Loving Yourself as Feminist Practice / Amelia Hruby

In this episode, feminist writer + educator Amelia Hruby shares about breaking up with diet culture, learning to love herself, her new book Fifty Feminist Mantras and the non-neutrality of technology and social media.

WE DISCUSS

• The process of re-visiting her writing and working on a new edition of her book
• Learning from our past selves and using the process of review to evaluate our growth
• Re-aligning with cyclical growth and slowing down
• Her healing journey from diet culture and how feminist principles helped her embrace embodiment
• How she has been practicing rest and learning to trust her own flow instead of pushing past resistance
• How to be on your phone and not hate everything — her thoughts on the pros and cons of interacting through social media
• How technology is not a neutral tool
• The pressure social media puts on everyone to be an aspiration and/or a personal brand

LINKS

More about our guest —

Amelia’s website
Amelia’s IG
Get a sneak peak of Fifty Feminist Mantras for F R E E
Get your copy of Fifty Feminist Mantras
Listen to my episode on her podcast Fifty Feminist States

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Transcript

mary grace allerdice: 0:15

My name is Mary Grace and you're listening to the homebody podcast. Here we explore what it means to practice embodiment, which is practicing home inside our own selves and also within our wider body, which is the earth. These spiritually and artfully minded conversations center healing, magic and astrology, intuition, art, wellness, creativity, social and environmental justice as the practices that help us witness more relationship, meaning and purpose. We are here to approach life as a conscious process. And my hope is to enliven you, encourage you to hone your intuition, connect to your own center. So together, we can cultivate more wisdom, and self trust and be dynamic agents of beauty. People who are fully awake, and with our power intact, we're here to be more intentional as we approach the creation and caretaking of life. And we are here to make room for inquiry, sensitivity, and joy. Thank you for listening.

Amelia Hruby: 1:27

I think the other thing I realized is that if I didn't change my self loathing if I didn't give it up, I also couldn't accept love and that... and I was going to sabotage that relationship. And I definitely, it was a big process for me to unpack all of that and work through it. But I always think that self love, how we love ourselves, like self love has become a buzzword, but just like how we love ourselves, is at the core of how we let other people love us and how we accept and give love.

mary grace allerdice: 2:00

Hi everyone, and thanks for joining me on this week's episode of the podcast. I'm really glad that you're here. And I have a really lovely guest for you today that I'm excited to share and let you participate in this conversation with us. If you missed last week's episode of this show, I recommend you go back and check it out. I go into the Taurus full moon that we just had last weekend, as well as some of the mercury action that we're all really actively living into this week. And while I know the moon loop already happened, the moon is already changing and waning, these full of new moon lunations actually serve as a sort of baseline energy container during the next two weeks following. So even though the Taurus Full Moon has already happened, we're still living within its effects. So it can be helpful to kind of go back and see a little bit more about what those dynamics are. I also want to say that today's episode is obviously pre recorded before November 3, which is election day here in the US and probably all of the ensuing chaos that is going on around that and kind of emotional waves. So I just want it feels important to acknowledge that this episode was recorded before this week's events. And we will you know, you can look to future episodes, the podcast to respond more appropriately to that if appropriate. I also made a guided meditation a couple of weeks ago that just feels really that I've been doing it just feels really helpful as far as grounding and connecting to my own resilience. So I labeled it and have a link for it below if you would like it. I shared it with folks on my newsletter a couple of weeks ago. So if you would like access to that meditation for free, you can find a link to it below in the show notes. It'll just say guided meditation for surrender and resilience. So you can check that out if that feels like a helpful resource for you. And now my guest today, who I'm happy to introduce is Amelia Hruby. Amelia is a feminist writer and an educator, a podcaster. She has a PhD in philosophy with a concentration in Women and Gender Studies. And she also just released a new edition of her book called fair 50 feminist mantras which I recommend that you check out I have links to her Instagram website and where you can find the book below in the show notes. So please go down to the show notes in the show or book some love. I've included links to where you can more find out more about her work and all of that below. Also, her podcast is called 50 feminist states and I was actually a guest on her podcast in I believe last week's episode on episode 48. So if you'd like to hear more of the two of us in conversation together, please go check out that episode on her show. We had a really beautiful long afternoon chatting with each other and we ended up having two very different content conversations, different topics coming up and different tones of conversation and territory that we explore together. So go check out Episode 48 on her podcast 50 feminist states. So go give that episode, some love after you listen to this one. And in this conversation on this show, Amelia really shares with us about her process of going back over a book that she wrote back in 2016. And the process of reviewing it and editing it and re putting it back together after about four years, and also some of the interesting parallels. That happened, you know, writing about feminism around these very electric elections, that we've had one back in 2016, and one that we're having now in 2020, here in the US, and Amelia also shares really vulnerably and beautifully about her journey through accepting her body through dysmorphia and feelings of self loathing, as she's just in the process of really actively divesting from diet, culture, and body shaming and some of the things that she's done to help her do that. And what that moment really of choosing to accept and love herself really looked like, which I just so appreciate it, it was just really moving for me to hear. We also talk about how we love ourselves is at the core of how we let others love us. And I thought that that was really, she's really tells us how that affected her life personally, and what kind of brought her to that place. And also some practical likes and dislikes around social media, and consciously trying to orient our work and how we live around more ease and flow instead of just productivity all the time at all costs. And what are some of the practical like mental conversations and questions that she asked herself in order to orient more around that where she can. So if you enjoy today's episode, please consider sharing it with someone who would also benefit from the conversation and also consider leaving us a five star rating and or review. It's super helpful for the podcast, we really appreciate you listening and sharing and supporting and that way. And I hope you enjoy this episode. I hope it really serves your own shedding whatever holds you back from your own radical self acceptance. And that that serves as a platform from which you can love yourself more and better as well as the world around us. We need you need your acceptance and we need your love. So enjoy this episode here is Amelia Ruby. So I always start the episodes by letting folks introduce themselves because I think they do that so much better than I would. So do you mind just opening us up by telling us who you are, what you do, and a little bit of like what that kind of looks like as far as your day to day life and how you show up in the world.

Amelia Hruby: 7:56

Yeah, gladly. Thanks so much for having me on the podcast.

mary grace allerdice: 8:00

My pleasure.

Amelia Hruby: 8:01

I am Amelia Hruby. I am a feminist writer, and educator and podcaster. I have a PhD in philosophy with a concentration in Women and Gender Studies. I just conferred that degree of June so it's still new to me. Oh, yeah. Wow. Yeah, I defended my dissertation at my kitchen table during COVID. And I graduated sitting on my parents basement couch watching a YouTube video. You know, was just one of those years. But I do a lot have a lot of different projects and jobs in the world. So primarily stuff I work on, I run a podcast called 50 feminist states. And that is really this vessel through which I interview feminist activists and artists across the US and I make these locations specific episodes before COVID. I was traveling to do all the interviews and produce them now. more remote, and I'm still adjusting to that. Also, I have a book coming out. Or maybe by the time this episode is out, it'll be out called 50 feminist mantras. I originally wrote that book in late 2016 through 2017. self published it. And then last summer, I heard from an editor that wanted to rework it and put it out again, so it's coming out a month before the election, which is exactly when I started. I started a month before the last election. So it's like this really interesting process so we can definitely talk more about and in terms of how I spend my time. I have a pretty I live in Chicago right now I'm moving to Lincoln, Nebraska, and a few weeks where my family lives. And normally, I like to spend my mornings writing and drinking coffee and spending some time with my cat and my partner. And then in the afternoons I work for a very cool company called sister out in LA and am program coordinator for our fundamental business school programs, which is a ton of fun, and I love my job. And so those are kind of how my days are made up. It used to be a lot of seeing friends and hosting events and being out and I'm now hanging out with my cat. And don't we?

mary grace allerdice: 10:18

Yeah, totally. I love that. And I love Jen's company. I love sister and all the work and it's nice to see you behind some of it. I think where I would love to go from here, since you mentioned it, I think we can talk about I would love to hear some of this kind of like recycle of your book process like how that's feeling when it comes up to the election and how perhaps revisiting your work. I think we live in a culture that doesn't value revisiting things as much as potentially it could or should. So I'm interested in what that process has been like for you potentially what new insights or gifts have bubbled up, particularly since the past four years have been probably very different than you may have thought they would have been in 2016.

Amelia Hruby: 11:05

Yeah, yeah. I love telling this story. And I really appreciate the invitation to talk about the cycle of it because it has been such a journey, like the whole book process, and my book journey is pretty different, I think, than a lot of people's so I started writing feminist monitors on Instagram on Halloween of 2016. And I started doing that because I had taken all these feminist theory classes in grad school, I knew some really radical feminist activists in Chicago through my community here and Halloween 2016 was the peak of like, Hillary Clinton's campaign. And I started feminist lunch or Monday because I was actually kind of frustrated with the liberal feminism of it. I was supportive of her I voted for her I like was it wasn't a total detractor. But I also wanted more like I wanted more from feminism and from what I was seeing people call feminism and attribute to feminism. I wanted more than like a presidential candidate who had a very long history of violence, like in her politics. And so that's when I started coming to sponsor Monday. And then by like, the third mantra, our current President Donald Trump had won the election. And it totally shifted, instead of me critiquing the feminist culture I was seeing, I was suddenly like, Oh, we need a whole lot of resources to like emotionally and physically survive the next year, four years at least. So if I'm going to sponsor Monday became this kind of community rallying point where I was really just trying to provide like a solve and some education and space online in my life for people to come together and learn about feminist values and how to implement them in their lives, like how to live ritually feminist lives. And so I wrote those for a year. And then I was like, wow, I have like 50 of these, I should put them in a book. And then I like alliteration, and I came up with the very literal title 50 months. And I self published that book in late 2017. And that was a real joy. Like, I love self publishing. I still do. I just got to put the mantras together, a friend made the book cover for me, I sent it off to the ether of the internet at that time, I was using CreateSpace, which has now been subsumed into Amazon. And the book was here, and then I like did some events and I did event in Chicago. In New York, I sold it on my website, I probably sold like three or 400 copies, and then it just kind of went out of out of print, at least in my version of out of print. I stopped printing it for self publishing out of print names. Until last summer, and last June, June 2019. I got a email through the form on my website from someone named Charlie from read poetry calm who wanted to talk to me about my work and I thought it was spam. I was like this doesn't sound real. I ignored it.

mary grace allerdice: 14:21

for like who's Charlie.

Amelia Hruby: 14:24

Exactly. That's my thought. At first I was like, way too judgmental. I was like I don't know what dude from read poetry calm let's talk to me, but I'm not interested. A week later I like got back from a trip and actually replied to my email actually looked up who this person was realized it was not a dude, it was now my wonderful editor Charlie Upchurch with Andrews mcmeel Publishing who had found the podcast on Kickstarter and then found my website and then on the book and wanted to talk about it. And that eventually led to the book deal that I signed. which then gets us to the revisiting process because once I find that book deal, I had to reopen that manuscript and revise and edit the whole thing. And I think you are completely right, that in our society, we do not do that. We don't go back to projects that have been like executed and released, and then totally rework them. And it was really like revisiting an old self. I really, I really, it was sitting there, I spent January in February of this year, like sitting with my 2017 self, which was only three years, you know, two and a half to three years before that when I'd written most of it, but it felt like a totally different person, a totally different person. And it was so cool to hang out with her I really am, it gave me such an appreciation for the ways that I had grown, that I couldn't see because I was just living them day to day. But when I really had this like, document that captured so much of my thinking then that was I got to just like, witness my own growth in a way. And the other thing that's really happened in revisiting the book is witnessing, just like how the, our cultural sense of feminism has changed so much. And this is especially true even since I turned in the book to now. So, you know, when I was editing the book I was looking at, you know, how did I talk about feminism in 2017? Because what did I think people were ready to hear? What did I think people would understand? What did I have to explain? What did they already know, that's very different at the start of 2020, than it was at the end of 2017. Like, I mean, in 2017, I was the first Women's March, and in 2017, people were like our discourse around orders was totally different, our discourse around so many things. And when I talk about 30, feminist dates is like there have always been radical grassroots activists who had been on this, it's not that I didn't exist, but the public didn't accept it in the same way or didn't have the knowledge of it or use the language. So I really got to dig into that. And then, of course, now that the books coming out, I also, you know, I turned in the book, and I think, March or April. And then of course, in June, we have this national racial uprising. By July, people, so many people who I would say this just, I have been amazed at the way that police and prison abolition has become like a common language. It used to be one of the most radical parts of my politics that I had to like, fight for all the time. And now it's just like everyone fine. Yeah, define, defend. And now everyone has a sort of common ability to talk about it. I think a lot of I have questions about whether people really understand or how deeply they are committed at this point. But, but it was just so now it's so interesting. I have there's some points in the book, where I'm like, oh, wow, if I had known what was going to happen, I could have pushed this, like 10 steps farther. So maybe I've gotten a little long winded at this point. But revisiting the book, let me revisit an old self and just reflect so much on the feminist consciousness raising, we've gone through as a country in the United States, and a little I'm like, a little blown away, which is a good feeling to have, during a time that is really dark and scary.

mary grace allerdice: 18:37

Yeah. What are some of the things like you mentioned, revisiting your 2017 self? What are a couple of the key things that you really noticed, like developmental and developmentally in yourself, like, oh, wow, I've really integrated this, and I'm really living it now. It no longer feels new. What are some of the new croppings of feminism that you feel really expressed versus what you did a few years ago?

Amelia Hruby: 19:02

Yeah. Great question. Thank you. I think for me, there are a couple core feminist values that I have been working on really hard, and I have not mastered them my life. But one of those would be like, one of them is about growth. I have I'm still trying to figure out the best way to put it out. But I have really been working on shifting my perspective of growth as from one of like, linear progress to one of cyclical, slow expansion. And I did write about that first in the book in 2017. I gave a whole like mini talk on how our societal conception of linear growth and in many cases exponential growth is like very Phallocentric. It's very patriarchal.

mary grace allerdice: 20:01

It's alsoa complete fallacy

Amelia Hruby: 20:03

completely

mary grace allerdice: 20:04

like not real at all.

Amelia Hruby: 20:06

Yeah. Nothing grows like that. Unless like, except like venture capital, which is definitely not real like. Yeah, so anyways, so yeah, the only thing that grows like that is destruction so. So I have been really working on that like cyclical slowing down, like leaning into cycles and slowing down how fast they work. And I could see that in the book. And then when I revised it, it just like I just put it in so much more it started. It went everywhere a little bit. And part of that, as I always say, so much on Instagram is like, it's not because I'm great at slowing down or recognizing cycles, it's actually because I'm pretty bad at it. I'm an Aries rising now. Sorry. Aries, sun Capricorn rising. And I work kind of really intentionally, yeah, yeah, I have a really intense year. And yeah, and I'm just like, built to be like a sprinting workhorse. Like, I feel like that's so much of me. So I need that reminder, like, I hold on to those values of cyclical progress and slow growth. So much. So that's something I realized, like I have embedded more in my life, and I come back to a lot more and I don't feel as much pressure to move as fast. I think an intense attention to embodiment is just like a core feminist value, or it's not only in feminism, but it's just where I discovered it. A refusal to only live in like, logic and the mind in ideas. And I say that as someone with a PhD in philosophy, I spent a lot of time in logic, mind and ideas. And looking back at my 2017 self, I could see her really trying to get embodied, like trying so hard. And I think I'm still grappling with that, again, I'm not always sure. Like, I think my reflections are less about there are about how far I've come. But it's just, I don't know, if it's not about success, if that makes sense. I haven't like succeeded at accomplishing the values or the things I wrote in the book. But I feel them deeper, and I know them better. And that's enough for now.

mary grace allerdice: 22:26

Yeah, and it sounds like at least and I may be projecting on to you. And you can tell me if I am like there's.... Whether or not I feel like I'm succeeding at something more, perhaps I trust that that is correct. More. And I think, you know, we do... I've been thinking a lot about how our culture really and capitalism wants us to be exceptional. And it wants us to be defined and definitive and, and mastered, and I think it's there's something really beautiful and healthy about also, you know, having aspirational beliefs and aspirational embodiments, which kind of sounds like "I haven't mastered" but I think but the target is aimed at the right thing, you know?

Amelia Hruby: 23:14

Oh, yeah, I thank you for saying that. Because I feel like it just, sometimes you're stumbling your way toward trying to explain something and someone gives you the words, that's exactly how I'm feeling about this is like, what I saw in the 2017 version of the book was I was really trying to figure it out. And just what I feel like has stepped into this version of the book, is this really clear way to help people move their target in the right direction, like to really see like, oh, I've been working so hard, expecting myself to, like, grow at this like consistent or exponential, faster pace. And if you work through the book, it will really help you slow down and reorient toward your own tempo, which is something that we all have to find for ourselves, because it's not that moving fast as bad. Just that we can't be expected to do it all of the time and keep going faster and faster. Like some of the moments when I move fast are my best ones because it means I'm trusting my gut. But I can just go. But that's really I think what happens in the book, I love how you put it like it really helps you just like an reorient where you're headed. So that as you're growing as you're evolving as you're deepening your practices, their feminist values are intertwined in them. You're not on that like patriarchal capitalist white supremacist path anymore. Right?

mary grace allerdice: 24:36

Or you're at least like aware of it enough to start untangling.

Amelia Hruby: 24:40

Yeah, we're all on it to some extent. We live in the United States. We talk like we have technologies like that, that were just implicated, but we can start that untangling process. Totally.

mary grace allerdice: 24:52

What are some of the things and something that we talk a lot about on the podcast and definitely something that I work with others and work with myself as far as like life direction, but just being in a body is, to me just one of the most like beautiful, amazing things, and what, but I feel that being said, even as someone who has had a very strong physical practice, their whole life that sometimes changes and shifts, I still find myself being like, Oh, you didn't go with your body. Oh, you're not listening to your body. And so I'm interested in for you. You know, you said you discovered it through your studies and feminism, or that's how it was introduced to you like, what is that relationship building with your body looked like? What are some of the things that have come up where you're like, Oh, this needs to be healed in order for us to have a conversation? What are some of the things that have cropped up on that path for you?

Amelia Hruby: 25:50

Yeah, I think for me that path. One of the reasons that feminism was integral to me, to my starting and embodiment practice, is that I have had, I'm still in the process of having to do a lot of healing around dieting, exercise and self loathing, related to body image and body dysmorphia. And so I think that I needed feminism to help me see it untangle that. I don't think that's the case for everyone. But I grew up in a body, I have a body that likes to gain weight. And so the first 25 years of my life, were spent restricting, constricting, limiting beliefs in my body. Yeah, like in really intense ways. And so I needed like the feminist analysis of diet, culture, and of lightness and femininity to help me realize that those really, really unnatural things I was trying to force my body to do. And so that's definitely for me, it was like having to do that healing around diet culture that was really necessary. And I think that's part of why and not everyone has that experience. It's just why feminism was so important to me developing an embodiment practice. And I think that the way that happened was kind of, I'm still marveling at it. And I've told this story on a couple of podcasts now. And I could tell it in brief here, but just like, I kind of developed my feminist practice, intellectually, I wrote, I built it into the mantra practice, I wrote the book. During that time, I started going to a lot of yoga classes, I found a really like size inclusive studio, close to where I lived in Chicago. It's called Chi-Town Shakti, if anyone's listening in Chicago wants to go, I love them, I moved to the other side of the city, I don't go there anymore, but it's my favorite. And that really just kind of helped me think about movement in a different way. I don't really practice yoga so much at this point, but I did all of that. And then I left Chicago to start traveling the 50 feminist states and I got busier with work. And I really stepped into my dissertation writing process, which is pretty all encompassing, and I gained a lot of weight. And I really had to face some demons around how I felt about that. Like, it really tested the kind of intellectual feminist values I had known and wrote about the sort of like embodied practice I built through through yoga and frankly, with long walks and trying to get more in touch with myself and it got really dark for a while. I like in fall of 2018 I kind of went through really like my darkest period with my body in a long time. That led to some like exercise induced injury and some like really severe dieting and I literally woke up the morning of September 20 2018. And I decided I was done I like had one of those like, I don't know like divine moments that I that I know always come equally from like some kind of astrological weather in some kind of deep place inside me and they like met on the right day. And they woke up that morning and I like remember I took a shower and I like to have a very clear look at myself and I was like you can keep hating yourself. And you keep going down this path. And you're gonna hurt yourself even more and it's you're not going to survive at some point. Or you can just stop making literally just like decide that this is good and decide that your body is like good and strong in this way and that you can love it and this Way, and it's all good. And it sounds so simple to say. But it really was like it was one of those like, two rows are converging. And I had to pick one. And I picked the one where I love myself. And that was really hard. Because that was not the first time I had hit that moment. But it was the first time I like definitively picked the self love road. And that Yeah, that was it. I mean, and I haven't been on a diet or really exercise much at all since September 20 2018. And that's really evolving. And the pandemic has really pushed me on like movement practices and how I'm going to do them and how I'm going to like, feel good in my body, because bodies don't feel good when they're totally that sedentary or stagnant either, like, you have to stretch them, you have to move them. So I'm still in process with us. But I guess for me, it really, that was has kind of been the core journey is like I really broke up with diet culture that day. I've had to learn to love being fat, and I have and it's gotten pretty okay, and pretty glorious. And you can see on my Instagram that the selfies are a big part of that process for me, and feminism has been a huge part of that process for me, but that I can think I lost the thread of your question. So guide me back,

mary grace allerdice: 31:21

I was just, you know, asking like, what some of the, you know, getting into your body cropped up on that path, like what is it meant to you to be more embodied and connected to that. And I imagine a lot of people like I relate to that as well. Like, even so what, like my weight has fluctuated hugely in my life, but like, I grew like I just had crazy ideas about what I was supposed to look like. And I was just talking to my spouse about this, but it was like, you know, it's only like ...Lena Dunham was not on TV when I was growing up, you know, like that was a thing. And so for someone who most people would probably consider, like super normal, which all of us are. I just thought I could never be thin enough. And I was just you know, and it was just, it was just such a disease. Like it took a really, I mean, it was just such a mental, destructive. I mean, it was horrific. When I think back to like how my brain was for that long. It was just, I mean, I was just always thinking about it, and it. It's untangling for me, it was just like untangling the web of worth, from what I was taught was worthy and what it was to be good enough and what it would take for me to be loved. And those are all really big things.

Amelia Hruby: 32:40

They are huge things. I since you mentioned Lena Dunham like I can specifically remember the day in college that I watched like, the episode of girls where she was making up sort of girls where she went running in a sports bra. Like I like very clearly remember those images and out loud? I can? Yeah, exactly. I still didn't really let myself do that at that point in time. But, you know, I think there are a lot of critiques of her at this point that I'm on board with, but I underestimate the power of those two images in my mind, like the permission they granted for so many people us included. And the same with I think the other piece that you mentioned there mentioning, like mentioning your spouse and mentioning the worthiness of like being and being loved. The other piece I had to unravel for myself was that I have found myself in a very, very loving relationship starting at the beginning of 2018. And I think the other thing I realized is that if I didn't change my self loathing if I didn't give it up, I also couldn't accept love in that. And I was going to sabotage that relationship. And I definitely, it was a big process for me to unpack all of that and work through it. But I always think that self love how we love ourselves, like self love has become a buzzword, but just like how we love ourselves is at the core of how we let other people love us and how we accept and give love and that changes everything. Like it's just it's all intertwined. And so me getting into my body in a way that was caring was really changed. It changed everything. It changed my life in such a fundamental way. I can't understate it.

mary grace allerdice: 34:33

Yeah, that makes sense. I feel like yeah, self love has become kind of a buzzword and but I think the roots of it you know that of like accepting oneself and trusting oneself and believing in just like the basic worthiness. Yeah, they can't be understated and they really like we can talk about them all day long, which people in wellness love to do, but I think... Yeah, until they really hit home like in the Nervous System and in the body like it's a completely different... it's like a revelation like what you said, which is awesome. I'm interested in what are the things that kind of unpacking like relationships to time and I'm obsessed with cyclical time. So we can definitely talk about that a lot. And what are some of the ways that you remind yourself to tune back into this idea of cycle of season and give yourself permission for all of the phases of that, when so much of how we're expected to live and show up with our expectations, it's just like, not treated that way?

Amelia Hruby: 35:42

Yeah. I think for me, a really big thing that I've started doing and have paid way more attention to during the pandemic and do certain extent been able to do more, is taking time off. And I don't even can explain this in the best way possible. Sometimes that means just not working on weekends, sometimes it means other things. But the other thing that I've started to do that has been really helpful is like, if I show up to, to work to my computer on like, in my spare room in our apartment, if I show up, and I have a lot of resistance that day, and I can't make it work, and it's just not going for me, I just stopped working. And I remind myself, I've learned throughout this, that there are days when I'm ready to go, and I will work so much, and I will get everything done, and it will be a great day. And there are days when I cannot do it. And like I have so much internal resistance. And I think that's something that I'm leaning into cycles has shown me like, I can trust that if I've shown up on a day with too much resistance, I can stop. And the day when I'm going to get everything done will show up again. And I used to always push through, be like I made my to do lists last night, it's got to get done. Like I gotta push through it. If it doesn't get done, it'll be the end of the world. Like I really felt like, I had no other option. Okay, you're preaching to the choir, we're here. It's so hard. I mean, it is so impossible. And you know, I'm not too naive about this. There are days I have a lot of resistance where I'm like, well, that email has to get I don't have a choice on paying that bill or doing that. Like there are things like that.

mary grace allerdice: 37:32

That's when I pull out snacks, like, what snack will motivate me?

Amelia Hruby: 37:36

Oh, yeah, I mean, it's like, for anyone who's been to college like, it's like the finals mode that you get pushed into, or like I used to, when I think back to it, like, I would just buy like tortilla chips, salsa and Diet Coke. And I would just like eat that and power through writing all of my exams. It's like so like, it just I can't imagine how that gave me any energy to do anything. But that was my my routine. But I think for me, leaning into cycles has meant like giving myself that permission and trusting myself. Because I think I just didn't i didn't use to trust myself. I thought if I didn't do it that day, I wasn't going to get it done. And what I have been able to see is that I will get it done. Like I really will. And I I know that people struggle with us in different ways. But me being the Capricorn rising, well, I will get it done. I just need to trust that it will happen with ease when I show up on the right day. And that like it's okay to stop working, because I just can't make it happen that day. So I've really liked this has led to a lot of funny things in pandemic like me, watching Grey's Anatomy on the couch for a whole Wednesday, when I had a huge to do list that that's all I do that day. And then on that Saturday, I'm just like, up and about my like, had the like a great breakfast and I'm just like ready to go. And I like write three essays and I like record a bunch of stuff. And I have a great work day. And so I think that's really where like I've noticed cycles playing. And it's just like trusting myself that there are days when I want to get things done and days when I don't. And if I feel that resistance, I can I can stop. And it's also helped me notice that if I feel that resistance too many days in a row. That's a trigger or it's just a sign for me that either stuff I'm doing is not working for me. It's not me. It's whatever tasks I've assigned for myself, or it can be a sign that I'm starting to kind of slip into a more depressive moment and I need to actually like really take a break or get some help in a different way because I need to pay attention to that. So the other thing I am thinking of here is just like for me cycles, I feel like so much in wellness, it's all about a rigid daily routine. I get told that a lot I've so many people have tried to make me have a morning routine. And as a Gemini moon, I don't like that i don't like rigid routines,

mary grace allerdice: 40:22

if by routine you mean scrolling social media? Sure! yeah, yeah. But, but I really

Amelia Hruby: 40:29

just kind of let go of that I kind of let date I there are things I make sure I do every day, like, go outside, or drink water. But I just kind of let each day show up. And I see where my energy's at. And I meet that moment. And I trust that things will return when they're ready, energy will return or won't. And we'll figure that out too

mary grace allerdice: 40:51

Totally. Kind of giving yourself permission to like make your life not necessarily about like top performance, which can happen in a lot of wellness conversations. like as if that's like, of course, we want to be able to like show up for our lives. But that doesn't necessarily mean we're here to be like every day is about peak performance. Whatever that means. And yeah, I think too, I think something that this experience of COVID has done, one of the things that it's done many things, some good, some bad, lots of lots of messiness is kind of helping us deconstruct time a little bit and how we have this like Monday through Friday. This is when I work this is when I'm supposed to be in flow from these hours from nine to five and then Saturday, you're supposed to want to hang out only with the people that you live with. And you know, where as I relate so much. And I see it in my spouse too. We both work for ourselves. Like, there's energy and then you ride it and that's when you get stuff done. Like for me Friday night is like when I want to work like I am in the zone. I'm like, nobody talked to me. Let me huddle my cave with my computer and I'm going and when it's not there, like, it'll be Wednesday afternoon and like, my husband will be like, yeah, we're done with work for the day. And he's ordering a cheese pizza. And just like that's it. And I think there's a way that there's... I think that you're calling to like the trust that like, there the thing of that cyclical time can bring to us as trust in that return, like the energy will come back or it won't and I'll do reorients like it's um that I always think of Rilke that no feeling is final. It just it's going to come it's going to move it's going to shift. Yeah.

Amelia Hruby: 42:36

Yeah. And I think that something that my partner and I both said to each other the other night that it felt really sweet and very lucky was like, we're at a point where we've heated those feelings about, we have about our work enough that we both do things we love doing. And we both do like. And I think the trust in some, to some extent comes from that, like, I know that I'm doing things I love. And I know that when I do things I love, it feels easy. So if it's not feeling easy, that's just means it's not the right day to be doing the thing. And like I trust that the ease will come and then that speaks to what you're saying. Like it's not, I'm reorienting my life around ease, not efficiency. And that totally changes things. And 40 Hour Workweek is artificial, right? Like, it actually was a compromise. It was like the success of union organizers. But now I want a 20 Hour Workweek and I want it to happen not five days in a row. And it takes a lot of like liberation to say that I think I've to liberate ourselves from expectations and ideals, and it takes a lot of trust to live that even more trust. There's a lot of fear that comes up when you work less.

mary grace allerdice: 43:51

Yeah, totally. I feel Yeah, totally. And all these questions of like deservingness. And all of that. I'm interested in for folks who work for themselves for people who are, whether they're entrepreneurs, or whether they are just in a position where they're having to put themselves out there a lot for their work. The relationship to social media gets really interesting and like complicated. And also within that there's a seems there's a lot of pressure for personal vulnerability through social media in order to be like relatable. And I don't know, like there's a lot of conversations we could have in there. And we don't have to have all of them. But I'm interested in how you navigate some of that and what has been really helpful for you and feels good for you and like what doesn't. Yeah.

Amelia Hruby: 44:43

Oh, social media. So last year, I co hosted a series of talks in Chicago on that we called How to be on your phone and not hate everything. And I still think about that. slogan a lot, and especially this year, but my phone has taken on even more intensity as my primary mode of communication and information, not being able to go out and see people per usual or per my previous life. And for me, when social media is at its best, it is a space where I can share ideas and dreams and small moments. And I can connect with other people who are in some way touched by those ideas, dreams, small moments, or whose own ideas, dreams and small moments have touched me. That's what I love about Instagram. I love that. Yesterday, I got an email from someone I don't know who lives in Canada, who saw the post I had written about trying to promote my book without Amazon and how hard it is and really resonated with them and reached out to us how they can help. I love that I would never happen without Instagram. I love that my like Taro guide. And astrologer is somebody who I happened upon when she first started her business. And I think I'm pretty sure it was her first client that she didn't know. And I now like, we work so closely together and she's doing a natal chart reading for my book, the week it comes out. Shout out to Davis, Meridian, Taro. So I love that about social media. And I try really hard to hold on to that, like that it has made my world so much bigger. And helped me build community all over. And I think that's a gift and a treat. I am also incredibly critical and at times have been very vocal about what algorithms do to our sense of self, and to our communities and how, frankly, dangerous they are. I am not like a anti tech person. But I the quickest way to get me up in arms with somebody is is for them to like, uncritically assume that an algorithm is helpful. And I bet and I'm always gonna jump in and be like, wait, let's talk about how you're using, like data to totally reshape the reality of our lived experiences and lives and how that data is being seen for very specific perspective for a very specific purpose. And when you talk about that all these things, all these technologies, we think our functional, utilitarian, useful, are deeply embedded with the oppressive value systems in our lives. So we could talk about like, you know, Google Maps, one of my favorite examples, I think most striking ones is the way that Google Maps does routes, and how many times they have been called out and caught for rerouting people around black and brown neighborhoods. And how when they've done this, it has devastated black and brown businesses that rely on people driving by to stop in. And when Google Maps changes a route and takes people through a more affluent white neighborhood, it will get certain people business and not other people's and it will ruin economies. Right? So anyway, I've kind of gotten a little mini rant now. But I get so frustrated by this, how people think that all these apps we use on our phone are completely neutral, and which they are not, they are totally reshaping our world. And they are ruining worlds to their opening worlds for certain people. And they're closing them for others. And I think we have to be really aware of that. And Instagram is a social media ecosystem that I am in the most I deleted my Facebook this year. have a Twitter but I'm not very good at it

mary grace allerdice: 49:04

Me neither. It's too much.

Amelia Hruby: 49:07

It is my partner is very good at Twitter, like very fun internet funny, and I've just realized, I think yeah, I think I'm funny. I'm not internet funny. I can't. I can't do it.

mary grace allerdice: 49:18

I'm not ironic. I'm gonna steal that distinction. Like people laugh at me, but not on the internet. Yeah,

Amelia Hruby: 49:24

exactly. Please carry it far because I'm trying to spread. Yeah. But so Instagram, I think, as I said, at its best, it's connecting people and it's allowing you to share like ideas and dreams and small moments. The thing that I find increasingly hard that I struggle with everyone I know struggles with is the whole system is built around aspiration and is built around holding up some very specific lifestyles and bodies particularly getting us all to trying to get us all to one. And now that I sell stuff on the app to buy them. And so I really struggle with the way that Instagram has been aspiration alized. And magnified in the past year. I think the meme-ification has happened really intense,

mary grace allerdice: 50:22

really intense here.

Amelia Hruby: 50:24

Yeah, it's like everybody, and I struggle with this. Like, even in my book launch, it's like, I trying to do it on Instagram, trying to figure it out. Like I built my Instagram following on like pictures of my life with captions about things I was thinking about. And now I'm like, oh, should I use Canva to make that like, reminder image that looks like the one that pops up on your phone? Because it's a meme, everyone will recognize and then they'll like it and share it. Like, I don't, I don't love that. I don't like that shift. I want to share like a meaningful picture of me with my book and, and figure like, and people like that. And they will to some extent, but I something I've really struggled with and thought a lot about over the course of this year is what do you have to do to grow a big following on Instagram? And am I willing to do those things? And sometimes it's Yes. And sometimes it's No. Sometimes those things are completely stopped talking about a certain areas of my life. Sometimes that's fine. And sometimes it's not. There's a lot of pressure to become a personal brand. And what makes something a brand is like a cohesiveness and recognizability. And some days I'm like, Yes, I am a cohesively recognizable person. So I could be a brand and other day, I'm like, Oh, definitely not. So I think that's been my big struggle. I like invested money and a ton of time in my Instagram presence this year to try to prep for my book launch. And more often than not, it's all just kind of made me want to get off Instagram. But I think this also circles back to I talked about the beginning like it has to do with those values. And that like type of growth, I was just looking at this graph last night, and I just pulled it up, I was reading that Instagram ads, looking at this graph. And the like growth curve for Instagram users is like exact exponential one. And I was thinking about like, what this says like back in January of 2013, which I was on Instagram at that point, there were 90 million users. By September of 2017, they were 800 million users. I don't even I think I'm sure there are over a billion now. And it's just like, we're told that. Yeah, nearly a billion active users every month. So I guess what I think a lot about is that this is advice that happens in entrepreneurship all the time, too. It's like, you can be a certain level of successful and be all the things. But if you want to be really successful, you can only be one thing. And one of the like real tensions I'm experiencing right now is do I believe that? And am I willing to do it? Am I willing to do it? And I don't know. It's hard not to believe I'm, you

mary grace allerdice: 53:30

I'm leaning towards a strong "no" over here, I think about a lot. And I'm like, I think that is not going to work for me.

Amelia Hruby: 53:38

Yeah,

mary grace allerdice: 53:39

I know that it doesn't, I know that there are formulas that work. And people sell those formulas, and people get really successful and blah, blah, blah. And I think when it is just like not in your nature to shove yourself in that box. Like I don't know that it will work. Like I've just,

Amelia Hruby: 53:54

yeah, I mean, I think I think I feel the same way.

mary grace allerdice: 53:57

other people can disagree. And that's totally fine. It's just like, my personal experience is like I keep trying to be like, Oh, this is the box. And we create around this bug little This is the box and I'm just like, you know, I think having obsessive definition over what I am publicly is a capitalist oppression. And I'm not participating. I am all of these things make it founder this this large, vague umbrella until you actually know me. And that's just how it's gonna be.

Amelia Hruby: 54:24

Yeah, and I think though, today, yeah, I think that's so human. And it's so real. And also my experience, like, I think the other thing that happens on Instagram specifically is like, you can actually also only get that thing if you tap into an aspiration. And so not everybody has access to that anyway, like you have to be living or presenting some kind of aspirational image. And it has been cool to see over the course of this year how those aspirations have opened up a little bit, you know, it's not just The like, send rich white woman that's successful. Like I think there have been like you do see subcultures gain momentum on social media. But I always find that pretty quickly the people leading that they become the leaders because they've somehow shaped it into an aspiration, whether that be body positivity, one place where we could definitely call us out, like which bodies get to be body positive bodies. How are they photographed? What are they sharing? What are they talking about? You know, I don't know, I think about this my own page, too. I definitely like do some of this. I don't I don't I don't present this critique to be like, I don't do any I definitely do these things. No, we're all doing these things. Yeah. But I I'm with you on it's just like i i don't i don't know how to be that. When every time I get really close to it. I like either I get really unhappy or I self sabotage it, which to me is just a sign that I don't really want it.

mary grace allerdice: 56:00

Yeah, yeah, look at me doing really good at it. And then I just delete the app for like, months, you're like, well, that's not helpful cycle.

Amelia Hruby: 56:09

Yeah, and we're seeing so many people get off Instagram. And that seems to be like the cycle. It's like if you get to a certain level of famous or popular on it, and you either like, I don't want to say this is gonna sound really tongue in cheek, but I want to be like, either become a Kardashian or you get off Instagram. I think that's kind of that you either like, lean into that success. And it is the only thing that you are, or you have, you have to get off because you can no longer like reconcile your real life with apps expectations, the people's on it expectation. And so I've been thinking a lot about what my work looks like, if I'm not on Instagram, this has really come to a head around book promotion, and like, trying to sell this book and meeting it to go to people who've never heard of me and needing them to buy it. And try I don't really know how to do that without social media. So it's the whole things that we're dealing with.

mary grace allerdice: 56:59

Yeah. Yeah. I think before we wrap up, a question that I've been really enjoying lately, of others, is, you know, who, who or what is really like making this moment possible for you whether that's someone's imagination, someone's work, a book an object, like who, and it can be more than one. But I'm really interested in that for people because I think this year has surfaced a lot of unique challenges and openings that have had us kind of pulling out resources that we didn't know that we would need potentially. Yeah.

Amelia Hruby: 57:43

I think that I'll just name to two people whose work I read a lot. The first being Adrienne Marie Brown. Yeah. And, of course, like Emergent Strategy and Pleasure Activism are things that are just like, I'm still digesting and trying to learn even more from and about and rereading and returning to, but I also think that her essay on call out culture,

mary grace allerdice: 58:14

find it

Amelia Hruby: 58:17

"Unthinkable Thoughts: Call Out Culture in the Age of COVID-19"... That essay specifically, really helped me get through like, June, July, this summer. And like what was what has been happening on the internet and what, like, how an absence of physical spaces the internet became such an unwieldy place. And so I think that her thinking is always so like, clear, cogent, and futuristic, in the best way. It's like always taking us she does such a good job of seeing the present moment, and moving us beyond it. And I really have needed that I needed help imagining that there is a beyond right now. The other person who I has really impacted me in this moment, and has also written some really great things about it. Actually, my boss, Jen Armbrust sister, she wrote this really great essay on all"Inhabiting the Portal," that I like, got to witness that and be like, see it at the beginning, and also kind of see how people have taken it up. And that's been really inspiring. And I also just think, like being able to work it out, like Jen's written work and thinking, being able to work at Sister and have a job that for the first time in my life is fully aligned with my politics and values. has really just like, show me that that's a possibility. I don't think I believe that. I think part of the reason I was always so drawn to entrepreneurship, and I've done a million freelance things and stayed in the academy for a long time was that I never wanted to compromise my values enough to get the types of jobs I saw people around me having. And I'm just really grateful that certain feminist business will have been a place where I could take some of the pressure of freelancing off because it got really intense for me at the beginning of the pandemic, and very stressful and a little untenable, like, kind of take that pressure off and actually just like work toward building something with other people that has been really powerful and enjoy us even during pretty dark times. So that's my two answers. I love that.

mary grace allerdice: 1:00:37

If we want to be up to speed on when your book comes out, and kind of follow more what you're doing and who you are, where's the best place to do that?

Amelia Hruby: 1:00:47

Yeah. You can find me on Instagram. I'm still always there, even when I'm struggling with it@ameliajohruby and you can find the book at fiftyfeministmantras.com. You can there purchase links there and also a link where you can download the first 15 pages for free just enter your email and I'll get sent to you to get a preview of it if you want to make sure it's for you. Although I'm pretty sure if you're listening to this, it is for you. So I yeah, so@ameliajohruby on Instagram . fiftyfeministmantras.com It's a good place to find me right now.

mary grace allerdice: 1:01:24

Awesome. And we'll post all those links in the show notes so people can find them. And I just want to thank you for being here. And thank you for your time and kind of sharing us a little more about your world.

Amelia Hruby: 1:01:34

Thank you. I love everything that you and homebody are doing together. So it's a joy to be here.

mary grace allerdice: 1:01:40

Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed the conversation, please leave us a five star review. Subscribe to the show, and consider sharing the episode. I would love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to tag me on Instagram or send me a DM I would love to meet you and hear what you thought about the conversation. And we'll see you next week.