Jenn Turner 0:59
Hey, Tiffany, so glad you're here. Thank you for joining me for this conversation. You're welcome. Thanks for having me absolutely always a pleasure to have conversations with you. I learned so much when we talk, so I'm excited to learn more today. So I'll just introduce you with your bio for folks, and then we can kind of do a little grounding present moment experience. If that sounds good.
Tiffany Johnson 7:19
Yeah, so maybe I'll start answering that question by kind of giving like, how I stop, like, the history of me kind of being more intentional around bringing trauma
Jenn Turner 0:00
Jenn, welcome to on trauma and power. I'm your host. Jenn Turner, co founder of the Center for trauma and embodiment. I'm so glad you're here with us. You each episode, I sit down with different experts, educators, authors, survivors and practitioners sharing different trauma informed experiences across various fields, join us as we explore the complex intersections of trauma and power through embodied healing and diverse perspectives in both our Personal and collective healing journeys. Let's dive on in.
So Dr Tiffany Johnson is an associate professor of organizational behavior at Georgia Tech and a researcher focused on work equity and wellness, a certified yoga and meditation teacher. She brings trauma sensitive, stillness based practices into her work, supporting trauma informed approaches in academia and guiding retreats for black and brown women in academia. I am so excited to talk about all of that, and I'd love to first invite you and everyone else that's with us to maybe do kind of this landing in our body so we can bring our full selves, or maybe more of ourselves, into the conversation. So you're welcome to start with your eyes open or close. That's always your choice. Then you might take a moment to acknowledge that you're here, that you've arrived, and that this next conversation is time and space for us to explore new ideas. Maybe if we're flying ideas that we've talked through before, but also that as we drop into our bodies, it's a chance to kind of notice being in the present moment, and one way to do that could be through movement. So if you'd like, could begin with some side to side movement. So that might be with your torso, for the shifting from one side to the other. And again, as I'm offering movement here, you might decide there's another way you'd like to move or be in your body. So again, there could be some side to side movement, maybe forward and back movement could also become circular at some point, if that feels interesting to you, possibility to explore movement for your spine and torso. If you are circling, you might move in both directions or move in the opposite direction. You're welcome to stay with that movement, or we could shift here and possibly checking out your shoulders, noticing what's happening with them. Could do some lifting and lowering of your shoulders. You might notice what happens to your jaw when you lift your shoulders. You could also do some circling of your shoulders. You might be exploring that with your arms sort of at your side. You could also bring your hands to your shoulder and circle that way. We might circle one at a time, or you could kind of move them together
and maybe moving in both directions again. You're welcome to stay with kind of movement in your shoulders. Or one more possibility to kind of invite us into this moment could be to explore movement through your head or neck. One way to do that might be moving your chin from side to side again as you're moving you might notice that you're breathing, if that's interesting to you, to pay attention to your breath. If you could move your head kind of side to side, you might also lift and lower with your chin. You're welcome to move within any pace or any range, and at some point you might drop your chin. Could hang out here, or possibly shift into head circles of some sort, that could be a half circle, a full circle, or anywhere in between. Then the other option, as we're moving is you might decide you want to pause somewhere. Maybe there's a feeling or sensation in your neck or your upper back that you'd like to explore or stay with. Well, maybe you're exploring continuous movement, and again, you're welcome to stay with this particular movement or any movement you might be exploring whenever you're ready. Possibility that we begin to shift out of our internal experience or movement based and maybe shifting back toward one another, but there's no rush in getting there,
Right? Great. Thanks for doing that along with me. So I'd love to kind of jump in and maybe hear a bit from you, around what it means to you, and in any way you want to share it to kind of bring a trauma informed perspective into a business school context. And I'm sure that's a big topic, so feel free to dive in however you like.
Tiffany Johnson 7:31
slowly but surely into a business school setting. That sounds great. Okay, so I was as a PhD student, I was doing research on job coaches who work with people with autism and related disabilities. And part of so I talked to job coaches, and I also was interviewing employees who are on the autism spectrum, so autistic employees, and I was in the field. I was at a field site, visiting one particular area where it was like a community of autistic employees who kind of supported each other. I went on a walk with a young woman, and she said, you know, was talking to me about my research, and she was like, You know what you should you should be looking at as you study, kind of our experiences at work. And I was like, you know, what like, what like? What do you think? And she said, you should be looking into trauma. And I said, that's interesting. Thank you for sharing that insight with me. I'm really curious about that. You know, I went back to I got back to school, I told my, you know, the chairs of my dissertation that that was a suggestion from a from a research participant. I added a folder for literature on trauma, and it's kind of started since then. So I just started to, like, read about and try to connect to teachers around around trauma, just kind of understand, like, what it meant and why this particular person was saying, like, you should be looking at trauma and the intersection of trauma and work, because that's what I study inside the business school. I study, you know, organizational behavior, human resources, the way that organizations and workplaces are run. And so this intersection of trauma and work became like it just kept coming back to me. And so by the time I started as a faculty member at Georgia Tech. I had, kind of, you know, been following that trail, kind of doing some things around, taking classes on mindfulness and meditation. Started going to this really great yoga studio where I got my ytt certificate from and my meditation teacher, one of the CO owners of that studio, Meryl Arnett, was also trauma informed and so she incorporated trauma informed topics in the in our in our training. And I was like, I'm really interested in this. You know, I asked her, you know, where else can I go to learn about trauma and like, meditation and yoga? He was like, C, F, T, you know, you know. And so she led me to you all. And so that really helped me to when I started taking the when I did the CERT program through T, C, T, S, Y, I had more language, like specific categories of the ways in which trauma shows up. And I started seeing at that time, I was also reading a lot around, like the history of work, like the racialized and like the colonial history of work. And I started seeing where some of the norms from work and behaving in organizations which were just inherently traumatic, where one has lost their agency, where there's abuse of power, just like embedded into what we consider to be the norm, how we show up at work. And this is what I'm teaching like. I'm teaching a lot of students around org behavior and human resources. This is how you run and this is how you manage human resources. And if you slow down and break down those words, in and of itself, it kind of gives you a hint to the ways in which we are socialized to believe that we should show up in organizations. We are resources. We are resources to be managed. And so as I was learning, I could not help. I could not teach the same way. I just couldn't I couldn't go into class and talk about like performance is this, and to be a high performer, you do like performance is one of the main like outcomes that we're interested in. In org behavior, it's like the second chapter. What does performance mean? What does it mean to be a good performer, a high performer at work, couldn't do it. And then in human resources, it's like, what do we mean by human I just couldn't do it. So I had so I would, you know, I teach the stuff in the book, and then I offer, you know, a critical or an alternative lens to that and and then invite students in myself into reimagining, what if, you know, we kind of look through the lens of trauma at how we work, how might we want to show up differently in the workplace when we do that? So that's really kind of how I started. And what I did just started bringing these questions little by little about like trauma and into my classes around org behavior and human resources. And then I created a class called Work equity and wellness, where trauma kind of takes more of a center stage, because we look at the history of work like the racialized history of work, and we talk, we are very specific about pointing out the ways in which what we are used to, the culture that we're used to, the work culture that we're used to has so many elements of trauma in it. And we don't stop there, though. We start to reimagine how we might do the work of equity in a way that is not perpetuating at least as much as possible. You know, we're not trying to be perfect at it, but we're trying to just be more aware and self aware of the ways in which we've all been kind of just, you know, drinking from this, drinking in this, in this ocean, like swimming in this ocean that we didn't even realize that we were in. Yeah,
Jenn Turner 13:07
can you talk about that more? I find that so interesting in terms of, like, pulling out the ways in which we have been socialized and taught to be workers and to be resources, and, you know, and the we is, of course, not a monolith, like all the different, you know, some of the layers that you might unpack too, with your students around, how that shows up in a racialized way, in a gender based way, or, you know, anything you want to share.
Tiffany Johnson 13:35
Yeah, so for like, everyone we talk about, like performance, and I'll just ask often students, what do you think makes somebody a high performer? What makes somebody a good worker? And oftentimes, what comes is they can multitask. They're very efficient, they're fast, they respond. And underneath those responses are some assumptions about how we're supposed to act in organizations, meaning we're supposed to basically grind we are supposed to act like a me, our bodies are supposed to be ignored. And that's across all race and ethnic groups, right? That is the history of this, of our work culture in this country. Everybody has been socialized into that. And so then we started thinking. So then they're like, Oh, wow. Like, that's interesting. Though, there's this really great book, I have to say that I was introduced to by Dr Stella and como, who is a management professor in South Africa. She highly suggested this book to a group of us. It's called the production of difference, and that is the book where you can really, where we really start to kind of piece apart his like how, how racialized and ethnic differences started to play a role in what we now know as work as well, and how actually, like, our work culture and our work norms in this country help to create racial higher. Hierarchies, so too. So although everybody has been kind of socialized about like these, some of these assumptions about like, just ignore your body, you know. And right right now, the goal is to be a very efficient resource to get what we need Done, done so we can make profit right. So we can make profit and turn it around. And that's but that is driven by the reliance on free and exploited labor, and a lot of the norms around how to get to that use of human resources at a minimal cost to enhance or to bolster revenue in capital generation comes from colonization and plantation slavery. These are the ways to really be able to exploit human resources, if you will, for capitalistic purposes. And so when in their book, they basically, in the book the production of difference, what they do is they just, literally just show you, show us archives from periodicals and newspapers from like the 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th centuries. And I think it goes back that far right. I might be and but several centuries, and they know us how people were talking about how to manage laborers, how to do it. Well, what they were the ones who were created, like, here's how you manage the enslaved in this way. Here's how you manage the enslaved African. Here's how you manage the Native American. Here's how you manage the person from Mexico. Here's how you manage the person from China, right? And they all have different rules around how to be managed. They say these people so they would say, you know, if an enslaved African runs away, that just means that they're sick and they're lazy and they've they've lost their mind, right? So what's best for them is to bring them back if they, if they like, get tired then they're sick, just give them more work. What's best for them is to work all day, every day. And they were medical doctors, co signing on this, applying like labels, wow, and saying, yes, they are sick the and then the medicine for that is to work. And so you can see how, although that feels very extreme and like, just like what that sounds wild. You start to see how, over centuries and over generations, how those how those ideas and those expectations for racialized bodies to overwork and to even to go to like ride even more, to just move a little bit of an inch along in the in the workplace is continue to be expected and continue to be internalized, and that
Jenn Turner 17:45
someone is sick if they are leaving captivity. Yes,
Tiffany Johnson 17:49
they're sick if they're trying to liberate themselves. And
Jenn Turner 17:52
that that yeah, so then there's a reason to double down on it. They just
Tiffany Johnson 17:58
Yes, they're sick. And if you put that in, like, the language of trauma, they're sick if they realize their agency. They're sick if they're trying to act upon their agency, which we know that is a very poignant example of an abuse of power and trying to take a make sure people do not have and do not enact a sense of agency. And while that seems like worlds away. We can still start to see some of those norms perpetuated in more implicit but really profound ways. If we look at some of the like health inequities among among black, indigenous people of color, women, non binary people in workplaces and like the like weathering effects of of having to and having to prove ourselves in ways that are not consistent with our with our peers from other identity groups, like an
Jenn Turner 18:50
inherent belief around laziness, or around, you know, working or that that is Like in the water. That's powerful. That's so when you think about deconstructing some of these, you know, ways of being and colonial perspectives and ways of working and setting up a workspace. How do you, you know? How do you even start that? Or what are some of the things that you invite your students to lean on.
Tiffany Johnson 19:22
Yeah, so we in class, we lean on our imagination a lot, which means we have to really come back to ourselves and come back to our body. We have to come back to interoception in the language of the TCT sy framework, CFTs, you know, model. We need to come back towards the understanding what it is we need, because we can, and we and in the class that I teach, because we can't, I'm like, we have to, like, bring it in and like, figure out, like, what's in our control, what we are, what I often talk about in that class. So what we're often working on is, how do we do the work? Of you know, trying to be change makers, trying to do good in the world, trying to be do gooders, trying to change make things more sustainable, more equitable, without giving into the unsustainable practices and in wave of grind culture, of the these like really colonial ways of working. So how do we do the work that's important to us without approaching work in the same way? Right? And so we start to really, it seems really, really small, but we start to come back into our body. So we will do we have what we do, rest practices in class, reflections in class, and then start to, like, imagine and like, use models of different organizations that are trying to do things in a different way. So we, I will, we'll talk about people like Trisha Hershey from the nap ministry. Will lean on examples from like activity Raheem, who does a lot and Dr Gayle Parker, right, who does a lot on, you know, race based stress and, like, some of the things that they talk about about, like restoration and about rest and some of those practices, and we'll pair them with, what will this look like in the workplace? It might look like having if we're talking about slowing down, it might look like an agenda being more spacious, right? Kind of like what we did at the beginning of our call, right? Something like that. It might look like changing the structure for human resources or for the people department, changing the structure of PTO. You know, it might look like looking at leave policies for people in those departments, like in like the people HR departments for managers supervisors. It might look like creating project management timelines that are also more spacious, offering more flexibility in terms of where people work and how they work, not emailing people after asking people when are their work hours, and because some people do like to work late, some people like to work early in the morning. But really, just making sure people feel like it's really, really like, we're not just saying it, but it's really okay. If you take a couple days to respond to the email it's up. And I know that there are some industries where, like, it seems more pressing, if you think about like the medical industry, or, you know, emergency room, but we now also know that those folks need even more ability and more opportunity to be able to rest that when they don't rest, they make even bigger mistakes, which are life threatening,
Jenn Turner 22:42
larger consequences to that or larger that.
Tiffany Johnson 22:45
Pilots, medical you know, surgeons, emergency room doctors, nurses, you know, even though their structures are very much so one, oftentimes in their training, is when they are is one there are structures that are depriving them and depriving their bodies of their rest. It's just it doesn't really help them to be, not only effective in like, some of the more like practical kind of evident, like body like things to heal the body, but also their bedside manner can really, it could really their like ability to be compassionate is minimized. Think about first
Jenn Turner 23:20
responders, right? We have people that are really, you know, kind of burning, forced to burn the candle at both ends. You know that, far as they keep and have so much kind of power and their role in our society exactly well in your you were kind of starting to tap into my next curiosity, which was, how do you get buy in? Because it's like, yeah. I mean, as a person who works in the world, that sounds great to have more spacious PTO rules, or, you know, have more time be prioritized rest. But do you all talk about, you know, how do you get buy in from people that are in positions of power and like, what is the rationale?
Tiffany Johnson 24:14
We talk about what it means to make an influence in an organization. And we also talk about there are different everybody takes on a different role. So some of us are going to be the people that are the ones who have to get by in for this. Some of us that's not, that's not our strong point, and that's not what we need. Fair, fair. I probably shouldn't be the one in the room trying to get by for that. I'm gonna tap you in for that, right? So first we talk about, like, knowing what role you play in effectuating this kind of change, but also there's a framework in our field. Now, the name is going to escape me, but essentially, the idea is to take small steps towards the organization. And changing in this way, like to really slow down and even trying to make sure the whole organization changes, and to really start to like work, work within your circle of influence. So whoever is next to you, it could be a colleague, somebody who doesn't have formal power, and really it starts with yourself. So if you want the organization to make these big shifts. How are you going to make those shifts in your own life? And start with that first, and then maybe some co workers might start noticing, in order to come up like something's different, like you. I noticed this. I noticed that, I noticed that you did this. I noticed you didn't respond to the email. And then it gives you an opportunity to genuinely bring it up. And also, and it also allows you to model the behavior to be the change that you're hoping that you want a whole organization to see, versus just talking about it right. And over time, you start to impact other people, and one of those people in your circle of influence will be a good person to help get buy in. It may not be you, but one of those people will be and you start building coalitions in that way. Love that, yeah, it may not happen in the I always tell my students that this, this, this change may not happen in your lifetime, but you will be a part of the change. Right? You will be, you will play this a very, a very significant role in effectuating the change. And most importantly, you will have changed help to create a more restful and a life that's at the pace that you want it to be, and for yourself and outside of the workplace, that will impact your friends and your family members as well. Your life will be impacted by it. And that's, I think, for in that class, that's where we start, and that's where we end, yeah, that's powerful. That's
Jenn Turner 26:43
really, it's so powerful. And I'm thinking, as you're talking that, you know, thinking about some of the embodied work, embodied organizational work, that we're doing together as well, and how one of the things I really learned from you or this, the structures that are in place to you know, often without our even our awareness, to keep us and you mentioned this already disconnected from our bodies and actually being rewarded for just being disconnected from not listening when we're sick, not resting, not using the restroom, not pausing to eat and like digest. It's like eating while working or whatever, or not eating. And you know, as we started the kind of our beginning today, I was thinking about how when we stop and pay attention to our body, we can also learn information that we may not want to know. It's like, oh my god, I'm so freaking tired right now. Or like, I My back hurts so bad. I don't know if I can finish this day when we're disconnected, then the system will reward us at times if we're in that kind of system that is, you know, hyper capitalist and hyper productivity focused.
Tiffany Johnson 27:51
Yeah, oftentimes, oftentimes they do. I grew up in nonprofit organizations, and that's where my first kind of like, Whoa, these organizations are extremely like my, you know, my, both my parents worked in them. I were, you know, people are like, you know, because we care so much about the mission, but we are like every the people who get, like, promotions and do and do and get, who are getting, you know, raises and who are moving up the nonprofit ladder for people who were sacrificing their bodies at the at the altar of organization, right? And but nobody, it wasn't framed in that way. We didn't know that that was what was happening. But, you know, it wasn't like it wasn't intentional. I think that's one of the key takeaways that I the key things I like to remind myself and my students like none of us were taught like we're given these connections. So we really, I really, have to be gentle with myself as well, and we need to be gentle with each other, because we inherited this way of being and we are this. People weren't doing like I believe that the people that my parents and we're working with we're not doing that intentionally. That is literally what we all what they all learned, what's the right way to approach their work? And we just didn't, we just didn't know right but, but now And now, once we get this awareness, what do, can we change the incentives and even just the language in our organizations, like you said, like to not incentivize the people who are always available. That's one of the examples I like to give, because I'm like, I've seen it in so many organizations, no matter what kind of industry where it's like, the people who get acknowledged and get, like, all loved on and like, so many tabs on the back and all this, like they're always available. It doesn't matter what they pick up and they and they're praised. But we know that organizational cultures are in part created like the behavior that becomes a norm in a culture created in part by who is awarded and what behaviors. So when that happens, what's everybody going to start doing? Especially. If they are extrinsically Motivated by those kinds of awards, they're going to start doing
Jenn Turner 30:05
the same thing. So true. As you've been talking I was thinking about this one particular person I used to work with who is very much the same. I mean, she was like firming herself truly to just continue to work and be available and take shifts that she didn't want to take ultimately, but felt like she should or was supposed to, in service of the greater good. And you know, of course, there are moments that we we want to find a way to be in community and support one another, but not at our own expense. And I think that's the message, right? Yeah. It's like, I mean, when I think about the early seedlings of the Center for trauma and embodiment, you know, when Dave and I were doing this work, a lot of it, in the beginning was unpaid because we felt like it had to be, because there wasn't money to do it, and we cared about this. And as we started churning along, it was like, oh, we need to be really careful to not create a culture where there's an expectation that people are going to work for free. It's like that may have been a choice we made because we were both very indoctrinated in this kind of thing around belief. Like, if you Believe in it and you get the warm fuzzies, like, that's all you need. Actually, you need groceries and you need a home, you know, clothing and other things that you need money for so but there's this, like, somehow there's so much morality around it. I think that I
Tiffany Johnson 31:32
like this. I think that's why I think, like social enterprise, I do good types of initiatives and organizations really have a special place in my heart around this messaging and around this work, because I know how the people who do that work really do care about the mission very mission driven. And when we're mission driven, we it's really easy to to, like, go all in on whatever that mission is outside of us, and to at the expense of what we need and what we desire, and before we know it, then though, our body is starting to break down, and we are no longer a vehicle for the mission, because we longer capable of participating in it, right? And so i But so, but I get it because I have been there, and I have seen people who have been there, and I still do it. Sometimes it's really, it is really, like, intoxicating, you know, it's really intoxicating, like the passion for whatever mission, you know, we have. It can really just be, I get, like, the flow, and it can be all consuming. And so the question and the curiosity become, how do I not let it go, but how do I do this and take care of myself? And how do I do this and tap into what my body is needing as I do this work?
Jenn Turner 32:53
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. How can it be sustainable? And how can it be there's so much turnover and burn out, particularly in the nonprofit world, because of just that, you know, and I don't know if this is too hard of a pivot, but I'm wondering, you know, I'm thinking also about, as we're talking about workplace, reimagining academic institutions and culture there, which is no small thing To tackle, but I know it's something that you're that you contemplate, and you know curious about how some of these aspects of power colonization show up in academic institutions, or how you're kind of paving your own way.
Tiffany Johnson 33:39
Yeah, I don't think that's a hard pivot at all. I think that makes because I was, I was actually thinking about when we were talking about, like, the nonprofits and, like, you know, the ways in which that has shown up for me, and being so, like, mission driven, where I will kind of forget my forget my body, it inside of academia, because, you know, I want the students that I work with to get everything that they come here for. You know, I come from a lineage of two grandfathers who are not afforded the opportunity to make it past elementary school. So when it comes to educating people and to having that, having that as part of my job, I take it very seriously. And I don't need crumbs, right? I want to, I try to leave no proms, right? And so, and so it's really, it's, it's really that, for me, is very intoxicating. I can really, that is my intoxication, like I, you know the students, what, you know, what? About what they need. And so it's really easy to be and then, like, the service to the school. I want the school to succeed. I want the school to be able to continue to serve before I know it, I'm working like 70 hours a week, like it's just, you know, and it can go out of hand. And so I think my experience has been in academia, that in academia, i. I have experienced several bouts of, you know, burnout, uh, where, or, like, hitting a wall where, in such a way that my body, like I don't, I don't even realize it, because I'm so in go mode that my body starts to give signals like hair loss and things like that. And people you don't have any hair loss, and I'm like, and I open up my hair, and there's like, a, you know, big bald spot, and they're like, oh, it's your stress. I'm like, I'm not stressed. I'm good. You're like, are you
Jenn Turner 35:29
body saying something else, my dear, saying something else.
Tiffany Johnson 35:34
And that didn't really happen to me until I started graduate school, and then it I hit another wall when I started my first this, my this, this faculty position here at Georgia Tech, and so I had to, I felt like I was forced to try to find another way of existing inside of academia, and that for me was like, you know, the restorative practices. And really, kind of, like learning from those practices and engaging in those practices, and engaging in communities that practice those things so that I could come back into my body, and, you know, pay attention to what my what my own needs and desires were, and then being doing that also, I feel kind of filled up a well of courage. I don't there's, I don't know if there's, if there's research from you all's work that looks like interception, some of your work in like courage, but I think that there's some kind of connection. That's my hypothesis.
Jenn Turner 36:38
Dr Vienna, about that one? Yeah, about that
Tiffany Johnson 36:40
one study
Jenn Turner 36:44
exactly collaborate on a little something that's
Tiffany Johnson 36:46
yes, yes. I really do feel like there was as I did that the more like my throat shopper was like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And it was like I was willing to express in different ways and in very relational ways, right? Like, this is what I need. And I was willing to be courageous to say, like, even though you want this, this is what I'm able to do. I was willing to negotiate things a little bit more about what you know, based on what what this person wants, what I'm willing to do, what my students wanted, be able to draw those boundaries. And it took a lot, it's still, I'm still in the process of it, but I think that is the way in which I started to turn and start doing things, start showing up differently in academia. And it has literally like I was in a point where I was literally considering not staying in academia because I did not know how to exist in that and those waters, and to to, like, sustain myself. And, you know, I started to, thank God, started to, you know, gain access to some of these resources and some of these practices. And now I'm so glad that I'm still in academia and but that I'm not doing it in the same way. Like to say, I'm in academia, but I'm not of academia. It's not like, I don't have to do with the same way that that it's shaped, you know, because academia is, it's beautiful in many ways. You know, it's, it's where people learn, where people grow. And we also know from research, it's also where, you know, racialized and gender based hierarchies and social class based hierarchies are cemented. That's where people really learn what, you know, how to differentiate, how to differentiate based on, you know, race, gender, class, because we're taking things that came from plantation slavery and colonialism, yeah, especially in business school, that's where you're learning about all of these things. And so it only helps to fine tune the spirit of racism, the spirit of inequity, the spirit of you know, those like energies are sometimes fine tuned in some classrooms, not all, because there are other classes that don't. But now we're starting to see more people inside the business school and outside, talking about how we can, you know, reimagine a different way of of talking about business school, business and organization. So I'm really hopeful
Jenn Turner 39:09
about that well. And I mean what you said, too is you're describing how it also came from the inside out, when you sort of had your own reckoning with what it's like in your body, and then how that that supported you and showing up differently and using your voice, and, yeah,
Tiffany Johnson 39:26
that is, that is why I feel like I'm so convicted and to teach the way that I do, because I am my own data point. You know, I have that. That is my experience. I before that I wanted everything to change around me, and I remember going to one of my teachers, now, friends and colleagues, who's a yoga she's got her PhD in decolonial psychology as well, and she does a lot around creativity and imagination. Dr Shanti Perez. I remember telling her she were both in academia, and I'm like, This is so like, I just it needs to change. Like, this is whack. No, no. The eye. And she was like, she looked me like, straight in the eye. And she was like, You need to change. You need to be the shame. You're the change, not all that. It's you. And I was like, Oh, dang. She just gathered me very lovingly, gathered
Jenn Turner 40:16
me. I love that. She was right. That's beautiful. And it also, you know, reminds me too, when at the Center for trauma and embodiment, we've had people, and you've been one of them who've come and given us input and feedback about how we want to create a workplace. What are some of the norms we have now? How do we want to do things differently? Initially I was waiting for and especially when we started doing this work with our colleague, Sadat Jackson, I was waiting for her to come and say, like, here's, here's how you fix the shit that's wrong. She was like, making us turn inward and inward. And I was like, What are we doing here? And then it took me some time to realize she's not going to come in and tell us the way that we are replicating these patterns of racism and equity, power dynamics, hierarchical power dynamics, and we have to discover it for ourselves, because we're just going to keep perpetuating it otherwise.
Tiffany Johnson 41:15
That's right, that is the leg, one of the legacies of colonialism is to kind of seek knowledge outside of you, versus knowing that there's wisdom that you that is that is like just waiting inside of you to be tapped into like so much. Yes, we still need to learn, and there are so many answers that like are just waiting for us to like, tap into like that are that's really inside of us. Have to come from us. It's not always the external stuff that's going to be telling us what to do. But colonial legacy would say that's how you run like that's how you do stuff is you look to the master, you look to the person who knows more. They're the one, and they literally, you know, you know, direct the ship. They're the ones, and you just fall in line and do it. Whereas you know, indigenous wisdom would tell us like that's not. There's so much intuition that we have in our own bodies and our own lineage that if we, if we slow down enough to let that kind of, you know, come, come back for us to remember. It's a really process of like remembering, just remembering and remembering and remembering, though a lot of the answers are going to come back out, and when they come out from an embodied place, that's one of the best ways to implement them for the rest of the team or the organization, people will model what they like, the behavior that they see. They will they people respect integrity when what you say and what you do are lying. And so it just it creates a big it creates a strong ripple, even though it might seem really small, and it takes time. Once it starts to pop off. It's just it. It's there's no way it came the surroundings that we're in resonating
Jenn Turner 43:06
so deeply with that. And it's interesting to think. I've often thought about this through the lens of healing and like therapy and therapeutic interventions. But of course, in academic institutions as well, right? We get this idea that it's going to be someone's going to disseminate the information to us, and we will receive it. And it's very passive, as opposed to this, like, proactive self discovery, transformational experience. Ooh,
Tiffany Johnson 43:33
and listen. That's what I have to tell the students in my class, the class that I created, work, equity and wellness, every the first of like, Syllabus week is that I have to be like, if you're looking for me to tell you the answers, you are probably in the wrong class, because that is, we are literally trying to model a different way of being like, I'm trying to do it as we're in the class. So the way I create my syllabus, the way that we like work together in class, the student, teacher dynamic, the power relationship that we're used to inside the classroom, who has the wisdom and who doesn't, who's the stage on the stage and who isn't, all of that, we have to, like, start to relax that a little bit. It's hard for me. It is hard for me because I grew up in academia. I like, you know, I got really used to that power difference and that power differential, and it's very enticing to be on the other side of it and be able to be the person who gets to, like, you know, control and be in power. So it's hard for me too, but I have to, I am always like, I'm not going to give you all the answers. I'm going to ask you to really, like, sit with stuff and let the answers come up. And it's hard for us to do that. It's hard for me to do it. It's hard and it's we all struggle every semester. There's a point where we're just like, I'm struggling. Everybody in the class is struggling. Because oftentimes the students will come in and say, like, I want the answers. I want to solve dei stuff, like, right now, like, give me I came here to get tell me the answers. And, like, by like, week three, they're like, I still don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. Exactly, and I'm like, exactly,
Jenn Turner 45:04
perfect. Everyone wants to hear it, right? Yeah? Like, no, I want, but then I get
Tiffany Johnson 45:07
really uncomfortable, because I'm like, Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing? I now, you know, and I have to question myself. And then, because it's such a strong current, that's the thing, and that's I just, it's such a strong current, I battle with it. You know, every single time I teach that class, I'm struggling because I know it's different for all of us, including me, you know, but how powerful
Jenn Turner 45:28
your students can be when the knowledge is then they carry the knowledge with them in a different kind of way than if you hand something to them that you can't really hand to anyone.
Tiffany Johnson 45:40
It's kind of like the practice that you guided us in in the beginning, when you were offering the possibilities and but you said you kind of gave us choices of which one we did. And it's like, oh, I didn't think, let me see what's Oh, I didn't even know there was something over here that's, hey, let me play around with that. Like, that's very it was just which, as you were doing that guiding, that practice. I'm like, that is this, is that is exactly what we're talking that is an embodied what we're trying to do is like, we can guide, we can offer possibilities and choices. And once people, more people are guided in that kind of way, the more and the more that they practice and experiment with their own agency. Who knows what's possible? When that starts to happen, you know, you just start to read like, realize so much about and learn so much about yourself and about your surroundings. When you're invited into this language, in this world of possibility, and you kept saying, It's possible, what? Well, you know, here's one possibility here. I'm like, Oh, this is really, this is really empowering. This is like, helping me right now, you know? And that's what we want to do. That's what we want to do.
Jenn Turner 46:54
Gosh, I love these conversations with you. I'm so grateful to know you and have you join us here and to work with you. I mean, I could just keep riffing, but I want to honor your time and appreciate it, so we will provide some links for folks you know, so that they can learn more about your work. Anything else we didn't get to that you wanted to name here or,
Tiffany Johnson 47:24
no, I'm just really grateful for the opportunity to chat and learn. I feel like, you know, sometimes when you get with certain people, they're in groups, there's like a synergy, or there's an energy, like there's this whole creation. And I'm just really grateful for the opportunity to co create and and just share
Jenn Turner 47:41
absolutely yes, yeah, me too. Thank you so much, Tiffany,
Tiffany Johnson 47:45
thank you.
Jenn Turner 47:56
Thank you so much for being with us today to find out more about today's guest, head to heal with cfte.org/podcast follow us on Instagram at on trauma and power, to stay up to date on future episodes and be sure to like and subscribe to on trauma and power. Wherever you listen to your podcast, we'll see you next time. Take care. You.
