Being with the entirety of ourselves with Chaney Williams

Join us in an honest conversation with Chaney Williams (she/they) exploring how we can be in relationship with the entirety of ourselves, and what can happen when we have brave space to show up fully. 

Chaney Williams is a poet, full spectrum doula, ritualist, and writer. She lives in Kentucky and has been a southerner since birth. 

Chaney strongly believes that all people deserve access to trauma informed, intersectional, sex positive, reproductive care. For Chaney, writing specifically their poetry and creative non-fiction essays are confessional in nature because they create what they know and what haunts them because it is the way they make sense of the world they exist in. It is how she finds belonging in the universe and connects to her ancestors, future descendants, and the collective.

Connect with Chaney:

• @theintersectionaldoula 
• https://chaneywilliams.substack.com/

Connect with BWB

• wearebwb.com
• @we.are.bwb
• Casey LinkedIN
• Cait LinkedIN
• BWB Linkedin

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Podcast Song: Holding you by Prigida
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/prigida/holding-you
License code: CELWR55ONTDIFRSS

Transcript

Casey: Welcome to the Questions to Hold podcast. I'm your host and BWB founder, Casey Carroll. In a world that often praises answers over questions, the act of holding a question is an act of resistance, presence, and devotion. In this podcast, I hold space for discussion at the intersection of life's biggest questions and our personal and professional worlds. These are honest conversations with progressive leaders dedicated to questioning our institutions, igniting change, and provoking new possibilities. Join me for my next discussion.

Casey: Hello everyone and welcome to the Questions to Hold podcast. I'm Casey Carroll, and I am very, very, very super duper excited to be in conversation with Chaney today. Chaney came into my life in magical ways, maybe almost like six plus months ago now. And then every time that we've been able to be in each other's presence, it seems like the big grace is in the room with us and all of those ways, which feels really good and that's the kind of like friendship and colleagueship and camaraderie that comes so rarely, but it's always such a blessing. So Chaney, I'm so grateful to be in conversation with you today and I know we have many, many juicy things we might talk about, so we'll see where the conversation goes. But first of all, if you just want to let the listeners know who you are, and then we'll go from there.

Chaney: Okay. My name is Chaney Williams. I use she / they pronouns. This is always such an interesting question because I feel like who I am, the undercurrent is always the same, but there's been a lot of big change and transformations in my life. So up until a year ago, I was primarily a birth and like full spectrum doula. And I was also a student midwife. And that kind of halted very suddenly after I was in a car accident. So who I am now is still really evolving. I'm a poet. I write a lot of creative writing, nonfiction. I'm really into ritual. That's like a big thing, but it's all very like, I'm in this really huge stage where everything is evolving in a really lovely way, I would say.

Casey: Yeah, that makes sense. I always think it's such a confronting question that we ask often and we ask like every day all the time kind of like it's no big deal and we should just have an answer at the ready. But if we actually have the like expansiveness to be with the like, who are you? It's like, wow, do you have your whole life to sit in that question with me? 

Chaney: Yeah, it's like there's not enough time. 

Casey: Exactly. I say that oftentimes too when I do the workshops with Questions to Hold about how are you and how it's like one of those things where people are like, Oh, Tell me about yourself or how are you? 

Chaney: What do you do? 

Casey: But yeah, we're supposed to be like, have the answer. and be like, good, you know, and that's supposed to suffice. And it's like, wow. But what if we actually enter a space where we're like with the question of how are you? And then workshop space, we usually go into that. But anyways, it reminds me of that. And I think it is an evolving piece. And it's kind of like, who am I today? And half the time, like, when that gets asked of me, I'm like, God, haven't thought about it in a while. Not sure, check back later. 

Chaney: When I'm meeting someone for the first time, is like, what are you passionate about? Like, what makes you tick? Like, what is the thing that, like, You're so passionate about or like is always on your heartstrings. Like that's the question I ask a lot because people have so many different answers because everyone's so unique and I love their answers. It tells you a lot. It's like what do you wake up in the morning for daily? Like what are those things? 

Casey: Well, Chaney, what are you feeling really passionate about?

Chaney: I guess I would say the intersection of grief and joy, like the coexisting of them, especially with the interwovenness of like ritual because that's been such a huge present thing in my life always, but I've always struggled with letting the joy exist as well because sometimes it feels bad. It feels bad to be in such a big grief space like we all are in the collective right now where to experience joy, so letting those things both coexist. And that's something I've been really working on and holding for the past couple of years. And it's very present right now.

Casey: And I'm curious, like when you say sometimes it's difficult to experience that joy, is it that things like guilt come up? Like, or is there, is it just like the, the juxtaposition of the two or like holding the tensions between those two existing at the same time?

Chaney: I think it's a lot of things, there's like the guilt part, where the world is so, and has been for a long time, we're all in this very big collective grief space, because how could we not be? Like, how could we not be? And so, for me personally, even through my own life, when I've experienced trauma, It feels bad sometimes letting that joy come in because of the things that have happened. And I feel like that's something a lot of other people experience too. Or like if you know someone who is going through such a huge traumatic experience, like losing a partner or something like that, and like feeling joy and being in that space with them also feels, it just feels like there's this like shame about it. Because I think that comes from how we're conditioned as well, but also like letting whatever you feel come up, that is a hard thing I struggle with too. 

Casey: Yeah, and I think a lot, I know you were, you also named that ritual and like the weaving of these pieces with ritual, and I know for myself as somebody who also identifies as a poet, as a writer, but poetry for me is such a unique ritual way to touch into both the grief and joy piece. So I'm curious if that resonates for you too or if that is part of like a ritual practice for you with that. 

Chaney: So for me it's always been a part of the ritual practice. I think like my writing in a lot of ways is a sanctuary for me. It has been since I was a kid. I've kept a diary or journal since I was six and I still have all of them. Like every single one I've had, I look through periodically every couple of years to like see that growth, but for me, my writing is a way to process everything that is going on in my life in a way where I do not, it's like a sanctuary because I don't flip judge because the page won't judge me. So I feel like I've really explored that in my writing as well and those coexisting ties. And it's interesting looking back on, like, even my thesis from when I did, like, my MFA because I was in such a heavy grief space because I experienced a couple different sexual assaults while doing my thesis at the beginning and at the end. And seeing how, seeing like how my mind knew things before my body knew was really interesting looking back on my thesis and being like, Oh, that is there and that was present and like the things the content I wrote about as well. I wrote a lot about processing and like that grief. 

Casey: Yes, I can relate to that as well. Um, in many ways, and even ironically, just like in the parallel of very similarly in my writing thesis. I was writing about things in, for me it was more body traumas, but that my body hadn't realized yet, but my mind was writing about them and even two years later reading them, I was like, oh, like I didn't even know then what was happen. You know? 

Chaney: I didn't, yeah, back then. 

Casey: Because like when professors were like, are things okay? I'm like, what do you mean? Of course everything's fine. How do they know anything? 

Chaney: I'm good. 

Casey: Yeah, everything's good. And then I read it and I'm like, wow. Wow. 

Chaney: It's so interesting what the mind knows and does to protect itself sometimes in the body or the mind as well can't handle it yet. And that's just something that I've really noticed in my writing too. And like when I was doing my student midwifery, like my preceptorship, I was, there was so much trauma going on, not with that, but just in my own personal life. I didn't write for a year. I only wrote one essay. And it was an essay for like, uh, online magazine, but I didn't write poetry. I did a lot of tarot spreads, but looking back on it now, it's because my mind did not want to have to accept what had happened or like even begin to process it because I wasn't ready. And it's like a protective mechanism. The mind is wild.

Casey: Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. Yes, it is wild. But it's pretty amazing to, when you have the ability to like look back and understand what is happening, you know, in a way that you don't in, when it's all unfolding in that same way. And before we go further with that too, I want to take a, not a step back, but a step to the side because I often like to think about, you know, what the relationship is to questions is kind of just a grounding question in this conversation. And I imagine, you know, the relationship between your writing and questions are connected anyways, so it seems like a natural bridge, but yeah, even thinking back to wherever that, that question kind of stems from for you of like, were they supported? Were you nurtured in asking questions? Did questions feel like something that weren't actually very safe for you to do? Like what, where does that start in your life? 

Chaney: So I would say from how I was raised in like the American school system, questions, my relationship with questions is very complicated as I feel like it is for all of us in different ways. And so I grew up in an environment where like inside and outside the home where it wasn't really encouraged for children to ask certain questions or like, especially when learning new things or like exploring new things. It's interesting because I've realized that in the last couple years that like, I don't like even during when I was doing midwifery when I was in my preceptorship, I did not want to ask too many questions, even though that's the point. You're learning. And it's interesting because I'm so, I'm not like that with other people, like with other people I'm like, ask all the questions like you're still learning you can be  imperfect and messy and it's just a process because that's how it is for everyone when you're learning something. But I think my relationship with questions is like there's a lot of, there used to be a lot of fear and resistance around it. And now it's like I've realized, this is why we're here is to ask questions. And hold space for them if you don't know the answer to the question right now as well, and being able to say that. 

Casey: Yeah, and I know, how is your, so how does that then like translate into your writing? Like, would you say in your writing practice, whether it's poetry or the memoir, um, the hybrid memoir you're working on, or even the writing you do on Substack, or all the different, you know, mediums and formats that you write in, is it a space for you, like you said, your journals were always your space where the page isn't judging you, but where you get to kind of like, move through the inquiries.

Chaney: I think that that's exactly what it is. And it's interesting because I have, I feel more comfortable writing and expressing those questions there than I do speaking them out loud. And that's something that's always been very present, I think from being raised as a femme in our society, but also just experiencing trauma throughout different periods of my life as well and being like, it's not safe to ask questions, but the page is safe. It can hold those questions for me when I'm still trying to explore or find how I want to use my voice out loud to process those things. And that is why it's been so important to me that I've kept all my journals. Because I remember thinking when I was like 13, and it's interesting now to think back about because I knew that one day I would not remember these like things that had happened in my life, but I thought it would be because I was elderly. I mean, yeah, but really it's been my journals and my writing have been my memory keeper for me. 

Casey: This makes me very happy to hear because my, my grandmother was a huge advocate for journaling. She's also a writer, but she was like a huge journaling advocate. So I remember as a kid always being like Casey, you have to have a journal, you know, and like, I journaled quite a bit as well, but my, my daughter is six and she just turned six and we just got her, her first journal. Like you were saying, we went this weekend and we got the journal with a lock on it, a diary, because I was like, this is your space. You can make it anything you want. And now like every day in the past week, I found her like in her room in her journal. And I'm like, my heart just like lights up. 

Chaney: That lights me up too. Like you all can't see but I'm smiling so big. It makes me so happy. And like, I think that I'm also very privileged in the way where my parents never read my journals, which is something some people deal with. And so there was never a fear of being able just to let it all out in like a space that was very safe. But I'm so glad your daughter has that. I remember my first journal was a Barbie journal. 

Casey: Yes, the lock is so key. Yeah, it's really important. That's what we were saying. She picked up another one. I'm like, you need the lock. And then we found that one. But I think that's a really important piece you're naming, which is also around like the honoring of our inquiries and like the expression and allowing them to be kept where they are and not that they're going to be violated or somebody is going to come and, you know, question them. That's also a conversation I had with my daughter, where I was like, this is your space. I won't go in it. I'm not going to keep a key. You know, it's totally yours. Well, just to have that room, I think is so important for all of us as we're trying to navigate life. And as you said, the intersection of joy. 

Chaney: I'm so glad you have that conversation and like, let her know that.

Casey: Yeah. Yeah. It's important. 

Chaney: Yeah. Yeah. 

Casey: So I'd be interested to hear like what happens for you when you think about, or as you're leaning a little bit more into like the speaking out part, because I know you're like moving into a podcast conversation and you've had different parts of your visibility where you've been, whether you liked it or not, kind of like put into visibility. So I'm curious, like how, how does that translate into what happens when you get into kind of a more speaking visibility space.

Chaney: When I, when I'm speaking out loud in front of people, I literally shake. This has been a thing that has started during college. So I used to not really be that way. And I think, I don't think, I know what it's from. And it's from having a professor tell me that I was like, my voice was too girly and light for the writing I was creating, which is really misogynistic and just gross. And it really changed my perspective about myself, and it was kind of, it was also like humiliating because he did it in front of the class. So it really shaped my reading in public of my own writing now, because I'm like, no one's going to take me seriously. Because he said that he was like, your voice doesn't match what you're writing, like you should try to deepen your voice. And so that's something I've been really working through the past couple years, I never realized how much of a big significance it had on me and like being seen in a visible way. And then I would say another part of that is I hate using the word viral, but I feel like that's the correct word for it. But when I was starting midwifery school, I did a GoFundMe, which I'm very, very grateful for because I had a really positive response. It was wild, but it was very overwhelming because in a span of like a week, I went from having maybe 300 to like several thousand.

Casey: Oh, wow.

Chaney: And this was also while I was in a very like abusive relationship. And so I felt like thrown on display very quickly and it went viral due to a lot of different people sharing it who had a lot more followers than I did, which was so kind. And, but it was very, it felt almost like intrusive because I wasn't expecting it. I wasn't prepared for it, especially with what I was navigating my personal life. I did not know how to exist. being that way, like being seen so visibly in such a raw, tender, kind of awful part of my life, and I had to like, very like, hide it, like shut it down, didn't feel comfortable or safe to talk about it.

Casey: Yeah, and I think part of what I'm hearing too is this like it's again that tensions piece you were naming in the beginning with joy and grief because you were like it's very kind and it was overwhelming and awful and in a tender part of my life and you know felt violating a little bit unexpected but it's like but it was kind and you know all that tensions of it and also the difference between like the intentional and then what the impact of any of these things can do and then also just like how these major, those two major moments you're talking about very different in like scope and environment and everything like that, but then it will like shape and inform, you know, maybe like 10 years of speaking or writing or expression or your art or like anything else. It's really kind of amazing how the process then moves within us and, you know, how much time we might need to move through any of those different pieces as were. You know, continuing to navigate them and come out. 

Chaney: Yeah. And like the thing that came up when you were talking about that is holding space for yourself as well, even with those questions and not feeling, cause I felt like in a lot of ways I had to portray a certain thing on social media, because it was like, how do I talk about this? Like a thing that was really big for me is after my car accident, I just was like, I have to make my page private. I'm setting boundaries. I'm not, because I didn't, wasn't expecting any of that. And it was so good in a lot of ways because I had so much support and it was people who were so kind, but it did feel violating, like you were saying, because I wasn't expecting it. But I think I kind of do this thing where like, for several months, I just didn't post anything. at all. And I needed that space to hold those questions of like, what does this look like moving forward for me on social media? What makes me feel safe and comfortable to exist on social media this way? I still have a complicated relationship with social media. As we all do. As we all do. 

Casey: Being artists being people that are visible, also, especially, you know, if you have something like that, people are consuming in the way that they're consuming your writing, your thinking, your art it like, not that it's not complicated for everybody, I think it is. But when you're then navigating all the different pieces you're talking about here of like personal traumas and how they're intersecting with the platform and how they're intersecting with your personal life and your professional life and and your art making and how all those things come together. It is just complicated in a way that we need to have permission to like turn it off or not post anything or do whatever it is we need to do as you said like hold space for yourself in the midst of kind of all of those different elements around.

Chaney: I think it yes like exactly that and like the other thing I was going to say is that it intersects with the reclaiming of my voice like reproducing it as well in a way that feels good to me because in a lot of ways part of the shaking that exists when I am reading my writing out loud is because I feel so seen because my writing is very confessional in nature, and I do write about my trauma, and I do write about different things like that. And so it's like this, what Brene Brown calls like a vulnerability hangover that happens where after I'm like, everyone knows, everyone in this room knows, and that feels weird because they don't know me at all. They just know what I just shared, and that's something I'm processing and working through with my therapist. Which I'm very grateful for. 

Casey: Yeah, we all need a great therapist. So, yes, I'm glad you have a good one. Um, that's really what you named is really key and something, you know, we have a workshop coming up this week that we run called Tell Your Story, but it's a difference, we try to really emphasize more and more, which is that you are not your story. So it's like even, you know, you getting up there and sharing your story and it being true that like. They see that story that that truth is known, as you said, like they don't know you and that those things get like conflated or collapsed onto each other of like, Oh, I know that, so I know her. And it's like, no, you don't know them actually, you just know that story in told that way in that one moment kind of thing. And I think it's really important for us as listeners and storytellers to really have that awareness when we're in relationship with somebody, somebody's story. 

Chaney: Yes, that separation like we were talking about. It's so big.

Casey: Yeah, it's interesting too that you said that there's like this piece around like what you have to portray- I'm doing air quotes- on social media and also what that misogynistic comment that a teacher had given you around like performing or like the performance or the delivery of your work, which is like, I can say so many things about that, but there's like this element where that gets really slippy too, of, like, do I have to portray something or perform it? Or can I just be, or why do just because I'm talking about this certain topic, do I have to like lower my voice and talk about it? And like, what, what, what is that? You know, like, why do we have to, why do we have to do that? But I'm just curious for the listeners, um, if you want to share a little bit about, like, what is, what is it that you do write about? What are you working on right now? I know you have, I believe, your memoir is in process, which is pretty exciting, but I would just be curious to hear you share a little bit more what it is that you're feeling moved by in your writing right now. 

Chaney: The big piece is that grief and joy, the coexistence of it, but how it relates to my ancestral and generational trauma, because I am named after my sixth great grandmother who was born in 1826.

Casey: Wow. 

Chaney: And she was an enslaved person. And so she was born in Virginia. I was born in Virginia. And when my mom was pregnant with me, my uncle found all this history that we never knew. And it was about her. And so I'm really writing about how there can be grief and joy with all my identities and how those can coexist because I'm also biracial. My mom is white. Her family came down as Catholic settlers, in quotation marks, to Kentucky in the 1780s. They colonized the area. There's so much grief about that but also like there's a reckoning with being like I come from people who have both been oppressors and have been oppressed and that was really confusing as a kid, especially where I live, and I think it's more, there's more representation of people who are also biracial in the schools now, but when I was a kid, It was like me and three other people, including my sister. And a lot of people were like, are you adopted? When they would see my mom, which felt really confusing to me because I didn't understand as like an eight or 10 year old, why they were asking that. So I think that is the big thing I'm really exploring in my writing right now is my family history in relationship to myself and how all of the things that have happened before that have made me who I am today, how I exist and looking at the past, but also how we move forward in the future as a collective and to hold space for that grief and joy. As like a liberatory edge. 

Casey: I think too. I can't remember if we talked about this at the beginning of this conversation or in a different conversation we've had, but really like, oftentimes, you know, you're the living model of the intersection of those things. Right? So there's really nothing you have to prove or there's nothing, you know, it's like, you're just actually through memoir embodying that inquiry, you know, and like walking through that inquiry through story in that kind of way, which is really I find in the pressure that we can put our on ourselves as artists of like telling the story or getting it right or making sure if something's clear or not, it's like there's nothing you have to prove on that because you're the living existence of that inquiry question and of those things coexisting together. And now you just get to explore through family history and lineage and the complexity of The South and being biracial and all the different pieces that you name to be able to like, tell that story from your perspective, which is really cool. And I also think just this, like, you know, we often say, like, we ourselves are a question out into the world in whatever way. And it's not just a singular question where many questions out there, but it's really beautiful that you're like exploring that question, both in your art and then allowing some of us, you know, people who read your work or see you speak or whatever to come get a window into that too.

Chaney: There's this like calling where I feel like this is why I was put on this earth at this time to do this work because of all my, a lot of my cousins are doing similar work, but in different capacities in different ways. And I think it's like really huge that to be a well ancestor we have to try to lessen the harm that our ancestors did before us, and make it better for the future and the collective, and that's the big question I'm holding right now, is like, how do we create a sustainable future for all of us? And for me, doing this work and writing what I'm writing is how I do that, is how I do my own part, is processing and realizing and looking at all those parts of my history and how they have led to this, to where I am now. 

Casey: Yeah, I love that. Actually, even in the, in the pre conversation for this, you asked that question to me and I was like, Ooh, I love this. What are we going to get talking about? Um, and I'm curious, it kind of brings us into a nice sort of like wrapping moment, but around that, but I'm curious, I will just name. So we always pick a card, a Questions to Hold card before the conversation. And the one that Chaney and I pulled was who am I ready to become? And I'm wondering if you want to just take a minute in reflecting in that question like you were naming like you feeling this calling in this life in this moment to be doing what you're doing, and I'm curious to just hear a little bit about the inquiry of who you feel you're ready to become within all of this.

Chaney: The first thing when you asked it, I thought was someone who is ready to make a home in their body and be present because of my history of trauma, that a lot of it started from childhood and continued to adulthood. That is not something that I've done at all times as like a survival mechanism. But for me, the writing I'm doing, the remembering of the past, is what makes way to the future. And pieces of those things together as well with myself in the present moment and for my future descendants. So I think the person I'm becoming is someone who is making a home in their body, but also is remembering their voice and the voice of their ancestors. And honoring that, trying to honor that.

Casey: So beautiful. Well, that's quite, that's quite the thing that is becoming, which is really beautiful. And we talk about this too, in a variety of different ways. But one question that I was hearing when you were saying that too, in my own was like, yeah, what becomes possible when you can stay in your body? You know, because, like, you're, you're becoming into the place of, like, when you're ready to make a home in your body and be able to be present into it. And then, as you said, that's, like, a life process in and of itself. And in that journey, what starts to become possible when we can stay in our bodies and stay present with them and move through all the different pieces that are going to come up and everybody's individually is different, but that just opened that question up for me, too.

Chaney: Yes, that's what I hope for all of us, that we're able to create a home in our bodies that feels safe to be in, where we're held by community and belonging as well, and accepted and loved and, like, cherished for who we are. And there's, that is my hope for the collective future, for liberation for all of us, is... Feeling like you can make a home in your body, but you don't have to be a certain way to be at home in it. 

Casey: Mm hmm. Yeah. May it be so. And I would love to just end if you have a way for the listeners, we'll put some ways in show notes, but is there anything coming up that the listeners who might want to stay connected to you or learn more about you in your writing to find?

Chaney: Yeah. So the big one right now is my Substack, which, the link will be in the show notes.. I'm bringing out a lot of like ancestral grief containers for people who are BIPOC, queer, or trans. So I think that's really important. And like, that's, that's what I'm offering right now to the world, that and like tarot readings. 

Casey: Beautiful. 

Chaney: And so you can find out more about that because I'm still very slowly working on my website. You know, it is almost done because, me. 

Casey: It's a living question. 

Chaney: Yeah, it, that's, that's a thing, but you can find that information when it is live on my Substack. 

Casey: Yes, and I highly recommend. I'm just going to give one big plug for the Substack, which I think is so beautiful and all that will be linked and Chaney, thanks so much for sharing with us today and for the beautiful questions that you allowed us to be with you in and then also that we're sitting in leaving the conversation. Super appreciate it and always appreciate being with you. 

Chaney: Thank you for having me. 

Casey: Thank you for listening to the Questions to Hold podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode and are leaving the conversation with way more questions than answers. I invite you to build a more meaningful relationship with yourself and the world around you through this simple yet profound act of holding questions. Visit questionstohold.com and wearebwb.com to learn more about this practice, our Questions to Hold card deck and explore more conversations. See you there.