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Still Curious
Curiosity is a gift we start with but often lose. So what about those people who are still curious? Grokkist founder Danu Poyner meets people who insist on relating to the world with curiosity and care and talks to them about the red thread that runs through their life story and which ultimately empowers them to flourish as their unrepeatable selves. Find out more at https://grokk.ist/stillcuriouspodcast
Still Curious
Embrace your inner outlier: going full desert weirdo with Brittany Cole Houston | S4E3
Brittany is a silversmith, non-traditional educator, and the creative force behind Full Desert Weirdo. Together we rethink the edges of normalcy, illuminating how our quirkiest traits not only shape an ever-changing personal identity but also hold the potential to remake the world around us.
Conversation Themes
- The Value of Outliers
- Social Norms and Conformity
- Autism and Neurodivergence
- Personal Identity and Reclamation
- Mutability and Change
Links and Resources
Full Show Notes
Visit the Grokkist podcast hub for a full digest of this episode including highlights and links to stuff we discussed: https://grokk.ist/stillcuriouspodcast/s4e3-brittany-cole-houston
Recorded 25 January 2024
Website: grokk.ist/stillcuriouspodcast | Email: podcast@grokk.ist | Socials: @grokkist
Music: Kleptotonic Swing by Tri-Tachyon
For me being an outlier and being different means understanding and respecting the parts of us that are not necessarily reinforced, or seen as being useful, meaningful. Outliers in a dataset are usually discarded. I think this is the same in society too, right? If something falls outside that normal range of the bell curve, we look at it as extraneous and as something that doesn't really belong to the regular dataset, because look at all these other pieces of data that are all here comfortably in the normal range, and then there's one over here. When in reality I think that the outliers tell such a bigger story of the dynamic learning experience that we have as humans. And I think that they need to be included in the data set. I think that they can actually inform the data set. Embracing that means taking those parts of self that we've been encouraged to abandon or believe that they were not useful, valuable, likable, and reincorporating those, reclaiming them in a way that is useful and valuable in showing people, what they were missing.
Danu Poyner:You're listening to this Still Curious Podcast with me. Danu Poyner. The show where I meet people who insist on relating to the world with curiosity and care and talk to them about the red thread that runs through their life story. And which ultimately empowers them to flourish as their unrepeatable selves. The voice you just heard belongs to my guest today. Britney Cole Houston. Uh, silver Smith non-traditional educator and the creative force behind full desert weirdo. Britney was raised in a unique and diverse family environment. That was far from conventional. Her grandmother ran a foster home. Leading to a household filled with individuals from various backgrounds, abilities, and ages. This early exposure to diversity meant Brittany grew up knowing loving family in a context that transcended biological connections. It instilled in her a profound sense of empathy and an understanding of the spectrum of human experience.
Brittany Cole Houston:mutability is a very important thing, being able to have the freedom to change and change your mind your ideas is very important to me and I think it's very important to humans in general, it's an important aspect of growth. the word weird is part of it. WYRD, the Germanic root is related to turning, to spinning something and that's why I refer to a lot of things as weirding. When we call someone weird, it became a really beautiful thing because I realized, oh, this is exactly like what I like about myself, that I can change all of the time. Everybody's weirding all the time. That's what I really believe. We are all constantly in a state of becoming
Danu Poyner:From a young age, Brittany found herself at odds with the teachings and expectations of the latter day saints church into which she was born. She questioned the rigid doctrines and gender roles prescribed by the church. Feeling a deep misalignment with its values. Especially regarding expectations placed upon her as a young woman in the LDS community. Her curiosity about other religions and belief systems, coupled with a strong sense of justice and equality. I clashed with the teachings of the LDS church, leading to feelings of isolation and a quest for a belief system that resonated with her in a truth. Brittany's journey through education was marked by a refusal to settle into any one discipline. Reflecting a restless spirit and a deep desire for a comprehensive understanding of the world and her place within it. She ventured into various fields of study from philosophy to theater and film, but it was a serendipitous encounter with her friend, Mary that prompted a threshold moment. Mary recognizing Brittany's intrinsic empathy, understanding of diversity and her unique upbringing in a non-traditional family suggested the Brittany might find fulfillment in working with children with autism. Encouraged by Mary and driven by a new found sense of purpose. Brittany took a leap into the unknown. She began working one-on-one with autistic children, employing applied behavior analysis and other educational strategies to support that development. This work was not just a job for Brittany. It was a calling. She saw in these children the same desire for acceptance and understanding that she had longed for throughout her life. And this would lead to over two decades working in the field of autism.
Brittany Cole Houston:If you ask a person with autism, if they feel like they're disordered, the answer's not always going to be yes. If you ask them do they feel different, the answer will likely be yes. but it's not necessarily a disorder. I would say that it's a collection of behaviors that lie outside of the normal range, but the way that I've been trained the ways that I've worked in the field, are to take that diagnosis and throw it out the window and look at the person. What are their collection of behaviors? Excesses. Deficits? What can they do and not do? What do they need to be able to do in order to take care of themselves, and get their needs and their wants met? One of the reasons I chose to leave was because it felt like I worked with so many amazing, intelligent beings that nobody treated as intelligent.
Danu Poyner:Throughout her tenure in the autism field, Brittany became increasingly aware of systemic issues that often prioritize conformity of a genuine understanding and acceptance of neurodivergent individuals. The work had become a significant part of her identity, but her journey was marked by a growing moral dissonance. As she grappled with the realization that her work in its existing framework might inadvertently contribute to narratives and practices. She fundamentally disagreed with. Brittany recognized that continuing in a system that conflicted with her core values was unsustainable, both professionally and personally. The decision to leave. The autism profession was not made lightly. It was the culmination of a deeply personal and painful process of acknowledging the moral injury she was experiencing. And so she changed. Leaving the structured world of autism education propelled Brittany into a new phase of life. In which she embraced the fluidity of her creative pursuits. Exploring new forms of expression and connecting with the natural world. Through herbalism and plant medicine. Her journey also led her to reconnect with spirituality, moving from atheism to finding solace and inspiration in animism and deep ecology. Further enriching her understanding of herself and her place in the world. She became a death doula, providing emotional, spiritual, and practical support to people and their families during the dying and mourning process. This transition was not just about leaving a profession, but also about moving towards a more holistic and authentic expression of her commitments to fostering, understanding, compassion and acceptance in every aspect of human experience. In retrospect, another threshold moment arrived with a gift from her mother. A silver smithing kit that unlocked a new realm of creativity. And self-expression. This marked the beginning of her journey into being a maker and the eventual creation of full desert weirdo. As a silver Smith, Brittany finds a unique relationship with a material that is as mutable as she is. Creating pieces that are not just objects of adornment, but extensions of her being an interactions with the world. Ultimately Brittany realized she had been wanting to deviate from the norm since birth. Not ever wanting to be like other people, but then also struggling. Not fitting in and not feeling like there was a sense of belonging. The launch of her brand was therefore not just about jewelry making. It was a reminder of the power of weirding of turning, spinning, and transforming into something near. It's about the courage to step into the unknown, to let go of what no longer serves us and to boldly claim our space in the spectrum of existence.
Brittany Cole Houston:When I gave myself full permission to be as weird as I wanted, I finally understood that I could have been doing this the whole time. I could have been having fun. I could have been being myself this entire time. Initially my mom was like, but why do you have to call it full desert Weirdo? She was like, yeah, but I don't think you're a weirdo. I'm like, well, maybe you don't mom, but other people do and I know I am.
Danu Poyner:Talking to Brittany opened a whirlwind of possible conversation. Parts. At first, I found myself getting flustered that we couldn't explore them all. But then I realized that if we sat down to record it again, no matter how many times I'm sure what came up would always be different, but somehow never changing. And isn't that just an invitation to appreciate the sanctity and significance of the version of existence. We do get to enjoy. So join us as Brittany call Houston guides us through her beautiful ever evolving landscape. Inspiring us to question grow and to embrace the fullness of our own weird and wonderful selves. That's after the music on today's episode. Of the Still Curious Podcast. So, hi Brittany. Welcome to the podcast. How are you going?
Brittany Cole Houston:Good. That's been a pretty good day. Pretty good week.
Danu Poyner:So you describe yourself as a silversmith, a non-traditional educator, and the human behind full desert weirdo, which we're gonna get into. You're a highly mutable, queer, ever becoming neurodivergent human animal that loves nature, creativity, folk herbalism, music, movement, and making things. So I'm curious what you would say is the most important thing for someone to understand about you.
Brittany Cole Houston:Um, mutability is a very important thing, I think in terms of my own essence and the way that I kind of work in the world, and the way that I wish other people to be understood. Being able to have the freedom to change and change your mind and your ideas is very important to me and I think it's very important to humans in general, and I think it, it's an important aspect of growth.
Danu Poyner:I'm really interested in this fusion you have going on through all the things I've seen between this elemental and material spiritual and material. Rational and mystical. I guess a good place to start might be with you being a silversmith, because I've never met a silversmith before, and I'd love to hear from you just first of all how it works. What kinds of things are you making and how you found your way into that.
Brittany Cole Houston:Yeah, I had never met a silversmith before either, plenty of artists but no metal workers prior to my foray into beginning it. Yeah, my mom got me a kit one year for Christmas, and it came with like a little torch and some soldering supplies and a book. And so I, I started just kind of teaching myself by a book. A lot of silver comes in, like wire and plate, and so in the beginning stages I only soldered and I still primarily solder, which is a process of using a torch and an alloy that has a mixture of different metals and melts at different temperatures. Soldering is quite fun, but it's also very tedious, because of the way that you have to process things. So for example, if I wanna do something that was a multi-step process, I would have to do it separately and very systematically, because metal or silver can only get to a certain state before it completely goes soft again. I would say that what I've learned now is most silversmiths have a huge studio and they have many different tools because it's a very tool heavy discipline. The better you get at it too, the more tools you can get to facilitate your processes. And I just don't work that way. I've always been a very folk kind of style silversmith. So even though now I'm several years into doing it, I still have a very small bench. I don't buy tons of stones to work with at a time. I buy what I'm gonna work with for a certain collection and then that's it. I don't have any big products that help me press or roll or polish or do anything super advanced. I don't own a kiln. Um, but I have gotten into more advanced skills like casting. I like encountering metal and developing a relationship with pieces as I go. It feels like a relationship anyway. And I do get very attached to pieces that I create too. Sometimes it's hard for me to let them go or decide whether I'm gonna keep them or sell them, because it is a relationship, you know?
Danu Poyner:What was the first thing that you made that you were happy with?
Brittany Cole Houston:So in the book, the first thing they have you do is create a ring, just form silver wire into a circle and then get that trued up to where there's no gaps in between your ends and you can just solder together a simple ring. and that was the first thing that I made. So I made one tiny circle, they call it a jump ring. So a pendant would hang on a necklace, a smaller version of a simple ring. And so I made a little jump ring and put that inside of my ring,'cause I wanted to make it extra difficult. So the first ring I actually made was a circle ring, not like just a band, but a circle on a ring. The second thing I ever made was my yoni ring, the triangle. The yoni ring kind of came out of the circle ring, after I formed a circle, a very tiny one for the first time I started playing with my pliers but like they have hard edges and square edges. And so that led me to just forming a triangle around this little center circle. And I was like, wow, that looks like a vagina. And then that was the second thing I ever made was the vagina ring. A lot of the basic shapes that I solder are made out of different gauges of very simple silver wire. I've gotten the feedback that those are the rings that people like the most. When people tell me, oh, I wear my ring every day, it's usually one of those style rings. Even though my skills have become a little bit more advanced now.
Danu Poyner:I'm keen to hear more about this idea you mentioned about encountering the metal and having a relationship with it. Was that something that you started to find early on, when you just got it and you were a kid, how old were you? 11 or,
Brittany Cole Houston:No, no, I was not that young. I became a silversmith after my entire career in education and working in the autism field for 20 years. I left education and started these creative endeavors and I technically opened Full Desert Weirdo in 2019, but I was soldering for about a year before that. It was something I had been interested in doing and learning. and the kit made it seem like it was accessible, but it took me quite a while to get good I would say. If you're self-taught, probably a lot of people pick it up and then abandon it because it takes many tries to get what you're after. And you ruin things a lot, especially if you don't know anything about the chemical aspects of it. What made me wanna continue was that chemical process. So seeing like, okay, that's what happens when I apply too much heat or too much pressure. I just end up with a puddle or a ball but I like the way that that looks, or I can use that for something else. It's the chemical aspect of it. I call it alchemy, even though alchemy is like the medieval cousin to chemistry. so I suppose it's chemistry, but for me, the alchemy aspect feels that way because I am also in relationship to the metal. It responds to me and my technique and how I am treating it. It's easy to develop a relationship with what you're working on because you are the person working it and it's working with you. And the more you know about the chemical properties of the metal that you're working with and what you want of it, the easier it is to understand how you would do that, or what steps you would take to achieve that.
Danu Poyner:Was there a moment when it went for you from something that you were experimenting with and getting to know to something that you decided was gonna be something you would pursue as a more enduring practice?
Brittany Cole Houston:Yes. So I was silversmithing for a little while before I created my business, a full desert weirdo. And decided to name it that and decided to even start a business doing it. I had been practicing for a year and I was working in the autism field during that time. And I had gotten very burnt out with my job and education and just noticed how I was feeling to have to put down all of my creative endeavors and quote unquote go to work. I think that My vagina ring that I make was the first thing that felt like, it had a philanthropical kind of statement behind it, or it was related to something that I felt strongly about, right. Which is, being myself and being a woman at that time was a very big part of my identity. So I think that was the moment was I was like, uh, I think my other friends would like to wear a vagina ring and this is cool. When I put it on my Instagram for the first time, said something about how I was gonna share all the profits with Planned Parenthood and then tweet how much money I made off of my vagina rings to some of the more conservative Republicans in the states,
Yeah.
Danu Poyner:So there's, there's already a kind of,, alchemy, going on between the silversmithing itself and the identity and sociological stuff that it's, connected to. I would love to, hear more about your personal journey, one question I often ask people is, did young Brittany have a plan? A
Brittany Cole Houston:Okay. So I will say that I've had a very squiggly path, and that's part of what drew me to Grokkist and, I had many, many majors, I went to community college right after high school, and my first major was philosophy. Then I realized that I didn't wanna be a teacher, and that couldn't really make any money, with a philosophy degree. So then I changed it to theater, and then I changed it to film.
I loved editing and writing too. But once I found out too that it was going to rob me of being a spectator, that's when film I knew was not gonna be the thing for me. I was like, no, I don't wanna be thinking about, who edited this and who directed this.
Brittany Cole Houston:And knowing all the actors it just really, makes things so much less magical. And I wasn't willing to give up the magic of movies, and make that turn into a job. I was in theater at community college, doing community theater there. The choreographer was in massage school at the time. They were a recruiter for the massage school too. And they knew that I wanted to go to film school at the time in San Francisco, and they were like, you should go to massage school. And so I did. And that was also a very important personal development time for me. Massage has really, impacted my life and impacts my choice to be really active and care a lot about somatics and movement today. It is difficult in Las Vegas to work in the massage industry. They really work you like you're a machine. And I was doing like eight full body massages every day. It was really just like working out all day, every
Danu Poyner:That's draining
Brittany Cole Houston:You can imagine what it's like in Vegas. People want a 90 minute Swedish. They just want their hangover to go through their body faster or whatever. They're not interested in education. And I was fresh out school and like really enthusiastic still about it. But then I had a personal injury at a house party, got involved in this giant fight and was hit by this guy and ended up having to have these multiple face surgeries. And I got very depressed after that because I lost my scholarship to SFAI in San Francisco. During that time I gave my job to the person that was next in line, that I had already hired and ended up taking some time off of work for a while. I was very depressed. That is when I met my friend Mary at a bar. We used to sing karaoke together. And she was like, you would probably really like working with kids with autism, we're always looking for people. She just knew that I would be good at it. We were close enough friends that she knew that I grew up in a very non-traditional kind of an environment. My grandma ran a foster home and adopted many kids. They had nine children of their own, but then were foster parents for DRC, the Desert Regional Center here, which ultimately I worked for them too, when I started working for the state. Mary knew that I knew a little bit about people with intellectual disabilities, that I knew about advocacy. So that's when I first started. I knew I liked it, but I didn't know the theory or anything behind it.
Danu Poyner:Can you paint me a picture of what that was like starting out, like with the first kid, that's a one-to-one situation. What is the work that you're doing?
Brittany Cole Houston:So it's called Applied Behavior Analysis, ABA, and it's one of the only evidence-based interventions that's like approved by the Surgeon General and the federal government here in the States. And internationally, the work has been replicated across many places. The work in terms of applied behavior analysis, was started out of UCLA with Evar Lobos, who was my boss's father, and he basically began implementing one-to-one teaching sessions with different people in institutions. EVAR was also the one to organize a program through UCLA using his undergraduate students as the facilitators or as the tutors we would call them back in the day. Now they're called registered behavior technicians or RBTs. But at the time, EVAR got his undergrad students to be the tutors for these individuals. And then using the principles of behavior analysis applied in this setting, people were able to make gains and develop skills a lot quicker. And certain skills that scholars and academics and the medical community, didn't believe that people on the spectrum could learn. That was like the 87 study, I think. And then ultimately, the 93 study was a follow up at UCLA where EVAR took that same work that he was doing with people in institutions and applied it to people at home. So that parental involvement piece was really huge and that put ABA on the map in terms of an intervention that could be applied to different people with unique learning issues.
Danu Poyner:For people who are not familiar, how would you explain what autism is to a 10-year-old?
Brittany Cole Houston:I would explain it as a different sort of a way to process the sensations that we experience. So people with autism have a brain, that is quite different than neurotypical people. Usually they process sensory information differently, and that it leads to behaving or acting in certain ways. At times, these ways are visible and at times they're not. So it leads to, sometimes behavior looking different, saying things differently. Perhaps engaging in repetitive type looking behaviors or repeating vocal things. If I were speaking to someone that's my own age that is a neurotypical peer or a neurodivergent peer. And it seemed like they could understand other aspects of it. I would explain it as a neurodevelopmental way of being in the world. If I'm talking to you who is my friend, who I know is an adult and can understand, then I would call it a neurodevelopmental disorder. But that's also a very clinical way of explaining it. If you ask a person with autism, if they feel like they're disordered, the answer's not always going to be yes. If you ask them do they feel different, the answer will likely be yes. but it's not necessarily a disorder. I would say that it's a collection of behaviors that lie outside of the normal range, but the way that I've been trained through lobos, like family and the ways that I've worked in the field, are to take that diagnosis and throw it out the window and look at the person. What are their collection of behaviors? Excesses. Deficits? What can they do and not do? What do they need to be able to do in order to take care of themselves, and get their needs and their wants met? Why I think I've changed as an adult, that no longer works in education or one of the reasons I chose to leave was because it felt like I worked with so many amazing, intelligent beings that nobody treated as intelligent. Nobody understood their skillset as something that was valuable because it was not the normal range of what someone would call intelligent or because this person on paper had a lower iq, but they had an amazing, diverse collection of other eclectic knowledge or were an amazing musician or had a fantastic, amazing memory.
Danu Poyner:You've got this important first step in working with autism, and I'm trying to understand what it's like to be in your head and your worldview at that time I can tell that you've experienced a lot of what I would probably call these days moral injury as being part of a profession that's rubbed you the wrong way and put you in a kind of ongoing misalignment with values and it can be hard to pull apart all of that stuff. I wonder if it's possible to recall what your outlook was and what your way of understanding was when you were just starting out, about what autism was and what autistic people were.
Brittany Cole Houston:I initially liked the idea of helping people, and that's how ABA was framed to me. I went to a training in the community, right? This was after I had already started working with a kid, but they were like, we do these community trainings every month, come to one and get the autism 101 sort of thing. And one thing that I really liked that they did at the trainings were, first of all they had parents there and they had people with autism there, that you got to talk to and that shared their experiences and then they would do this game. It was called the Shaping Game. And so one person would leave the room and they would ask them, whatever, they can't hear what everyone else is talking about. But they understood that when they came back in, we were going to try and get them to do some kind of basic gross motor action, jump, stand whatever. But we weren't allowed to talk. We were only allowed to offer applause. And it's a really powerful example when you see it happening of how our environment shapes our behavior. That initial training was really impactful. I also got to learn the basic medical information, right? They gave a history of autism. They talked about what the clinical diagnostic criteria was. And then they said, now we're gonna take all of that boring shit and throw it away and we're gonna play games and you're gonna sit in circles and practice with people with autism. So it's like teaching, but it is just one-to-one, and it's based on that specific individual and what their needs are, and what their behaviors are and how they respond. It's also really systematic because we know that when things are introduced slowly and with precision that we learn better. And we also know that when learning is fun and that person is having a good time, that they're going to learn better and that the outcomes are gonna generally be more favorable. In one of those first studies that EVAR did, what ended up happening was they found out that the self-injurious behavior was attention seeking. They wanted stimulation. They wanted someone to talk to and hang out. I'm getting emotional. Instead of being treated like they couldn't socialize or didn't want to. And so they would abuse themselves because of that is the only time someone would come in to interact with them. I have experienced so many disturbing situations. And it's like you said, the moral injury is real, And I worked for the state too as a care manager for many years, so I left the Lobo Center working with kids one-to-one to take a job to start a funding agency because at the time, Nevada didn't have any funding to cover ABA.
Danu Poyner:As you're talking, I'm making a moment to connect still with young Brittany in this situation. It sounds like you're on a quest now. You've discovered this world that you've connected with, and you've seen it that it's important, that it's fun, it's like a second home for you, and you're recognizing some of your own un recognized needs and experience in that. So it sounds like gone is the theater and the film and that stuff and now we're on this quest and hence the funding agency step.
Brittany Cole Houston:Yeah. I started working with individuals, one-to-one in the beginning. I did that for many years and then I simultaneously worked for that company. There were private agency. There were many agencies in the valley offering ABA services, but the Lova Center was one of the first. And I also worked for them as their editor. I would edit the workshop reports and answer calls from new parents that were navigating the autism journey. And I was very, very good at my intake job. Parents really liked me a lot, and I think it's because my boss encouraged me, to do what felt natural, which was really just be human and kind and tell parents that they were doing everything that they needed to be doing and that they were on the right track. And so Because of my intake job, I got recommended by a couple colleagues for a new state agency that was being formed. We had also participated in legislation and I was at the time sitting on a subcommittee for early intervention. We would get parents to come in to legislative meetings and they allowed us to collect videos of their kids when they were not able to answer any questions or display any type of readiness to learn skills, like sitting in one place or responding to questions like, what's your name? Who's mommy, who's daddy? And so those videos were really powerful because, people who are in charge of money, uh, care about those kind of results. And so we got like 6 million I think our first year, which is not a lot in terms of state funding, but it was something to start on. And it was called ATAP, the Autism Treatment Assistance Program. So I was one of the founding members. I did their intake and I managed the waiting list of over 5,000 people across the state that were waiting for services. I worked for Atap for seven years and eventually became a care manager there and that chapter was very much like less fun. I had to make sure that families were utilizing the funding that they were given and the kids were making progress. And so writing behavioral plans and goals for each of my clients and making sure that the providers are doing what they need to be doing in order for that person to have the best shot at meeting those goals,
Danu Poyner:Were you able to still be working for the autistic person in that scenario? And how aligned was what the man wanted and what the parents wanted and what the person themselves wanted or needed.
Brittany Cole Houston:That's such a good question. So one of the reasons that I ultimately left the field was because it did start to feel like I was no longer serving the individual and that I was serving everyone else in their lives, meaning their parents, their teachers, society on the whole. It was particularly difficult to encounter situations where, for example, a parent would not be in alignment with what I saw a person wanting to express, like gender, or anything that was different than what their family wished for them. So these were situations like your family of Origins religion, and not wanting to adhere to those standards, or not wanting to adhere to certain dress codes or ways of being in the world. I just see that as stifling individual expression. And I started to feel like I was working for the parents, and the parents were trying to mold this child into being what they wanted them to be instead of what the person actually wanted to be. When you work for the state, you're a mandated reporter as well. So I was required to report if a family was experiencing something, like if I noticed abuse, and things like that. So there are many, many times where like just things that were happening were absolutely not okay. It was like, either I say something about this and this person loses their therapy or I don't say something about this and this person is still at risk of massive harm. So, uh, oftentimes it was just like, okay, we have to put therapy on hold because there's other abusive things happening or situations that are not ethical. There is one kid that I can remember who was a really fantastic artist. But they really, really leaned toward gender, non-conforming types of things. He was a little boy and he loved to play with all of his sister's Disney Princess stuff. He was constantly stealing her toys and anytime there was an artistic task, he would choose the sparkly, pretty bright colors. So for example, I would give him, like, we're gonna learn how to draw a house, and the house is a triangle on top of a square with a rectangle for a door, right? But like this kid was so far beyond that. And we did have to make him do that because it wasn't just about like, we know that the skill's there and we can see that you're a fantastic artist, but we also need you to understand that when we say house, people want to see this. They don't wanna see that beautiful princess castle that you made, and in order to meet the milestone or say that the goal is complete, you have to be able to do this. There was also another three-year-old who, his family was Muslim and they were quite conservative and strict, and he just didn't know the rules. He didn't know what was expected of him. And so a lot of our sessions were structured around things that felt very abusive and harmful to me. And avoiding moral injury, is by telling yourself that you're doing the right thing by helping this person become adjusted to society. And often I still feel that that's the case, right? I am very thankful that I've taught many people how to do very practical things like tying their shoes and hygiene and just self-help skills. And at the same time, I know that I also have participated in the trauma that many children have faced doing very difficult things or doing things that they do not want to do. The reality is that ABA is employed in many instances where it doesn't need to be. Kids are kind of over drilled and, treated like little soldiers or something. They literally call it programming in ABA and that's sad, right? But there's reasons for it. It really just depends on the person and what their needs are.
Danu Poyner:So It sounds like by this time you've been in it for a few years. You've seen a lot. You've learned a lot now. You've got some scars. You have perceived the limitations of the overall system and your working out how, and whether you fit in it because this is something you care about. But how are you going to continue to be in this if you are. Is that about right?
Brittany Cole Houston:Yep. I had to decide like whether or not I wanted to keep doing it and ultimately I started really hating going to work. But those people you know, are relying on me and there's funding involved that's difficult to get and maintain. And So there's also guilt for not wanting to go to work but my mental health had really, really started to suffer. And I was at the time working for a provider that I felt was not as good as some of the other providers. I started working for them because they were a small company and I knew I could get in at that time. Anyway, they weren't that good. And so I, I found myself taking on too much responsibility and there were other ethical issues with that particular service provider. And then I went back into doing one-to-One and one-to-One usually happens in family's homes, so you're going into someone's house and working with their child or their loved one. It's a very intimate situation, but you're also required to maintain strong boundaries and avoid dual relationships and things like that. And that was always very stressful for me. I was never very good at that because the way that I grew up, it was like a family, you know, we helped each other. But we were, when I worked for the state, never allowed to eat with our families or to accept gifts or give gifts to one another and I hated that aspect. The clinical world wants you to be removed, but this isn't a clinical situation. When I'm in their house, I'm in their bedroom. I'm teaching them how to wipe their ass. You know what I mean? Like, we're getting intimate here.
Danu Poyner:How do you teach someone to wipe their ass?
Brittany Cole Houston:So there's lots of ways, actually, one of my favorite ways that I've seen it was like a kindergarten teacher in Japan tied two balloons to the end of a chair, everyone in the classroom. Had two balloons at the end of their chair, and they had to learn how to wipe in between the two balloons. It was very cute. I've spent an inordinate amount of time looking at young people's genitals, because you sit in the bathroom, you bring everything that's reinforcing and fun, every game, every type of toy. And then you pump the person full of liquids and snacks, and you provide a ton of reinforcement for any type of instance of elimination. So the second, there's like one drop of pee, everybody's like.
Danu Poyner:Yeah. Lots of applause. Right? So You are not working in the state and not working in that space at all now. You have gone full desert weirdo, and we're gonna find out what that means. But I'd love to know how we get from one to the other.
Brittany Cole Houston:I did not go to college right after high school. I like went to community college, changed my major a bunch of times, then ultimately went back to UNLV. But I was part-time at UNLV while I worked in the autism field for many, many, many, many years. So for six years when I was part of the state program, I was simultaneously getting my degree, but did not have one. I finally did get my bachelor's, and continued to work in the autism field, but I went back to school in my thirties to get my master's, and that was in applied behavior analysis, this realm that I had already been working in forever. So I was a non-traditional student in that way. I went to college and finished college in my thirties, after over a decade of field work. One of the biggest turning points in my adulthood and in my personal development was finding this program that was centered around herbalism, but also there were chapters on dream work and ancestral studies and foods and goddess studies, and it seemed very interesting and a little esoteric,'cause at the time I was atheist, but I was really excited about the food part. And we got to camp together four times a year on these cross quarter pagan holidays. It was presented as an in-depth, year long herbalism apprenticeship and it was amazing. For the first time I was able to learn things that were not taught in any school, anywhere. Like things about my period, for example, that I had never known as a 35-year-old adult. I still didn't know that sperm lives for so much longer than you think it does Right. And can live outside the body and these different things and I'm very much a kinesthetic learner. I love making things and doing things with my hands. It stays with my memory a lot stronger when it's a multi-sensory experience. And so we got to play with plants. We got to learn about how to make tinctures, how to process different things in different ways, oxy Mels and I learned animal husbandry too. That's where I learned to heal my first chicken. I learned how to catch dispatch and clean, literal farm to table type of skills. That's where I first developed a relationship with plants too. And that really drastically changed how I felt about the world and where I developed more animist leaning values.
Danu Poyner:Your relationship with spirituality seems to be a central part of your story in shaping your way of being in the world. If I understand right, you were born into a an LDS family and became atheist and then found your way back to spirituality in this way that's rooted in animism and deep ecology and tantra.
Brittany Cole Houston:If you would've asked me a few years ago if I would ever believe in any kind of a God, I would've had a whole speech prepared for you of why not? But yeah, I was born into an LDS family. I knew from very, very young that I did not believe in the value system of the church. I had a friend in preschool that was Indian, and I remember asking my primary teacher in church about multiple gods and why some people believe in many gods but we only have Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. Even though it's a triad, that's one God, right? And my primary teacher came down really, really hard on me. Well, I had learned about the word theology. That's what started the conversation with my primary teacher because not only did my friends have different religious experiences than me, or I was learning that they did, but I learned about this word and that this word meant that you could study any religion that you wanted, like in academic discipline, you know? And I didn't understand why everybody didn't do that. And so that was also a question for my teacher, like, if we can study everybody's religion, why doesn't everybody just study all of them? It didn't make sense to me why you would pick one. Right? They were like, you're not on the right path that God has laid out for you. If you're asking these kinds of questions, period, you need to pray about it. I was made to feel like I should be confused or that I should feel guilty, or I should feel ashamed of that. And I didn't. I knew that that was wrong. Especially because I grew up in a house where so many people looked different than me, acted different than me. My family was not all white. My family was not all neurotypical. My family was not all the same age. We had a very diverse, very different family. So I knew that it wasn't true that everybody was supposed to be the same, that there was only one religion, or one true God. I knew that from an early age. However, because of that kind of cultural association that I spoke to that Mormons or the LDS church has, I can't as a kid extrapolate myself from that. So I remember being asked to be baptized at eight and having very serious thoughts of not wanting to do that. But my dad made it clear that I could say no, but I still didn't feel like I would be accepted or loved or I felt like I would be told again that I was making the wrong decision if I said no. Then also as a woman in the LDS church, you are not allowed to hold the priesthood. They segregate you after primary, you're all in church together as kids. And then when you hit puberty or around there, they separate you into gendered classes. So the men begin to learn the priesthood and the women go into learning other things, mainly how to be a homemaker and things like that, right. That's when I veered off, I became really rebellious as a teenager. And as an adolescent. I was really into punk rock music and in general was a very rebellious teen. I did a lot of drugs. I skipped a lot of class. We stole cars. We were very bad. And after my years of experimenting a lot I got really into atheism as a defense sort of. I would almost proselytize, you know, to my Mormon family. I became really aggressive and confrontational with all of my family. I just wanted to be right. And I wanted people to understand how difficult it was as a queer person and as a woman to go through this structure and not feel heard or respected or seen. Not being able to hold the priesthood was a big deal. I saw the men in the church in all of the power that they were given, simply because they were boys. And that just didn't make sense to me. I was the type of atheist that like, if you were religious at all or even spiritual at all, it would immediately make me lose respect for you. I felt like you were less intelligent. I would feel like you needed a crutch, you were weak, you clearly didn't understand that there are so many other ways of looking at religion in the world. It was the herbalism apprenticeship that introduced me to Tantra for the first time.'cause I had practiced yoga. I got really into Bikram for a few years and as a massage therapist, knew a little about a lot of different type of modalities and entry points to spirituality. But I couldn't just sit and meditate. Bikram worked for me because it's very challenging and you do every pose twice. So I liked the behavioral aspect of being able to measure my progress. And I treated it like I was an athlete, you know? But sitting with my own thoughts was never a possibility. So for me, tantra opened a new world of things because of the sound aspect of mantra. It was the sound aspect that helped me get into a centered place or a place that felt pleasantly, aware. Many traditions, especially in tantric traditions, the goal is like moksha, liberation or transcending this form. But in Rivi it's not. It's bringing the formless into your form and walking with God, with you here. And there's no separation of those things. I think my soul came here for a reason and wants to be here.
Danu Poyner:I saw on your website that your life card in tarot is the magician, and that is about bringing the formless into form as well in a kind of resourceful way, as am I right about that?
Brittany Cole Houston:Absolutely. Yeah. The major arcana in tarot starts with the fool. So it's like everything and nothing, right? That's the origin place, but out of that void comes the magician That archetype has always been very near and dear to me for many reasons. But yeah, I, I, I love that. That's my life card. They also have what's called a task card. Not everyone has it, but based on your birthday, and we should do yours. Uh, but yeah, Like sometimes if you have a number that collapses, then you get two numbers sometimes. And if you do have two numbers when doing that numerology assessment, then that second one is considered to be your task in this lifetime. And for me, that card's the Wheel of Fortune because when you take my birthday, 6/19/83 and you add up all the numbers, you get 10 basically when you reduce. And then one plus zero is also one. So one is my life card, but 10 is my task in this lifetime. They're both pretty positive cards. All of them are really, if you know what to look for in the archetype.
Danu Poyner:you've dispensed a lot of information there and I'm firing with connections all over the place this idea of being present with someone in relationship, as they figure things out and finding the good in things and bringing the formless into form might be connected to why I've heard you say that you show up at the beginnings of things and the ends of things.
Brittany Cole Houston:Yeah, I have called myself a death doula before for many reasons but yes, I have also called myself an initiatrix. And I think that those two things go hand in hand. Initiatrix, creatrix, because you're like threshold guardian, you're helping people go from one state to another. And we talked about that the alchemy of silver and we talked about that with people. And yeah, obviously in my personal life it shows up as well. And I would say in those situations, it's usually just stuff that has come my way and I've had to figure it out or I've noticed over time that there's a pattern of me joining things when they're very new, like different groups, right? When medicine mandala that apprenticeships started, I was in the first year of it, and then I stayed on and worked there for the next three years. There were 20 prees that went through every single year. And I was in the first group and then became save a staff or volunteer staff to continue working them, for the next couple years. And Atap, like I helped start that organization it's just been a natural sort of situation where I've also been part of the endings of those things as well. After four years of people going through the program, there were a lot of things that were learned, right. So, taking a pause to reformulate was really healthy. And I watched that program die. But ultimately, being a death doula for me has always been around, I've always dealt with death. Having such a large, unique family meant that I watched people transition in and out of our home all the time, sometimes because they had died, and then sometimes because they were being moved from family to family or their biological parents were back or, different things. So the process of letting go is something I've always been experienced with. There's a skillset there that usually I can help. In my most recent experience was my friend Jared that died and I became very close with his mom. I started to go fund me for his funeral expenses because he committed suicide. And his parents were older and very devastated. Jared was 39 and had already gotten his PhD in philosophy and had worked all over the world. And, they were not expecting his suicide. So, because of the GoFundMe aspect, I got to know his mom a little bit and it became a very beautiful relationship. So we hang out at least a couple times a month now. I've gone to his dad's retirement choir recitals and every year since Jared's died and I helped her you know, navigate getting the headstone. I went to Wisconsin with her to help clean out his apartment and sell his car, and, do these types of tasks that as an elderly woman, she would not have been able to do alone. And her husband had polio when he was younger, has limited like ability to travel. And so it just became this thing where I was like, okay, I know what I'm doing. I have navigated multiple suicides in my family. Two of my mom's siblings shot themselves with shotguns. Um, my stepbrother hung himself. I have a lot of death in my family and around me. Growing up in Las Vegas, you can imagine, people make a lot of irresponsible decisions and there are a lot of people that struggle with addiction in this town. So I've been able to take the experiences that I've had and apply them when I see other people navigating it. I would say that navigation is also a word that stands out as part of my essence. I think that it is nice to have someone to support these times of transition in our lives, it is always good to have someone that has been there or that knows about what you're experiencing, to kind of experience it with you. And it certainly isn't always an easy thing to navigate, but there are really big payoffs for the people that are being assisted and then the people that are doing the prompting as well. It's a really good thing.
Danu Poyner:What a really powerful set of intersectional capabilities that would allow you to do that. To be able to be so well equipped to step into a situation that's unfolding where you can be someone's threshold guardian and fill the gaps and give them the reassurance and just navigate, as you say, way finding thing about way finding there's always, you can always find a way, which makes me want to talk about full desert weirdo because that's where you're at now, and I often ask people to reflect on the differences between their Social Armor cv, which is like the packaged and polished version of ourselves we present to others, and the shadow cv, which is all the weird and wild stuff that we usually don't mention to people, but which has actually been really important in shaping who we are and teaching us the wisdom that we've accumulated. So it strikes me that when you put yourself out there as full desert weirdo, you are making a deliberate choice to put the shadow CV out there front and center and invite others to encounter you that way. And it's a very bold thing to do. And, I'm intrigued by the buildup and the decision. So, would you like to take us through what that choice means to you? And what would you like others to understand by it?
Brittany Cole Houston:Um, like the idea of just demystifying and destigmatizing any part of self that is or was frowned upon, not accepted, or dismissed in our upbringing or in any of our learning experiences. I like the idea of unburdening ourselves, and I think that's a lot of what shadow work is about is looking at the places where we've been taught something about ourselves that seems inappropriate, but when we are brave enough to look at that, or face that, ultimately we recognize that it was never something that was harmful or bad, that it was always a sleeper skill, that had not been identified as such or had not been encouraged to grow. There's also like a huge sense of relief once you permission yourself to let go or, once you have confronted some of those things and come out the other side, there is just an, a massive sense of relief and once you receive that, it's like, wow, I could have been doing this the whole time, but ultimately, yeah, that journey, it's part of the work and the relief I think is the reward or the big payoff for doing the difficult work of confronting the parts of ourselves that we were unsure about at some point.
Danu Poyner:I really love that way of thinking about it and the naming of it and giving that a name in the way that you have is a sort of symbolic reclamation of all of those things. I like that too. I'm still curious where it came from, what it looks like, and how it came about.
Brittany Cole Houston:Okay, so full Desert weirdo, the name actually came from an ex-boyfriend. He and I were talking and I remember I had a spare room in my house downtown at the time, and I was working on random creative projects. Like, I think I had some leather things out and some beading projects. And I had just started learning to solder and I was explaining to him like, yeah, I think I'm gonna set up a studio in here. And and he was like, oh, you're doing it? And I was like, doing what? And he was like, you're going full desert weirdo. I loved that. But that was something that stuck out to me was just like, yeah, you know what? I am going to be full desert weirdo because like, it's not that weird to me. Ultimately it comes from wanting to deviate from the norms, for me since birth. Not ever wanting to be like other people, but then also struggling, not fitting in right, and not feeling like there was a sense of belonging. I think that when I gave myself full permission to be as weird as I wanted, I finally understood that I could have been doing this the whole time. I could have been having fun. I could have been being myself this entire time. What's funny about medicine Mandala my time there too, was like, it took me being around 20 women, for several years in a row for me to like let my body hair grow out. That is where I learned I don't really identify as a woman anymore. I feel more queer than anything else. But ironically it was in this all feminine space where I was given the safety and the freedom to be able to even permission myself to think that, right? Because there's so much about growing up in a religious family that gets constructed in a really rigid way, that's really hard to unlearn and unpack. So I'm a good example of just coming full circle in terms of what people or your family or your religion of origin, those expectations that are built around you. And then finding ways to dissolve all of that. It hasn't been easy either, because just having weirdo as a part of my title in my business, it's very difficult for people to really understand why I would call myself that. Initially my mom was like, but why do you have to call it full desert Weirdo? She was like, yeah, but I don't think you're a weirdo. I'm like, well, maybe you don't mom, but other people do and I know I am. So, but ultimately too, the word weird is part of it. When I learned about the etymology of that word and I thought about what that means when we call someone weird, it became a really beautiful thing because I realized, oh, this is exactly like what I like about myself, that I can change all of the time. That I am never remaining in one state for too long. That my preferences are gonna change, that my environment's gonna change. WYRD, the Germanic root is related to turning, to spinning something and that's why I refer to a lot of things as weirding. Everybody's weirding all the time. That's what I really believe. We are all constantly in a state of becoming. When we talk about something transforming or moving from one state to another, we talk about, oh, it's turning into right. And so weirding is embedded in so much of our language. It only became a negative thing post like Roman and Christian influence in Europe. Before that women would weird and in Scotland, right? There are songs that are repetitive in nature that tend to make the work go by. And oftentimes in pre Roman Europe and other places, we have found that that is where a lot of wisdom is held, is in these songs and in these folk tales and in children's songs, right? Because of Christianity and Roman influence those things were being stamped out. But when you see women just singing together, no, there's no problem there. Or I'm gonna tell this little kid a story. Yeah. There's obviously nothing wrong with that. And so the real wisdom and crystallized intelligence began to be transmitted in this coded way, through these other types of modalities. But ultimately, the women who would spin and weird together, they would spin either weaving or processing wool or cooking, and they would sing these songs together. And ultimately those were stamped out too, because the priests were afraid that they were casting spells, and that is ultimately what they were doing, right? Everything we say is a spell. There are other ways of spell casting too, not just with words. We do it in our daily activities. And that's what I meant by saying that many of the things that we're devoted to, or that we're passionate about too, are the same as sadana. Sadana doesn't have to look like what it looks like for me, sitting at my altar and going through a ritualized process. It can be baking bread, it can be dancing, it can be whatever it is that you're creating or that you're passionate about. And to me, all of that is weirding. Whatever you are taking from one state and bringing it to another state. Like my work as a death doula and Jared's mother, we have weirded together by transforming our grief together through our interconnection, our relationship, and in watching each other just live our daily lives. And we gather for lunch and sometimes we talk about Jared now and sometimes we don't because we've reached a new state, we've transmuted a lot of stuff from our previous state of grief.
Danu Poyner:So you're a regeneratrix, on top of everything else.
Brittany Cole Houston:mm-Hmm. And that to me is like the middle of the creatrix and the death doula work. Because they're related, but there's gonna be a transition in between those states. And for me, regeneratrix is the coming back to life. That's why they call it a life, death, life cycle, right? It's not just life, death, and then it stops. Or it's not just death life and then it stops. It's life, death, life, death, life, death. Most of the experiences that happened to us as human beings to follow that pattern. Think of how many times, even just in one aspect of your life, you've turned over and turned over and turned over again, to evolve. So the regenera aspect for me is about bringing back something that has died in a new way. So in the case with Jared and his mother, Jared was really into plant medicine, and he had a thing for morning glory seeds, which were a sacrament in his lineage. And they have LSA in them too. So they have mild psychedelic properties and he would take them regularly, and his mom and I have talked about a lot of really important things that Jared did not address with his mom when he was here. And one of them was neurodivergence and coping with life, as a person who is a unique learner and why one might turn to nootropics or psychedelics in their search for sameness and to cope with the world as it is. But one of the most beautiful things that came from Jared's relationship to Morning Glory was that he had a bunch of the seeds left over when we cleaned his apartment. So I took them and mailed them to a bunch of his friends across the world, and now they're all sending me pictures of the morning glories that they're growing because ultimately they're a flower and they're meant to go in the ground, not into our bellies. It feels like there's new life coming out of this situation of what originally started as grief or loss. Now it's come full circle and a couple of the stories are actually really interesting. One of his friends in Norway had a really difficult time. She had to move them and like, these ones were really fickle and she tried to get them to bloom and they wouldn't, it was like too much rain or whatever. And then she moved them to this other spot. They were much happier there. And now they're thriving, but it was like this relationship of her own grief, right? Through this physical process of growing these plants. And it's just seeds, you know, just seeds
Danu Poyner:That's very beautiful. Thank you for sharing all of that. Something that strikes me about the way that you move through the world is it's very experiential. You kind of put yourself very actively in these situations and make the difference between what happens in a situation and what doesn't by being there. And I can't think of any more lively example of that than the death doula work that you've discussed. But you mentioned something right back at the start, about when you were thinking about film and that you didn't want to be robbed of being a spectator and you weren't willing to give up the magic. I wonder if you have anything to say about it in context of everything that we've discussed.
Brittany Cole Houston:yeah, I would say that when something becomes a job or when something becomes a chore, it becomes so much less reinforcing and my desire and my willingness to participate and show up decreases. And I saw that with film happening, I saw the beauty of what I liked about going to the movies disappearing because I was in this place of needing to know different aspects of the process. And I wasn't willing to give up that sense of wonder and the sense of suspended belief that you get when you drop in for an hour and a half and watch a film. I now move through the world and motivated by the things that are fun and when they no longer are fun, that is an indication to me that it's time to move on. That it's become more of a chore and a job. Or if there's any sense of urgency or obligation around a task that I'm doing, I usually will stop and take a step back and wait until there's a reframe before I decide to continue doing that thing. Because ultimately our jobs shouldn't be chores. They shouldn't be things that are not fun to do. There are obviously non-preferred tasks and activities that we all have that we must accomplish. And as contingency managers, which is what we would call ourselves as RBS or tutors, we would say we're not teaching, we're just managing contingencies in the environment. But as a contingency manager, I will tell you that there are ways to make even the most non-preferred tasks, very motivating and very fun.
Danu Poyner:I've heard this phrase in connection with autism called pathological demand avoidance, I understand to be this idea that if you were thinking of doing something and then someone suggests or tells you to do that thing, even though you're going to do it now, you know I'm not gonna do it now.
Brittany Cole Houston:Yeah. Because I, because someone told me to do it, It's very different. I would say that the placing of demands period is the setting event for the avoidant behavior. And yeah, I don't think that that's pathological.
Danu Poyner:Also heard it reframed as persistent demand for autonomy.
Brittany Cole Houston:that feels better to me. You're focusing on the positive aspects of that, right? You're focusing person and their autonomy versus their avoidance. Also what comes to mind when you say something like that is like, well, what are the demands and what are the tasks? What's the person being asked to do? All of those factors are important. The terms positive and negative don't apply to good and bad. They apply to mathematically adding something or taking something away from a situation. When you add something to a situation that is a non-preferred or aversive stimulus to someone, there's two types of non-compliance basically and one is avoiding a stimulus that you know is harmful and have learned to circumvent. And then the other is avoiding the stimulus altogether because you believe it's going to be harmful, even though you haven't had a learning experience with it yet. You never come in contact with that stimulus. But I don't need to because I have another learned experience that tells me that that's bad. When you add something that somebody likes to a situation that's positive reinforcement. When you add something that somebody does not like to a situation that's positive punishment when you take away something that somebody likes. I take away your privilege to play video games. That's negative reinforcement because I'm taking something away, but it's going to increase the likelihood that you'll do whatever you need to do in order to not get the stimulus removed. Right. And then the one that people most misunderstand is when you take something away that somebody doesn't like. so negative punishment is the one. And people don't understand negative reinforcement either. They think that it's something bad, but it's not. It's, I'm taking something away that you dislike. I'm removing a stimulus that is aversive to you or that is disliked. I used to use real life examples for neurotypical people when I would explain the laws of behavior too. I would say things like, oh, well if you had an annoying boyfriend that can just consistently called you or whatever, and then all of a sudden you decided that you were gonna break up and you didn't want him to call you anymore and you just stopped calling him, well that's gonna result in an extinction burst. And I would use that to frame this topic of extinction burst instead of talking about something that's related to autism only to parents. Parents need to understand that the laws of behavior also apply to them. I really enjoy the persistent autonomy languaging because it is a way of positively reinforcing. It's bringing something to the situation that is going to increase the likelihood that that person is going to engage in that behavior again. And to me, that feels relevant. We do need to know how to say no when something isn't us And if I don't want to do this task, then I won't. Sometimes we don't wanna do those things, but we do have to do them. Yeah, I'm gonna
Danu Poyner:think of them non-preferred tasks now. Because this persistent demand for autonomy and things needing to be fun, not just to do them well, but to do them at all is a really common part of the grokkist experience, I think. And people don't always understand how important that is for getting things done. I wonder, you know, we haven't really talked about this, but does the language of being a grokkist resonate with you?
Brittany Cole Houston:Yeah. Big time. Yeah. I mean, there were a bunch of things already at Grokkist that I knew I was gonna fit in really well. One of the first things was like, oh, they have a group that they're just talking about Hitchhiker's Guide. And I was like, that's cool. But yeah, the sci-fi underpinnings, I was just like, this is great for me. I Think that as a sensitive, deeply feeling, deeply thinking person, it's my way to grok things, you know? I'm a Grokkist through and through.
Danu Poyner:You have this beautiful phrase, which I'm almost certainly gonna use as the title of this episode, which is Embracing Your Inner Outlier. I'd love to know more about where that comes from and what it means to you and how you like to talk to people about it, what you would like them to understand by it.
Brittany Cole Houston:That's a great question. I think when I was learning about marketing, I realized I'm not a business person but I do need to start to think about what kinds of things do I wanna say and what am I not annoyed by saying over and over and over again basically. And, being an outlier and being different with something that I personally identify with. For me it means understanding and respecting the parts of us that are not necessarily reinforced, or seen as being useful, or meaningful. In general, when you look at things mathematically, outliers in a dataset are usually discarded. I think this is the same in society too, right? If something falls outside that normal range of the bell curve, we look at it as extraneous and as a one-off or as something that doesn't really belong to the regular dataset, because look at all these other pieces of data that are all here comfortably in the normal range, and then there's one over here. When in reality I think that the outliers tell such a bigger story of the dynamic learning experience that we have as humans. And I think that they need to be included in the data set. I think that they can actually inform the data set. And balance the data sets in ways that people don't look at as admirable. When you think about it, all of us know how to do certain things, we know how to do other things less well, right? So for example, I am really great at talking a lot, and I am not so good at math, right? Both of those things fall for me in the normal range. But when you look at the bell curve, my speech and my communication skills are gonna be further to the right side, which is like the excess side of the bell curve. And then my math skills are gonna be probably just below the normal range. But yeah. Being an outlier and embracing that means taking those parts of self that we've been encouraged to abandon or believe that they were not useful, valuable, likable, and reincorporating those, reclaiming them in a way that is useful and valuable in showing people, what they were missing.
Danu Poyner:I Reckon I could say with 99% confidence that you have more than enough outlier in you to make up for at least three of your standard deviance.
Brittany Cole Houston:I'm gonna definitely, if that doesn't make the recording, I'm gonna wanna hang onto that one Danu.
Danu Poyner:It's a hard one journey to get where you are, to be able to have that level of self-awareness and level of societal awareness, and to know what you can do to self-manage, and also manage the contingencies and then act to change the environment and the systems. I'm curious what going full desert weirdo has meant in practice. You kind of mentioned that you went through this threshold moment of going, oh yeah, I am gonna do that. And what have been the practical ramifications of that for you?
Brittany Cole Houston:Hmm. That's a great question. So it meant transitioning out of a lot of friendships that were related to the autism community, I worked for the state and so I have families all over the state and coworkers and colleagues. That shifted those relationships and when that happened, I had to decide who I was again, because autism and working as a behavior analyst was such a big part of my life for so long. There was a loss there and there was a navigation of grief, with all of the attachments that I had, had built up some identity constructs that were really strong internally. Who am I? And am I beneficial to my community if I am not doing this work anymore? I'm just gonna be a silversmith then. And that's it, you know. And full desert weirdo was born out of the desire to do more than just create adornment. It was the yoni ring and the experience of tying everything together, that ultimately made me feel like, okay, this is something that is more related to the authentic me and not the business me or the professional me that I thought I was supposed to be for other people. When I left education, one of the practical things that happened was navigating that bit of identity shift. In addition, it was a change of an environment, right? I've become much more of an introvert, I would say in these last five years of doing silversmith work. It doesn't require me to work with other people. And I like that. A big part of Full Desert weirdo is also growing things and using plants and my herbalism knowledge, and that's another aspect that sometimes I do wish I had help with. As full desert weirdo grows, I know certain parts of my business, will need to embrace community again, and I will need to involve other people in the things that I'm making and doing.
Danu Poyner:When you go through one of these transformations that is about identity, there is a lot to navigate in terms of what you keep and what you let go, and sometimes friendships and relationships fall away and different practices, as you say. You've been the kind of person who helps other people navigate those situations in a lot of different contexts. Do you have that kind of support as you navigate these things in your life?
Brittany Cole Houston:I do, I do, I would say it's mostly through Sadana, so it's like an internal process. But also the guide that I rely on for that. Her name is Tara and, she's an important person for me in terms of feeling well resourced and moving forward just in general in life. She's further along on the Rivi path than I am, even though I'm quite experienced and it's not easy for me to work with teachers. She doesn't even like the word teacher and she's also queer, so like that feels really good too. There's like you know, When we first met I explained why I felt like I needed one-on-one support, and I was like, I have issues with educational trauma and authority and paying money for spirituality. And she really was able to answer all those questions or deal with them in a way that felt like, yeah, this is my person. Since then I've been able to navigate really well in terms of that practice. And that practice has also been a central source of support. I also am really lucky to live with my best friend right now. We met during Medicine Mandala during the apprenticeship, and her family is going through so much too right now. And so she's getting ready to transition back to care for her mom in California. But. It's been really lovely these last six months because she works for GoFundMe but works from home obviously. And so, is also quite a, a bit of a hermit. And so we have this beautiful relationship where once we want to socialize, we can, if the other person's available. But most of the time it's like a parallel play kind of a thing. We like knowing that each other is here, but we're not interacting all the time, you know?
Danu Poyner:Something I ask everyone, and I'm I'm not sure you'll like the framing of the question but what kind of future are you stretching towards from where you find yourself today?
Brittany Cole Houston:I don't often spend a lot of time thinking about the future to be honest. I'm not a goal planner. Because that was such a big part of behavior analysis, to set benchmarks, to achieve these very measurable things. I did try to do that with Full Desert Weirdo in the beginning, and it just didn't work out well for me. It made me feel like I was trying to be like everybody else again. and so I don't really think about the future a lot, but what I do know is that I will keep doing things the way that I'm doing them with an emphasis on creativity and with an emphasis on enjoyment and with an emphasis on my own individuality, for as long as I can, because that's what's comfortable to me, and that's what makes my job enjoyable. Right now I make enough money to where I don't have to suffer and full desert Weirdo is in a really lovely place to go multiple directions, but I'm not quite sure yet. It could be that I work more on herbalism. It could be that I level up in terms of casting and my silversmith work. I've worked with gold a little bit and would like to do some more of that. I also kind of miss teaching, or I miss people. So the idea of doing like a death doula grief circle sounds appealing to me too. I also love music and making music and can see myself going down that creative path, and embedding it into a full desert weirdo somehow, who knows. You know, what I love about it is I don't have to have a future necessarily. And who even knows a full desert weirdo will like, keep going. I might find something else that is inspiring or makes me wanna lean in a different direction and it's, I'm mutable man.
Danu Poyner:Another thing I ask everyone who comes on here is, if you could gift someone a life-changing learning experience, what would it be and why?
Brittany Cole Houston:Any type of like full immersion nature program because of the nature of my herbalism apprenticeship. It was a year long. It was many opportunities to engage in person, in circle with other people that were so diverse and so different in nature, without access to our typical homes and things that we're used to. I think that's what I would want for people. I would want them to be able to experience what I experienced in that non-traditional learning space, which was ultimately just permission be myself and permission to do things differently, uh, than how society teaches us or how our parents teach us, or how religion teaches us to be. I would gift them that because it was a big, beautiful, like origin of my current becoming state. It helped to launch that off and helped to make me feel like I had the freedom to do that for myself.
Danu Poyner:Do you think there's something specifically about the nature context of that that makes it so that you can have that permission experience?
Brittany Cole Houston:Yeah, I believe so. But I'm a plant person. I think also I would say that plants really impacted weirding in that way too, right? Or like that I also weird with plants, uh, because of the nature of growing so many things and watching them die and watching things change from season to season. It teaches you something about the nature of the different states that we inhabit and how to change between them. It's pretty hard not to like nature even when you're out there without your cell phone. Even if it was supposed to be in a punishing context, give it enough time and everybody will loosen. Everybody will let their stiffness kind of relax because nature has this wild, expansive, receptive capacity for all of us. It's my number one relationship. My most holy and sacred relationship is with the Earth and it's growing things.
Danu Poyner:If there are people listening who have been enjoying hearing about your journey and where you've come from and where you're at, and how you've found yourself along the way, and they are thinking about embracing their own inner outlier, or starting to go weirding, what would you say to encourage them?
Brittany Cole Houston:I would say that every single person is completely different. There's a quote by Steven Shore in the autism community that is, if you know one person with autism, then you know one person with autism because everyone is completely different. And that doesn't apply to just autism. So everybody brings to the table a unique set of skills, and preferences and a unique beauty that is their own. And I would just encourage people to find out what that is, and embrace it. What is it that you have that other people don't have? Because there is always something that you have that's unique.
Danu Poyner:You. That's wonderful. It's been such a pleasure talking to you today and getting to know you better and finding out more about your unique alchemy in lots of ways. So thank you so much for being here.
