The Cost of Gatekeeping & the Courage to Lead as Your Whole Self with Taina Brown

What if the key to powerful leadership isn’t more structure… but more soul?

In this rich, heart-centered conversation, Kim and Louise are joined by coach, strategist, and recovering academic Taina Brown to explore what it really takes to lead as your whole self, especially in systems that reward fragmentation and performance.

They unpack the impact of gatekeeping (from academia to coaching to the workplace), the myth of “getting it right,” and how somatics and play open new doorways to healing, embodiment, and aligned leadership.

Taina shares her journey from feminist scholar to strategy coach, the somatic tools that helped her reconnect after a traumatic health experience, and why funk music might be the nervous system medicine we all need.

This episode is a love letter to anyone who’s ever felt they had to leave parts of themselves at the door to be taken seriously.

“Don’t let one part of yourself gatekeep another.” – Taina Brown

Key Takeaways

• Gatekeeping is often rooted in insecurity and unprocessed imposter syndrome
• Integration is the power move—we’re not meant to fragment across roles
• Play is how we heal, regulate, and remember who we are
• Embodied leadership makes room for sensation, intuition, and rest
• Somatics help rebuild connection, especially after trauma or illness
• Wholeness creates space—for yourself and others to show up fully

Key Moments
[00:00] Welcome + Episode intro
[01:35] Meet today’s guest: Taina Brown
[04:58] Naming and challenging academic gatekeeping
[08:46] Gatekeeping in coaching and helping professions
[12:59] Gatekeeping as protection: fear of being “found out”
[15:14] Unrealistic expectations and imposter syndrome at work
[17:41] Reframing failure with Emergent Strategy
[20:02] Play as a path to learning and growth
[21:23] What if we welcomed the human behind the curtain?
[29:29] Why pushing through isn’t always the answer
[34:00] Fragmentation: stop being your own gatekeeper
[36:01] “Mitigate the ambiguity”: the somatic impact of uncertainty
[39:15] Using somatic CBT in professional development workshops
[43:49] Head, heart, and body: wholeness as a leadership strategy
[45:27] Final reflections and calls to action
[49:08] Where to find Taina online
[50:31] Closing thoughts and listener invitation

About Taina
Taina is a former feminist scholar turned strategy whiz trained in somatic CBT methods. As a personal and professional development coach of over 15 years, she helps leaders and their teams show up as their best, values-aligned selves so they can do good work. She’s also the cohost of the Messy Liberation podcast with Becky Mollenkamp.

🌐 http://www.ifthenand.org/tainambrown
🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/tainambrow

Join a circle of changemakers committed to leading with purpose, presence and ease inside Kim's Rising Visionaries community and mentorship program.

Reclaim your career and confidence during midlife through Louise's Rise & Redefine program.

If you’re loving this show, come check out the Feminist Podcasters Collective, where creators like us are uplifting diverse voices and driving meaningful change. If you’re looking for new shows to fill your feed, head to feministpods.com to explore everything we have to offer.

Transcript

The Empowered & Embodied Show

Episode #163

Title: The Cost of Gatekeeping & the Courage to Lead as Your Whole Self

Hosts: Kim Romain & Louise Neil

Guest: Taina Brown (she/hers)

Release Date: June 10, 2025

Kim Romain (00:27): 

Hi there, welcome to the Empowered and Embodied show. I'm Kim Romain. And I'm Louise Neil We're two transformational coaches who are also fellow travelers on the path of growth and self-discovery. And we're inviting you along for the ride. That's right. We're right here in the trenches with you navigating the ups and downs of life. And each week we'll be sharing our own experiences, bringing you conversations with amazing guests, and exploring insights and strategies that have helped us find more clarity, confidence and ease in our lives. And trust us, we do not have it all figured out. We're learning and growing right alongside you. So if you're ready to rise above the chaos, doubt and confusion that sometimes life throws our way and step into a more empowered and embodied version of yourself, then you're in the right place. Let's get started.

Kim Romain (01:35): Hello, hello, hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Empowered and Embodied show. I am Kim Romain, one of your co-hosts. Joined as always, but my other co-host.

Louise Neil (01:47): It's me, I'm Louise. And we have a very special guest. I'm super excited.

Taina Brown she/hers (01:53)

Hi, I am Taina Brown or Ty, however you prefer to address me. Either of those is fine. And I'm excited to be here and have this conversation with you both. know Kim and I run in some of the same circles and so this will be good, I think. It'll be really generative.

Kim Romain (02:13): I'm so excited to have you here for this conversation. my goodness. So we're to let the world know a little bit about you and then we're just going to dive in. Cool. Cool. All right. So Ty, Taina Ty, Taina Taina Brown, all of the names, is a former feminist scholar, but still a feminist, but a former feminist scholar turned strategy whiz trained in somatic CBT methods.

Taina Brown she/hers (02:20)

Okay.

Hahaha

Yes.

Louise Neil (02:32): You

Kim Romain (02:37): As a personal and professional development coach of over 15 years, she helps leaders and their teams show up as their best values aligned selves so they can do good work. She is also the cohost of the very fabulous Messy Liberation podcast, along with Becky Mollenkamp. Ty, we are so glad to have you here again. so glad, cannot wait to dive into this conversation. Excellent. So how, like...

Taina Brown she/hers (02:59)

Yeah, let's get into it.

Kim Romain (03:05): How do you get to become, just because I don't think everybody in the world would know this, how do you get to become a feminist scholar? And why?

Louise Neil (03:14): You

Taina Brown she/hers (03:14)

It's really easy.

You just have to study feminism. So you, I always feel weird calling myself that in any context, past, present or future tense, because it does feel something that's really lofty, right? Like it feels like something that's reserved for a specific set of people. But part of feminist studies is

Kim Romain (03:17): Okay, cool, cool.

Taina Brown she/hers (03:42)

the goal of not gatekeeping, of breaking down some of those barriers to accessibility. And so it's a way for me to, one, honor my undergraduate and graduate work in feminist studies and women's gender and sexuality studies, but also to remind myself that there is no boundary between those who

have so many letters behind their name and are valued as being scholars and those who still study and learn on their own, but for whatever reason, usually because they can't afford the education to do that because it's so fucking expensive to go to grad school these days, don't have those letters behind their names. So it's a double kind of...

It has double meaning for me, but yeah, basically if you study feminist works, if you study feminist theory, whether in the traditional sense in an academic setting or on your own, just because you enjoy reading it and because you yourself identify as a feminist, call yourself a feminist scholar. Cause that's all that work is, right? That's all that means is that you study and you learn and you apply. Like that's what scholarly work is. So.

Kim Romain (04:58): that. Gatekeeping, man. I feel like that.

There's so much there. There's so much, and I'd actually love if you're up for it, let's unpack this idea of gatekeeping just a little bit. Because I feel like everything is being gate kept.

Taina Brown she/hers (05:09)

Yeah.

Yeah, I think in any industry, and I'm sure you both have seen this throughout your experiences as well, in any industry that you're a part of, there's always a sense of gatekeeping between those who have somehow passed the test and proven themselves worthy of being called or being allowed into this inner circle and those who don't. And I spent a lot of

a lot of time in academia. Well, it felt like a lot of time. It probably wasn't. But that's a different story. And as a grad student especially, I think you see that delineation very clearly between professors who have quote unquote paid their dues and grad students who are expected to work for little to no financial compensation.

whose ideas are often stolen and work stolen and not credited. And that's simply what I mean by stolen. It's work that the students have done that has not been credited to them that their advisor or quote unquote mentor has taken credit for. I had a friend who, or we're still friends, she's still alive, but who...

Kim Romain (06:40): Good, good.

Taina Brown she/hers (06:43)

was in her PhD program for 11 years because her committee would just not move her forward because she was doing so much free labor. And it's like, that's a decade of your life where you could have been doing other things. Not that that's not a worthy cause, but like, at

At some point, she should have been done. It should not take you 11 years to complete a PhD program if you're going the traditional route of doing full time and things like that. If you're doing something that's more part time, obviously the context matters. But in this case, the context was that her committee would not move her forward. They kept bringing her back and bringing her back to redo something or resubmit something. And it was just a really

One, that's not an uncommon experience, I think, in academia. And two, it just really did numbers on her confidence as a person who had worthy ideas to contribute to her field. And so it's disappointing. And I think as a coach and a facilitator, there's

There's a lot of gatekeeping there as well. And I think that's one of the things that surprised me when I first got into coaching, because I was like, everyone's here to serve. We're all trying to do the good thing, right? I've helped people. But then you get in there and you're just like, it's the same as any other industry. Some people are still out for just their own good. And there's still a lot of toxicity and really harmful ideas that can get perpetuated. And gatekeeping is one of those things, right? Where it's like, it's a

It's a way to other people, think, and to kind of like set yourself apart, which is really steeped in a lot of harmful and toxic ideology, white supremacy being one of them.

Kim Romain (08:46): For sure. For sure.

Louise Neil (08:47): Yeah. And you're right. It's everywhere. Like, it's not just in academia. It's right. We see that in workplaces. We see, I talked to a lot of folks who are stuck in their role because they're doing really good. And so why move on? Why move up? Right? It is. It's heartbreaking to see, but it happens in all kinds of places.

Taina Brown she/hers (09:06)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Louise Neil (09:17): So, what do do about that?

Taina Brown she/hers (09:19)

Yeah,

yeah, I think in the workplace and I've had clients who have been in that situation where they're like, I should have been promoted already and I haven't. And every time they say, yeah, you're doing great. This should, it should be a shoe in and then it comes to it they're like, well, we just, we just don't have the budget right now or we just need you to stay here for another year or whatever. And so I think when it comes to like work, like nine to five work, you know,

Louise Neil (09:29): Mm-hmm.

Taina Brown she/hers (09:47)

in more traditional settings, one thing that I've noticed is that

There's people gatekeep for different reasons, right? And so I think if you're a manager, like if you're in a managerial position where you have the opportunity to help move someone up or keep them in place, right? I think a lot of people, they get into managerial positions, don't get managerial training. And there's a difference between being really good at your job and being really good at managing people.

Those are like two different skill sets. Like a great executioner, like a great person who executes on a strategy or a goal for work, a great technical expert does not a good manager make. That is something that needs to be trained into people. And when these people who have not been trained on how to manage people, to see the bigger picture, to see the larger context of organizational health,

Kim Romain (10:22): Huge difference.

Taina Brown she/hers (10:51)

and how to keep building momentum and make sure that employees are thriving in order to make sure that the organization is thriving. When they can't put those pieces together on their own, someone leaving or moving on can feel threatening to them. Because then it's like, well, I'm going to lose this really great person. Or I don't know if I move them, will they make me look bad?

There's symbiosis, like this symbiotic relationship that's really toxic that some managers do with their employees. And we can reference this back to parenting, right? How parents tie their identity and their success or their worth onto their children's accomplishments or achievements. And the same thing happens in the workplace with people who have not been trained how to be good managers.

their experiences, their worth in the workplace to the teams that they're leading, these interpersonal relationships. And then the lines start to get blurred between everything that's happening and what's actually good for the organization. And so it becomes this really just toxic process that it always backfires. Because eventually, if you don't

promote those people if you don't reward that good work, they're gonna leave. It might take a while for some people over others, but eventually they will leave.

Kim Romain (12:30): Yeah. I know in the nonprofit sector, a lot of people get, right, they go from program development into leading, right? Or they go from CFO to CEO, or they go from, in my world, right, from fundraising, from development directing and volunteer directing to executive director. And suddenly they're in these roles. And that's actually where I saw a lot of the gatekeeping was actually protectionary.

Taina Brown she/hers (12:57)

Hmm.

Kim Romain (12:59): they're protecting themselves from being quote unquote found out. Right? You can't find out I don't actually know what the fuck I'm doing.

Taina Brown she/hers (13:01)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, which is, it's odd because it's like if you didn't know what you were doing, you wouldn't have been hired in the first place. So I feel like there's like this level of like imposter syndrome that happens there, right? Where it's like, but on a much bigger scale with much bigger consequences, because it's like you obviously, most people, think, obviously there's an exception to this rule, but I think most people, when you get hired for a job, people are pretty confident that you can do that job. So if you're moving from,

a CFO position or development position to an ED position, right? Like the people who hired you are pretty confident that you can do that job. Is it going to be perfect all the time? No, because nothing ever is, right? And so I think that feeling of being like, if I can't let anything just like fuck up, like everything has to be perfect all the time. And so I have to control everything and everybody that sense of like wanting to control everything. Like that's a symptom of some

really deep imposter syndrome happening there, where it's like, if you can just settle into yourself and be OK with the fact that there's always going to be a learning curve, you're not going to step into a new role on the first day and get it 100%. But that's just an unrealistic expectation that we have of ourselves sometimes, right? But yeah, but if you could be OK with that, then you can.

settle into a pace that feels comfortable for you that doesn't doesn't threaten the working relationships that you're trying to build and you're trying to maintain.

Kim Romain (14:48): Yeah.

Louise Neil (14:48): Yeah, yeah. Well, and we set those, we set those expectations for ourselves. Often, it's sometimes they're set by our organizations or our environments, but often it's us that's getting into a role thinking that by like, six weeks in, we should be at 100%. We should know everything there is possibly to know about that role six weeks in.

Taina Brown she/hers (15:00)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Louise Neil (15:14): And it's like, it's like not even six months in, are you going to know everything? Maybe not even a year, a year and a half. Like it takes a long time to to fully immerse yourself into a new role. Yet we're setting that expectation for ourselves that we can't fail after some arbitrary arbitrary number that we put on ourselves.

Taina Brown she/hers (15:20)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And you know, the thing about that is too, and this is kind of the mindset that I try to go into everything with that is sometimes challenging. Like I feel like I'm sitting here saying all this stuff and I'm like, but I get it. I've been there. I'm still there sometimes. Like, like this is not, this is not coming from someone who's passed all that. This is coming from someone who actively experiences it all. But like, um,

Kim Romain (15:52): I do it too, yeah!

Taina Brown she/hers (16:03)

Things are always changing. And what that means is that you're never always going to get it 100%, because you're always going to be learning. And so if we can just approach everything with that mindset of like, yesterday it was like this, but today I might wake up and it might be different. And what can I learn in this as opposed to how am I going to fail?

in this, then it's a different conversation and it's a different intention and it's a different feeling. So you both come from the nonprofit sector.

Kim Romain (16:40): No, do. Louise does not.

Louise Neil (16:41): I do not. I come from the corporate world. Yeah.

Taina Brown she/hers (16:43)

OK. OK.

Yeah. So I think, you know, again, no matter what industry you're in, like I've been in corporate, I've been in nonprofit, I'm a business owner now, you know, and so it's it's a hard lesson to learn, but it's a lesson that you never stop learning. Like it's it's not something that ever goes away. And if Becky listens to this, she's going to just die laughing because I feel like I bring this book up at least once.

a day, but it just brings to mind Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Marie Brown. Right? This idea that nothing is ever really a failure if we're learning from it. Right? The things that we call failures are compost for future growth. And how do we reframe how we feel and approach failure in a way that helps us to grow and be better? And when it comes to work, learning a new role,

Kim Romain (17:15): It does!

Taina Brown she/hers (17:41)

learning how to, whether it's like managing people or just managing yourself, like having that perspective of like what waking up and just being like, what can I learn today? Like just what, does the universe have to teach me today about this role in myself? I random story it's related, I promise. But a few years ago when we were living in Atlanta, my wife was like, I want to take Flamenco lessons. I was like,

You're not a dancer, but OK, sure. we found a dance studio and she took flamenco lessons. And this is just so on brand for her. She loves trying new things. she'll try it and be like, you know what, I tried it. It's not for me. I'm moving on. Or she'll try it and be like, I actually love this and I'll keep doing it. And so this was one of those times she wanted to try something new. And at the end of each

like season, like or class or whatever, the studio would have like a student showcase. Right. And so we went, some of our friends went and we saw her do her little flamenco dances. It was really cute. But the instructor, she said something that just really resonated with me still to this day. And this was like, I don't know, seven years ago, six or seven years ago. And she said, you know, children are able to pick up

new skills because they're okay. Most of the time they're okay with failure. Like they don't have these values or this morality that they attribute to failure. And so they just keep trying. But as adults, like we attach so much morality to things and so much meaning to things. And some of that is obviously based on experiences, right? If you grew up in a home where failure was not an option and you know, you were like,

punished or whatever for failure, that can develop that kind of value for you. But she said, yeah, as adults, we try something. And if we're immediately not good at it, we give up because we're like, I'm not good at it. So it's not for me. And we forget that everything has to be learned. Nothing really comes to people naturally. You might have an aptitude for something, but you still have to learn how to do it.

Kim Romain (19:54): Mm-hmm.

Taina Brown she/hers (20:02)

We forget that as adults, we forget to just kind of approach things with that level of curiosity. And I think that that is a really big way that we fail ourselves and our ability to evolve and grow as human beings, especially like in the workplace, especially in our relationships. We just assume that if we don't get it right the first time, then it's not meant to be. And that's not the case.

Kim Romain (20:27): Well, because we forget to play. We forget that play is a component and it's going to look different, right? I've had this conversation with my daughter who's 15, who still very much plays in very similar ways to how she did when she was little, which is beautiful at 15, that she still has that freedom. And I have started understanding what play looks like for me.

Taina Brown she/hers (20:29)

Yeah.

Hmm.

Kim Romain (20:54): And

it looks different in different settings. But there's always a way to bring play, particularly when we are coming up against something that feels like imposter syndrome, right? When we start to get into this place of, I don't know what I'm doing, so I have to now keep everybody out so they don't know that I'm just this person behind the curtain making the big head of Oz speak. Right?

Taina Brown she/hers (21:01)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kim Romain (21:23): And it's like, well, what if you are behind that curtain and Toto comes over and rips the, the, the curtain and everybody sees it, then play, give somebody a toy heart and a toy this and it like, play it's okay. And the more human that we are, it's the more we give permission to others to be human.

Taina Brown she/hers (21:27)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

100%. 100%.

Kim Romain (21:43): And that's that,

you know, we were talking and in, when we were talking about emergence strategy before that ripple effect, how do we ripple it out? How does that affect those around us?

Taina Brown she/hers (21:54)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, because I feel like as we embody that, that sense of playfulness and curiosity, it becomes a model for other people, right? Other people in our circles. How do you, Kim, since you're coming from a nonprofit background and Louise, you're coming from a corporate background, how do you incorporate play into your day to day? What's your go-to source?

of play because I feel like that's still something that I am working on myself. I grew up with a military mom, right? So like there was no play. There was no play. Like you did it and you did it right and you did it right the first time. And also I have heavy, heavy earth energy in my chart.

Kim Romain (22:42): We'll check.

Taina Brown she/hers (22:53)

And so I'm like, there's no time for play. got shit to do. Just tell me what needs to be done. So I feel like that's still something that I am, even now in, it feels weird to say this, but middle age, figuring out. It feels weird. I've been trying to convince my friends, yeah, we are middle age and they're just like, don't say that. We are not. We're still in our 20s. And I'm like, okay, that was 20 years ago, but whatever.

Kim Romain (22:53): Okay.

Louise Neil (22:57): Thank

Kim Romain (23:10): I'm 55 and it's weird to say that.

Taina Brown she/hers (23:23)

But yeah, how do you incorporate play day to day? Because I'm also just, yeah, like I said, I'm still figuring a lot of that out. mean, therapy is incredibly helpful for getting there, you know? And the somatic training that I did last year was really helpful and also just helping me incorporate some embodiment practices for myself and some playful practices. But it still sometimes feels awkward, you know? So like...

Louise Neil (23:51): It does.

Kim Romain (23:51): Yeah.

Louise Neil (23:51): Yeah.

Taina Brown she/hers (23:52)

How do you do that?

Kim Romain (23:52): Yeah. think, I just, and Louise, I totally want you jumping because I love your, you have all sorts of play with things to bring forward. know. I wanted to say specifically just answering what you just said in terms of the earth energy. So when you said that, Frozen, the movie Frozen, right? The trolls, the trolls are these rocks. They are as earthy as earth can be.

Louise Neil (24:01): you

Taina Brown she/hers (24:13)

Mmm.

Hmm. Yeah.

Kim Romain (24:21): And they are also super playful. They're not playful maybe in the way we think of where, you know, more air energy, where we see Aries and unicorns and flying things, but earthbound energy can be very playful. It just feels and looks different.

Taina Brown she/hers (24:24)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm, I like that. I like that. I'm gonna have to sit with that in journal about it. I love that. Thank you for that.

Kim Romain (24:47): Good. You're welcome.

Louise Neil (24:48): you

Kim Romain (24:49): And now, Lovie's taken away with all your play, because I know. I'm so excited.

Louise Neil (24:54): You're right, is that it's a practice. I, we forget how to play. We get really busy with life and somehow we feel like we have to be these adults when we become adults and we don't know what that is. So all of a sudden our lives are taken over by adulting, right? And we lose play. And so in my life, I actually, a couple of years ago,

I signed up to scare the shit out of myself. I signed up to do an improv class and it was so scary and I learned so much about myself in just a few short weeks and I love it. I love it because it challenges me in ways that nothing else does and it challenges this idea of like perfectionism and like what's the next perfect thing to say and it's like

Taina Brown she/hers (25:25)

Wow.

Hahaha

Louise Neil (25:49): Guess what? There is no perfect thing to say. And as soon as you think there is, you're out of it. Like you missed it and you get to use your body and you get to like trust your instinct and just see what falls out of your mouth. And you don't have to be smart or witty or clever. You just have to show up and it just works. And it is amazing to be in that space. But I've taken, I've gone on play workshops with other women to say like, what is playing?

Taina Brown she/hers (25:52)

Hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Louise Neil (26:19): Right? What is, what does that look like? What does it feel like in our bodies when we play? Because I can actually do some chores now and it feels like playing because I've got the music cranked and I'm singing my heart out. Right? Like there's, there's this stigma around like play is play is looks like a playground. It doesn't have to play is what, how it makes you feel when you're doing something.

Taina Brown she/hers (26:29)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Kim Romain (26:43): Yeah.

Taina Brown she/hers (26:43)

I love that.

Kim Romain (26:45): Yeah. Well, and you also did the Lego coaching thing.

Louise Neil (26:50): I did some Lego coaching too. Yeah, learning. So I'm not a certified. So there's there's Lego play instructors out there in the world that bring Lego into organizations to help leaders kind of release from that idea of like there's this perfect thing or how do we put something together? But I've brought Lego into my coaching for people who are really stuck and they can't see a solution and they can't

Taina Brown she/hers (26:51)

Ooh, what is that?

Kim Romain (26:52): Yeah, like talk about play.

Taina Brown she/hers (27:01)

wow, I didn't know that.

Mm-hmm.

Louise Neil (27:19): move forward. It's like take take a two minute break, grab some Lego off of your desk and make something with it. And we know as soon as we stop thinking about something, all of the answers fall into our heads, right? But that's the idea of play. Like play is hugely beneficial when we look at it in in that sense too. If you want to look at it from a productivity standpoint, like play brings something, but it brings us back to ourselves too.

Taina Brown she/hers (27:27)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kim Romain (27:50): I mean,

have you ever watched a group of kids play Lego? None of them do it the same. You have the one kid who has the nose in his book and is like figuring out every little, where everything goes and don't make a tip over because if it tips over, then we're in tears because now we've started the beginning. Then you have the other kid who is like building the same thing they always build. Here's the 17 blocks, the same thing. I'm going to build the same thing. Then you have the other kid who's sticking Legos.

Taina Brown she/hers (27:54)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kim Romain (28:19): places that Legos don't, sometimes on the right, but like where Legos don't go. It's like, I'm going to see, does the Lego stick to the wall? I don't know. What happens if I stick these two Legos together and what happens if I do, right? Because kids don't even play with the same toy, the same

Taina Brown she/hers (28:28)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's very true. That's so true. Yeah, I love this idea of play being part of embodiment. I think I had like separated those two things somehow in my mind, you know, probably a long, long time ago, you know, and just have never really interrogated that. So yeah, I love that. Thank you both for that. It was really good.

Kim Romain (28:58): Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. You play is one of those things that I, I got really tired of people telling me, you need to play more. You need to play more. That's, that will solve all your problems. You need to play. I'm like, I'm silly all the time. Like how much more can I play? And then I realized that, I'm silly when I get up from my desk or I'm silly when I'm like, I can be silly with people, but when I'm working, I'm working.

Taina Brown she/hers (29:21)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Kim Romain (29:29): And yeah, there's a part of me that has some enjoyment out of that. But when I'm stuck on something, pushing through is the worst thing for me to do. The best thing for me to do is to move my body, is to go find some Legos, because I love Legos, to go draw something, to put on music, whatever it is, to completely remove me from the situation. And that in and of itself is play.

Taina Brown she/hers (29:39)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. We were watching a documentary on PBS a few weeks ago about funk music in the 70s. they had a scientist on, like, I don't know if he was a neuroscientist or what's it called when you study ears? I don't know how the ear works.

Kim Romain (30:04): Mm-hmm.

Like,

yeah, yeah, I'm not going to say it right, so I'm not going to say it.

Taina Brown she/hers (30:19)

Somebody like that.

I don't know. was some kind of like medical scientist, expert, whatever. He was saying like with funk music, like the reason why it took off the way that it did and it still continues to just like be this like just source of incredible joy, especially for black people, right? Because he was talking about this in the context of like the black liberation movement and the civil rights movement and things like that. He was saying that like there's

There's a sort of like musical intonation with funk music. I think he was talking about like the drums, like the base of it and like the drums and the actual like bass guitars. He said when those sounds like rever... When you hear those sounds, yes that, thank you. When you hear those sounds in your ear, they trigger this part of your brain that like...

Kim Romain (31:08): Reverberate.

Taina Brown she/hers (31:19)

makes you want to dance that's connected to movement. then when that happens and you actually move, it releases this rush of dopamine and endorphins. so funk music is so closely attributed to the Black liberation movement because it was a source of so much Black joy at that time when things were just heating up and some things were really bad.

So the other day I was in my office and I was feeling stuck. I was feeling stuck and I was like, you know what? Like, I'm gonna just put on some music, some music that feels funky to me, you know, and just dance around the office. And I did that and, my God, I felt so much better afterwards. So much better afterwards. I did, I did, yeah. So I was like, okay, this is a good, I think my brain is like, I need to see it.

Kim Romain (32:05): You played!

Taina Brown she/hers (32:17)

some evidence that this works before I can engage in it. But it's almost like what came first, the chicken or the egg? With me, know, sometimes I'm just like, what? I need to be able to do it to get the evidence, but then I want the evidence before I do it. Anyway, that's just a little sidebar about how my brain works.

Kim Romain (32:28): Thank

Yeah. Well, but that

Louise Neil (32:37): you

Kim Romain (32:39): sounds, it sounds like there was some environmental component to that as well as how you're designed, right? We're all designed in different ways. And so how you're designed may very well be that trial and error. Maybe the, need to test it, but I need the information, right? So I don't know in human design, you might be one three would be my guess. if you want, if like, cause the investigation component and the three is the trial and error.

Taina Brown she/hers (32:48)

Yeah.

Hmm.

Kim Romain (33:06): And that does, people get hooked up on it all the time because it's like, no, but I need, I need the evidence I need to know. So I'm going to need to research this, but the research doesn't create the trial and error. It's actually being an action that does that.

Taina Brown she/hers (33:09)

Hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what my human design is, I can totally, yeah. Yeah, you just read me, so thanks.

Kim Romain (33:31): There you go!

I mean, the idea, whether or not that's actually in your design or not, like to know that truth about you is to then say, how do I honor both parts of this? Right? How do I honor my like earthiness? How do I honor my desire to get shit done and honor that I also want to move my body?

Taina Brown she/hers (33:40)

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kim Romain (34:00): It's honoring the totality of yourself. like going back to that idea of gatekeeping, not letting one part of ourselves gatekeep the other.

Taina Brown she/hers (34:02)

Yeah.

yes, yes, yeah. That's so good, because I think, especially at work, we compartmentalize ourselves so much. And we feel like, who I am at work has to be different from who I am in my relationships versus who I am at home versus who I am with my family, right? And one thing that I'm just constantly telling my clients is, you are one person.

You are not fractured across. This isn't Harry Potter. You're not Horcruxes across the world, right? You are one person, and you have one brain, one nervous system. And so what you experience at home or at work or in different contexts of your life, that shows up with you wherever you go. You may try to push it down, and you may be successful in pushing it down to a certain degree, but it's going to

Louise Neil (34:40): you

Taina Brown she/hers (35:00)

eventually because you take that shit with you wherever you go, you know? And so understanding that like...

And it's training how to find that sense of groundedness and regulation across those experiences, I think, is so important, especially when we're going into a working environment. Because there's so much ambiguity in working environments. And what I know about the brain on ambiguity is that it's not good. It creates stress, and it leads to bad decision making.

find a way to manage your nervous system in that way to help mitigate that ambiguity, then you will be able to do better work. And you'll be able to feel more like yourself as opposed to feeling like stifled or like you can't really be who you are at work and just kind of have to like hide different parts of yourself.

Kim Romain (36:01): I just want to say that that is a thinking person's bumper sticker, mitigate the ambiguity.

Taina Brown she/hers (36:05)

It's been my catchphrase for the past couple of years. Minigate the ambiguity as much as you can. As much as you can. So much of the world is ambiguous right now.

Kim Romain (36:19): Yes. my gosh.

Louise Neil (36:20): So I'm curious, how does somatics fit into this? Like how does that work? Here you are very heady, you're very logical, very thinking, and yet you're trained in somatics.

Taina Brown she/hers (36:32)

Yeah, so I decided to pursue a training in somatics for two reasons. One was I felt like it would be able to enhance the work that I do with my clients. so there's, and I'll get into the reason for that in a second. And then the second reason why I wanted to do a training in somatics was for myself. So like last year, a little over a year ago, I ended up

getting hospitalized for over a month. And it was a really just traumatic experience. I'm still in recovery from that entire, from the entirety of that. And it was such a, it was such an out of body experience, like being in the hospital for so long and like having all this stuff happening in your body at like one time and not having the

emotional or mental bandwidth to process everything. And so when I was released, I just felt really detached. I was like, I don't know how to be in my body anymore. even before I was hospitalized, I have fibromyalgia. And so this whole concept of body positivity and trusting your body has always been weird to me because I feel like I can't trust my body because I don't know what it's going to wake up like tomorrow.

So and then with the whole hospital experience, it just kind of exacerbated that to like a million degrees. And I was just looking for a way to get back into my body. And I know I'm an extremely logical person and I love learning. And so I was like, I felt like I didn't have the emotional bandwidth to do the work in like therapy or to do that kind of work like on my own, like journaling or something like that. And I was like, I need like a

backdoor way to do this. And when I came across Dysmatic CBT training, was like, this might be a backdoor way for me to kind of tap into that. And then there's something that I like. I like to talk with my clients about too. It's like, if you can't directly do something, try to find a backdoor way, right? That's going to be a little bit of an easier lift. That's not going to require as much emotional bandwidth on your end.

but that's gonna help you build some of that momentum and get to the same result. Maybe a little bit longer, but you'll get there. And so I did the training last year and it was really, really, really good. And it really helped me to just kind of...

I was so afraid to not be numb because it was such a harrowing experience being in the hospital for so long. And it really helped to heal a part of me. so the way that I incorporate that in my work now is like, so I'm on the tail end of what I'm calling a,

professional development tour that I'm doing for an organization. And so it was through a one-on-one client that I was working with. She wanted me to come in and do some professional development for her staff. And we came up with this idea of making a series of workshops that expound on each other. So we started with emotional intelligence, and we've gone through different topics.

And through each session, I try to incorporate some kind of somatic experience for the participants, whether it's taking a minute for some deep breaths at the beginning or at the end to center people, whether it's using the emotions wheel to help people talk about how they're feeling about a particular subject or something like that, or whether it's just knowledge sharing, helping them understand.

when you're stressed out, this is what's happening in your brain. This is what's happening in your body. And so it's been really helpful. Like I've gotten a lot of really good feedback from the participants about just like, man, I never thought about it that way before. Like, this is something that I'm really going to just like, it's like, it's just, it's going to stick with me I'm going to try to like incorporate. And so, so I'm really excited to, to finish that up and just get some like,

more general feedback about the experience. yeah, I'm a highly in my head person. going back to the first reason why I did that is because so like, I'm sure you've heard that phrase, I think therefore I am. Yeah, so that not to get too heady here or too academic, but that comes from

Descartes, René Descartes, he was a philosopher, French philosopher, I think in like the 1600s or 1700s. And he was a mathematician. And that whole premise of I think therefore I am comes from Cartesian philosophy, which is named after him. And basically the premise is that we are rational beings, right? That what we experience in our bodies, we can't really know it's true unless we logically think it out, right?

oversimplifying it by a long shot. So if you're listening or watching and you're into philosophy, please don't shoot the messenger here. I'm definitely oversimplifying it. This was from one class I took in 2013. Thanks. But that principle has evolved into things like the scientific method.

Louise Neil (41:49): Thank

Kim Romain (41:53): You're doing a beautiful job. I spent a semester studying it. You're doing a beautiful job.

Taina Brown she/hers (42:09)

And so it's a philosophy, it's a way of looking at the world, at life that has embedded its way into every part of our culture. And that is such a big reason why so many people walk around detached from their bodies, because we're like, no, I'm a rational being. We are rational beings. think, therefore we are. It's not, I think and I experience, or I think and I feel, therefore I am.

It's this priority on rational thinking. And the point is not to degrade rational thinking, not to deprioritize it. But that's not the whole of who we are. We're still somatic creatures. We have senses for a fucking reason. So how do we marry these two parts of ourselves, this rational, logical brain, plus this feeling, sensory perception?

part of ourselves, right? How do we bring those two things together in order to create a wholeness about us, right, that we can take with us wherever we go? when I said people compartmentalize themselves, usually they try to take that rational part into work and then that feeling part outside of work, right? And so it's the whole concept behind the show Severance. It's like you have an Innie and an Outie and, you know.

Kim Romain (43:26): Yeah.

Taina Brown she/hers (43:31)

and they serve different purposes. And that's true, right? There are those parts of yourself, but they're not split. Like, it's still you. And so without that sense of wholeness, like, you're never going to be the best you that you can be. You're never going to do the best work that you can do because you're fragmenting yourself.

Kim Romain (43:49): Yep, right there. That's it. That's the thing. I talk about it all the time. I talk about this fragmentation, this bifurcation of self and how, yes, we do it between our work and the rest of our lives. We also do it in our roles within our work. We do it with our superiors and those that report to us. We do it with our colleagues. We do it even in our own homes. I'm a different,

Taina Brown she/hers (43:52)

Hahaha

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kim Romain (44:17): Who am I as a mom versus who am I as a partner? We do it in different relationships, but we leave bits of ourselves instead of bringing the beautiful totality of ourselves together. so practicing, and I think you're absolutely right. It has to be bringing the whole thing, the head, heart, and soul all together. Because if we don't bring it all together, we are living fragmented bifurcated lives. And then

Taina Brown she/hers (44:43)

Yeah, yeah, we'll never

go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. We can't. You can't.

Kim Romain (44:47): Well then how do we evolve?

Taina Brown she/hers (44:51)

A split thing cannot evolve. Like has to be a whole thing, yeah.

Kim Romain (44:53): No.

Yeah. And then, right, then the robots win. So I don't want that.

Taina Brown she/hers (44:58)

Yeah.

Louise Neil (44:59): you

Taina Brown she/hers (45:00)

Rise of the robots. Rise of the machines.

Kim Romain (45:02): Hahaha!

I think we could go down about 14 million other rabbit holes. This has been such a rich conversation and I feel like we've just started. What are some of the things that we're taking from today's conversation that we really want to make sure that our listeners have heard and are taking with them?

Taina Brown she/hers (45:27)

Yeah, yeah. I would say practice embodiment through play, right? As we talked about through dancing, through meditation, exercises in order to just settle into the wholeness of who you are so that you can show up as the best version of yourself. I think it's

It's hard to stay values aligned if you can't show up as your whole self, right? It's hard to make good decisions if you can't show up as your whole self. It's hard to do good work if you can't show up as your whole self. It's hard to be in an honest, really generative, loving relationship with someone if you're fragmented and bifurcated, as you said. I love that word. So I think just making sure that you are...

connecting your mind with your embodiment. I think it's a big thing. It's the big takeaway for me here. Like that's not the answer to everything, but that's where we start.

Louise Neil (46:33): Yeah, and I'm going to build off that because I think that when we do that, we have no more need to gatekeep anything.

Right? And so, yeah, yes, like, let's, let's, let's just do that.

Kim Romain (46:50): Yeah, let's just do that. That is beautiful. And yeah, I feel like although I'm going to invoke the one who shall not be named, who is doing all sorts of gatekeeping in the world right now, don't be a horcrux. Like you are not, right? Like don't, don't. Don't be out there being 15 million versions of self. Be self.

Taina Brown she/hers (46:50)

Yeah.

Louise Neil (46:51): Let's do that!

Taina Brown she/hers (47:04)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think when you do that too, like when you're fragmented, you're taking up more space than you need to. And that doesn't give space for other people to be who they are. And so if you can just come home to yourself, then there's space for other people to also come home to themselves.

Kim Romain (47:36): You're also using up a lot more energy than you need to.

Taina Brown she/hers (47:38)

my God, yes. Listen, as an earth sign, I'm like, that's inefficient. This a waste of energy and time. How can we get this going and get it wrapped up? Do not waste energy or time on things that aren't going to get you anywhere. What's the fucking point?

Kim Romain (47:57): Right? There you go. There you go. And that's the fucking point of this conversation.

Taina Brown she/hers (48:02)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you both so much for having me. I was a little bit nervous, but I loved this conversation. It was so good.

Kim Romain (48:13): I'm glad. I'm glad that you came and were part of it, even though you felt nervous. hope, I hope it wasn't anything we said or did that made you feel nervous. Okay. Okay. That's okay. Just get into the body and soothe.

Taina Brown she/hers (48:20)

No, no, it's just me. It's just me.

Yes, yes,

exactly.

Louise Neil (48:30): Well, and we don't provide much direction because it's like, come have a conversation. There's no questions. There's no structure. Just pull up a chair. And it's like, what? Yeah.

Taina Brown she/hers (48:40)

Yeah. What are we doing? Yeah, where are the rules?

The rules are out the window.

Kim Romain (48:46): The rules are out the window, and Louise and I have been unpacking this a lot lately. The rules are out the window because we want to make sure people are having conversations like this. So we're setting the example.

Louise Neil (48:47): Absolutely.

Taina Brown she/hers (48:56)

Hmm.

Yeah, thank you for having this space and for doing that. Like that's not always easy to do to be the one to be like, we're going to do it differently. So I appreciate you both.

Kim Romain (49:08): Yeah, our pleasure. Our pleasure. And listeners, thank you for listening in and being a part of the conversation. And we hope that you continue to have conversations like this in your spaces as well.

Louise Neil (49:18): Absolutely. Ty, can folks find you?

Taina Brown she/hers (49:21)

Yeah, so I am online in various places. So my website is ifthanand.org, because the name of the business that my wife and I run is Theory of Change. so you can go there to find more about the work that we do. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn, TikTok, or Instagram. And on all three of those platforms, it's my first name, middle, initial, last name. So Taina, T-A-I-N-A.

like that Nickelodeon show that was only around for one season. And then my middle name is Marie. So it's Taina Brown, like the color, either LinkedIn, TikTok, or Instagram. I will tell you right now, most of my social media is centered around fan fiction, because I'm in my fan fiction rabbit hole right now. But I get on there sometimes and talk about other things too.

Kim Romain (50:16): Cool. I'm gonna have to check that out. Good stuff. Beautiful, beautiful. Well, thank you again for being here. We're so glad and we'll include all the places to connect with you in the show notes.

Taina Brown she/hers (50:27)

Thank you.

Louise Neil (50:29): Thanks everyone, take care.

Louise Neil (50:31): And that's all for this week's episode of the Empowered and Embodied Show. We hope today's episode has sparked something within you. Remember, we're all on this journey together. If something did resonate with you today, why not share it with a friend who might need to hear it too? You can find us everywhere you listen to podcasts. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you're feeling generous, leave a review. Your feedback not only helps others find the show, but also helps us understand what's most valuable to you.

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