Episode 198 | Antiracism Revolution with Nathalie Edmond

Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of the group practice exchange podcast. Today is a really exciting podcast episode because I have someone who’s joining me and it’s someone that you probably already know. And I’m really excited to talk with her about a new program that she’s got up membership.

Her name is Natalie Edmond and she has recently started a membership. A lot of people call it the anti-racism revolution. And so Natalie, how are you so good to chat with you about something I love? Yes. I’m so excited. Obviously. You and I have chatted for, I feel like quite some time, it’s been a couple of years and I just love just not only.

So support that you’ve had for me, me personally, and my group practice and the people in my group practice. But I also just love the fact that we know each other on a business front, and I get to see kind of the evolution that you’ve gone through in creating this really amazing space for people to do their anti-racism journey.

And so I really wanted today’s episode to be on that since it’s newer. Program. And I wanna make sure that people that follow me are able to just learn about what this program’s about, what you get from it. And, um, so let’s start with what got you there. What’s your, what’s your journey been like to get you to this space, to offer anti-racism support in this sort of framework?

I would say that I feel like I’ve been on this journey my whole life, but I feel like it got really concentrated. In 2020, a couple of things happened around the same time I had been working part-time at like a university and part-time in my own group practice. And I wanted to branch out more into consulting, which I did as a hobby, a lot of DEI-related stuff I was doing.

And, and so I just happened to quit my part-time job and I was all in. And then literally a couple of weeks later, Maybe it was two weeks later, George Floyd was murdered. And so it kind of was like the perfect storm of grief and rage. And I made a, a YouTube video that was about just my grief and my rage around, you know, this ongoing murder and like profiling of black bodies and various different group practice owners saw it and started to ask me to do.

Workshops. And all of a sudden I found myself free with time because I had like, literally just quit the job. So I ended up doing, I would say hundreds of anti-racism workshops over the next two years. And most people did three-part series or four-part series like yourself did individual coaching and then.

You know, time goes on and you know, the new cycle changes and people are less interested in the kind of exploring themselves as racial beings. But I found myself profoundly changed by all the conversations I’ve had over the last couple of years. And I started to see trends and themes. So people who were.

Continuing with me meeting with their leadership teams or me doing refresher things. But I felt there was a gap, a gap of people who either wanted something deeper and long-term because we know change happens over our long-term process. And I thought, what could I create? That would one be sustainable for me.

Cuz I think we can burn out in any kind of trauma-based work, which I see racism as trauma-based work. And so I thought, well, Maybe, let me talk to Maureen and see what made her launch, her group practice exchange. And so I thought I wanted something similar. And I wanted to be really relationally based so people could show up and, you know, come once a month to this membership community come once a week, come daily and there would be different options.

I think about, you know, whenever you’re doing anti-racism work, having to think about. The intersection of class and race. Yeah. So like what can I do to make it so that there are different entry points? Mm-hmm so that people who don’t have a lot of time or don’t have disposable income, could still be able to access a community of like-minded or.

I don’t need to say like-minded cuz I feel that’s a little charged, but maybe, uh, people who are committed to learning more about themselves as racial beings, cuz I ultimately would want it to not be like-minded people, but people who are curious about, you know, how can I do better in the world to decrease the polarity that has developed around just being racial beings?

I feel like that was probably one of the biggest takeaways I got from you. When we did the one-on-one coaching was this curiosity because I was so polarized in a lot of ways when it came to this and, you know, didn’t want to have connections with people who felt differently or who just weren’t at the same part of the journey, or even maybe on the bus at all, to go on that journey.

And that was a really. The profound thing that you worked with me on specifically was this idea of just being curious and looking at people around me and in my community and family members and friends who might be at a different place than I was, and rather than sort of cutting them off or, you know, trying to argue with them, really just getting curious as to why they are even in the space that they’re in.

So just as an aside, I wanted to share that that’s something that’s kind of stayed with me throughout my time. When I think about different relationships that I connect with and come into in the past few years since you brought that up, I do wanna ask because there are probably a lot of listeners who have either engaged in one of your workshops.

Maybe had you come into their practices to offer anti-racism leadership training. Or providing affinity groups. I know you do that within my group practice as well. How does this membership look or feel different to a person who’s maybe thinking about getting on that journey? And trying to decide what fits me best.

Would it work better for me to do one-on-one? What does this membership model, and how engaged can I get in it? Because obviously, that’s one of the potential downfalls of a membership program is the level of engagement that people can have with you specifically versus something like one on one or a small group model.

I guess one, what does it look or feel like to a user or to someone who’s coming in as a member? And two, how would you tell a person if something like this membership is a good fit for them versus let’s say doing one-on-one coaching or getting into a small groups with their, you know, leaders? Yeah. That’s a great question.

I think it depends on where they are in the journey. So if I think about the three different levels of membership. The basic membership, that’s an annual fee. And it’s basically great for people who want to be plugged in, but know they don’t have a lot of time or they’re involved in other activities that are supportive, but they want to be exposed to some of my weekly live streams, which are like short 20 minute kind of videos on different topics or different books that I’m reading.

So it’s a great way to continue the journey, cuz I think what happens when you do training. Training is more intimate in my mind. One-on-one is more intimate. It’s much more personalized. And then afterward you can quickly find yourself disengaging mm-hmm. I mean, that’s the way the society is built for us to not really be anti-racist in our everyday life, because we’re so busy with all of our different roles.

So that’s a great way. Basic membership is a great way to be a little bit accountable. Yeah. And get these reminders every week. Like, Hey, what are you up to? This is what I’m up to. This is what I’m thinking about. And not only for me, but lots of other people who are also having lots of different commitments in their life.

So it’s a great way I think, to like stay engaged, then the most people are standard membership. And so they get access to all the basic stuff. Plus depending on your racial identity, You opt into a white affinity space or BI affinity space. And that’s also optional, right? Like what I find is that some people are actively engaging.

So we’ve been working on me in white supremacy, the 28-day journey. And so it’s great to hear. Other people and how they’re struggling and also see how shame arises. Like, oh, I can’t believe I’m admitting, you know, that I have these biases that live within me, but we all do. We’re just not talking about it.

So in that way, it’s really supportive. And some people are like, this feels a little bit like Facebook and I don’t want to type in here, but I’m gonna come to the monthly workshops. Yeah. And this way I get to know this community of people who I see posting or I see their messages. And so we have.

Covenant or mutual agreement. So it doesn’t feel like Facebook, even though it kind of has the quality of Facebook, but it’s not part of Facebook in terms of people also getting used to like, oh, we can be engaged in dialogue and it can be, uh, respectful and authentic and not dehumanizing. So for some people, it’s helping build their nervous system up to tolerate discomfort so that they can go out into their circle of influence.

Yep. And talk about these things, cuz they’re building skills in bite-size chunks, which some people need. Right. They’re like cooking and they’re listening to one of my live streams or one of the webinars because they can’t make it live. Yeah. And then the premium membership is for those who not only want all that other stuff, but they want additional webinars and additional kinds of workshops that they wanna engage in and I’m pretty active in it.

So it’s great in that way. And then it’s always changing. So if people are like, I’m really struggling with how do I do, blah, blah, blah. Mm-hmm then. I either do it myself or I get a guest speaker. So I have lots of really great guest speakers who I feel are talking about other things so that we can see how racism shows up in everything.

Yeah. And so there are things I’m really great at talking about, and there are other things I just don’t know enough about. And so it’s great to have others. Speakers come in and talk about it. What’s an example of a recent topic like this, that you’re talking about, that either you got a guest speaker on or someone specifically was struggling with that, you decided to do kind of this, and I’m thinking more for that top-level premium, that extra kind of probably be fear webinars.

What is, uh, maybe a recent topic? Sure. Yeah, I’ll give a couple. So it may be because that was Asian American Pacific Islander Desi mm-hmm American month. Um, I had a psychologist, a Chinese American psychologist come and she did a whole thing about disordered eating and colorism in the Asian American community.

And so that was really great just to look at that, especially highlighting. Just the wide range of identities in that Asian American diaspora in June had someone non-binary come to talk about the intersectionality of the queerness of anti-queerness, anti transness anti-blackness, and how those three come together.

And that was pretty powerful. And this week I’m doing anti-racism in the therapy room, which is a three-hour continuing education. So those are just a couple in the like three months that yeah. Or two months that we’ve been live. Yeah. I wanna go back. A little bit for anyone who’s maybe listening. That is just not yet stepping out of that journey or just in those beginning phases.

Can you explain what an affinity group is? Yeah. Yeah. So some anti-racist or DEI leaders would say that. White people or people who present with white skin pigmentation haven’t had as much exposure to talking about themselves as racial beings, because whiteness is often seen as the norm, the standard.

And we often reference people of color or black indigenous people, people who are not white, we often refer to them as being racial beings. And so that means that oftentimes when we have cross-racial dialogues, people are not coming into this space. With the same capacity, emotionally vocabulary-wise language.

And so it does a disservice to both the white-bodied people. And it could cause harm to the people of color who are seeing things that white-bodied people may not have had the experience. So, um, affinity space is just putting people together based on some sort of identity. So in the anti-racism revolution, we have the white space, and people opt in.

So I am rarely clear about this is for people who are white-bodied or white-passing. So people who are, let’s say, uh, passes white, but maybe don’t identify as white. They really choose for themselves if they should go in the white-bodied space or the BI space. And there’s something that happens. I think when white people get together with white people to talk about themselves as a racial beings that’s different.

Then when bio people get together to talk about themselves as black indigenous and non-black people of color. Yeah, I think from my experience as a white business owner, and after having started working with you and, you know, putting together a PAC affinity group in my group practice that you lead really learning about just the amazing benefit.

I wasn’t initially even aware of for the staff in my group practice to have this space, to talk about, you know, what it feels like you said, it’s a very different sort of conversation. When white people get into an affinity group, they’re talking more about almost from a learning perspective of like, Realizing how, where their privilege comes in or where white supremacy comes in.

Whereas I envision based on just conversations with you and, and some of my staff who talk about being in the affinity group is that it’s more about like talking about experiences and what it’s like to work in a group practice. That’s run by a white woman and, you know, sort of providing each other with support around what it’s like to be supporting other black indigenous.

People of color clients who are experiencing the same trauma. Day to day that our own therapists who are in the black indigenous or person of the color community are also dealing with this. And so, you know, I think it’s something that a lot of white people aren’t even thinking about business owners, leaders.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think it gives in to the comm membership community. It gives people the option of even though you elect to be in an affinity space, you’re still in, mixed in with other people as well. I get to choose where I put the questions. People get to choose where they post. So if you want to get as a white person.

Feedback from other white people, you posted the white affinity space. If you want to get feedback from the whole community, you posted a different space. So it also, I think, builds the muscle of, I wanna make this comment. Do I think it would be harmful if I put it in the larger space or is this something I need to work through in the affinity space first and then, you know, bring it out to the larger?

So going back to the membership, is there any expectation is the word I’m gonna use, but I don’t know that I like that word for white folks who want to join the membership like a prerequisite. That’s the word? Does it matter? Where on the journey they’re at? No. Oh, no. The whole idea is that we’re all on different parts of the journey and that we need support in order to move along and be more steeped in anti-racism.

And I offer different videos and articles for people to read. And I kind of part of why I started the weekly live stream as I was like, it’s so disorienting to come into a community and wonder where do I start? It already started. Yeah. Um, and so the live streams kind of often show, like what’s, what’s available in the recordings mm-hmm and then what’s coming up and then like different topics to help people kind of plugin.

But also this idea is that life is messy. Right. And that often, like if you join anything unless it’s. Everyone’s starting at the same time, cuz people are gonna be at different stages, like even in group practices, right? Your different staff are gonna be at different stages. So this idea of like, what does it mean and how do I get used to coming into these spaces where I may not know, or I may be exposed as like, wow, I’m really ignorant in this area.

But the idea is eventually if you do this long enough, You’re gonna learn areas where you weren’t, you didn’t have that knowledge. Yeah. I do have a question just as a person who has a Facebook group, that’s pretty large and has a membership similar to yours for group practice owners. If you are creating this space really anyone at any part of the journey can join.

And where you mentioned there are these affinity spaces where. White folks can ask questions. You know, if they think this is something that I need to ask in the white affinity group versus this, I guess, a larger space where everyone is in, where people can ask or have dialogue, how have you been managing?

And I think this is more just from a, you know, a leading a membership sort of space, but I also think this for any buy pack listener also might be a good thing to hear of how do you manage the space when. There are white folks or people who might be causing harm. Obviously, there’s a lot of communication dialogue that happens in these types of groups.

How have you been able to one manage it as a person leading this and, and just putting all of this on, on your shoulders, but two for anyone who’s listening, who’s a part of the BI community. Kind of wondering, okay, if there are white people in this space, like, you know, what type of safety do I have? How have you been managing that?

Yeah. You know, it’s interesting, a couple of months in, it hasn’t really come up much. And I think that’s because there’s a white affinity space. Yeah. And because the first, maybe two weeks in, we started me and white supremacy and we’ve been doing it over the course of two months. Mm-hmm, so I think a lot of.

Deep work is happening in the white affinity space because I would say of the membership community, probably I would say it’s like 70% white, 30% BIPOC mm-hmm. So I think because people are working through me and white supremacy, which was intentional, right? Is getting people to really be exposed to all of these topics.

Feel the shame, feel the discomfort. Feel the messiness and build intimacy. I haven’t observed a lot of harm. Even reading, even as a black person reading the messages. Yeah. Because the intention, when people opt-in they’re really intending like vulnerability. Yeah. And so I think people lean into that and even in the main space, I think people also.

It’s so steeped and mindfulness, because I’m so steeped in mindfulness and like Eastern religious practices that it’s all about. Like, how do we step into our bodies? How do we like to settle in and notice our discomfort? Part of what we’ve been talking about is our tendency to. Fight or flight or freeze or FAW mm-hmm

And like, that was really helpful in terms of just even across that wasn’t in an affinity space that was in the main space. Yeah. And it was great to hear bipoc people talk about ways that they fawn around white people. And it was great to hear just the ways that white people flee, uh, or notice the fight when they get called in.

So I think all of that stuff, I think it’s actually really healing for every. I love that you said something that reminded me of a question I wanted to ask you, which is, and we can sort of wrap up with this one, which is your style because all consultants for anything have different styles, but sure.

When it comes to anti-racism work, your style is different than other anti-racism coaches out there. And so you talked a little bit. A quick little blip of your style, but for those who might not yet actually know you, and there are probably not that many in my audience, can you talk a little bit about what your style is and what they can, I guess, anticipate when it comes to who you are when you present in the membership?

Because I think I know from a white perspective, that that is for those who are, you know, starting that work is I think a big fear. The style of the consultant is because white people tend to not wanna be called out initially and want. Yeah. You know, and so I feel like that’s something that just whether for good or for bad people are looking into initially see what is the style of the, um, coach?

So, you know? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, part of the reason I got into anti-racism work was that I saw it as a spiritual practice. So like, just from that end. So to me, anti-racism is about love and collective liberation. So that is not leaving anyone behind. And so I wanna create spaces where there is harm that’s happening to IPO people and other historically marginalized individuals.

But that. I wanna embody love and curiosity. And I want to also embody the idea that people can change and transform. I don’t think anybody should be canceled unless they’re saying they absolutely don’t wanna be involved in doing better. And so I think when people opt into a membership community, they’re saying I have something to learn and I have something to contribute.

And one of the things, um, I’ve tried to set in the community is. Mutuality. Right. Because sometimes when we’re afraid and we don’t know, and we don’t wanna mess up and we’re, you know, steeped in perfectionism, we can be an observer without contributing. Yep. And so wanting to, um, help people who have the tendency to observe without contributing, like how do you build the muscle and the capacity.

To contribute and to be a little bit more vulnerable. Cause that’s how we’re gonna create intimacy and trust in this space. So, and I’m a yoga teacher and psychologist, so that blend of trauma therapy, plus a lot of somatic stuff, it always comes back to the body, not being so attached to kind of things as they come and go.

Yeah, that’s definitely historically been my style is the observer because of perfectionistic thinking and always wanting to communicate correctly in always I have this sense of like, I always say I don’t judge, right. Even though this is just not possible in any form, I have caught myself for years.

If a judging thought comes true too, you know, what someone’s wearing or things like this to say, Maureen, where is this coming from? Why, why are you judging? Or why did you have that? You know, funny thought about the hairstyle of this person or whatever. And so when you bring this up, I know. The beginning of my anti-racism journey was probably a good year of just being a silent observer, partially for fear of saying something that felt like that kinda highlighted how new I am to the learning process.

Like saying something that wasn’t as further along as other people, obviously there was a big part of not wanting to say the wrong thing. And so. I think that’s probably a pretty common thing to experience. And I know for me, I tend to be anything that I’m afraid of for me, what feels like the boldest thing to kind of desensitize myself to that mm-hmm so I used to have a huge fear of public speaking, and so I applied for university teaching.

And I taught for two years. I did not. I’m not into teaching. I don’t like teaching obviously I know you have that experience, but I did it only because it forced me every day to have to get in front of a group of people, especially also the age range that I’m most afraid of kind of that college age. I don’t know why it causes me anxiety and then it went away.

Um, and it obviously helped in what I do now. But with my anti-racism journey, I realized that I did so much. Uh, reading and, you know, listening to podcasts and watching webinars, but not contributing literally at all. And so my bold move was when I asked to work with you. Cause I thought. Initially, well, I am going to all of my flaws, all of my thinking that is going to be, you know, called out on, I’m gonna do it with a woman who’s black and who’s an anti-racism coach.

And it’s like, I’m going right to like, the source is gonna hear all of my, you know, things that I haven’t yet gotten, you know, worked through. And so I think that that has been the thing that’s helped me also become able to, you know, kind. Not skip my way, like trip my way through all of this mm-hmm. And so I want to end before you tell people where they can reach you and how they can get into this membership.

Because I think if you’re not doing any sort of anti-racism work, you should be doing this. And today is the day to just, you know, to take one step and join, even if it’s your basic level. But I just wanna share that in my group practice, one of the things, was your first meeting with me. The first thing you said to me was, what are your identities?

I don’t know if you remember this, cause this was all I do. I remember it very really. Yeah. And as we’re going full circle here, because now I’m in this brand new state, you should actually ask me what my identities are again now because it’s, you know, evolving and changing. And obviously, I know, you know where I’m at with all this, but I remember being like, mom, Life.

Like, I couldn’t think of things. I’m like what? I probably didn’t say white. I said the atheist. I remember because that’s a thing, a big thing for me, but. And you had to like prompt and push. Um, well what about this? Well, what about your, uh, sexuality? What’s gender identity, all these things? I’m like, oh yeah, that’s an identity.

Oh yeah. That’s an identity. It was very eye-opening for me. And it was something that we ended up implementing in my own group practice because it’s not normalized to talk about identities and some identities. Visible right? Or, you know, yeah, just aren’t visible. And so one of the things that I think our group practice has really embraced the most is we have these identity cards.

I’m sure. Yeah. I’ve heard about ’em yeah. In the leadership meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I love it. Every time we get new hires, just I plop in there to be able to see what they choose to share as their identities. And it’s really started. I think we did it. I don’t know, almost a year ago. I can see how much more connected all of our staff are.

Just through the awareness of each other’s identities. It’s like you get a sense of their lenses. So I wanna, um, share mine. Just grateful for everything you do. For me personally, for my leadership team, for just all of my staff in my group practice, you’re deeply involved. Luckily I got you. I’m sure not many other practices are gonna be able to get you at the level I do, but yeah, I just wanted to say I’m so happy that you have been able to grow this into a way that fits your life and your vision.

And I. The more people that can become a part of it. I mean, such a huge impact that you’re gonna have on the therapy world. And that has such a trickle-down effect to the, all the clients that all these practice owners and leaders and staff get to be a part of, you know, so I really wanna appreciate you coming on and talking about this and creating a space for this, but also just for doing that really fucking hard.

Thanks, Maureen, I love your story because I think it speaksthe  to part of why I do this, which is when I was just doing therapy. It was so much about how do I help bipoc people heal from just systemic racism and all the ways that they move around the world as model minorities sometimes. And in anti-racism, I feel like I center more.

White-bodied people, because I think that there’s a way that white people have to work through the silence and the grief and the apathy and the ways in which doing anti-racism work, enriches their life. Yeah. Makes them feel more alive and more embodied. And so like when I hear your story of yourself and your transformation over the last couple of years, right?

It’s like this idea of. Going into those uncomfortable places where the muscles haven’t developed or haven’t had the opportunity to develop, like really helps people move into spaces that they wouldn’t have thought possible that they didn’t even know were missing. Yeah. And I think that’s like the beauty of like collective liberation.

Yeah. I think my own sexuality. Came the start of really thinking about it because I was married to a man and it, you know, that was one, one of the things you, when I said, oh, when you said sexuality, I was like, oh, well, bye. But doesn’t really matter, cuz I’m married to a guy and you were like significant and it’s a thing.

And that was the starting point to me, starting to read more about sexuality even, and now, you know, two years later, Divorced. He’s my best friend and I’m with a woman. So like, it really, it’s crazy how, when you really spend time thinking about your identities, how much more you can get to know yourself and, you know, and the privilege that a lot of us have to not even have to think about our identities, so, right.

Yeah. So, OK. I wanna end this. Where can people find you and specifically this membership, because I really think that we should all be doing this work and you’ve provided now, uh, yet another opportunity and way to engage in the work at different levels. And so there’s really no fucking excuse for anyone to not have the time or the income or the resources.

Everyone who listens is the group practice owner. So everyone has the funds to do it for sure. And everyone has the time to do it. So where can they go to find you? Sure. Uh, they can go to Dr. Net edmund.com. And so that will list consultation opportunities, but also will. There’s a whole page online membership.

That’s all about the anti-racism revolution community. And if you wanna go directly to the membership community, it’s on mighty networks. So you can either put anti-racism revolution in mighty networks or anti-racism dot Dr. Net edmond.com. And, um, that will show you the different tiers of membership.

It’s always evolving because the people are evolving. It’s not static. So yeah, that’s one of the beautiful things about memberships is that they can continuously evolve. The more people that join. And the more feedback you get from those that are in it. Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks so much, Maureen. I so appreciate your sport.

Yes. And thanks for coming on. Have a good one. You too. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to the group practice exchange podcast. Like what you heard? Give us five stars on whatever platform you’re listening from. Need extra support. Join the exchange, a membership community just for group practice owners with monthly office hours, live webinars, and a library of training.

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