HSN Episode #22: Systemic Oppression and Burnout with Michelle Emmanuelle
INTRO: Welcome to Healthy Sexy Nutrition with me, Michelle Fox, culinary nutritionist, health coach, and your host for this podcast. I teach busy professionals how to get more nutrition in their bodies and how to have more fun in their home kitchens. If you struggle with consistency or sometimes forget to make your needs a priority or you avoid planning your meals, you, my friend, are in the right place.
Join me each week for inspiration to increase your energy, discover new recipes, manage your hormonal woes, and so much more. You are a busy professional, but that does not mean your nutrition should suffer. You deserve to live in a body and have a life that you love.
So let's dig in.
Michelle Fox: I have a question for you. Does systemic oppression cause burnout? Okay. Okay. Okay. You're in my community, so I already know. You know the answer to that question. The wonderful news is I have a friend today who is with us, who's going to help us break down exactly what that means. I will give you a heads up. This conversation is largely targeted for my friends who are women of color. However, if you do not fit or fall into that category, honestly, I invite you to stick around and hear this conversation because there is a wonderful chance that not only is this going to help you relate to women of color, but I have a feeling it's gonna heal some things inside of yourself.
So anybody who has fallen on this episode, there is a reason you are here and I sincerely invite you to stick around. So my friend Michelle Emmanuel is here to chat with us about systemic oppression and how we can heal. I wanna read her bio really quick so that you know and understand that this woman knows exactly what she's talking about.
So Michelle has over 15 years of experience as an educator. As a wellness coach and as a consultant. Through her empowering resilience workshops, Michelle serves a diverse set of organizations. For instance, the global leadership team at Cisco Meraki, ERG leads at Ripple, team leaders at Ubisoft, managers at Airbnb, Catholic Charities Organization, and the Professional Women's Group. Michelle also serves one-on-one coaching for burnout recovery for women of color. And I will share with you that her philosophy is that change, it only happens when it is sustainable and accompanied with ongoing support and accountability. We are in the right place, my friend. I will also share with you that Michelle has training and certifications in somatic coaching, in healing, race-based trauma, somatic stress and anxiety release over 500 hours of yoga training. You know, we're soul sisters and also the neuroscience of healing.
So Michelle, welcome to the show.
MICHELLE EMMANUELLE: Thank you so much, Michelle.
MICHELLE: Oh my goodness. Oh, I am so excited to jump into this conversation because as you know, I focus mainly on nutrition. And with that, I really like to look at full body health. And when it comes to women of color, I truly believe we have an additional level of burnout that we are working through. And so, I'm, I, I, I'm, I'm, you can see like, physically, literally excited to jump into this conversation with you. So just learn more, however, before we get into the goods. Would you be willing to play a game with me?
MICHELLE: I love games. Yes, absolutely. Let's go.
MICHELLE: Yay. Okay. So I call this the rapid fire questions.
Rapid fire first one. Cause I know you are a fellow entrepreneur. Looking at your inbox, would you call yourself inbox zero or Inbox 10,000?
MICHELLE: Um, let's see. I would call myself inbox, I'm gonna say inbox 5,000, changing the rules.
MICHELLE: You're you, you're allowed. Okay, next question. Favorite movie of all time?
MICHELLE: Oh man, that's a hard one. The, the first movie that popped into my head, so I'll go with that one cuz it's kind of my longstanding one. Be The Color Purple. It's so hard to watch and also so powerful too. So, and purple's my favorite color.
MICHELLE: And my friends who are with us on YouTube, if you're not head on over, we're at michellefoxlove on YouTube.
But you'll see both Michelle's are actually wearing some type of purple today. So that, that feels auspicious to me. Wonderful. Last and final fun question, Would you be willing to share one of your favorite childhood memories in the kitchen?
MICHELLE: Oh yes. Uh, my mom was, uh, she used to make the best sweet potato pie and my favorite oatmeal raisin cookies. So my favorite, my memories are just basically standing there, hovering over her was like, is it done yet? Is it done yet or, you know, having the opportunity to lick the bowl. But those were just my favorite because, you know, she was making my favorites and we would chit chat and I would just hang out watching her make my favorite food. So it. A blessing all around.
MICHELLE: How special those are more points of connection you and I have. I actually make a fantastic, if I do say so myself, gluten-free and dairy-free. Oh, and even sugar-free sweet potato pie. That what? You totally around here. Love. I know. What's this talking right. You're gonna hear the knock on the door soon.
Come on over there, good.
MICHELLE: Mine. See what comes to me in sweet potato pie? I, I, I tend, well, that's another story, but I don't wanna take up the time. But I'll, what I usually say in my workshops as a, as an icebreaker, I ask people what their favorite food is, and I always say, mine is sweet potato pie to the point that I don't share you know, something so good.
MICHELLE: It's like, oh, this is so good. It's like, then I'm not giving you any, the what
MICHELLE: nerve that I'm like wanting to knock, you know, knock on your door and get some .
MICHELLE: Come on over. We'll, we'll have some bonding time in my kitchen. I, I, I'm here for it. Awesome. I want to actually segue into community.
That reminds me. Cause as soon as you said that, I truly did get. Inside feeling of like, oh, like those were the days when friends would come over and you can just hang out. Or friends, especially when my daughter was younger and some of my friends also had younger children, and it was, it felt like a matter of survival that we'd all.
You know, the women are in the kitchen while the children are outside playing. And so just that sense of community, I will say, helped me with my sanity. So when it comes to our discussion about systemic oppression and burnout, Let me guess, would community be one of the healing tools? And I know I'm jumping way ahead, but is that a point of connection for you?
MICHELLE: Well, absolutely. I mean, you know what, you can jump ahead because you're right on track and, you know, community is, is also part of our heritage. You know, I mean, we. Come from a place of, you know, being very community focused and community centered. And I think that that is such a big part of who we are, you know, in our heritage and our lives.
And also, you know, we tend to be more consistent with our commitments when we're in community, we're more proactive. , community also has a built-in sense of accountability, you know, and so yes, lots of ways to say yes.
MICHELLE: Thank you for that. And then I will back up a few steps and just be very transparent that I worked in corporate America. I often was the only black person, sometimes the only woman. So that would be the only black woman as well in the room. And. I learned how to manage. I learned how to, you know, navigate my way through. I will also say after 25 years, I left feeling completely burnt out. And when I started connecting with other black women entrepreneurs, I quickly found that I was not alone by any stretch of the imagination. And so one of my questions to you, in the work that you do and the clients that you work with, have you seen that more or less with black women in corporate versus black women on their own?
MICHELLE: Absolutely. I mean, you know what you're talking about regarding the whole corporate setting, you know, and there is a lot of navigation that has to happen, especially if you want to actually climb that quote unquote corporate ladder. Sometimes there's a certain amount of assimilation that needs to happen and different things and so that is definitely something that I've seen a lot. You know, when I first started my business, I would coach women executives. And I wanted to focus on women executives cause I wanted to help uplift women leaders and also recognize that women executives are part of the people who spend the least amount of time on their own self-care.
As I started progressing in my business, I started definitely seeing a, a trend not surprising that the, a lot of the stress and anxiety, it was like next level for women of color for sure. Um, so.
MICHELLE: Definitely and you use the word executives who are the least likely to take care of their health. Part of my story is my father, African American man, he started and ran his own cPA firm for most, if not all of my life.
MICHELLE: Wow.
MICHELLE: And so, you know, a little over 40 years at that point. And he ended up dying very early, which is a huge reason why I do the work that I do, because of the high stress, because of the nutrition that he was avoiding. And so my goal in literally waking up every morning is to find out how I can bring nutrition to people so that they do not have untimely deaths like my father. And so following up on what you're saying, that the executives tend to be the last people to take care of themselves, I immediately had this image of my father who took care of everybody around him. You know, he had a team of about 10 people who worked for him. He felt very responsible for the financial piece for our family. My mother did as well, and my mother, thank goodness is, is still here and she's doing a wonderful job taking care of her health and nutrition.
But I just wonder to you like, have you found any trends or. I guess my, my big answer, which might even be an impossible question, I should say my big question, which might be an impossible question, is how do we put ourselves first? Like how do we stop being the last people on our to-do list?
MICHELLE: I know that. Isn't that the, that is a great question, isn't it? It's a big one.
MICHELLE: I know that’s a huge one.
MICHELLE: So, you know, what I would say really is starting with, , consistency and, and creating habits around it. You know, when I, when I do workshops, I always just start by doing a reframe, , and I, I tell people when, especially when people are busy and burnt out the idea.
Adding anything else to their schedule is overwhelming. And so it's like, forget it. Even if it's something that's good for you, people are like, it's not happening. So my reframe to people is like, I'm not asking you to add another thing to your schedule. What I'm asking you to do is integrate into what's already there. And so that integration, it can be, and when I tell people, especially when I'm doing the coaching, the number one thing I hear from people is, I don't have time. And so, you know, I'll, my answer is, yes, you do. You always have time. So there are things that I, , things as in practices that I offer to people that are 30 seconds, 60 seconds, and two to five minutes, which I call them, between the Zooms, practices. Just to show people and debunk that lie, that there's no time. There's always time. You know, there are certain practices that I show people. That I call the light switch, the nervous system light switch that are immediate stress reducers, , and anxiety reducers that it takes 30 seconds. It's just like, oh, I feel better. You know? And it doesn't take…
MICHELLE: Oh can we, can we practice one right now?
MICHELLE: Oh, sure. Absolutely. This is a 30 second one and it's really, I love, maybe because of my yoga background, but I think, you know, I love to start with breath and a lot of times people think okay, you have to have a certain kind of something to know and you really don't. You know, I think it's amazing first of all that we, we assume so much. We assume that every inhale will be followed by an exhale and thankfully it is cuz we're still here.
MICHELLE: Yeah. I'm like, wait a minute. What am I missing? What am I missing? I, I thought I'd do that as I'm checking in with my, my breath and my heart right now, .
MICHELLE: Right? And see what you're doing right now is putting your hand on your chest. And so that's the first, first thing is like I ask people to put their hand on their chest and disconnect with the fact that there's breath and there's a heartbeat and there's life happening. And so when people are burnt out, The being disconnected from their body is one of the symptoms of burnout because they're so stuck in their head. So this is a way, it's reconnecting to yourself and just putting your hand on your chest and taking some deep breaths and feeling your body and move in and out. And what I recommend is just, you know, I don't like to count because it stresses me out personally when I have, when people are trying to control how long I inhale and exhale. So my, my offering is to take a deep inhale for however long that is, and then hold it at the top, and then make sure your exhale is twice as long as your inhale. And then repeating that three more times. Taking an inhale as long as your inhale is lasting holding that at the top to however long it feels comfortable to you, and then ask you to exhale, making sure your exhale is lasting longer than your inhale, and preferably with your mouth closed. So if your lips weren't closed with this, this last round, take both inhale and exhale with lips closed, inhaling in, holding it to your comfort level, and releasing again with your lips closed, with the longer exhale than your inhale. And then as you're comfortable, Releasing that, bring yourself back.
MICHELLE: Thank you for that grounding. That was exactly what my spirit needed.
MICHELLE: Mm. Is it an amazing like, and it takes no time at all and Yes. Like, oh my gosh, I feel better. You know? And. I know all this and still, you know, sometimes when I'm actually taking a moment to be still, it's like I take a really deep inhale. I'm like, oh my gosh, that's the first real sigh and pause and connection with my breath I've had all day. Cause I've been in front of the computer doing my thing, you know, or whatever. , so I always like to start with breath because it's, it's accessible, you know, especially for busy people who are feeling like they don't have time.
There's always time to. And just put your hand on your chest. You know, the idea with having mouth closed is because, , it's stress breathing to breathe through your mouth, you know, and so like even that's, we're exercising, of course, we have our mouth open and everything, but typically that is kind of more of a stress response. So when the mouth is closed and you know, breathing through your nose, that also just brings even more calm to the nervous system.
MICHELLE: Hmm. So now that we're calm and we're grounded, can we. Jump into systemic oppression. When I say those two words, I know that can be triggering for some, for various reasons. However, what does that mean for you when you talk about systemic oppression?
MICHELLE: Okay. Yeah. Um, what I'm gonna do is just basically read a little profile I have on one of the workshops that I do, and basically what I say is that system. Burnout due to microaggressions is real microaggressions slash systemic oppressions, and basically those who identify as being part of the non-dominant culture or historically marginalized people experience so much more stress and anxiety because of the basically having to navigate through all of the extras, you know, the labels, the assumptions, the suspicions, the extra effort it.
To navigate through the, the, the different systems at play to be taken seriously. And the reality is that all of those extra efforts go directly into a person's nervous system, which creates more stress, anxiety, and yes, burnout. , so a person who isn't, , part of the non-dominant culture, they're stressed and have their different things as well, but are they dealing with labels, assumptions, suspicions, extra. That a person has to navigate, you know, and those extras is why, you know, black folks in particular, like the stress, the anxiety, and the burnout is higher because it does go into the nervous system. And typically, when I say microaggressions, I, I use the quote marks, , and the reason I usually do that is because the nervous system doesn't actually categorize what's micro and what's macro when it comes to aggression. When aggression happens to a person, the nervous system is processing as aggression. So the idea of microaggressions is not how the body receives it, it receives it as aggression period.
MICHELLE: That is powerful. Thank you. Do you have an example from either lived experience or from a client that could just characterize or give us a picture of what, uh, an aggression, whether it's micro or not, looks like.
MICHELLE: Yes, I’ll go from my own experience. If, if that's all right. I, um, I asked a person, I love to network with people and just, you know what, for me, I, my marketing is through relationships and I was talking to someone, um, she's a white woman. And, uh, an acquaintance that I know back from the days when I used to do different activities. I don't wanna say too much cuz in case she hears and she's like, she's talking about me, but here's what happened. And I asked her to look at some of my, myinformation and she gave me feedback and I thought, okay, that sounds good. I can do that. You know. And then I asked her, if at some point, once I get everything done, you know, the different changes that she suggested. Would she mind passing that along? She works for a very big, well-known corporation and I said, would you mind passing this along to other people in your, in your business for my workshops and the work that I'm doing?
And she flat out said, at this point, I don't see why I would recommend you over my best, my friend who does exact same work, you know? And I was, Huh. So I went to the person's website that she was referring to, and here's blonde haired, blue-eyed woman dealing, you know, all the photos were white folks and in white folks setting, and I'm thinking, are you kidding?
You need me , you know, because this person whom she would recommend over me doesn't have the perspective of actually being able to meet people's needs in the same way. You know, she's coming up from her own particular worldview and perspective and lived experience, you know, so coming in, and this is why diversity matters, right?
And so for me, I have to tell you, Michelle, I got off that and I was so trigger. And I was like, what? offended and all kinds of things. And it took me a minute to figure out like, why was I agitated? And it's like, oh, cuz you know, basically she, I mean I felt like it was disrespectful of for one, but also I just felt like, oh that was, uh, something that I had to navigate to get through, you know, , feeling like I wasn't being put on the same level.
And my work is definitely needed in that sector. Um, And truthfully, what I did from that is, you know, I, I had my grounding moment and get myself reentered. And that was actually one of the best things that happened to me. This actually happened just this year, to be honest, is I, I was focusing, I, I've been working on honing my niche.
Who, who are my target audience? Who are they? You know? And after that experience I thought, okay, that was me talking to someone in corporate. Like 45 minutes and I walked away, triggered and all kinds of different things and I thought, and then I got to go outside. I got to do all of my different things, support myself. And I thought, what about the people who are in these settings all day long? How many different ways are they having to navigate these team meetings or whatever, where people are saying things and the assumptions and the labels and you know, all the different things that, you know, the. And so her response to me helped me to actually hone my niche to working with people of color, cuz I thought, you know what? I'm a person of color. I know this lived experience and I wanna support this experience. Now, that said, the workshops that I offer regarding burnout recovery, and support to organizations are open to everyone. If the actual coaching that I do is specifically for people of color, because I want to really add that extra support in that.
MICHELLE: That is very powerful. As you were talking, I was trying to think of a microaggression that I could relate to in my personal life. And I do feel very blessed and fortunate that I, I didn't feel that in my last corporate job. I felt actually very highly esteemed there, right? So I feel very grateful for that. However, I was just thinking over the holidays, I was at Whole Foods and you know, with any store, of course it's gonna be crazy busy, lots of lines, but I only had two items. And so I went up to the customer service desk where there was literally nobody, it was a woman working the desk and me. And so I said, Hey, do you mind if I buy these items real quick? And she just looked at me like very condescendingly. And she put her hand on her hip, literally. And she's like you. And she shook her head, her like little necklace, like, she's like, you can go get in line like everybody else is. And I was like, oh, like inside. I just kind of went concaved. Cause I'm like, I didn't think I was asking a big ask, but the idea that she felt okay talking to me and that language was just very disarming and I don't know that that was color-based or not.
I don't know. I can. You know, speak for this woman. Either way, though, it was very dismissive towards me and it didn't feel good. So that definitely felt like an aggression. Uh, much less a microaggression in my world. So, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It took me a minute to shake that outta my body and, and, and process that out and understand that that was her energy that had nothing to do with me.
MICHELLE: And that's part of the navigating we have to do all the time. And I think the hard part is, is that sometimes like what your, you, your experience, we're not expecting that. You know what I mean? It's like, Hey, I'm gonna buy these things real quick and I'm gonna, and I'm out. See you later. Thank you. You know?
And so when that does happen, that's part of like the, the, the harm actually and the trauma and the. Actually the addition to the add stress and anxiety and what happens over, over time and we all experience this is an armoring. You know, you gotta get yourself armored up. So I'm, I'm, I'm about to walk outside the door. Let me put my armor on, make sure I'm cool. You know what I mean? So that these things don't actually touch the inside, you know, the heart part of me. You know, the thing with armor though, is it also cuts us off from having to the full experiences that we're meant to have, that we deserve to and so that's part of also just the process of unlearning, reclaiming, restoring, you know, that's why I call it empowering resilience. You know, the, this series is called, you know, it's on burnout, recovery and support, but it's also about reclaiming and our empowerment for ourselves and reclaiming our own narratives.
MICHELLE: Well, and you just said empowering series and so is that a workshop that you're hosting right now?
MICHELLE: So I offer this series called BIPOC Wellness or Black Wellness, depending on the demographic, to organizations such as Lululemon, where they actually have a series of people who are their ambassadors and their leaders, and they're really working towards creating more diversity.
This is a series that I think is really important and what I like about offering to organizations is because they are. Focused, and we all know that we need more wellness, especially in the black community. So having something like this that's actually supporting that wellness is only going to keep the empowerment happening stronger and better.
MICHELLE: Hmm. Oh, these organizations are so lucky to have you. Fantastic. So how can LA community find you if they want to bring you on for talk with their. Organization or if they want one-on-one consultation, what? What's the best way for us to come find?
MICHELLE: Thank you for that question. So at the end of this month, I'll actually be closing the one-on-one coaching that I'm doing. So I, there are still some spots available to, for me to coach one-on-one on burnout recovery support, and starting actually here in February, I am doing group coaching. So there is a series of group coaching that I'm doing for BIPOC change leaders and also gender-based women of color group coaching. So if there's some questions or desires to contact me and interest in that, I also do the workshops that I mentioned. All of this information can be on my website. My website's called sustainable changemaker.com.
MICHELLE: Fantastic. We will make sure to have all of your links in our show notes so that my community can come find you and, and get some of the healing and the wellness around this issue. So thank you for joining us, Michelle. I so admire and appreciate the work that you're doing because it is. Much needed for those of us who are in entrepreneurship, but also who are in the corporate world.
And for also, you know, by the way, all of us who are just breathing like we all need healing on some level. So thank you for helping us on this journey.
MICHELLE: Thank you. It’s been an honor and a lovely conversation too. So thank you.
MICHELLE: Thanks so much for listening to Healthy Sexy Nutrition. Have you been driving, doing laundry or walking around the neighborhood? Sweet. I've got show notes for you at michellefox.com/podcast. Click over there when you are ready. I will let you know that on the page you will find resources to support what you just learned on today's show.
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Big love from your favorite culinary nutritionist and health coach. And until next week, keep showing up for yourself and know that you and your health matter. You deserve to live in a body and have a life that you love.
