I'm Shonda Rhymes and we're bringing the Dominant Stories created by Shawn Land Audio in partnership with the Dove Self Steam Project. So when when we do think about the beauty of losing the thing that you you don't value, It's taught me how to love these hands. It's taught me how to give thanks for the feet that we're never cute enough to get in the shoes that the girls did. It's taught me how to love the thighs that are unwieldy, and my arms that have flaps and don't look nearly as good as Michelle Obama's, I mean, not at all like her arms. Hey, I'm Jess Weiner and this is Dominant Stories, the podcast that helps us reclaim and rewrite the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, about our bodies, our beauty, our creativity, and our identities. A lot of my professional career is spent helping people feel, seeing, heard, and understood the more nuanced elements of how we learn to love ourselves. We know we want to love ourselves, we know that we want to feel more confident, but how exactly do we do that? Because I think it can be a little too reductive sometimes to just have the world kind of shout back at us to love yourself like love your body, without fully understanding the complex relationships that we may have with our bodies and with our health. What does it mean for you when you're physically in pain and your body is failing you and things are happening to your body that are outside of your control. How does that help or hurt your self image and your self esteem? And this is not uncommon. According to the Centers for Disease Control, about half of all adults have a chronic illness, and of those chronic illnesses are invisible. It could be endometriosis, it could be celiac disease, it could be MS, migraines, diabetes, lime disease. These are issues that we don't see often on the outside of a person manifesting. Maybe you know you're planning to go for a great hike with your new puppy, or you're planning this great date night out on the town with your partner, and you have a flare up and you're unable to express yourself physically in the way that you normally would. What does that do to your self esteem, to your confidence, and to your relationship to your body. I can think of no better person qualified to have this conversation with me today. She is dynamic and hilarious and eloquent. I'm speaking of Azure Antoinette, who has been called the Maya Angelou of the millennial generation. And that's right. She's an incredible poet and spoken word artist. And she was diagnosed with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis that is our r m S when she was twenty eight years old, and she's been living with MS now for well over a decade, and she is looking so vulnerably, so honestly at the way MS has been challenging her identity as a professional communicator. So Azure is a living, breathing, beautiful example of reckoning with this topic. And she's bringing these experiences out creatively as well. Just this year in she appeared on Grey's Anatomy as a character loosely related to her own experience and history with m S. So I can't wait for you to hear Asor's words of wisdom and how her chronic illness has both interrupted and also brought her into a deeper relationship and understanding with her body image. As always, if you love the show, let me know, let me know what you think by subscribing, writing a review wherever you listen. All right, let's dig in. Have you d I am so happy to have you here. I couldn't remember how long we've known each other, but it's it's for years and years at this point. I think, yeah, like twelve almost ten years. And obviously when I first met you and experienced you, I was witnessing your incredible, stirring poetry. So I met you as a poet. I also know you as a hustler, a mover, a shaker, somebody on the go, somebody creating gorgeous work in the world through your words. And I was thinking about how we meet people, how we form, like our impressions of folks, and what people get known for, what we get attached to. Obviously that's a big part of what we talked about on the show. When did you know that words were your superpower? I guess I've always liked talking. It was the one thing that the one thing that I got in trouble for every day at school, every single day, like on every report card was like because you were doing great. However, it was just like I always felt like they didn't want me to be great, and that we needed to dialogue about it. We shouldn't have a chat, you know. And then the first thing I memorized by recitation was the Preamble of the Constitution. The second was the Bill of Rights. How old were you when you did that? Little? Oh my gosh. I started reading when I was three. The first book of poems that my mom ever bought me was Edgar Allan Poe, and my favorite poem for the longest time was The Tell Tale Heart. And I just remember the magic of reading, because there you were, just yourself, sitting wherever you were, and we had these corners all over the house where we would read, where we would concentrate. And I just remember being so nervous when Scotland Yard was sitting in his living room and his heart was beating under the floor, and I was like, ol, Laura, I was gonna, Okay, you're going to drink the rest of this tea? Oh no, you know. And I remember being so blown away that somebody could do that just by writing. And I became obsessed with the dictionary and the sourists, and I wanted to know what everything meant and how to use it. In context and and I was young when I really fell in love with vernacular. But it wasn't until much later that I really started to understand that my love for constantly having something to say and writing. We're all so intricately connected and married, if you will. What did it do for you from an identity perspective when you found out that you were not only in love with that, You know, it becomes part of what you get known for in your social circles and your relationships. People know that about you. I'm curious, like how that was to try on that identity? Did it always fit? Did you wrestle with it? Was it hard to identify as a poet as a writer? I the world knew me as a poet and a writer long before anybody in my life did. M hm. I never talked about it. I thought that I would be cast out from my group of friends, who I call the original mean girls. I didn't know if I was any good, you know. This started in the early nineties finished up in the late nineties. When I graduated high school. There was no reference. We were still rocket Netscape Navigator, and Encyclopedia in Carter on the CD ROM. I was still playing organ trail, trying to get through you know, losing an oxen dysenterry. You know, there was no reference points. So all of the stuff that we have now that helps you craft what you think and how you feel and let me see how someone else has done it, that didn't exist. And the poets that I knew, the authors that I loved, either had passed away or looked nothing like me. Right, It just it opened up this world that allowed you to cultivate and foster in imagination. And from what I know now, and of course being in so much therapy, I can actually not even say the word therapy without flinching a bit. But I had so many issues with the way that I looked and that I didn't have the standard frame, and that I was one of four black kids at my school, and the guys weren't really into me, and I didn't really know if I was into them. That the idea of being anonymous, the idea of just being good at writing down feelings and maybe making people feel things, felt really enticing to me. That felt like something I could do. Because this is the one place that they won't tell me I can't run fast enough, or that I don't get picked last for the team, or you know, I'm the younger girl who got skipped up, who was fat, who like didn't have a lot of friends, but like she was kind of funny. I didn't have to be any of that. I could just exist and be pretty good at it. And I just thought to myself, cool, well, this feels good. And it wasn't It wasn't so deliberate. I didn't know that I loved it. I didn't know that that that was the one thing, no matter all of the things that I fucked up, that this is the one thing I could do and not sing it up. I so relate to that because when I found writing for me, I was in fifth grade. My English teacher gave me an extracurricular assignment to share a story in front of the class, and I remember reading it out loud and falling in love with the sensation of moving somebody to laughter, or having that power to transform the energy in this space. And for me, I'm probably just like you. I was a young girl dealing with my own body image issues, figuring out where I fit into the high hierarchy of how we judge and value women and girls, which is often by their looks first, and I didn't fit there. But I fit with writing, with reading, with storytelling and you're writing. It also became an armor for me. Did it become an armor for you? Oh? It was a complete cope. Like I was really good at writing, and my papers were always getting a's, and I could say anything, and so I ran for student council and I was good representing the people. I was good at like getting it out there and and and the comedic timing, and but no part of me was ever like, oh, I want to do stand up Like people asked me that all the time. And when we met, just I hadn't even given a keynote speech. Really, I was just doing poems. When we met, everybody just brought me out to ras the crowd like I wasn't giving keynotes. I hadn't done it, ted talk, I haven't done I haven't done any of that. I was just like I worked in HR Like that's right, I forgot that. Yeah, girl, fame remind me of the shift from that corporate life into taking a risk on your art. Man. Well, you know, l A. I was driving home between the four or five and the ten, I would say two and a half hours two and a half hour commute each way on a good day, drove to the right aid because I was classy. I wanted to pick up a box of bugles and some white zim Fandel from Baringer in a box, you know. And I got home and I had on my like sad corporate clothes, and I took off just one shoe because that's like all I could do to get in the door was get that one shoe off and just gave up on the couch. And I was sitting there watching HBO's Death Poetry Jam, and this poet by the name of Marty McConnell came on from the South Side of Chicago and she said this poem called Instructions for a Body, which was the poem is riveting like start to finish, but the end she says, speak or let the Maker take back your throat march, or let the Creator resend your feet dream, or let your God destroy your good infertile mind. This is your warning, this is your birthright. Do not let this universe regret you. And at four I was all, I'm universal regret. Yeah wow, So Jess as you know me to be all impulse, very little forethought. I marched into work the next day through open the door of my area vice president and quit. And we weren't on a first name basis. So I opened her door. I was like Kathy, and like, I definitely didn't have a pay grade to just yell out Kathy like that. Like that was not like we were not we were not at the Cathy level. We weren't at Kathy. We certainly weren't at like Kathy were probably have like hey Heathy, Hey Kathy. But I had burst in there just out of my mind, and I was like, I quit and she was like okay. Now. I was like, because it comes a point in the universe and that the stars are aligned and you have got to you have to spit and you have to get out. She was like okay, and she was like, yeah, we all kind of don't know what you're still doing here. We still I still talk to her today. We still laugh about it. And I was like, have funny. Oh. So I marched back down to my office super stoked. That was it. I literally I heard that poem and that was it. I felt like this person who I had never met, the same way you feel when you hear a song for the first time was talking directly to me. Because I had already felt that way. I was like, this couldn't possibly be it. I spent all of that time looking up to people and is this is this the thing? Yeah, so when we met, and I'll just paint the picture for those that maybe haven't had the gift of seeing as your speak live. But you can obviously get the flavor from this conversation, Like you were nothing short of magnetic on that stage. When I watched you deliver a poem to a room full of young women at a leadership conference, and the the energy was so palpable. And I think through the years, as I've known you and I've watched you beyond this climb that I think we all were on, especially you know obviously pre pandemic. We were hustling hard for our work, for our money, for our everything, and then at you get a diagnosis. Yeah, and I don't know that you and I have ever really spoken about that moment, but I would be honored if you could bring me to that moment as you're climbing, as you're moving, because I just movement was the word I thought about with you. Yeah, it was massive. I don't. I can hardly had I not been present for it all, it all seems like it almost didn't even occur, you know what I mean. There are these moments in your life where you're you're connected to a person or a place and you're like, so that definitely happened, because this and this and this and this and this, you know what I'm saying. So it was, it was yeah, yeah, and video it was. I was living in Hollywood. I was walking to Chase Bank on Hollywood and Vine and my legs went out. M I sat down on the curb. I could not move, like, I could not move my legs or my feet. I couldn't stand. I panicked, of course, and I called my I called my mom, and her legal secretary answered, and she said, I'm sending a cab for you, which tells you the time that we were in. There's no lift, there's no fucking uber, none of that ship. So he took me to my sister's apartment and she came home after work and I sat on her couch for maybe five days. She took me to see my mom's internist, who diagnosed me at the time with labyrinth titus, a really bad inner ear infection. Before the legs went out, I had lost the sensation in my fingertips. I couldn't really hold anything, and I was having a lot of trouble using my phone. I couldn't press the buttons anymore. I stopped being able almost to use the phone entirely. My handwriting had gotten atrocious, and I was really dizzy. When I would put my head down, it felt like you were free falling in an elevator, you know when the elevator catches itself. That every time I put my head down. So I had just stopped moving all together. And I was having a good day when I was walking down to the bank, and so I sat on Ded's couch for a couple of days. I had this binding around my chest, my entire rib cage that had started to get like progressively worse, and so much so it felt like somebody was tie me in a corset um and I couldn't explain what was going on. On top of that, I was forgetting everything, like it just everything was really freaking me the funk out, And the more I tried to talk about it, the more people were like what And I was young Jess, like it wasn't it didn't make any sense, you know what I'm saying. So it was it was really it was terrifying. And where did you ever hear about those symptoms? Like how would you have even known? Never? Never? And again all we had was web m D and web MD had like two people on user experience. It was either like HIV or a brain tumor anything you entered. So it was I got my sister, got me to my mom's. I felt awful. We were just getting ready to go to the next season of Brave New Voices. I used to coach that slam team in l A. I was missing rehearsals. I couldn't focus. I was throwing up everywhere. My director was like, what is your deal? Every I think everybody just kind of thought like I was just being dramatic and fucking around and you know whatever, herd. But I literally could not get my ship together. And finally, after going to the Fourth County Hospital, it was an E R doctor that diagnosed me. He sauntered in not like Grey's anatomy at all, not at all, and he was like, yeah, it looks like you have MS. And at this point I had found one medical journal that was published in the UK where the doctor that that had it was describing exactly the binding in my in my chest and they call it the m S hug. Now, disclaimer, have you hug like that? We don't need to be cool like that's not that's not a hug, that's assault. And it was. It was that doctor. He's like, I just got off an eighteen hour shift. He was like, but you should know that MS is not We call it the Great Masquerader because your disease looks like a plethora of other things and it's not just one test. You cannot then just diagnose it from a blood test. It is a series of factors over time that then tell you what kind of MS you have. So I still didn't have health insurance like I had just gotten my big break Like I didn't. They were like, oh, well you're gonna need Mr. Rise And even then even then they were what nine for all three, like nine dollars was my rent. I just was like, oh I can't. I'm not gonna be able to I can't do that. If it can't kill me, then I'll just kick it. Wow. That was that. Hey, y'all, don't go anywhere. This conversation is getting so good. You know what I need? I need more of this epic conversation. Let's go what was your experience like? Because I know you had talked publicly about how long it took you before you got diagnosed, and like, I think a lot of people who have chronic illness, especially women and women of color, there's a tremendous amount of racism and disbelief of women's pain, and specifically black women's pain. Did you find that as you were seeking doctors support, healthcare support in describing these symptoms, they just didn't even hear me. All I kept hearing was your overweight yes, And I just was like, true, However, that doesn't explain all of this, and we're not here to chat about the fact that, like that is true, but that is the default that medical professionals go to, especially for women, in almost everything before they are willing to look at symptoms, it's are you losing weight? Do you you need to lose weight? And I'm like, oh, like, did you hear what I said about my hands or the binding? He's like, well, you're not having a stroke and I'm like, yeah, but what am I having? Yeah? So, so do you have anything to say that it's helpful. And it was then that me becoming disenfranchised with Western medicine. It was when that began. I felt so awful just and was so sick that they put me on the medication that they give women with hyporemesis. I couldn't stop vomiting. Look to the left or right. It was violent vertigo, Like I used to write teacups with my mom and sister at Disneyland, like Dash was gonna break. I didn't even care about the other rides. If you try to put me on a teacup today, there is nothing. There is no amount of revenue, there's no contract, nothing, and I left revenue it. Yeah, if you told me L cool J Was gonna come up and be with me like I thought he was in high school and I could go back and impress all my friends, I'll still be like, I'm good. Yeah, he all right, and he looks exactly the same when you were telling me about I want to pick up on a thread here that I think is really important, especially for our conversation around kind of the predominant stories that live in our minds about ourselves and about our abilities. Like you know, you were a young girl who struggled with body image issues young women who kind of was reckoning with appearance and your identity around where you as we were talking about, kind of fit out in the way that we honor women and girls worth right by beauty. And then you're getting this fat phobia and discrimination in the medical space around weight, which so many of us experienced when we when we go in. I'm curious what this diagnosis did for your body image, for how you thought about your body, because now you're dealing with body differently. It's beyond the surface, right, it's about its functionality. Yeah, I would say that I didn't like my body in the first place. When I got the diagnosis, it just pissed me off even more and I was like, you've always let me down. You never knew how to do the things that other people could do. You couldn't run fast enough, you'd like to eat certain things that you shouldn't eat, like and on top of all of that, as your now you have this horseship. So I lost like ninety pounds after being super ill, very very sick, treatments that didn't work at these awesome dress lost all my hair during radiation, like it was all bad and the stress and just not understanding what the condition was itself. And and today I feel as frustrated overall, But I'm less hard on my body itself than I was before. And I try really hard two teach myself to speak with kindness on the days that I'm still not able to walk or tie my shoes or brush my teeth, And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But it is hard and it sucks to be I in no way am unhappy about being black. I love who I am as a black woman. At the same time, I am furious that I have one more space that I'm considered less than. So I don't often use the term disability. I have enough horseship to battle, I have enough conversation topics. I have enough spaces where people want to be an alliance and allies and none of that's real. So the last thing I'm going to do was walk in the room and tell you that because of this disease that has no cure, zero representation, And now I know disproportionately symptomatically affects black women worse than anyone else that could get it, Like we're not going to talk about it. It is we should not have to endure the loss of Chadwick Boseman because he felt he worked in an industry that would already call him less, so he didn't say anything. It's not always the story of of James Dean and the Club. It's not always that. Sometimes you're just tired of being alive. Sometimes it's just too fucking hard. So to have an autoimmune disease that quite literally people don't know anything about is infuriating to me. And it's taken me from the time of diagnosis up until last year to get in front of it and name it. And it didn't happen because I felt like, as you're you're ready, I had a poem go somewhat viral on Instagram where this disgusting tremor that has emerged starts to pick up, and I stopped hiding it. Now I don't get off camera when it happens, or I don't cancel the call, or I don't not show up to the event, because what I would like to do is spare any other black woman MHM who doesn't quite look the park from having to hide some more. I cannot fix all of it, and I don't feel bad for not wanting to change the world anymore. What I can do is give visibility and representation to the things that I uniquely understand, and I just want to be helpful about exposing what it is so that somebody else doesn't have to sit there and lose her ability to do everything before somebody finally says like, hey, it's not you, something's actually wrong. I'm taken with the power of what you started off sharing, which was the frustration, the resentment, the relationships we have with our bodies when we feel they failed us, when they feel like the enemy, when they've always felt like the enemy, and the reconciliation that needs to happen when you're fighting something then greater than even that dynamic in a relationship. And I'm curious just knowing you the way that I do, and knowing how incredibly strong you are, and I understand the weight of that word. How you managed asking for help and how you are managing asking for help And are there things that people do that are helpful for you in support and are there things that are not? And what does that need to look like for you now? Man? I am still and always have been terrible about asking for what I need, And I am the most extroverted introvert. I have come to know like I'm just like I'm the model warm ago. But if it's work, I'm down. If there's fifteen people are five million, I think that's great. I can't let them down. I can let you down individually, I can't let down an amphitheat full of people into your point. The people that that are the most helpful, especially with invisible disabilities, are the people that just allow you to be. Yes. They're the people who purpose to know who you are, what that bad day looks like for you, and maybe like those ship tastic weather people we have, try to forecast what's coming. If they see me struggling, help me with my shooting. Yeah, you know, from a storyteller perspective, what I know comes through in your art is to weave a new narrative for people and for yourself through creativity, through imagination, through telling different stories. And I want to talk about what what you have done I think for broadening and broadcasting literally a conversation around and that's was what you did on Grey's Anatomy. Can we talk about that and how that opportunity came about. That was cool, that was crazy, that was a trip it's still a trip. I'm like, what you know, I'm the little I'm the little square on Hulu with the episode now are you? This is my whole face. I'm just in a hospital gown, like I'm so sick. It's so great. How did that happen? How did that come to be? It was during COVID times. Remember, everybody was like, oh, let me create all this content and programming for you on Instagram all day long, because what else are we going to do as a society? Hold your phone. I do remember that there were a whole lot of lives happening during that time. Listen too many. They're like, I'm here everyone, So I've got my trustees, sidekick and this is so this I'm gonna show you today. I cleaned my glasses and I'm um. So it was. I was doing a workshop with the author Jen passed Alof and Christoph Ernoff In Jenner are pretty good friends, and so I put up the graphic from the event that was coming up Standard Flyers and I was like, big news, everybody, I'm on, Gray's just kidding. The next line was just kidding, just the next line. And then people were congratulating me and calling me and I'm like, ya, can't read for nothing. I said, I'm not on the show, you know. So then we had the actual the actual event that day, and Krista was like, all, well, can you act or something like that. Now, I was like, I mean I can act surprise, I act contempt, I act all kinds of stuff, you know. And so that was we started having a chat about it. She messaged me and it was like, you know, if you're up for to audition and I was like, yeah, cool. I hadn't done theater and I don't even know how long. And she told me, she said, we have we have a part written for a character with m S. And I was like okay, And I, like I said earlier, like I wasn't super keen on being branded with that, like I have enough ship, I got enough to do. People already spob voice me. They're like, oh my god, I am so sorry. Did you just say spot voice? Yes, I'll be like I haven't messed there, like oh my god, oh oh honey, right this way, and they don't even know what it is. And then if I actually say multiple sclerosis, they were like wow, yeah that's stuff mm hm, and what they're like yeah, So I don't know. I was like, I wasn't super down, But I love Grace. I've been a huge fan since day one. Watched it all through college that used to be Thursday Nights. I was way before scandal. I was in it. And then in January I got a call from my Asian and they were like, auditioned for this part. So I auditioned. I was seizing so much. I was having so many seizures. I barely made it through taping through the actual self tape. What's going on in your mind as that's happening. Are you beating yourself up? Are you just working hard to make it through the moment? Like do you have a story that's running through you and that's happening? Nah, I just I'm just glad it has a name now. It feels there is a sense of validation and relief when they name it, When you can finally understand that you haven't just not been showing up for people, or you're not just an asshole who never does what she says she's gonna do. That's nice to know that, like this is something and and not only is this something, it's something major. You know that they do not have a cure for this is not This disease is not new, and I felt confident in the fact that I had a diagnosis, but as far as excepts when I didn't know. So everything that's been happening as a result of having the disease, a lot of that's been very new to me because exactly what you said, just there's no representation of it. There's nothing, so you don't know like, oh, this is a typical or typical because X Y Z and I saw this video and such and such a people don't talk about it, and we don't talk about it because you get tired of people being like, I don't know what that is, right, you know. And so when I'm seizing or if I lose my ability to hand right or tie my shoes or I fall down today, I'm trying to just advise the people in my life be cool. I'm okay. And when we were filming, it was hilarious because I'm I'm on the surgical table. That's where I think we're on, like the eighth day of filming, and the left side of my body tends to seize up if I'm sedentary for too long. I never know when it's gonna rock up. It's got a super massive mind of its own, and there's hundreds of people everywhere. It's a massive set. And I'm laying on the table and they're doing this whole scene where they mistakenly take out of my urtor. I don't even know what that is. I still don't know, but I made it through the surgery. I'm okay. So they're doing that, they're doing all the stuff, and I'm just kicking it, like what pinched me? Right? And I start to seize up. So they kind of roll through it, and my my office manager was with me, your name Cindy. She's awesome, and they stopped rolling. They're like cut and they all come in. It's Debbie Allen and Linda Linda Klein or director and like the medical team that does all the writing comes in and they're all leaning over me and I'm still on this surgical table and they're like they're all just looking at me. And they said to Cindy, they were like, a she okay. She's like yeah, She'll tell you. She's all right. Debbians like, girl, I get nervous, and I'm like, I'm not nervous. I just have no it just happens. And I lived there all stressed and spa voice e and the COVID captain was there with hand sanitizer and an extra mask like everybody rest out. And I looked up and I was like, I forget that. None of y'all are doctors right for a second. I mean, it looks so real. I'm sure my ass didn't know that I didn't have a RD. I was like, do I get it back? You know what I mean? Like, so, then they do that thing, you know, the thing that they do in corporate. They're like, she is so alright action, and I was like, you guys are weird. So it was the first time that they had ever cast someone with their disease, and then that disease played up on set. But they were so lovely, super cool. Everyone was very, very nice and super helpful. There was some long shooting days and Krista called me before we set in motion and she's like, this is something you think you can do like their long days, And I was like yeah, I was like I don't. I'm good and I can communicate a lot better than I used to. But all we can do right is just showing up and be like Hey, yeah, it's grief. Sure, this is uncomfortable, whatever it is. But all we can do is be present, Like I I don't want people to freak out, Like what I need is for you to be helpful. And what people don't know about m S is that my ability to keep myself calm helps my body restore itself back to a stasis. So if you're amped and then I'm worrying about you, it's just gonna keep going. So I I not only try to give people warning, but I also I want to just encourage people like it's okay. Like I will tell you if I'm getting ready to fall out, if I can feel it, I will let you know everything that I know. But there is nothing we can do. We just have to wait. And the only thing that I can do is be cool. Yeah, all right, you know the drill, it's that time. I'll be back before you know it. Oh my gosh. I hope you're enjoying this as much as I am. All right, let's dig back in. What is your relationship with self love? What is that grown into for you during this period we are working on it. I know that I know that everybody is so excited about going within. I like to go out. I don't like to unpack. Yeah, I want to seal it with a kettle bill. So I'm working on it. When you started, asked me, how did I know that words were my superpower? What I've come to learn about myself, not just in relation to a mess, just into the way I have lived my life at times recklessly, is that my superpower is forgiveness m hm. And I believe that I have worked really hard to harness it because I pray that I receive it and I'm all right. I used to freak out a lot about not being able to walk because I was like, I'm a presenter, I'm a speaker. And then I've freaked out about not being able to speak because that's what I do. But I haven't handwritten anything for very long and over ten years because I can't really hold a pen super well. So when I signed books now it's just kind of scrawly. But I embrace it, you know. I'm like, it's all right, you know, and if I have to a wheelchair. I just ordered my first cane. I don't even want to talk about it. I got it from this lady on Etsy because I think it might be neat because that one that the CBS is not I, oh, that's not for your And I was like, now, you guys just want me to put tennis balls on the bottom and give up. I'd rather lay down on the flour. Oh five, I I don't see that for you know, you know I got good style, just I know, have me. I want to look like that fourth member and boys demand that nobody ever really knew what was wrong. Remember he used to have that cane, but like we didn't quite know what was wrong. All the rest of them was always doing all the moves, and he was just in the back, just cool. He didn't do nothing. He was swaying though he was swaying with the kids. Yes, and that's what I'm trying to do. I just hold it steady and I'm a just coast. Oh my god, you know. So it's like I don't I just the more time that passes, just the less I care about what I didn't post. And you we we have so much trouble loving ourselves because we don't even consider ourselves, just so worried about what the other is doing. That like you just you completely deleted what a fighter you are, And so I called myself an MS warrior. I rage against the things like it's not it's I am black and gay and female and a self proclaimed commission poet because I entirely made the job up. So I ask something, MS sucks, but it's not gonna be it, like msn't even cool like that, like I'm so cool. Otherwise it's fine, it's fine if we don't go, we don't go like legit. You know, Yeah, someone's gonna have to really take me out like a tractor like something. Legit. For people who are listening who are wanting to rewrite their story, Let's say they're also navigating a change in their health chronic illness and autoimmune disease, invisible disability, and they're letting that be their story. Right now, what do you say to somebody who wants to rewrite that dominant story around their body, their illness, their pain, you know that storytelling and teller like that's my whole, that's everything, you know, It's not so much poems anymore. It's it's the story and living to tell it. And even if it isn't a disease like you are, you're here, I will tell you that that is not a small feat no matter where you come from, how you misstepped, all of the things you want to redo, all of the regrets and the mistakes, and even the things that you're too scared to talk about. You're here, and we get the opportunity every single day to do it right. We get the opportunity every day to be the forgiveness we want to receive. I know that everybody loves talking about the change they wish to be in the world, But maybe let's do the daily thing, and maybe let's give grace, and let's give it abundantly. Let's make kindness the trend, because it is true, all of the stuff you read, you don't know what people are going through, You don't know where they've come from, how hard they had to fight just to stand up. And with being in what seven months seventeen of a global pandemic, would still no cure all of the information, all of the misinformation. We lost seven hundred thousand people in this country alone, seven hundred thousand stories. So let's just be present and if you do the wrong thing atone and just give people a chance, give your own body a chance. And I am not the I'm not the guru of the stuff with the love and light. I don't know what people ever mean with that jest. I don't want thoughts and prayers. Don't think about me. I don't know who you're praying to leave it alone, you know. But I do believe that it is free to be kind. We are terrible to ourselves, so let us be love and and mess has taught me how to give patience and grace to this body. And the poem that broke me out of the life that I thought I was going to have is not ironically named instructions for a body. That's just true. Yes, So when when we do think about m a beauty of losing the thing that you you don't value, It's taught me how to love these hands. It's taught me how to give thanks for the feet that were never cute enough to get in the shoes that the girls did. It's taught me how to love the thighs that are unwieldy, and my arms that have flaps and don't look nearly as good as Michelle Obama's. I mean not at all like her arms, you know. But these arms carry me. These arms are doing what they know how to do, and so I do want people to just like, be okay with the story. It's worth it, and don't forget our duty. Our duty is to remain be here. You inspire me to ask you this last question. What part of your body could tell the story of your life? Now? Oh? My hands, m hm, they have seen so much and I didn't. I don't nearly give them mone of credit. Sometimes we rely too much on our eyes, and we think too much about our mouths. But my hands, my hands have been everywhere, good, everywhere, unseen, everywhere, unclean. My hands have been there. And your hands have helped a shepherd in some of the most beautiful work I've ever witnessed. And you, my love our work of art. And I love you, and I'm so happy to have had this conversation with you. I love you too, Jess. Did I tell you or did I tell you that Azure is the perfect person to go on this wild ride with. If you're listening to this conversation and you haven't had a lot of experience with understanding chronic illness or chronic conditions like the ones that we're talking about today, what I want us to take away is an awareness of just how much when something goes awry with our health, but especially with a chronic condition chronic meeting right. There currently is no cure for MS. So she had to completely upend and readjust her goals based on this diagnosis and what her body was going to be able to provide for her or not provide for her. You know, you've got to toss those life plans out the window and make some new ones, no small feat. The other thing that I want to call attention to is on as your's journey of getting that diagnosis. If you've ever lived in a larger body and you've gone into a doctor for any ailment, the first thing they normally say to you is, oh, you just need to lose some weight. It's like the save all answer for everything. And so now you add on to that as your being a woman of color, all of the systemic biases that exist in our medical profession and you're in pain. Just the dynamic of getting an answer, of getting validated, of getting seen so important for us to be aware of, and you know, not to lose sight that Walli Jour had to throw out the plans that she was making in her life to adapt to new ones. She had a gift given to her in her own words, around relating to her body differently. She said, MS has taught me how to give patience and grace to this body, you know, recognizing that we're always focused on the external appearance. We don't often think about the functionality because it's less about the physical appearance of your body and more about what your body can do. And she has had to reconstruct her identity around her relationship to her body, and I find that part so inspiring. And lastly, our duty is to remain no matter what happens. Life is a gift. Be here, be present. You can find a way to remain if you're interested in exploring more about your dominant stories and how you can challenge them and change them. I teach workshops on this stuff, so you can always sign up at Jess Weiner dot com. You can follow me on Instagram and I'm Jess Weiner. I really loved the community that we're creating. I love the stories you're sharing and the questions you're asking. So if you want to tell us about your dominant stories that you're rewriting and working on, you can email us at podcast at dominant stories dot com or leave us a voicemail at two one, three, two five nine three zero three three, and don't stress, I'm gonna put all that in the show notes. And next week we are going to talk about sharing the legacy of beauty rituals with incredible guests on A. Flores, who is the founder and CEO of the We All Grow Latina Network, and Levi A. G I. E. Jones, who's a speaker an author of new book Professional Troublemaker, The Fear Fighter Manual, And we're gonna be exploring how the legacies that were passed out in their families have helped to shape their self esteem and their beauty identity. Thank you so much for listening and tuning in, and please don't forget to write a review wherever you're listening right now. It's super duper, duper duper helps us out, and remember we are always learning and we are always growing. Dominant Stories with Jess Winer is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.