the skills where you know how to meditate, for the rest of your life, and you’re in a very different place in terms of how you’re responding to stress, how you’re even feeling stress.
Your whole psychological status will have shifted. Your emotional status would have shifted for the better over the course of the 8 sessions. So please reach out to me, I am going to put links below my website, where you’ll see some more woo stuff, and you’ll see this also the 1 on 1 coaching.
It’ll be right on the homepage. It’s 1 on 1 coaching, and you just click through there, and there’ll be more information, and I absolutely would love to chat with you and find out what’s going on for you in a half hour free session complimentary session. And if you are a good fit, I would invite you going into my coaching program.
So head on over to my website, it is called in the flow of magic. I know which sounds very woo woo, but you know, I’m speaking of the truth about being a woman in academia. So reach out to me, and I look forward to speaking to you soon.
Be well. Stay blessed and blessed.
Bye for now.
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