This is the second half of the best ever conversation I
had with James-Olivia Chu Hillman, whom I had the absolute honor to meet through the wild ass internet.
They share with me how they became a personal trainer
having never worked out before, how they feel about beauty and aging, and aging beauty; how they want to transform their body of tattoo work, we talk about mentorship, we tell each other raw
powerful vulnerable stories, and then we let you in on it all.
Whether James-Olivia is one of your mentors, teachers,
space holders or not, this sharing is not to be missed.
To find James-Olivia Chu Hillman online, go
to
https://inquisitivehuman.com/
or to instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/inquisitive_human/
Episode Transcript
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
I think what I have is that everybody in the room really fucking matters to me.
Micah Riot:
Hello, hello, my darlings. This is Micah Riot, and you are about to hear part two of my delightful conversation with James Olivia Chuhelman. We talked for three hours, but only two hours of that conversation is going to be released, so enjoy the second half and see you on the other side. So you said something along the lines of, like I hate the gym, but I'm a smoke trainer, and now I want to know more about that.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
Okay. So when I decided to stop doing sex work, I was like, and I'd been working in an office, I'd been working as a multiple different jobs, but I ended up the first time I left Nordstrom. I was a buyer and I'd been doing this very cerebral job sitting at a desk for like 10 hours a day. And then I started doing sex work, which was very, very embodied work and I don't know if it has, I mean, it's not, I don't think it's necessarily embodied work, but for me it was very embodied, like I enjoyed having a body and using my body in that way, and like relating to other bodies. But I decided to stop doing that and I was like, well, what can I do? Or I don't have to sit in an office again and I can still tell people what to do. I was like, ooh, I could be a personal trainer, except I've never worked out a day in my life. What the fuck am I going to do? And so I went to personal training school and I went to this certification program that was many more hours than most programs that I was able to find at the time and it was in person and it was in a gym and it was like an actual school, like a little personal training school, and I was like, okay, I'm going to learn how to work out, I'm going to learn how to move my body on purpose in different ways and strengthen it and like stretch it and do things with it. And I ended up working at Gold's Gym for, I think, maybe 15 minutes. I was a trainer. I was like this is hell. The gym is hell. This is my own personal hell. And I found another trainer whose entire business was going to people's houses and working them out at home and I was like I will apprentice with you. You are my new teacher. Point me to the house that I need to go to next to work out your next client. I will work for you. And so I ended up building a little business of my own doing that exact thing. I was like there are people like me who hate the gym as much as I do and also need to move their bodies and are willing to have somebody come and hang out with them at home and move together. And so that's what I did. I would just walk all over Seattle, be like 11am, it's time to do some shit in your basement, like let's do some stuff and it was really, really fun for me to have. Most of my clients were over 50, over 60. And it was mostly people who had had surgeries, people with Parkinson's, people who just happened to be like 85 years old, people recovering from injury, and I got to work with bodies, but in a functional way. The thing that I hated most about the fitness industry was its focus on appearance, other appearance or performance, and I was like I'm not interested in either of these things. I'm really interested in quality of life. I just wanted people to have a really great quality of life. So I was like all right, you fly a lot and you can't get your suitcase up over your head. Why don't we work on things where you lift things over your head and twist at the same time? Like these are all very functional things that we can do together to make your life more fun. Like you want to lift your grandkids, let's lift things that are kind of the size and weight of your grandkids. Let's play with real life stuff.
Micah Riot:
I am interested in the part where you said I wanted to not be in an office, but keep telling people what to do.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
As it turns out, I didn't really tell people what to do. That was not part of either job, either in my sex work or in my personal training work but there was a certain level of. Okay, you're trusting me to have some authority here and be responsible for your not for your experience, but be responsible for the container that I create for you to have the experience that you want to have.
Micah Riot:
I once upon a time had hired a personal trainer. She was like a bodybuilding person that was about more like macros and things, you know, trying to build muscle. And so we worked together for a couple of months and at some point maybe it was about a month or something it was going well. And then at some point, you know, and she was literally telling me what, like how many grams of protein to eat and when to eat it and when to work out, and how much more I had to do. Like she was, she goes give me these programs. Right At one time, you know, I don't know, four or six weeks later she goes let's try not having any drinks. And I was like I was like huh, but like I only have like one or two a week. And she was like, yeah, but like this is, you know, this is limiting you, so like, let's try that. And I was like, fine, I mean, I'm paying you to basically top me and see this whole thing, so I might as well just listen to you. And she got so offended she was like how dare you talk to me this way, right? Like she was just like this is so inappropriate. And I like don't text me again, basically, and I wrote her like a long apology email being like I'm so sorry I crossed your boundaries, like there was a joke I you know it just was. Like I'm sorry, like I want that one happened again. Like I wrote her like a very sincere, long apology. She just never spoke to me again.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
Oh, I'm so sorry that happened. I mean, I can see, I can see somebody. Yeah, people take offense to whatever they take offense to, but I think that's fucking hilarious.
Micah Riot:
I thought it was hilarious because you are literally telling me exactly how to live my life, exactly what to eat, drink, exercise, like down to you know everything, to the last glass of water, to like a snack, like you're telling me you know, and then that I'm paying you to do that. It's an exchange of services for results. Like I thought it was funny because I was like, yeah, when you're topping me, like you're.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
I mean, that is basically the topiest thing you can do is dictate somebody's food intake, yeah Right.
Micah Riot:
And I and she felt sexualized by that comment, which you know, I was kind of like, oh, she's queer, she probably has some. This was the the the part, you know, where I was like if someone has kink background, they'd probably think it's funny. If they have some understanding of power, they would think it's funny. But if someone just like feels like that's a very sexualizing thing to say or an experience to have, then they would get so turned off. And I didn't realize that she had such hard boundaries about that kind of joking and I, you know, I lost, she lost, we both lost and she wasn't able to get past that. I said, even though I apologize very profusely and it's fine, like, I feel fine about it, but I felt so bad for so long, you know about it and just being like right, I say shit sometimes, and like there are people that I can't just say shit to, yeah, yeah.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
Yeah, I say a lot of shit too, like our last regard a couple like a I guess it was a week and a half ago where, without context, I'm like I'm gonna take a walk for Thanksgiving and celebrate a massacre and I'm like, okay, that was contextless and there's more to it than that. And I was like, and then I'm like, okay, bye, everybody, have a great holiday. I'm like, fuck, I wonder how many emails I'm gonna get going. What the hell are you talking about that you're gonna go? You didn't get an email, says you. I got zero emails, I got zero just People.
Micah Riot:
People, like they already have an opinion and in a way that they regard you without like actually Listening to every single thing you'll say like they don't. They're not gonna take it as if somebody else had said that, right on the internet.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
So, yeah, I'm I was not actually like out to celebrate a massacre, but there is a. There is a site close to my where I live in Chicago that it was a site of Pottawatomie resistance. It was a settler fort that is now no longer a fort. It's Whatever storefront it is, but it was a site of a of a battle where Indigenous resistance prevailed, and I was, and I'm really excited about it and I love going there. Everything's giving so Sounds wonderful.
Micah Riot:
Yeah, so Tell me about your tattoos. It's a tattoo podcast actually.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
Oh, are we on a tattoo podcast? Yeah, that's hilarious, that's so funny. Okay, my tattoos, my very first tattoo I did to myself. How old was I? Was I like 14? And I was just desperately wanting ink of my body. I was like you can just do this to yourself, like you can just make marks on your skin. And so it was. I was like I'll just make this tiny little flower on the bottom of my ankle. No one will ever see it and, and I'm guessing, nobody really ever sees it I actually I had it when I moved to New York. I moved to New York when I was 20 and I had it covered up with another tiny little flower by a very kind person I don't remember his name. He was like, yeah, I could totally cover that up for you and put another little like. Now it's just a little plum blossom and it's real cute, whatever like, and nobody ever sees it. Let's see, I have some Chinese script on one of my legs and, oh, it's so funny. Like this is. We are now entering the realm of. How private do I want to be? There's something Oddly for me tattoos are so public, like people can see them, and also they have such deep personal meaning, that it's kind of like talking about a song you wrote, or talking about like a creation, that everything that goes into it the reductionist nature of here, let me just tell you about this thing feels so inadequate.
Micah Riot:
I guess you don't have to tell me. I guess the question is less like what do you have and why do you have it, and more like how has Getting tattoos, having them, how has that been impactful in your relationship with your body? I?
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
Think, like Many, like many experiences that I've had, I don't have a. It has all been this, given that my first one was Given to myself. It feels like a sort of foundational. I get to choose things. Like I get to do things To my own body, with my own body, and it's mine like I think that set a a Foundation of having this relationship of my body is totally mine and I get to do what I want to do. And that changed a bit when I was in a relationship with someone and I have one of my tattoos was a bit coercive and so I don't have a great experience with that tattoo or that person. Like it was not overall a great experience and there was a lot of beauty and you know, I think that's a great thing to do and I think that's a great thing to do and I think that's a great thing to do For all a great experience and there was a lot of beauty and, you know, learning and I wouldn't give it back, nor would I give the tattoo back, but there's, there's just so much in it, like For me that you know, being the age that I am and having my tattoos spread out over over decades and it's been a long time since I've had one. It's probably it's been like 20, it's I think it's been 20 years since my last tattoo. I'm due. I'm due for more story. I'm thinking. Am I thinking? No, I might just be feeling. I'm not even thinking right now, I'm just feeling shit. I'm a little emotional about it. Oh, I'm gonna cry. Yeah, I'm just kind of feeling.
Micah Riot:
What are you feeling?
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
That there's so much story like tattoos for me carry so much memory and to sit here and think about them is to have a really deep relationship with the past in places that I don't normally sit and think about. So, yeah, I think when I say I'm due for more, it's that I want. I wanna update the stories, like the stories that my skin currently carries don't feel representative of who I am right now. How do you like? What's that?
Micah Riot:
How do you wanna update the stories?
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
Some of it's purely not all of it but some of it's purely aesthetic. It's like what I know of beauty now, the inclusive nature of my understanding of beauty now, I think, is like, oh, I want something more cohesive. Like, right now I have this piece from this year, this piece from this time in my life and they're spread out. But when I think about tattoos now, I think, oh, this is, there's a whole life story on somebody's body and it didn't all happen. For the most part, for most people, I know it doesn't all happen all at once, but how do you take all of these disparate events and stories and weave together life Like a?
Micah Riot:
cohesive person.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
Yeah, yeah, is that what you do, mm-hmm, yeah.
Micah Riot:
I know you follow me, but do you have you had a look?
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
at what I do. I have not, I mean, I have glanced, but I don't know the story of what you do. I have seen pictures, but I don't know how you work. Are you willing to talk about it right now?
Micah Riot:
Sure, I'm distracted by what the beauty of your crying how I? Yeah, I don't feel like what I do is tattoos in the traditional sense of just putting tattoos in people's bodies. I could never be like the old school tattoo parlor where somebody walks in and they go. I want that spider with the web on your wall. That's not something I could ever do. I mean, each piece I do is completely unique and different to the person wearing it and oftentimes there are things you know, like a bear face or some leaves or fish or writing or whatever. But often they're not things, they're abstracts. They're abstract pieces meant to hug the body, show lines on the body, like accentuate a shape, beautify a shape, decorate a shape, decorate a skin, a body part. A lot of them are made up. Sometimes they're made up. I call them creature flowers, so it might be like a floral thing, but it actually looks like a creature. It's not a flower that exists, but it's just kind of like a made up thing that just sprawls enough to like hug and accentuate a hip or something. And my favorite is when people come to me and they just go do whatever you want. I used to be so scared of it, you know like early on people would ask me for that and that would be like but no, what if you don't like it? Like you have to tell me more. You know what? Like, okay, I'll do stuff I want, but like, tell me the parameters, right and now, because I have a menu of sorts, right, and people who come to me usually see what I do and they can trust what I do. Like I trust their trust in me and then I'm able to do more of what I just would want, what I naturally would see in them, without feeling like they won't like it.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
Yeah, I suspect that people who see your work like your body of work whatever you do is going to be yours and they already know it's like oh, if this is, if this is a Micah piece, I'm already going to like it because I love this work.
Micah Riot:
Yeah, often those people say that immediately and it's very comforting to me, you know. Yeah, oh, keep going. How long have I been tattooing? 15 years, okay. Yeah, how did you start? I was a apprentice at a shop in San Francisco. It's kind of like the. The shop in San Francisco is queer. It was an old, queer old women, old non binary folks shop. I wanted to tattoo since I was a teenager, since I was about 13. I came to the States when I was 12. And I was in LA kind of Hollywood area, melrose area, and I would see tattoo people in punks and see tattoo shops and just be like, oh my god, like I love the idea of drawing on the body for a living, you know. And then all through college, I was like, oh, I could try this. Maybe I'll just do this for a while. I'll go to grad school, I'll do something else later, but I can do this for a little while. And then when I started doing it, I was like, first of all, I want to go all the way to the end with it. There's no. I mean now, 15 years into it, I still feel like a beginner, you know. So there's no end point and there's nothing else I want to do. I mean, that's not entirely true. There are things I would do parallel, like if I had more lives, what else would I have a list of things I would do. What would you do? I'd have a flower shop? I'd have a matchmaking agency.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
Amazing. I love this.
Micah Riot:
I love matchmaking. I can include this stuff into you know, my business. In some ways I would have a I mean, this is not a job, but I definitely have had the idea of like, if I had the time, the energy, the money, I would have a bigger house where I could have teenagers come and live with me, like adopt teenage queer teenagers, you know, who like can't stay with their parents, stuff like that, you know. But that's not a job. It would just be like I don't have the time, energy or money to do that, but I would love to have the resources, yeah, but yeah, no, tattooing is the best thing ever and that's also hard. And also I feel like I'm like cheating life, like in some way like cheating capitalism right, because I get to do something I love so much and get to do it the way I want to do it, because I work for myself and I've worked for nine years. I was six years, I worked for other people and then I worked for myself for nine years and I just I have an apprentice I mentioned I mentioned her in regard class and she's just the fucking gift from the gods. You know, she's so amazing and I'm so happy. I waited this long for somebody right. She's just right. She's right in all the ways, like she's a flawed human. She's so right for me and for From yeah for me, and I'm right for her. I think so. It seems like the truth for her to.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
So this is your first apprentice. And how did you know? Like it's time, it's now time for me to take on an apprentice. Was it her specifically? You're like, oh, I'm just going to wait until the right person arrives. And then she arrived.
Micah Riot:
Yes, and I was like, because people have asked, you know, over the course of these years, people email me and say I'm looking for an apprenticeship, can I show you my portfolio or whatever, and it just never felt right until her. So, yeah, I knew that I would wait for the right person. I wasn't going to putting out, putting out ads on the paper, you know, like that Definitely, I was like she'll come, that person will come to me. I didn't know it would be a she, I figured it would be somebody who would kind of remind me of me, which she does in some ways, like at that age. You know, um, primarily it's the relational piece. She relates to people the way that I relate to people. I don't care what her art looks like, um, and I'm happy to like usher her art into a format that will be appropriate for tattoos, okay, but she, her work looks completely different from mine and it doesn't. It doesn't matter to me, um, the artist kind of besides the point. It's like the third important thing in the tattoo artist client relationship. But this is interesting. I'll answer your question too about the mentorship piece, but I had the same question for you, so you'll be next. But I, um, I went on an on an ayahuasca retreat. In the fall it's been exactly two years, in November of 21. And one of the things she told me, and by she and the goddess, was that I was ready to uh, uh, enter my queer uncle era essentially. So I have, um, I have a few like young women in their twenties around me, like one as a client who I've tattooed for a couple of years and you know there was. She went through that breakup and she kind of you know she would talk to me through it all. Um, so I was mentoring her through her breakup and we developed a really sweet connection. And when I told me that she said this person, la her name is LA um, she said, tell LA that you are her like uncle now, like her like mentor or her chosen fairy goddess. Uh, uncle, like what is it? Very Godfather, but like uncle, you know. And uh, so when I came home from that retreat, I took her out to dinner and I said hey, I got this message from the goddess. Like, I want to just officially present myself to you as an adult that cares for you, that you know, wants the best for you and is here for you for whatever you need. And she said this is great, I love this. Like she loved it, you know, so perfect Cause she's such a, she was such a perfect first person to like create that relationship with. And I wasn't ready for that until IOS could told me I was ready. Like I could not play it that big. You know, I I was like, but I am still like young and I don't know anything and like I can't mentor people, Like I can't be someone's like you know, adult to rely on, like I'm not an adult myself. Like that's how I felt. And then, when she told me that I was ready, I was like, okay, so yeah, ale and Sailors, I'm a bigger, a close right, like there's more involvement that we have with each other, more engagement, and she, so early on in our knowing each other, she would open up to me in ways that felt very healthy but also very trusting. And I just like felt this overwhelming sense of like, care and love for her that I was like I like she needs, like she needs care, like she didn't get enough care from her family of origin and and I just like it wasn't even mental, it was like all heart, you know. It was just like I love her, I care for her, like it was so clear. So, you know, there's like nothing she could ask me to do that I wouldn't do, and it's like I'm ready to parent in a way that I was never before. You know, like I don't clearly have the full responsibility of a parent in any of these relationships. It's just that the amount of parenting I'm able, I'm available for, I feel ready for, and I have, you know, I have a stepchild who's 13, who I raised, help raise from four to nine. Oh wow, my ex somebody I was married to, so he was the child was with us half time. I did, though, like you know, get up early, take them to school, pick them up from school, go to the school events, clean up, puke in the car on a road trip Like I did that shit too. I parented, and it was when I was a short time I get to see him still, but now it's a couple hours every couple months, yeah, but it's cool. I definitely struggled, like it was hard for me to step into that role then with him, and he was an actual child, like so much, and I was like I'm not sure what I was going to do, and he was an actual child, like Sailors 23,. She's an adult, yeah.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
Yeah, there's a different level of actual dependence and also developmentally, like there's a lot of re-parenting that can happen to develop an adult human, but the actual parenting of a child human, it's a fuck ton of responsibility.
Micah Riot:
And the experience of dealing with somebody whose brain is not fully developed, right, Like there was a time period when he would just grab me, like he would grab my body parts and I like my reaction was to hit him Like I didn't hit him. But I would have this real reaction when somebody is just grabbing me out of nowhere and he was like five, six years old and that was really hard for me. Yeah, I just was like wow, I'm raising a little boy and he is grabbing my body and it's not okay. But also I can't react the way I've reacted with an adult, Right, yeah.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
I am. When I lived in Seattle, I had an experience with a human on the street. I was carrying a bag of oranges or something like a little plastic grocery bag that had fruit of course, like I had some fruit and some snacks in it. And I was walking by a bus stop and I was crowded and I was trying to get like through the crowd into a building and a young-ish, masculine, presenting but very like, kind of not intimidating in size, like this sort of timid person, just as I was walking through this crowd, reached into my grocery bag, like stuck his hand into my grocery bag and my first. My reaction was horrible and also not inappropriate. Like here's a masculine presenting person just like grabbing and reaching into my actual grocery bag and I was like, first of all, how dare you? I was like how you know better? Like you are not allowed to. I talked to him like he was a kindergartner. I was like like absolutely not, you know better, you cannot go around just putting your hands in people's bags. And I'm like kind of yelling at him and he's looking me and his, his whole demeanor was one of just shock and like oh, my God, you're gonna. He looked like I was gonna kill him and I was like, oh, you're not well and you had no idea what you were doing. And I'm thinking all these thoughts in rapid succession, like I'm yelling at you. You are unwell, you have no idea why, I'm yelling at you and now I'm just a stranger on the street, like verbally assaulting you for for something that you and I'm guessing that, like children, when when you have these experiences where you know you have a response to a child doing a thing that if a stranger on the street did it, you would probably verbally assault them the way that I was kind of assaulting this, this stranger and you can't do that with a developing child. Nor would I want to do this, like if I had it to do over again with a stranger on the street I would have had a very different response to. So I don't know why I felt the urge to just over share that story. Where are you at?
Micah Riot:
Yeah, no, you're right. Like people have their own realities, right, and then we have our realities, and like they don't, they collide and and sometimes they don't, it doesn't feel good, it's not the right kind of collision. Yeah, and that definitely has happened, I mean with Gabriel, my stepchild, with my dog. Sometimes it's happened like she gets really anxious, really whiny, like in my reaction, can be so like I'm just so over everything and I'm just like please shut the fuck up, dog, and it's not fair, you know when what she needs is like cuddling and all kinds of safety and sweetness.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Micah Riot:
Um, but yeah. So my question for you and that was like, was there a time when you felt ready to be a mentor, when you went from being a mentee to being a mentor that you can name?
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
I don't know if I'm there yet.
Micah Riot:
I mean you get paid to mentor groups of people.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
I don't know that. What I'm doing is mentoring.
Micah Riot:
Holding space.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
Sometimes, sometimes I hold space.
Micah Riot:
You hold a container, like no, but like your, your containers bulletproof, like that's I mean. That is why I think you keep it keeps being able to be possible, right, like there's the wisdom and knowledge that you have with the holding of the containers. What people need when they come into that room If it's Zoom or in person, I'm assuming it's very similar they want to hold in that container.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
Yeah, okay, bulletproof. What do you mean by that? Because I don't have that experience. I'm like there are bullets all over the place right now.
Micah Riot:
What do I mean by that? Well, it feels really energetic to me. So it's not necessarily something you can fully describe with words, but being in someone's container is where I can feel your energy. When I'm in there, I feel your energy. Your energy surrounds the room, even if it's on Zoom, hold everybody within and there's no leaks, like you're very present, you're fully there, even if you're tired or you know things are going on. Like not everybody can do that, very few people can do that actually, and those are the people who end up being like community leaders, teachers, mentors, cult leaders perhaps.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
I hope not, I hope never. I think what I have is that everybody in the room really fucking matters to me, like I don't have a hierarchy, I don't have that I matter more than anybody else in the room and I also have that I matter just as much as everybody in the room. But I think so I started volunteering to like facilitate divorce support groups when I was living in Tucson and that was kind of my first Actually, no, when I was working in IT and in retail. What I A lot of what I would do is facilitate meetings. Like I was a business analyst but my work very often was facilitating the meetings that people were having with each other, because I could see that nobody was listening to one another, or if they were trying to listen, they couldn't understand each other very well, and so a lot of times I was just like okay, I'm listening and I'm translating, okay, I'm listening to you and I'm translating, and I was paying a lot of attention to the people in the room all the time. I didn't care very much about the business and I don't care very much about technology, but I cared very much about the people in the room and so that sort of translated for me to facilitating support groups. And then that kind of translated to hey, I have things to teach about relationship or I have things to teach about disobedience or whatever it is that I'm wanting to facilitate people's learning around. But I think it wasn't until it's fairly recent, like in the last two or three years I I had an experience in one of my groups where one of my then students now friend and peer, I would say she hated herself a lot and was very annoying with it. I'd say, if you're listening to this now, you know who you are, you know how much I love you We've talked about this but was seemingly intent on enrolling everyone in her hatred of herself, like convincing us of how much, how hateable she was. And she's very persuasive. It's like, wow, your issues one of the smartest people I've ever met. And I'm like, god damn, you're really doing a swell job of like trying to get people to hate you as much as you hate yourself. And I was really like bent out of shape about it. And I was on a walk with Ben I was living in New York at the time, we were living together when we were walking our dog and I was like, yeah, this person's really. I think she's really trying to get me to hate her and I've got a decision to make. And it was being in a group with her specifically, but also all the people that I'd been with up until her. But she brought it right to the forefront and I had to confront it. I was like I'm not willing to teach or facilitate or work with anybody that I haven't already decided to love. Like, if I don't love someone, if I can't decide to love them unconditionally, I have no business working with them. And so I decided to love her. I'm like I don't give a fuck what she does, I don't care what she says, I don't care how convincing she thinks she is, I'm just going to love her, despite what she wants. I'm just going to love her and I'm just going to love everybody that I work with. And if I don't have that, then I need to stop doing this work, because this work isn't about teaching anybody anything. It's about my ability to love them. And so if there was a moment, I think it was that moment.
Micah Riot:
I've heard you say this before, what you just said. I'm so glad you just said it now for the podcast. And I immediately was like this is how I feel about my clients. Yeah, and every time I love them all. But sometimes I'll meet a person I'll just be like this immediate love. It didn't even have to develop, it's just like this, really fast, like within an hour. I'll just be like oh my God, I fucking love you and I'm like I do this thing where I'm like another person. There's so many and they keep coming and I keep loving them. It's like how can I keep loving all of them? And then I feel kind of like I have to keep tabs on all of them and I have to, like you know, just spread my wings over all of them and sometimes I get like a little overwhelmed like but what if I can't keep tabs on all of them, because there's now hundreds of them or thousands? Yeah, you know, but maybe I don't have to do that, I can just love like I don't have to do anything besides just the loving. Sometimes I feel guilty that I don't have there all of their like, I don't text them all on a monthly basis or something.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
Like I have that with people who have come through and I'm like I don't know, I don't know if you know that I think about you all the time, like every person that's come through I. There's nobody that I that I don't think about and and have some. The way that I define love is in that, in the you know, sort of bell hooks definition of being committed to their thriving, and so that may or may not involve my active participation all the time. For most people it doesn't involve my active participation Once they're out of my realm of and my like kind of sphere of influence. But part of my commitment to their thriving is that I have a commitment to everyone's thriving and so like, okay, if I'm working for a world where everyone can thrive, you're included in that, and that's that's how my level manifests for the people that I no longer get to see and talk to all the time.
Micah Riot:
So Did. Did you feel well, loved growing up?
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
At times. Yeah, I think I definitely had people who loved me very well as a child. I feel like my parents loved me deeply. I wouldn't say they loved me well all the time and that's a judgment like. That's a like did they love me in a way that I could understand and in a way that felt like love? Not really.
Micah Riot:
The judgment is a discernment.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
Well, loving well, like I think that's a judgment Like, Um, it got me here, like the love that I received got me here and, as a child, like my grandparents adored me. So, like they, I was very well loved by my grandparents and I think my, you know, I had a neighbor who was also my Sunday school teacher. Like I was, I was loved by adults around me and also I was a what's that? So you're an only child, I am. I am the only only child on both sides of my family, or am I? No, I have a cousin who has one child, so that's the next generation. But in my generation, I am the only only child. So my mom was one of five and my dad was one of seven, and I have many cousins and I grew up with most of them. So, um, but yeah, I think the answer is um, I think the answer is yes, I was well loved and and inconsistently loved, and also loved poorly, like there was a whole spectrum of there was a whole spectrum of kinds of love.
Micah Riot:
Yeah, I'm so curious how you've come into all the love now, Like I guess I we need to end this soon. I don't even know how to end it, Like there's no period in a sentence, Um, it's like a run on sentence. I'm like this is not even like a box to open in this moment, but I'm I'm just, I'm stoked that you exist.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
Likewise, I'm super emotional. I feel like you have like cracked open some, some doors. Maybe this is what invasive questions are like that. To me, it's not a, it's not an an invasion like an invasive species or or a colonization or war. It's more like a hey, there's a, like, there's a crack, and the light is getting in and a tendril of a, of a plant is like growing through and it's yeah, and I I'm perimenopausal, so I just fucking cry all the time over everything.
Micah Riot:
So, um, but yeah, I'm feeling emotional. My partner is 49. So I I know I've been witness first. You know, first row with me to the yeah, a little closer. You know there's a book called what fresh hell is this?
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
I've heard of this book. Do you recommend it? Does your partner recommend it?
Micah Riot:
You read it. I have not read it. She liked it, like I think she got something out of it. It's funny. The person who wrote it is just like a lovely non-binary identified person. Okay, so yes, and also like I haven't read it myself.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
Okay, yeah, I'm. I'm kind of enjoying discovering the fresh hell every day, Like like nobody ever tells you about this oh, I guess somebody would if I would read a book. But like just upsetting myself with the newness of it every day is pretty fun.
Micah Riot:
Well, it just sounds like you just probably need some more community around it. If you feel like no. I mean, I think Liz feels like no one's talking about it either enough, even though she is reading. She's a whole reader, she loves articles. It's a joke. You know that she's all worked up. I'll be like honey, why didn't you go read an article, like, calm down reading articles? Yeah, that's funny, that's land-click, you know such things. But yeah, y'all need community, I think is the thing. Thank you for sharing her information.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
I just started following her last week. Also, she's a little bit oblivious. I was like. I was like, did James?
Micah Riot:
leave a sign up for your class and she was like no, I was like, okay, so she knows that I'm excited about also you, each other, connecting to each other's work and all that. And she follows you and like, loves your posts and stuff. So I'm like what, james, I followed. You didn't tell me about that. That was like an event, so I'm going to give her a bit later. Yeah, I was in a workshop the day of her class so I didn't sign up and I'm like I do need community and so I'm like I'm not going to sign up.
James-Olivia Chu Hillman:
I'm like I do need community and support around this, so maybe I become a client of some sort. I don't know Like it's. I need some sort of support.
Micah Riot:
She doesn't do like health, um, health coaching. She hates the term coaching but she started. She knows so much so she started doing um like a more comprehensive cause. She's a physical therapist but she specifically in the public floor region. But she started doing this more comprehensive work and during the pandemic she took this like $6,000 class that she was super pissed about, cause it was super great center like very, you know, just gender essentialists, like just not our politics, and she was so frustrated with it. But um, but now she can like be a health coach. Yeah, sweet. Here we are ending on a bit of a random note. I'm talking about my partner, liz Um. If you are interested in menopause going through community, you can totally reach out to Liz Um. She is at Liz Williams PT at gmailcom. Um. She's also an Instagram as Liz Williams PT as well. And, of course, james Olivia to Hillman. If you have not yet gone to see their work, it's on Instagram. It is the most gut punching, soul uplifting series of questions of self inquiry. It is what hooked my attention from the very beginning, from a bunch of years ago when I first encountered them in the online space. Go, follow them. They are on Instagram at inquisitive underscore human and their website is inquisitivehumanscom. And, of course, please, please, subscribe. If you listen, um follow, subscribe the podcast. It is one year anniversary of it in this month, in December of 2023. I started it exactly a year ago and I'm very happy, very proud of this accomplishment. It's been an amazing journey. I'm so glad that I did it Shout out to Chante Cofield, thank you. Thank you, maestro, for encouraging me to do this. Maestro for encouraging and supporting this passion project. Please do review, like all the things, it really helps. I really appreciate all of you. Until next time.