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[0:00] Introduction: Setting the Scene
Hello, 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 woo, but I want to hone in today on women in academia—female academics—because I was one. I’ve moved pretty far away from that, but I want to address what’s going on.
This episode will be of interest to any professional women, but especially to, as I said, female academics. 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. So, I know what that’s like. I want to talk a little bit about that first, before I get into some ideas of how professional women and academics can cope.
[1:03] The Challenges in Academia for Women
First of all, if you’re in academia, especially if you are an educator, we tend to be super motivated—motivated by improvement, by growth, by learning, obviously driven, right? The challenges that we face are balancing teaching, research, and administrative duties. We’re all 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 is a bit easier in some ways. My main focus was on teaching, yet I was told, “You’re not exhibiting enough.” I was teaching art, and they said, “Okay, you’re doing the teaching great, but yeah, where’s the equivalent of the research part? You’re not doing that enough.” I was told that very close to the time that I needed to go for tenure. So, it was a bit last minute to point this out to me.
[2:25] The Additional Burdens Faced by Black and Brown Women
Academia, especially for women, is statistically shown—scientifically, the numbers are there—that for women, and especially for women of color, Black and Brown women, it is even worse. It is even worse.
You all may not know I am Jamaican-American, so I am a brown-skinned woman. So, African-American, since I’m living in America and was dealing with some of the stresses that I want to talk about now in terms of the challenges. That’s just the 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 want to deal with it because it was so upsetting. But it’s about Black women in academia under fire, right? Suicide, having to step down, being forced to step down, death—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.
[4:03] Personal Experience: Breaking Into a Boy’s Club
So, you’ve got the professional challenges that are there, 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 boy’s club.
I’ll talk briefly about my experience. At the community college, I was bullied by three or four men—I can’t remember the exact number now—three or four white males who had known each other for upwards of 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 as new faculty, right? Assistant, coming in at the lowest level.
As I said, I was so overwhelmed by seeing this happening and how widespread it was for other women that I just didn’t really want to 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 have control over?”
[5:40] Addressing the Systemic Issues
A lot of this is systemic. You see so much pushback: “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 sort of ways to weasel out of responsibility for what clearly is a very bad situation for Black and Brown women.
So, I want to look at, in terms of the work that I do and the brilliance that I bring, what can we, as individual women and even in groups, do? My solution, 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.
[6:59] Recognizing and Addressing Burnout
I definitely think it is a process, and so if you can catch yourself as a woman in academia, if you can catch it before it becomes burnout, where you have to stop, where you’re debilitated, obviously that’s best. And you know that. So, what I’m proposing—once I healed from burnout, I went back, retooled, studied, learned, and became a licensed massage therapist and put that together with all the other holistic modalities that I had studied—is to consider, if you’re in a situation like this in academia, to look at the systemic stuff, which is like looking at the problem.
[7:45] Focusing on Solutions
I always say, my analogy is this: if you were on a train track, you found yourself on a train track, you turn around and realize the train is bearing down on you, one option is to stand there, staring at the train bearing down on you, which is the problem. I always say, obviously, you look at the train, 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—the one I ended up leaving—she was a woman president. She was talked about horribly by the same men who were bullying me. They spoke about her with derision, with—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 in private, she would listen but then ask, “Well, what’s the solution you’re presenting me with?” She wouldn’t, you know, it’s like you’re not going to her as a savior. If you think there’s a problem, you should have analyzed and come with a solution. So, I’m saying the same thing: What is the solution that we can execute without other people’s buy-in?
[8:45] Practical Solutions: Meditation and Healing
Right? Without their support, without changing people, without people being fired and educating and appealing to their humanity and all of that, what we can do—and again, what has been scientifically shown to help—basically, we’re dealing with stress that then inflicts health problems.
As I said, there are stages. It can just be stress; you feel anxious, it’s sort of mental-emotional. But then, if you do not and are not able to extricate 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.
So, if you are not convinced, if this is not something you’re aware of, I can’t 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 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.
When I throw in the word “holistic,” it means you are not just a mind. Therapy is great and helpful in situations like this—stress in 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. When you’re in a situation that is low-level bad or higher-level toxic, bullying, traumatizing, you need clarity. That’s the first thing that goes out the window when we’re under incredible stress. Some of our intellectual capacities shut down because we’re in a fight-or-flight state.
[10:47] The Benefits of Meditation and Acupressure
So, meditation taught in a structured manner can be a practice 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, on cortisol.
What I also put in that is unique to my work, which at this point, I’m trying to come up with an exact name for, but what I mix in that takes it beyond just learning meditation—which, as I said, is so powerful—is working with acupressure points. Think of them as acupuncture points that we do on ourselves that affect your particular health issue.
Many of you might be suffering from high blood pressure, lupus, digestive issues, heart issues—a whole conglomeration of issues. This is not uncommon. You’re likely medicating for that, which is fine, but again, there are many issues with that. I won’t even start with that now.
Self-Massage and Acupressure Points
What I blend in is the support for your body of self-massage, Support for your body through self-massage, working on points that can release and support you. There are literally points that help with constipation, points that strengthen digestion, and a series of points that help with sleep.
12:15 – Sleep Struggles and Stress
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, but I just didn’t wake up feeling rested.
12:47 – The Benefits of Acupressure
These acupressure points—if you’ve ever had acupuncture, which I know some of you have—are even being studied by the World Health Organization. They’re literally looking at traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). While they don’t understand exactly how it works, they see that it works, and this is knowledge from over thousands of years.
As a massage therapist, I had clients where I would see immediate results and then greater improvement over time.
13:21 – More Than Just Medication
What I want to suggest to you is to consider, rather than just brushing it off, “Medication’s fine, I’m going to do therapy, I’m going to exercise.” When you’re really ready for more healing of the stress and anxiety—as an academic, and this can apply to any professional woman—do reach out to me.
I am going to put my contact info below.
13:49 – Teaching, Not Just Coaching
As a teacher, as a coach—though I don’t like the word “coach” as much, because I always think of a baseball coach, right? I think of a chubby man spitting and calling over the player to whisper in his ear. “Coach” just isn’t the best word for what I do. But it really is what I do. I’m teaching you and coaching you on how to meditate in a one-on-one, private setting.
14:14 – Personalized Acupressure for Healing
Then, based on your health issues and your concerns—whether psychological or physical—I’ll give you your own set of acupressure points to help you with your healing.
This absolutely works. I have worked with many massage therapy clients in this way, and I’ve worked with many meditation clients. Now, I’m really bringing it together to increase the efficacy and just bring it up a level.
14:50 – Mindful Meridian Therapy
Right now, the name that I’m using is Mindful Meridian Therapy. I haven’t trademarked it, but again, working one-on-one in a private setting with me, I can literally promise you that within the first session, you’re going to feel less stressed than when you came in. I mean, I can promise you that. There’s no way you’re going to leave more stressed than when you entered that very first session with me.
Typically, over eight sessions, you’re going to have the skills to know how to meditate for the rest of your life. You’ll be 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 will have shifted for the better, over the course of the eight sessions.
15:47 – Reach Out for Coaching
So please reach out to me. I am going to put links below my website where you’ll see some more “woo woo” stuff, and you’ll see this: the one-on-one coaching. It’ll be right on the homepage. It’s one-on-one coaching, and you just click through there, and there’ll be more information.
I would absolutely love to chat with you and find out what’s going on for you in a half-hour, free, complimentary session. If you are a good fit, I would invite you into my coaching program.
16:27 – In the Flow of Magic
So head on over to my website. It is called In the Flow of Magic. I know it sounds very woo woo, but you know I’m speaking the truth about being a woman in academia. Reach out to me, and I look forward to speaking with you soon.
Be well, stay blissed, and blessed. Bye for now.