Jenn Turner 0:08
Welcome to on trauma and power. I'm your host. Jenn Turner, co founder of the Center for trauma and embodiment, I'm so glad you're here with us. Jenn, I each episode, I sit down with different experts, educators, authors, survivors and practitioners, sharing different trauma informed experiences across various fields, join us as we explore the complex intersections of trauma and power through embodied healing and diverse perspectives in both our Personal and collective healing journeys. Let's dive on in.
Jenn Turner 0:59
Thank you so much for being here. Candace, I'm so glad you're joining me for this conversation and that we get to have a conversation where we just like think and share and explore.
Candace Liger 1:08
Yeah, I'm happy to be here. It's long overdue. It's always fun talking to you, Jenn, so I'm excited to see what this conversation takes. Same, same.
Jenn Turner 1:18
Well, let me introduce you to our guests, and then hand it over to you for a little embodiment moment. So Candice is a native Mississippian mother of two, and a certified fitness coach through NASM and USA weightlifting USA W who blends social justice and wellness to create inclusive, meaningful spaces where all bodies can thrive. She is the founder of the Center for body autonomy and director of trauma informed weight lifting, T, I, W, l, as a TEDx speaker, award winning activist and performance artist, Candice has led national campaigns addressing race and gender based oppression, sexual violence and mass incarceration. She is deeply committed to movement based healing body liberation and passionately exploring what freedom can feel like in our bodies. That's pretty badass.
Candace Liger 2:13
Thanks, Jenn. I appreciate that you read that so lovely. So yeah, this would be a great time for us to kind of open it up with a little bit of movement. Get into your bodies a little bit. This is actually one of the practices I brought into trauma informed weight lifting from my experience as a dance fitness coach and dance fitness instructor, thinking about how how it feels when you're walking into this really big studio, and someone is asking you to spread your body far and wide. And how often there can be a sense of not quite knowing how wide to get, how much space to take up. And so I call this exercise, literally just taking up space. And so you can do this seated, or you can stand up, you can move around, whatever feels good. But I want you to first start just by looking around, just taking us a survey of just all the space that is around you. And you may notice that your head starts moving in different directions, looking behind you, above you, beneath you, to the sides. If you feel a stretch and you decide to stay there for a second, go ahead and stay there. And in mind, thinking of all of this space that you've now captured with your eyes, start to imagine like your body expanding so you may consider opening your arms wide, or maybe even spreading your legs and or if you want to keep your hands close to you, you can keep your hands close to you, and let's move in All directions of all of the space around us. I encourage you to consider extending as far as you can. You may wiggle your fingers so that the air around the space moves through your fingers. You may reach down to your feet, and again, don't forget about behind you and above you. And now that you've kind of surveyed all of this space around you, I want you to make some cups with your hands just like this, and you can reach out and grab all of this space that you've now thrown your energy around inside of and bring it back inside of your body and allow that space to fill up, fill up, your lungs, your chest, your belly and. If it feels good, we'll finish this off by just taking one big deep breath, just to let the space settle, go deep into your nose and let it out. Our space. Now, my space now.
Jenn Turner 5:21
Thank you. I love that. That's so cool, like I've done that with you one other time we have to. And I think so much about how, when you do that, how we're encouraged to not take up space, or some of us are encouraged to take up space, and some of us are not and depending on our identities or,
Candace Liger 5:45
you know, where we are, yeah, I mean, I think that's a very common reflection. After doing this, this exercise, I've heard it multiple times, right? Like nobody's ever given me permission to take up space in this way I felt like I needed permission in the first place. And I can understand how some of that can be very complicated. Like, what does it mean for us to take up space inside of even, like, power or privilege or access or ability? But also, what feels very important is that we're able to take up all this space around us and nothing is nothing in this moment of exercise is like harm because of it, right, like we can do this, we can just do this exercise, even metaphorically, metaphysically, right, and we still and the world doesn't crash open because we were too Loud or took up too much space in this moment. And that reminds me a lot of weight lifting in the sense of, you know, we pick up the heavy, heavy things all the time, and then we drop them back down to the ground, and, you know, hopefully we walk away with no injuries.
Jenn Turner 6:56
That's so powerful, yeah. And I wonder too, if people ever have like, an adverse reaction to that, like, Oh, I found I didn't want to take up space, or it felt safe in some way,
Candace Liger 7:08
I think so. And you know, I'm thinking of this moment that I let this particular exercise, it was much more involved, like we were actually doing very synchronized movements during that time. And, you know, I remember this one person did not feel comfortable like expanding their body in that way. Not you know, it's one thing to think about taking up space. It's another thing to like physically do that with your body. And I think that's important to recognize. I mean, in that moment she was able to articulate, I don't feel comfortable doing this. This is actually very uncomfortable and but I think that's I think that's a common sentiment when this is also someone who's been told to be very quiet most of their life. They were very quiet, person, very reserved, very soft spoken, and kind of always situated themselves in like a, like a little tight pocket, right? And so I think that that gives us an opportunity, then, in that practice, to explore, like, if our hand, if our hands going to be close to us, or do we want to stretch it out? Do we want to bring it into our body and just keep it there for a while before we let, let our body, limbs back, go back into space. So it's definitely a curiosity prompt as well, and a lot of a lot of space to reflect and learn about ourselves.
Jenn Turner 8:32
Yeah, that's beautiful. It definitely has me thinking a lot. Well, I wonder if we can kind of start like a bit of a looking backwards and kind of how you got to this work. I don't know if you would be up for sharing a bit about, like, how you got oriented and started weightlifting for yourself in your life, and kind of your journey around that,
Candace Liger 8:53
yeah, sure, sure. Um, I mean, so one, I don't, I don't, I actually identify as a lifter, and I don't know why, it just doesn't feel right to me. I definitely identify as like a trainer and a coach and a fitness enthusiast. I became a coach thinking about some of my experience growing up in Mississippi, and my family and I really got into this work as a layer just to have preventative maintenance. So on my dad's side, I've lost six family members, uncles and aunts from a form of muscular dystrophy, dystrophy called Spinocerebellar Ataxia, or Mikado Joseph's disease, and it's an aggressive form of muscular dystrophy. Your mental faculties stay present, but your body begins to slowly deteriorate. You begin to your muscle atrophies. Right coordination is lost. You. It affects the cerebellum and actually shrinks the cerebellum, and so that, you know, it supports control and balance and all those things. And so I played pretty much every sport imaginable in high school. Felt like I was pretty badass, you know, I end up going to end up going to college for softball, had all kind of offers. And, you know, I realized that movement, not just in sport, but also through like ritual and celebration and community, was a part, deeply, a part of my identity, and in the moments that I did not have it to access, I felt like I could not stay disciplined in anything else. So I said, You know what, let me just take this preventative measure and become a trainer. So in 2010 I got certified through the National Academy of Sports Medicine. And actually, right now, there's only one cousin who has the disease. There was some time that I exhibited symptoms, but it never fully formed. You know, thank God. Thank you, universe. Thanks, John. But yeah, that that was really my, my entry into it. It was very much so personal and protective. And I wanted to teach people also how to, you know, strengthen their bodies for whatever form of resistance or barriers there ultimately will indefinitely face like something will happen that where you can tap into the strength that you've created in your body. And so that became a part of my mission.
Jenn Turner 11:42
Wow, yeah, yeah. So, from the so early age, it sounds like you found your body as a as a resource and a big part of your life.
Candace Liger 11:52
Yeah, very, very much so, very much so. And then, you know? And also, like, I'm born 1984 before cell phones. I'm in Mississippi, you know, we my mom, our parents kicked us out the house, and we came back right before the street lights came on. So I was out, out I was I was riding bikes around town, playing basketball, softball, you know, we're walking well across the railroad tracks. So it was just so much movement and so little distraction growing up then, and even though we did have cell phones and technology, they weren't, they didn't become a focal feature until later on. So also just growing up in that kind of environment where movement was just a part of the culture,
Jenn Turner 12:37
yeah, yeah. Such a different world, right? Such a different world. So I guess, you know, one of the things I'm kind of interested in, too, is how, you know you think about what, and whether we're thinking, you know, weightlifting as it's organized in trauma, informed weightlifting, or your relationship to training and embodiment in general. But you know, what are ways that your kind of approach has challenged traditional fitness norms? Because I when I think about the work that you all do at Trauma Informed weightlifting, I think there's so much of that happening that is so fascinating and important.
Candace Liger 13:16
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think first I will say that when I graduated from personal training school, I was very much so cliche mainstream fitness. I was like, Oh, you want a big booty. Come to me. FLAT HAT, tighten it up, tone, all the things, lose weight, feel great. I got out of personal trader school and did all the cliche stuff, but it didn't take long for me to realize that that really didn't align with who I was, that didn't align with my purpose for getting in training in the first place. So I think one way that my approach disrupts mainstream fitness culture is that, I think that just that point again, like, what, what is it? What does it mean for us to have what I like to call full body processing power, which means, which means that there's a there's a synergy between what our body feels, what our emotions feels, what we are mentally thinking, and we're able to activate all these different parts of ourselves at one time, to move through moments, move through life, and be informed by our bodies. And so I've integrated that very deeply into even like my own programs that I've offered. My last program, fortify fitness, haven't ran it since. I've been a part of Charlie foreign wetland, because it takes so much. I think I read it maybe one time, actually. But you know, we were doing things like brushing our teeth with our non dominant hand, understanding the way that grief works when we have been in, you know. A program that requires us to lift weights for four days out the week, knowing that our body is going to change, understanding that it's changing, sometimes visibly, sometimes physically, and sometimes, you know, inside where we really can't see it and we can feel it, our energy level change, the way we may eat, changes and then, like, navigating through that loss or that gain of identity through weight lifting in that way we definitely or something that I've definitely encouraged also is, again, like, how does this? How does this translate this work that we're doing, thinking about the why beyond you know, esthetic goals, what is going to keep you Oh, this is, this is one of my favorite questions. When I take on a new client, it's like, alright, just imagine that every the reason that you came here, it was this, let's say I don't know that reason. Tell me what would change in your life, right? If you did stay committed for this 90 days or 120 days, what would change? And I love that question, because it the response is never something like, oh, yeah, my my ass will be so fat, everyone will love me. It's always something like, it's always something like, I would wake up earlier and I would work in my garden, because I really want to plant some vegetables, and I don't know how to but I would wake up and do that, and then I would teach my kids how to do it, and then we would just grow a garden. Or I would take more trips, because having been on a trip in like, 10 years, and I really want to see the beach, and I want to go there, but I just don't feel like I have the energy to do so, you know, or I'll start working on cars, ride motorcycles, right? I'll ride I'll ride a motorcycle cross country. And to hear those responses, I guess again, kind of has been an affirmation of like this is, this is why we can disrupt mainstream fitness culture. Remove the initiative, the this idea that people get into this fitness work or weightlifting work, because they're just thinking about how their body looks to themselves or to the opposite sex or gender.
Jenn Turner 17:24
I love that. It's like a It's a tool to live your life more fully, or as you would like to live
Unknown Speaker 17:30
it. Yeah, yeah. That's
Jenn Turner 17:32
interesting. I one thing you said, too, that I wanted to just like highlight was the, I think a lot of times we think about training or weightlifting or anything like this as as a net positive, and I love that you named the grief that people can experience as these changes happen. And I wonder if you could say a little more about that, like that that really surprised me, and also I resonate with it so much.
Candace Liger 17:58
Yeah, yeah. So my programs are usually 90 days, and we would have a week of grief around week four, because by that time, something is changing, something noticeable is changing. I think ways that grief show up vary very so much from, you know, realizing that your your body needs or is desiring different types of food. Maybe you just had a rigid diet first, and now your body is like meat or beans or something or candy, like your body starts craving different things other things, is right, the physical changes that happen, you know, thinking of, I mean, I'm thinking about one client I had who had, they didn't lose any weight the first four weeks, but their body composition changed dramatically In four weeks, probably, this is probably one of the biggest sort of changes I have ever seen with anybody had worked with. And while, I guess outside looking in, people will say, oh, like, this was a great change, and a change for the better, right for my client, it was, it was too dramatic. It was, it was jolting to the senses, right? They did not, they did not see themselves in the mirror anymore. And so they felt like they had to look for themselves in the mirror, like, where did I go? Like a part of me is missing now. And so I think, I think that was very early on in my fitness work, and to have that experience and work through that with a client, really was the inspiration that inspired me to add that section into my training. And then I began to discover other ways that grief showed up for people the real life. And that maybe as they started to do more for themselves in the name of self love, they started to recognize maybe relationships that didn't fit in that self love spectrum. They jobs that didn't fit in the self love spectrum, behaviors, habits, all these things that have definitely become a part of their long term and present identity were changing, and they didn't know why. And that can be very painful for Yeah, it can be very painful for a number of reasons. But yeah, grief is grief is very much so a part of this work. And I also think about what does it mean to engage in strength training and feel a sense of release, just just the word release itself can be very activating for the sensations that follow of grief, right? Because you release something, and maybe, maybe you felt like that would always belong to you, and now it doesn't. Wow. I
Jenn Turner 20:57
think you said something in there too, that, um, the self love piece, and how it's not something you know, when I think about my work as a in as a talk therapist, helping someone to cultivate Self Love is a really complicated practice, but when it start, when it becomes, when it comes from an embodied place like I observe this in yoga as well. It's so different in terms of how it can take root and and I wonder how you cultivate a space of self love, whether we're talking about trauma informed weightlifting or really any of your work. But that isn't too heavy handed, because I think that can also be alienating. If you're like, hey, come and, you know, strength train with me and we're going to work on self love. People like, this is not my place. This is not where I belong. Like, what?
Candace Liger 21:44
Right? Yeah. You know, in our trainings with trauma informed weight lifting, I have to remind people that they still can be themselves. I have to remind the coaches and trainers and, you know, practitioners who come throughout the that they can still very much so be themselves. They don't have to turn into like a self love guru. They don't have to soften their Blaze talking a very specific tone, like, you know, weight lifters and fitness folks. Typically, they oftentimes have a lot of energy, or they have big energy, or they may be quiet and still like you know, could bulldoze over a bulldozer. So I guess for me to answer that question, about a year after I came on the TI WL, remember that time I did say I ran my program. It was a shorter version. I was working with people who I had worked with before at some point, years earlier, and we would have this Sunday session every week. We would all meet up virtually, and we would talk about, like, how the week went inside the program. And they turned one of the calls into an intervention for me. And they said, like, I don't know what's going on with your coach, but I missed a workout, and you kind of gave me a little bit too much grace, and I don't feel comfortable with that. Like, like, what's going on with you? Where are you? I like, I actually feel safer when you cuss, when you don't cuss, I feel like, hold on, what's going on? So another person would chime in, another person would chime in. And I was like, Oh my gosh, is this? Is this what I think it is? Yes, it was an intervention and but all that to say that, you know, having or cultivating my own authenticity about who I am and what's my identity in this work has been so very important because, no, I am not the person to say, All right, y'all let's bring it all in for the self love circle. I'm not that person. I would say something like, all right, you have a choice. You can either tell me, like one beautiful thing about yourself that you learned this week, or you can do 30 push ups what feels good to you today. You let me know, and then we still do 30 push ups. So
Jenn Turner 24:18
I love it, like playfulness and, yeah, energy. I think you know, so much of what I think about, when I think about trauma, too, though, is like, oftentimes people are coming to us with self hatred, self loathing, and it's like somehow a relational Miss to feel or or sense of not belonging. And again, this may happen more in the yoga world versus the weightlifting world, but there's a lot of this, like soothing, loving energy that I think people feel like they don't deserve when they've experienced trauma and they've had this kind of hurt and pain, and so it's almost like a barrier for entry. It's like, oh, that's that's not for me, because I don't. Feel that way about myself. And so I think, yeah, I think that there's a way that sometimes, when we lead too strongly with that, it's it excludes people from where they're really at, which could be at a place of self hatred, and are they still welcome? And what is it like to create a space where someone who has that, you know, burden and pain that they're carrying can also feel like they belong.
Candace Liger 25:30
Yeah, wow, that's some powerful stuff there. Jenn, I can, I can. I can definitely see that I'm thinking of like, how would that translate in the weight lifting community? And maybe one thing I've noticed is you said it felt like they didn't deserve it. Maybe in the weight lifting community, it feels like I have to earn it to get it interesting. So I have to sacrifice my body. I have to go harder than I'm really beyond my capacity, I have to prove what I'm capable of and to be in like, that supportive space that, like, say someone does find that supportive gym where everyone is celebrated and people clap for you in a circle and all that stuff, right? Um, even I may notice some of that there too. I avoid those circles personally. I I avoid being like the center of someone's affection or praise or affirmation. If I could, kind of like hide in the shadows during those moments, I will. So, yeah, I think that's a very interesting that's a very interesting thought,
Jenn Turner 26:47
I guess too. I wonder if there's a way that people these are drawn to strength training or drawn to training in general, and weightlifting, because it's like I can deserve love or appreciation when my body looks like this, or when my body can do this thing, but then it ends up becoming a completely different journey. Like, maybe that's the entry point, or that's the draw at times, but then it's like, oh, there's all this other exploration to happen and growth and change,
Candace Liger 27:16
yeah. I mean, even, even for folks who I'm in community with, right? I can definitely acknowledge, like, they will get into weight lifting or get into, like fitness for one thing, and then it definitely changes. They see the benefit to their mental health. They see the benefit to their clarity, their energy levels. And they're like, all right, you know, I can stick around. I think on the flip side too, which may be a little different too than yoga, because I've done yoga and walked out and woke up the next morning sore and mad and mad because it was so slow and I didn't see it coming. And so it felt like it just crept up on me and infiltrated into my skin, versus like, being in the weight room, and you know that you're going to feel this, you're going and so, you know, seeing so many folks like really push themselves to capacity in that way in order to generate a sense of sensation that they know is going to become it, you know, a day later, two days later. I think that with the communities and how they kind of split off into yoga, weight lift, and then you have that, you know, overachieving few in the middle who who gravitate towards a lot, a lot of weight lifters, like are terrified of yoga. They're terrified of that because it requires so much embodiment, so much interoception, so much breath, synchronicity, and maybe there's some incense or some frequencies playing in the background, right, or getting into the weight room and lifting heavy requires you to not tap in so deeply, interoceptively, the interception can come before or after the big lifts, and that's our ability To sense those internal feelings, those internal sensations and and reconcile with those but when you're doing a big lift, you are very much so task oriented, and you have to recruit your muscles in synergy with a certain level of coordination to lift the thing up all at once, And then put it back down. And and so there's more, maybe more moments where it's not so much like tapping into that those inner parts. It's also like, what is the task at hand? How can I recruit all at once for this big movement? And then after that movement, take a moment. And get into get get into myself, get into my studio. Yeah,
Jenn Turner 30:06
interesting. So it's almost like you're, you're getting an opportunity to, like, move away from interoception and then move toward it a different depending on what you're doing, yeah, depending
Candace Liger 30:16
upon what you doing. Yeah. I mean, because there's, there's ways to do it, and I think, like, big Olympic lifts, maybe folks are more familiar with, like, you know, just saying, Olympic lifters do cleans and jerks, like, how those, those lifts in the moment, it's really hard to pay attention to, like, one specific muscle group or one, one specific hinge right as you perfect the movement you can but if you're lifting heavy, everything has to work in tandem, otherwise you are setting yourself up for injury. So it does feel like there's opportunity inside of weightlifting to jump inside of interoception and then jump out of it into proprioception, exteroception, task oriented, synergistic coordination.
Jenn Turner 31:06
So cool. Yeah, hearing you talk about that also reminds me that I would love for you to share with everyone about the relationship of like, managing stress and adding stress, sometimes with weight, and how you explore that in relationship to trauma. It gets so fascinating.
Candace Liger 31:24
Yeah, it's fun stuff. And we talk about this a lot in trauma informed weight lifting, this concept of therapeutic dosing, using weights and well, first, weights are stressful, gravity is stressful. So when we say weight lifted, we're not just talking about, you know, dumbbells and, you know, big barbells. We're also talking about body weight as well. But when thinking about stress, I'm often reminded that we are existing in ways, especially with social media, like on full blast, where we're exposed to non consensual stress all the time. It's coming from here. It's coming from there. It's coming from the music. It's coming from, you know, whatever. Every time we open our phone, things are going on in our lives. But when you go into the weight room and you lift up a heavy thing, you are, you're applying stress to your body, except this time, it's consensual. So I can do this with and and consent to the stress of performing this movement, and also feel like that's, that's my choice. There's a, there is a a necessary function of stress, right? Because it does allow us more room to adapt and respond and expands our capacity. And so with weight lifting, we can essentially try to find a sweet spot of the stress. We want to stress enough that the body and the person can adapt. We don't want to stress so much that it could potentially lead into negative feelings or negative sensations, right? Or being like over stressed or hyper activated inside of it, but having that agency to consent to the stress inside your body, I think it's very powerful for trauma survivors, because it's not just the weight itself. It's also being able to respond and request, right? Like I need a little bit longer of a rest break before I go through this stress again, or I'm not stressed enough, let's add a plate here. Or maybe I need a rest day in between sessions, because I'm managing this stress so that it works in my favor and I can show up in a more full way. That's
Jenn Turner 33:56
powerful. How do you what are some of the ways that you build a relationship where that can happen, where there is a sense and a and a trust in it's not just what Candace wants me to do or, you know, but this is actually me gaining internal consent, not just pleasing or any, any of the things that we might typically do in relationship.
Candace Liger 34:19
Yeah. Yeah, oh, that's a really good that's a really good question. Jenn, I think first when to have a trauma, informed approach to weight lifting, it collaboration is key. I ask the question, what sort of movements do you not like? And if I could avoid programming too many of those movements, I will. Because why would I want you to do something that you don't like? I want you to want to come. I want you to have an enjoyable experience. And so that's the first thing, is just shying away from those movements altogether, if possible. Now there may be some times where. Right, right? Learning a particular movement is necessary to get to more complex movements. But even how that's integrated can be very much so collaborative. So I'm thinking about, let's say somebody, let's say pull ups. I work with a lot of people that just absolutely despise pull ups. Fine, but it's interesting, the the folks who despise pull ups the most are the ones who want to know how to want to know how to do a pull up. I despise them because I can't do them. So I can't either. I have, I have eczema on my hand. I know you can't see it, but, and I'm not going to show it, you probably see it, but it actually affects me in all kind of different ways. So I usually am wearing gloves, but it hurts for me to grip in that way and lift body up, my body weight up, or ropes and things like that. It is actually very uncomfortable, but there's so many other ways we can do do it. Maybe I start with TRX bands, where they're leaning back and having to pull themselves up that way, right? Or they're rowing, or we are just mimicking the movement without doing it, so that they can at least have the sensation of pulling without having to go directly to a pull up. That feels important. I also think part of the collaboration piece is having very clear signals of when things don't feel good, and not leaving that up to guess or not assuming that someone feels like they have the agency to tell me, right? So even just this comes from the pleasure world, even if it's just red, yellow, green, like red. I'm not ready. You know they don't have to say a whole sentence. They don't have to explain themselves to me. Like I know when I hear this cue that this is my time to pause. I also know that if I hear this cue, because we would have already had this conversation, I would have already asked them when things become too difficult or too stressful or you need that time to pause, what do you want me to do? Sometimes that means affirm, affirm me, tell me, tell me to shake it off and go. Sometimes it means just give me a second go to the other side of the road. Sometimes it means just keep asking me when I'm ready so I can stay present. But even working through those questions can offer a lot of room for to build trust and them to feel like they have a voice and like what's happening in the
Jenn Turner 37:33
sessions? Well, I can imagine there's a self discovery process too, because what if you and I were starting to train now and you asked me in this moment, what I would need. It's probably really different from once we've done it a few times, I'm like, actually, what I what I'm noticing I need is, you know, silence or whatever. And so having that dialog even, and like continuing to revisit that consent or how's it going, seems like it would be so important when you're working through and like deepening into this practice.
Candace Liger 38:04
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, it's, it's ongoing, right? And so to to start off by creating that container where that type of communication and dialog is possible, it just really supports what happens in the next phases. Because I'm not going to be the same every day. They're not going to be the same every day. Sometimes I'm going to be low energy and kind of closed off, and sometimes I'll be shooting through the roof. So the needs will change. My needs will change. Maybe I'm not able to show up in the ways they want me to show up that day, but that also requires me to communicate. But you know, another layer that feels just as important because, and this is something that we've addressed in T, I, W, well, right? Is this idea that just because we are trauma informed practitioners doesn't mean that we're not trauma impacted practitioners, right? And so how, how we also are negotiating the exchange is very important, how I set boundaries, how I have my own red right? I add, you know, this is, this is when I need to stop or break or rest, or as a trainer, as a trainer, beautiful, right? Yep, because we, I mean, trauma impacts us all really truly. So it's important for me to not position myself in a way that suggests that if they only work with me, all of their problems will be resolved, and they will somehow walk away magically healed. If they work with me, the reality is, most likely their problems will get a little clearer, the challenges they have will get a little clearer, and they will actually face them head on. And in those moments, I'm going to be facing mine too, and that's that's part of vulnerability and the intimacy of this work and dynamic.
Jenn Turner 39:56
I love it. I think there's sometimes so much of a stigma. Around naming it as you just just so plainly, as you just did, or and, or I feel like maybe lived experience is something that people are sharing more about and acknowledging that we bring to the work, but there can still be this sense of like self sacrifice that we have to do as providers, that it's like whatever the client needs, even if it's at our expense. And actually, that's just not sustainable, and it's reenactment of a trauma dynamic, right?
Candace Liger 40:28
Yeah, very much. So, very much. So I think I've tried that a few times. Didn't work, fail,
Jenn Turner 40:36
same thing, and be
Candace Liger 40:38
transparent about it, like, Hey, I tried. I tried. I think I went out of the scope of my own capacity trying. So you probably got the best parts, but I'm going to have to pull back here, here, here, here, here, and that's the only way that we're going to be able to be in this relationship. Or I'll be happy to refer you to a friend that you may be more compatible with. But yeah, I think that is important, because, no, I'm not going to be compatible with everyone, like people who want, who want to work with me. You choose to work with me. We have conversations to make it clear, like what we could offer each other inside of that trainer client relationship, right? How we desire to show up, what our needs are, just like any other relationship, but trying to cookie cutter myself as a coach, to make myself accessible to everybody, was probably the worst year of my professional career as a trainer,
Jenn Turner 41:36
right? Of course, and I think that's, you know, in some ways, I can think about maybe it being more clear what those are, but other things that maybe are more subtle around these sort of interpersonal boundaries, the way that you show up, how someone wants you to assist them or facilitate with them, as being maybe more nuanced, but equally, if not more important,
Candace Liger 42:02
yeah, yeah, yeah. I had to do a lot of reflection on who, what type of clients were generally attracted to me, and what type of trainer did they were they looking for? And, you know, I'm, I'm very clear on the type of person I am, right? I can be I can be very domineering, just kind of, you know, no fluff. I can be funny. But as my clients say, sometimes I don't know when you're joking. It's very confusing. And I'm just, I understand that sentiment because my kids say the same thing. I can provide a lot of structure, but I'm also like, hands off. I'm not going to force, I'm not going to force anybody to do anything like I want to see that you that you want to do it, and then I can support so I mean, those qualities look different than you know, my friend, who's a trainer, who is like, I will put it on your calendars for you. Let me send you some meal ideas. We're going to pray together. Do you want to come to my pool party? Right? Like that is not me, like I have very rigid lines between my friendships and my clients, and a lot of folks who are attracted to want to work with me deeply appreciate that sense
Jenn Turner 43:26
they're safe. There's deep safety in that. I think, you know, it's like we I know where this container begins and ends. You know, one thing you also said a little while ago that just struck me was, What did you say that you want people to have an enjoyable experience, and I think sometimes people, at least for me, I'll speak for myself, I've gone to trainers or weightlifting with this sense of it's supposed to be punishment of some sort. Or, yeah, punishment. That's really the word that comes up, yep, yep, yep,
Candace Liger 44:01
yep. Yep. And if the trainer doesn't do it, then they've already done it to themselves on the way in. You know, I ate the cookie yesterday. I have to do this to myself now. So I and this may be controversial, but I do think that there is a place in trauma informed practice where boot camp style instructors make sense, because a lot of you know, even like, I think one mainstream culture kind of has created that and curated that image, but then also, even just reflecting on my own clientele, that's what they that's what they like. Like if I go get a massage, I want to be massaged. I don't want to necessarily, I don't necessarily talk about my kids, or, you know what I mean, like, like LaLiga around. I want to go in, I want to go out, and I want to get the job done while I'm there. So that's one, but also, just thinking about this, I. Idea of punitive fitness feels, feels like, again, a product of what we know to be toxic fitness culture, what we know to be the an influencer to spiral and diets and Yo yo, diets and yo yo waiting weight and, you know, over supplementation, or all the all I could go keep going on about that, but to reimagine this work, where, when folks are showing up in a Space and they don't feel that sense of, you're here to hurt me. You're here to make me feel pain, and instead feel I'm here because this feels good. I am here because this is one of the my favorite parts of the week. I am here because I know when I leave I'm going to feel awesome, is a part of that. I think that goes back to what you mentioned earlier. You're talking about that person who's, you know, in the yoga class and doesn't feel like they deserve the love that they're getting. Like there's so many ways that I think that some of those principles belong in weightlifting and some of the weight lifting principles belong in yoga and, you know, depend upon who's running the ship. How that actually really creates more access for folks to feel included,
Jenn Turner 46:33
yeah? So there's so much there, I feel like we could have a whole conversation around what we just dipped into, you know, yeah, yeah. Definitely aware of our time, wanting to honor that. But I wondered one thing that stuck with me, also from reading your bio, and just from working with you in general, is this concept of like body liberation, or exploring what freedom feels like in your body. And I wonder if you could kind of riff on that a little, because it's so powerful and such an antidote, I think, to a lot of what many folks experience.
Candace Liger 47:04
Yeah, yeah. So I think that that actually came out of some of my activism work. When I was in Oklahoma City, I remember we were at the courthouse, and during that time, we were activating for black women who had been sexually assaulted by a police officer. Daniel Holtzclaw and I co founded this organization, OKC artists for justice, alongside Grace Franklin. And during that time, people from all over the country were flying in to support these women. And one of the organizations was called Black Women's blueprint. And I remember they were outside of the courtroom, and one of the sisters started singing, and inside of that song was like, what is what is freedom look like? What does it feel like? What does it smell like? What does it taste like and like it shook it really shook me to my core. I ended up creating a whole performance around just what freedom can be inside of body, that included a lot of dancing. All that to say, you know, I think there, there are so many stereotypes and stigmas and images that exist in the world that tell us that something is wrong with us, something is wrong with our body. If we don't look like this, move like this, think like this. Are we not shaped like this? And like, how powerful is it to like, throw all of that shit away and say, You know what? I'm going to find the place that I feel the most freedom in my body. For me, one of those places is either like a dance studio or the beach. That's that's when I feel the most freedom in my body. But if I never asked myself that question, if I never allowed that sensation of like, Wow, I feel so present. So here, I feel so much and so free, I would never have anything to resource to when I didn't feel free inside my body, when the bills were coming in when the stress was coming in, when things were just going wrong all around you know I could lean on the fact that I at least can identify in my toolkit some very specific places that feel like nothing but the most freedom I could possibly feel. And I think that's something that I really not just advocate for, but desire is that it's like it's out of a vision statement of sorts, is that all of us can, at some point, experience a moment where we truly knows what freedom feels like.
Jenn Turner 49:59
So. Potent and, yeah. And I think you're right. A lot of us don't ever ask ourselves or have someone inquire about that and or invite that exploration. Anything about it too. Yeah. So is there anything coming up that you're excited about new projects or things you want to share with us that are kind of coming down the pipeline with weightlifting.
Candace Liger 50:22
Yeah, for sure. Um, so much. We are getting ready to graduate our first cohort, cohort of Train the Trainer fellows. So these are people who have been through our certificate program and are now gearing up to lead more trainings for trauma informed weight lifting. We're also excited to hopefully have more in person trainings. We've been largely virtual. But Mariah Rooney, who's a co founder of trauma for weightlifting, and I had the opportunity to present in person for the first time in almost three I guess, coming up on four years, we presented in person in May. So that was last month. And after that, I was like, Alright, I choose this. I choose I choose the in person for sure. So yeah, more opportunities. There we are getting ready to host our next certificate program coming up in September. So that's our biggest program. It's eight weeks long, and some other specialized trainings too. We have so many of our practitioners work in different areas and different communities, from addiction and substance use to neurodivergent communities to adaptive athletes, and we want to bring some of that lived experience and trauma informed approach to the work and more trainings. So yeah, that's another thing to look out for. And outside of that, all in all, just really excited about the team and a lot of the amazing transitions that are happening so that we can grow and expand and looking forward to, yeah, continue, continuing this work. And, you know, staying in the
Jenn Turner 52:08
gym. So great well. And thank you for all that you've already given to the fitness world around sort of changing norms, adding trauma into the conversation in a really meaningful way powerful.
Candace Liger 52:22
Thank you, Jenn. It's been an honor to be a part of the Center for trauma embodiment all this time too. So I've learned so much from y'all, and you know, just looking forward to more
Jenn Turner 52:32
great. Thank you so much. Candice, thanks, Jenn. Hi everyone. I wanted to share a quick reminder about an opportunity for healing professionals who want to deepen their work with somatic trauma informed practices. The trauma center trauma sensitive yoga certification program is our 300 hour online training that supports practitioners around the world in offering safe, embodied healing experiences grounded in decades of research and practice. Our next cohort starts in September, and applications are open until August 15, and if you still need to complete the required 20 hour foundational training, you can join one anytime. Our facilitators offer them online and in person all year long to learn more, start your journey with us at Trauma sensitive yoga.com
Jenn Turner 53:38
thank you so much for being with us today to find out more about today's guest, head to heal with cfte.org/podcast follow us on Instagram at on trauma and power, to stay up to date on future episodes and be sure to like and subscribe to on trauma and power. Wherever you listen to your podcast, we'll see you next time take care you.
