Episode 100!!

Episode Description:

Thank you so much for being here for the past 100 episodes, I am grateful for each and every one of you! Although I had some other ideas for what to talk about this week, there are some really important things that need our attention. So this week we are talking about Palestine, and Mental Health Awareness Month.

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Episode Transcript

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Hi, welcome back to Rebel Movement Podcast. My name is Billie. My pronouns are they/them or she/her. Welcome to Episode 100! I super appreciate each and every one of you listening. Now it is a small audience still, I don't want to come on here and– you know, if you know me – it seems like such a fake thing to say, I really value congruence and authenticity and being open and honest about shit. I don't want to come on here and be like, oh, I have hundreds of listeners, which is not true. There have been well over a thousand listens total, which is amazing and so cool, but the total average according at least to the incorrect to data on Spotify, is like 28 listens per episode-ish, which is amazing and so much more than– Like more than it used to be. And also this could grow more. So if you have a second, if you rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast, it makes a big difference. If you send this to a friend, it makes a big difference. And if you feel like celebrating for episode 100, you can buy me a coffee. The link is in the show notes, it’s like $5 Canadian. If you want to celebrate with me– I don't make money off the podcast, it's not sponsored.

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And I don't know the other terms, but I do think there's a lot of value in the stuff that we talk about here, a lot of– I think a lot of importance in the stuff we talk about and some of the– I don't know, I feel like most of the conversations, all of the conversations are things that I wish we're talking about more often. I know we're– part of our tagline is that we're trying to reduce stigma. We're trying to talk about some of the shit that's taboo, and shouldn't be taboo, and raise awareness, and just be out here being human, doing semi-rebellious or very rebellious things, and I love where we've come with the podcast. If you've been here since the beginning, or even if you just came and you're like catching up, I really appreciate you. I know there's a few of you that have been here since the beginning and you've heard me talk for over a hundred episodes, and for you know 52 of those you also heard my old wonderful co-host talk, I mean Jordan, I appreciate you. I know that she appreciates you. And all of my guests appreciate you too. Thank you for being here again. The link is in the show notes or I think that it's K-O-F-I, Ko-fi, maybe with the dash between, Move with Billie. It's in the show notes. So you can just DM me or email me if you need that link and don't have it. So– and before we get going, I also want to, thank Alyce for doing the captions– the transcript. She's done them for the last, what is this, number 5, I think? And I really appreciate it. She's my very first employee, I'm a small business, it feels like a very big deal for me. And I think that Alyce is awesome and we have a lot of the same values, which I think is really important.

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And I just am excited. I wanted to share that with you. I've been thinking a lot about what to talk about for this Episode 100 and I had a few different ideas, and I'm going to not go with any of them. I think they're all good ideas. What– you know, how to start a podcast, how to start a business, starting a business as a yoga teacher– I'm going to come back to those, because I think that there's some things we need to talk about that are more important or more time pressing. I have two topics I'm gonna go through, and it's gonna be a fairly short episode because I have to go do school pick-up in a little while, for one of my step kids. I also will name that where I'm– when I’m recording this, it's the day between Mother's Day and my mother's birthday. And if you've been around for a while, you know that I'm estranged from my mom for almost about seven years now because I was emotionally abused, and, turns out, sexually abused not by her but within the house I lived in. And this year feels particularly rough, so I'm doing my best to show up– That's another reason I'm making this kind of short, cause I just wanna lay down outside. I’m having some sad feelings and I'm not gonna– again, don't want to come on here and just pretend that like everything is figured out and everything is great, because that's not how life works and it's harmful when we go around like that because there's people– it's a normal human experience, everyone has shit they're going through– anyway more on that for the second part of this episode.

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I want to talk about things happening in Palestine and I want to talk about mental health because it's– May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Both of these topics could be several different episodes on their own. We only have the one episode where it's just you and me this week, and I will come back to these things and I'll probably insert some of the stuff as we go, but they’re– I think that they both needed a little bit of time, and yeah– but this is the beginning of a conversation. If you want more, you can send me messages. I talk about it on Facebook and in my newsletter a lot– and Instagram in my newsletter a lot. So that's a good place to go if you are interested in these topics, go subscribe to my newsletter, again link is below. Okay, so speaking of newsletters, the first part of this is stuff that I wrote for my newsletter that I think I'm going to read them out here because, inspired by Shane and Pro a few weeks ago, I think it's worth saying again, and again, and again, and again. And these are updates that I posted, and then I put in my newsletter of things that are happening– have been happening recently, they are not all of the updates, there's a lot. If you want more, if you go to my TikTok @movewithbillie, under the repost section– it's like two arrows that are making a circle– Most of the things I've reposted are things about Palestine, I would say 95%. Some of them might be mental health-related, or things like that, like more mental wellness, mental health stuff– But a good portion of them is going to be stuff about Gaza. So if you're not sure where to go, where to look to learn about the genocide happening, there's a place, like cause I know the way the algorithms work it might be hard to find. Go in there, search it, and also I post stuff in my stories and I know that my friend, Janine Crowe does post stuff in her stories. Do your best to find people who are in Palestine as well, or are Palestinian, or who have– are first-hand experiencing, or know someone experiencing, because they are– we need to raise their voices. Okay, so in the past 219 days from today–

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So we start October 7th– and the genocide of Palestinians started well before that– But throughout the last 219 days, the genocide against Palestinians has been– I don't want to say amped up, maybe amped up– during the last 219 days though, folks living within Palestine have been pushed to different areas of the country. So it's not exactly accurate, but if you imagine it like along like a longer– well maybe just look at a map, but you know how it's like a longer shape of a kind– like it's a small, very, very, small space, but it's like a long– you know like a square but– like a rectangle type of thing– not exactly rectangle but you know what I mean– So, Israel has sent, dropped leaflets and started at the top of the country, in North Gaza, saying, “this place is not safe,” go to Gaza, go down, you know, travel down– and I don't know if down is the exact direction, but for– just for the case of this, so that it's easier to explain with words– Go to Gaza City to be safe. So all of these people lost their homes, hospitals were bombed, universities were bombed, ambulances, schools, and then after a while it happened in Gaza, leaflets were dropped, “This is not safe, you have to go down.” It kept happening. It's a very small, it’s a very densely populated country and now folks are down in Rafah, and that's the bottom of the country, That's like– that's the border, Rafah Crossing I believe is between Palestine and Egypt, however, Israeli military is now in control of Rafah Crossing, and they are not letting people cross, and when they do, not enough people, and to the left of this country is the Mediterranean Sea. To the right, of course, is Israel. And they are also not only dropping bombs, but their military forces are invading from Israel side. So there's a lot of people with nowhere to go that are now being bombed in the place that they were told they were safe.

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So not only has there been– Like all of these major hospitals have been bombed. Israel is in charge of or has control over their hydro which is not enough for– Not enough time in a day for anything, not enough for hospital care, not enough for cooking, like just not enough, and then there's not clean drinking water– But now there's all of these people with nowhere to go. And at least 34,971 people have been murdered, and 78,641 have been wounded. This is as of– the numbers as of two days ago, and estimated. At the same time, two days ago, about about 80 bodies were recovered from three mass graves inside Al-Shifa Hospital, which is a complex within Gaza City. The other thing– and again, this is a big topic, and I think that it's really worth going into more, learning about more, I do want to name this. We've talked about this on the podcast before, a couple of times now– If you're not sure where to look, I know that there was one with Shannon Crowe, there was one where I was reading out a newsletter, there's– I can't remember any of the numbers, I should have looked this up beforehand– You can just DM me and I will send you them– But when I'm talking about the genocide in Palestine, I am not saying– I'm not speaking against Jewish folks, I am not being anti-Semitic by saying that genocide against Palestinians is wrong and needs to stop, and saying ceasefire, those are not related. I understand that the way that Israel is marketing this, is that it is– they're marketing it as an attack against Jewish folks, and If you look into it, it's not hard to see that that's not what's happening. So I just want to name that I am not– I am not being anti-Semitic by speaking up against genocide happening in Palestine, and if that is a reaction for you I believe that you should look into this more, and be more educated from people who are actually within Palestine, and diversify some of the places you're getting your information from.

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The second thing, I guess– I don't know if the second thing is, the way of– oh, actually, no, I'm gonna say this part first. If you want to help folks in Palestine beyond learning about it, speaking about it, if you want to financially help, you can go to Operation Olive Branch. You should find a Linktree, and within the Linktree there is a Sheets, like a spreadsheet, that has all sorts of different Go Fund Mes for different Palestinian families. So you can go to Operation Olive Branch, I’ll put it in the show notes, and check out that. And again, as I said, if you want to learn more and you're not sure, you're not getting the videos, you can go to my TikTok and look at my shared– reposted, whatever you call it– 

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The other thing I talked about a little bit in my newsletter, which I'm not going to talk about as much here is there's a block party happening, where people are blocking celebrities, and influencers, and folks who have not spoken up about Palestine, if you're not aware of this you can either read my newsletter or you can just search it, it's not hard to find– at least today with my “For You” page, it's not hard to find. Part of this was sparked by the fact that, there was– you know, I'll just say it whatever– There was an influencer who went, I don't know if they went to the Met Gala, I honestly don't particularly watch Met Gala stuff but, they posted a video about the Met Gala, understanding was that they went, and they're in this big fancy dress and said, “let them eat cake,” which if you're not aware of is– the story of it– There's questions whether or not the actual Marie Antoinette actually said this, but the story goes that when Marie Antoinette learned about her peasants or the poorer folks, living around her could not afford bread, and couldn't eat, and were starving, she said, “let them eat cake.” Basically completely indifferent, I would say beyond indifferent to the poor class suffering, and dying, and starving. Which when this influencer used it, completely like– read the room. This is not the time to use that. First of all, tickets to the gala are– the Met Gala, are like $75,000. And beyond that, there's things– like someone was carrying a 22.5k purse that was made of ice. Like literal ice, water that's frozen, with a golden rose inside, that was talking about permanence or whatever– Basically, with everything happening, if you're not aware there's also– food prices in Canada are skyrocketing, and folks are boycotting Loblaws which is a different story, but basically people can't afford food. There's so much happening in the world and then– people not that far away from us in Palestine, have no water, have no food, have no place to go, and are being murdered in a genocide every day, and there's people using this sound, and there's this whole– it started this whole movement, people kind of getting fed up a little bit with celebrity culture, people who have so much money, and have big platforms who could speak about the genocide and important things happening in the world, but don't.

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And it's more about using platforms to speak up about the genocide, and some people are blocking them, which if– one of the things I questioned was like, oh, I'm not following these people, does that make a difference? Yes, it does. However, I did notice on TikTok, they started– a couple of the people who I had blocked, it unblocked them for me for some reason, so you might have to go check if you have done this, might have to go back in and check. But yes, it does make a difference, because when– the way that the ad targeting works and that kind of thing, they can make money off of using their ads and that kind of thing, and when they're involved with other companies– Okay, so that's basically a short version, of some of the things going on, but I think do deserve some time.

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The other thing that I want to mention– I want to talk about a bit, is Mental Health Awareness month. Haven't talked about this as much this month, because I don't really think it should just be a month. I have a real issue with things like Bell Let’s Talk Day, because Bell is not a company that really supports the mental health of their employees, and also just one day a month, or one day a year– or I think maybe a couple, I don't know– speaks about mental health and it's not enough. And it's not actually making a huge difference, it's just trendy, you know what I mean? Like they talk about the trendy parts of mental illness, which I'm not– it shouldn't be trendy, but like things like depression, anxiety, are talked about a lot more than things like borderline personality disorder, or dissociative identity disorder, or trauma, and there's certain things that are okay, but not established to talk about, and there's certain things that are considered very taboo to talk about, and I pretty much– I get very big emotions about the whole thing. I do think there's value in having a month where we're talking about mental health, I think that it needs to be talked about more. So this year I haven't talked about it as much, because this past year has been a difficult one for me, and I've just sort of been, sometimes doing what I had to do to cope. So I want to talk about this a little bit now, but it is something I will talk about more, and I have talked about throughout my podcast and trauma, healing from eating disorders, and different things like that. There's tons of different episodes, I think last– no, two weeks ago, we talked about someone else's experience healing from eating disorders, so stick around for sure if this is an important topic for you, we do talk about it a lot. But I just think that– You know, I do wanna say something for May because it is important to me, I just have an issue with it being trendy to do once a year, you know what I mean?

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So, one of my main values as a business– and as a person, honestly more so than– in my business for sure but it's because it's so important for me as a person– is authenticity or congruency, which is basically like what you see on the outside is what you get on the inside, like if I'm advertising or speaking a certain way, that's what you get when you sign up for the class kind of thing. I like this partially because I have a real issue– A really hard time when I can tell if like, just in a personal way that someone is putting forward a mask– not a mask as in like you're masking for ADHD or autism, but as in like you're pretending everything is great all the time, and that's not the case, or you're the person who's like, oh, I'm such a nice person, I'm such a nice person, but isn't nice. The person who's like, saying their things, and they're actually a very toxic person. That– I have an issue with that, I have a really hard time with it, and I also have a hard time with the taboo-ness of mental health talk, because I think it's bullshit. I grew up in a time where it was not– you didn't really talk about mental health stuff very much, therapy was seen as a weakness at times. I'm so glad that's different now. And– It's just, you know you– I like got a lot of messages like oh, if you're you know, depression you can never be happy, and you can never be successful, and no one will ever love you until you love yourself, and blah, blah, blah, and all of that stuff is bullshit. Spiritual bypassing is so rampant in the wellness industry, and yoga world, and westernized places and, it's a big topic for me. Has a lot of feelings. And I really I, first of all don't agree with the values of that, of spiritual bypassing, of pretending everything is great, and that’s the only way to get through, because I’ve been a person who has struggled with mental health and trauma, and felt– and like I'm not just talking about like the nice parts of it– not the nice parts, but the parts that are talked about more, I mean, like I've struggled with eating disorders, and I've struggled with self harm, and I've struggled with suicidal ideation, and I've struggled with shame, and I've struggled with recovered memories, and I've been through a lot of shit. And I know that the impact it can have to hear someone else say, “I've been through that too, and I see you.” Not as a contest, but just as a way of like, I get what you're going through.

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Because when we don't talk about things, when we think we're the only ones that are going through this, first of all, we think no one can understand us and that's fucking lonely. And also we carry so much shame around what we're going through. I've been– I went through this a lot with– Within the past year, when I came to accept that I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, at first I felt so ashamed. And when I did start to talk about it a little bit more, someone said to me, it is not us that should be ashamed, it's them, the people who did this to us. And when I found people who had been through it and who understood, the impact– I can't even explain to you how big, it's like your soul is being hugged– I explained it like that in my newsletter. It's a massive difference. When we talk about the shit we've gone through, not in a way that your trauma dumping, I'm not saying like, don't go to a therapist, just dump it all on your friends, I'm saying, face your shit and deal with it, and then don't pretend everything's fine all the time. Like it's okay to be sad, it's okay to be angry. None of these feelings are the problem, the problem is the culture around it. The problem is the belief that having these things is wrong for some reason. The problem is this idea that if you struggle or if you are a survivor of mental health– or mental illness, or trauma, or whatever that you can't be successful, you can't run a business, no one will wanna buy from you, no one will wanna love you, no one will wanna be in a relationship– that's the problem and that's bullshit which is why I talk about it, because I thought when I first started teaching that the only way I could be a good teacher is if I didn’t struggle with mental health and that's because I was I was literally told that, in different words, but I was basically told that. And I hate that, it's bullshit and it's not true, and everybody struggles with something. Everybody has hard days, and the harm it can cause, to pretend that those days never happened to the “best of us” – in quotes, “best of us,” or that it's a personal weakness if you have these things, is unspeakable. There’s so much harm that can be caused.

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And that's why– although it's awkward as fuck. And it's difficult, and it's vulnerable, I talk about it. Do I still sometimes have a voice in my head saying, “oh, no one's gonna wanna support my business if I admit that I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse”? Yes. Do I actually believe that– just like my self, my logical brain– Believe that's the case? No. Would I not buy– like support a business if they were open about that? No. That would be why I support them. Or one of the reasons, if they also, you know, line with my values and I like what they're doing. I'm more– I love when people are honest, and open, and they feel congruent that they're honest about the tough shit they've been through, and yet they're also showing that it doesn’t have to be your whole life. That you have the hard times, you have the hard days, but you also have the good days. I think both the hard and difficult, and the great and the wonderful, and in between, all of those days and moments have equal value. And equal– I got distracted because I think my caption stopped working, so I hope that they're still working– They all have importance. And they're all worth speaking about, because your value does not change whether you're sad, or you're angry, or you're happy, or whatever, your value is there all the time, unchanging.

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This is a heavy episode. There's a lot of stuff in it. I do think it's all important, and– Cool, now all the captions are back, all at one time, all over my screen. Okay, this is a heavy episode and yet, I think it's really important. If I were to give you action steps, like as a summary of this, is number one: learn about what's happening in Palestine, and share the things you're learning. Whether that's in the conversation with your friends, whether you're literally sharing on social media– you might decide to participate in the block out party, or block party whatever you call it, and block celebrities or brands– like Loblaws for example, if you can participate in the Loblaws boycott, I also support that. Where I live, No Frills is the cheapest grocery store, which I hate and I can't really afford to go to Metro or Foodland all the time, it's kind of also like a choice between different evils. But, I mean, if you want to support, buy me a coffee, maybe I could afford to go to those grocery stores, just to sneak that in there, but– Do what you can, get from different places, buy local when you can. If you can afford to go to a different store, if you're in an area where there is a different store that's also cheap, like go there, I mean, you could try the dollar store, you could try a Bulk Barn, you could try, I don't know, other places where you can or just don't buy their brand, the store brand when you go to those stores. You could also, again if you have the means to support any of those families from the Operation Olive Branch spreadsheet of GoFundMes.

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And in terms of mental health awareness month, you could learn about mental health. For example, if you have a friend that has mental health struggles, you might just look into what that feels like for them. Maybe you ask them if that's a thing that you can do. You could search, like you know in my case like, “how to support a survivors of childhood sexual abuse.” I will say though, some of the– Like things like borderline personality disorder and DID, when you search those things, particularly borderline personality disorder, it's the most stigmatized mental illness, as well as– DID is stigmatized as well, but when you search some of these things, a lot of the information you're gonna find is like, “how to be friends with them - you don't.” So I would not Google those ones because it's just gonna– might cause more harm than good. You might try to find people who have those things, who have borderline to learn from, people– like learn from more credible sources. And avoid anything–If you find anything basically being like, “if someone has mental illness, like avoid them,” just like fuck that resource, cause that's not good, that’s a horrible take. 

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Yeah, and if you wanna support me, you can find my GoFund– not my GoFundMe, what do you call it? Coffee, might buy me a coffee thing, in the show notes. Thank you for being here for 100 episodes. We have more interviews coming up soon, I'm pretty excited again for all of them. And then you'll hear from me, and then we'll maybe do more interviews, and we'll just kinda see what happens. But playing around with this kind of new, structure thing. And yeah, I gotta go, cause I gotta go do school pick-up. Thank you for being here. I hope you have a fantastic day. Please rate, review, subscribe, if you have feedback, you can send it below, or info@movewithbillie.com, rate, review, subscribe to this podcast as well, Move with Billie– well, the podcast wherever you find your podcasts, and Move with Billie, you can review me on Google and Facebook. I will see you next week. Bye!