Avery:
Hi, I’m Avery Thatcher, a former ICU nurse, and this is not your standard stress management podcast where we just focus on those band-aid solutions like the benefits of meditation, mindfulness, and self-care.
You already know that you need some kind of recovery strategy to deal with your stressful life.
But what you may not know are all of the sneaky ways that society, our upbringing and our high achieving nature, and so many other factors contribute to our risk of burnout.
That, my friend, is what we talk about here on this podcast because you can’t do something about a situation that you’re not aware of, right?
So if you’re ready to get out of the pattern of burning out, feeling better, only to burn out again, it’s time for us to shed the light on the truth about burnout.

Avery:
I am really looking forward to this conversation for so many reasons, so welcome, Amaranthia and Claire.

Claire:
Thank you.

Amaranthia:
Thank you for having us.

Avery:
I really love bringing on people from different experiences and it’s really interesting because me with my own chronic illness and disability, it’s nice to talk to somebody else that maybe has a connection to that as well.
And burnout, I feel, is really woven in through that experience. So the two of you are here, so why don’t you tell me a little bit about your story and what brought you together to really start the business that you’re in?

Claire:
It started from my desire to really break through the patterns that came about from intergenerational legacy of abuse because it was born into domestic violence.
And growing up in Barbados, I really had to fight through that as I journeyed from going from Barbados to finding myself as a young woman, I had to deal with the pain and suffering from the domestic violence and I always would write to help me to overcome these problems or to get through them, not
overcome them.
And so by the time I left the island and I had dropped out of school because of the violence and I was in my early 20s, I was there to visa in the United States and it was during that time that I realized that it was the wrong decision to stay at Visa.
I found Buddhism and they told me that I needed to go fix this, go back and fix this problem.
And so I had people who advocated for me and at that time I found, I went back to Barbados and I got my visa, I got my student visa and I came back and one of the people who advocated for me was the person who was in charge of the Art Students League of New York.
And I had found community there and before and when she discovered my story she said, you go and fix this and I’ll help you with your and now you can come back and you can be a full -time student here, get your scholarship and get your beyond your way to get your degree because they weren’t an
accredited institution.
So I went back, did all that and I got back, came back with my student visa and I started at the Art Students League with the goal of going, finding a college to get in for my degree.
And so I took classes, I modeled theirs in the model, but it was then that I began to feel like, wow, all the work that I had done to get to this point was I began to feel the beginnings of burnout, but I still had a long way to go.
So I entered, I got through there and I entered college and I entered college at California University of Pennsylvania and did my writing and my art and an alum in Mount Holyoke saw me there and she recommended that I go to Mount Holyoke and I applied and I got in and that was where I started to
develop this idea of the Francis Perkins Scholar. As Francis Perkins Scholar, I developed this idea of writing to heal through my through my work at college.

Then I graduated and my writing was born and I kind of raised her with that belief and so when she started to have problems in her life she used art to help her to get through it.

Amaranthia:
Yeah, I think I’ve always used art to cope and my health issues, I have, we both are invisibly disabled and because of my mom’s experience with domestic violence, she has complex PTSD and pain disorder.

Claire:
And I have also been diagnosed with the same thing because I’ve been diagnosed in a couple years.
Yeah, I think, yeah, last year actually, but because of bullying, bullying is usually the only black girl, African -American girl in school in my classes and being ostracized and isolated because of it and so there was a lot of trauma there around racial trauma, around we lived in Japan, the 2000s
as expats, so when I came back there was that culture shock as well, so I wasn’t presenting as like an American kid, I was presenting as this African -American girl, maybe slight influence from my mom’s accent and then from Barbados, have this influence of Japanese culture, so it was like a whole
mix of things and being Buddhist as well, so there was a lot of trauma I had to work through and so art was my saving grace because of my mom again, passing that to me and so that was my friend and my coping mechanism and ultimately I had to become homeschooled online because the bullying got so bad
and it was a spaceite incident where I had no choice but to, we reported it to the super -dependent and because of an anti -bullying project, I was doing around my art that was supposed to be implemented into the school system and they didn’t like that, I was highlighting what was going on with the bullying at the school, they were trying to hide it, so we reported it was a very bad situation they paid us so that I can go and get a computer and be homeschooled online and from 14, 13, 14 to now I’m 23, I had to fight to deal with these chronic health issues, popping up, my risk of developing adhesives, I had to constantly, I still have to get tested once a year for that, see what what’s going on and I also had to fight to get my diagnosis of complex PTSD, panic disorder, agoraphobia because all of that was triggered by the bullying and it wasn’t close, 2022 when I turned 22, I finally found a therapist that wasn’t discriminatory and listened to my story so you know it’s

Claire:
it modest to this whole thing of self advocating and fighting through this feeling of you know that you you you’re very tired, you’re exhausted emotionally, you can’t go another step but you know you have to that’s when art and writing saved us, it just is something that you can dive into, yeah and it just is so healing and and so therapeutic,

Amaranthia:
Yeah so I’d say all of that is what led to so so creative’s rising.

Avery:
Thank you so much to both of you for your vulnerability in there and for really sharing openly about your experiences because a lot of what you shared I feel some people can relate to on a different level but especially for me I’ve never experienced racial trauma, I will never experience racial trauma so to somebody that’s in my situation that really cannot understand that what would you want them to know?

Amaranthia:
I think um major thing that I experienced was people denying that what I was going through as well and especially in the late 2000s having teachers tell me racism doesn’t exist at our school and I’m being called the Enberg so oh my god in our neighborhood and in our dealing with microaggressions.
Being told my history doesn’t matter things like that and so when I would report it people would be like well there’s nothing we can do maybe they don’t know what that means.
I’m like why are they saying it to me and no one else then right?
So it’s people understanding um especially if you’re a person of color like understanding if you’re not a person of color is understanding that racial trauma is a real thing it’s something that many of us have to deal with every single day and sometimes it’s not obvious if there’s passive aggressiveness there’s microaggressions what do you call it like dog whistle terms sometimes that we would know but other people wouldn’t know because again they’re not a person of color and that when someone comes to you and says hey I’m dealing with this to just sit down and listen.
Sometimes it’s best not to say anything it’s just to listen and be like what can I do?
What is the best way for me to help you in this situation?
How can I help you feel supported instead of because it’s not always that advice we’re looking for it’s like wanting to know like can we trust you because you want to experience it it’s not and if that person needs help finding resources needs help with finding someone to you know if it’s like a really bad situation to report what’s going on whatever to help them on that you know that journey and I didn’t have that for most of my childhood until I found my doctor uh doctor Amanda was a naturopath in a medical doctor and she self -advocated for me got me my doctors my endocrinologist and
stuff and so my endocrinologist as well she advocated for me and then my therapist years later I found back in 2022 so there’s like three main people who’ve really been there but that’s you know over the course of like 15 years of living and New Hampshire it’s been hard it’s only like three people outside of my mom you know

Claire:
Yeah for me coming from Barbados and living in America once I became a student lived on campus for the whole time um at my whole year so I was really in a cocoon I didn’t really enter American society until I graduated and I got married to my husband and had at Amaranthia and then my husband had to go to work and it was only Amaranthia and I am and I were at home and it was then that I felt the shock of it um because I lived in the suburb and it was just me and this baby during the day and there was no one to really talk to and maybe we’d try to go on to play a ground no one would want to talk to us or play with us they would tell us oh you can join the why we joined the why no one everyone would stay away from us and this was a Massachusetts and so I was going through a lot I was dealing with postpartum depression and my burnout was really getting to hitting that peak you know I was feeling all the trauma from everything I’d gone through from childhood going through college for four years of pregnancy at 36 years old having this baby she was crying all the time and you know my husband was gone working and I didn’t have a lot of support from family and stuff and so just the extra thing of having to deal with people who were not really seeing me as someone that they could interact with seeing it as a person me and my dog my baby you know that she was really beautiful and you know she was my treasure and you know it just was really really shocking to feel that because when I grew up in Barbados I saw people who looked like me mostly there was problems there but the majority of people weren’t looking like me so I felt that I saw people in positions or women in positions that told me I could get to these places but you know it could become a person the person I wanted to be but yeah I learned quickly learned that that was something that there was a battle because of your skin color here in the US so

Avery:
I think something that you really highlighted here is burnout and the experience at burnout can really feel isolating on its own living with an invisible disability can feel isolating on its own but the ability to find community can be very privileged so it just as a whole nother layer that you had to navigate through and was that maybe one of the driving factors that helped you create Sista creatives?

Claire:
Yeah it was still ongoing but everything had paused because I had as I told you it was on the port of postpartum depression I didn’t even know I didn’t even know that I was getting a thyroid problem so I was still writing and everything but there I had was beginning to have these health issues so but at that time it wasn’t Sista creatives it was just this general idea that we wanted to do something with art and I raised her always she was always throwing art but it really didn’t take off till when she was here in New Hampshire and she was bullied and she had we realized that she had she was drawing all the time and I had collected them she had her first art show and then I realized then she got um sidelined and we had to home school her I realized that we could use her art to get out her message so that’s when it started we took her art art with community and went to libraries and talked about it was what was it called?

Amaranthia:
Yeah it was called I’m proud of who I am so um so the original was called I know who I am and that’s what was supposed to be part of the curriculum and um of this anti -bullying campaign and and toward different schools and when that got rejected again because of what happened with addressing race addressing nebulism sexism in the school um and we decided to turn it into I’m proud of who I am after I became um homeschooled online and that was um with the help of an artist at um the school I went to called Kimball Jenkins and where I got like a full scholarship at 11 so I was in all these
adult classes human figure classes and um still kind of isolated because I was I was the youngest and I was only um a black girl in the room and everyone else was like 70 eight years old so it’s really strange sometimes but I met an artist there and she helped us pull it together and we did this tour and that that was a way of kind of finding community um but there was still that was our attempt but it was still difficult because there’s like no diversity here I feel like things are spine opening up but again we’ve been here 15 years in New Hampshire and it wasn’t like maybe two years ago things started changing a little bit um so we just phoned out this year or that yeah like only like a couple months ago we realized like oh there’s things opening up for us but there was no community um for um people like us as activists as people with invisible disabilities as black women so it’s like um even on being homeschooled online a lot of the kids were disabled they were bullied um most of the kids that’s why they were on there so I couldn’t really find anyone that we want to interact because everyone had social anxiety yes so with the the motivation for um doing these art shows again was like how can I find the community and when the pandemic hit we were like okay we zoomed we need to use zoom use these virtual platforms to be able to get to the people because I’m tired of not being isolated because we have our health issues as well we’ve been we’re indoors you know we’re in immunocompromised yeah we’ve we’ve self -isolate so everything doing all everything virtually and being able to access this community of women um them expressing creatives to be able to help them tell their story through our shows and it’s really helped us mentally but it took us so long again 15 years and yeah that’s what’s really frustrating about at least we’re here now you know

Claire:
Yeah sadly and it’s like you know we do it right here from our couch with the rate of this virtual space and we have met people from Australia Indonesia California London London we we have a community through this space and it’s so important for us to keep up this space because as the COVID protections go away there’s still people like us at home and so we realize we still have something that we value even though we are pretty much at home because of our health issues we could still do it and it’s working

Avery:
Yeah absolutely. So tell me a little bit more about like what you’ve got going on in that world right now what you said that you were looking for a call for new artists or extend on that for me

Amaranthia:
Yeah yeah yeah to give background um so under sister creative is rising it’s not um a business quite yet um everything’s still in development so it’s right now it’s like a project our first show before we develop sister craze rising that title we had our first virtual art show called art in mind in 2021 and that was called that first iteration was called reflections of women femmes in our mental health during COVID -19 and so that was very experimental project totally grassroots and our concept was to have these i think we had a total of 12 artists and some entrepreneurs and there are some activists telling their stories through film and so they were we had them uh submit like three to five minute videos and they were telling their stories about the pandemic how the pandemic affected their mental health um invisible disabilities or physical disabilities had led to crises in their lives and the intersections of race and gender and how that affected their mental health and so they were talking about how their art helped them heal and through that or was part of their healing process and so we pulled that all together into this like 45 minute documentary and showcased some entrepreneurs being separate a community like around disability around writing and um graphic design and things like
that and we also had a therapist speaking about um uh free resources and how women were affected by the pandemic um the most especially a woman of color and um we had a disability activist

Claire:
Yeah we are doing I know we’re doing it again this year because I was hospitalized with cancer last year and couldn’t do it so we’re doing it this year again as a way of my way of healing and recovering and we are focusing the learning umbrella is marginalized women and and feminist person creatives so that is the under that umbrella these black marginalized women because of what happened with my story this year and that is going to be the open call in June.

Amaranthia:
Yeah so it’s kind of doing that show again where these films are going to be compiled into documentaries where uh 20 minute documentary with five black them expressing creatives telling their stories of crisis and how kind of like what we’ve been talking about um crises that i’m holding um because of intergenerational trauma because of race because of um misogyny and how they use art to cope and so it’s what’s supposed to be about healing and motivating people be like hey you’re not alone and it relates to again my mom’s experience with her cancer and last year and feeling isolated because she couldn’t get she didn’t feel represented new Hampshire’s less than 2 % black so she didn’t feel safe going to the hospital because of all these disparities happening with black women seeming healthier so she felt like am i gonna be listened to as
an immigrant as and being invisibly disabled just got diagnosed with complex PTSD and panic disorder all these things so we’re pulling another documentary together telling that story being a cancer survivor and um her experience of how we got through it how you got through it and how you delayed treatment or because you had these symptoms and you didn’t know it was cancer and that was because of accessibility issues because you were immigrant you know black woman dealing with just got diagnosed with complex PTSD panic disorder agoraphobia and you were like I don’t know by frost the system because there’s so many reports of black women being harmed by medical system or dying or you know being mistreated in some ways so you were very fortunate that somehow in this it worked out it worked out and you were able to find a diverse group of doctors that treated you but that’s very very rare especially where we live where it’s less than 2 % black and in new hampshire so we are pulling together that to advocate and tell educate people about medical racism and uh misogyny against black women in the system and how to self -advocate yes um raise awareness so we have that and we’re doing a dance project with um one of our sponsors dancing clearly and we have a composer um male who is from Australia who’s going to be helping us do music pull the music together for all of these films yeah and so the the whole project is called art in mind I know who I am which connects back to my anti -bullying project when I was younger so we were kind of pointed at her with this kind of last iteration of that particular art um anti -bullying project so again it’s June first it’s the open call um with our sponsor that we raise funds for brain arts org and boston who helps marginalize
artists in the Boston community they’re helping us pay each artist a total of 200 each so it’s really exciting this is the first time we’ve been able to compensate people um dancing clearly is helping us compensate people um entrepreneurs and then um that we’ve scouted so it’s very it’s super exciting that we’re able to do this after what has happened last year if my mom’s cancer and stuff and the show itself and October yeah the show itself is October fifth and there will be tickets free tickets and a way to donate to help brain arts and come to this virtual show which is going to be about two hours in October but more information will be about that like in august like August or so but that’s pretty much our goal is you know highlight these stories be able to compensate and go against this idea of like artists not being compensated so we’re just very excited

Avery:
yeah so you can hear it in your voices just how the combination of all of this hard work is creating this beautiful movement so absolutely we’ll link to everything um so anybody that’s interested in learning more about you and your movement and how they can help support and how they can participate in that event in October I know that I will be there

Claire:
And the one last thing I wanted to talk about was that Amaranthia had told me about you um how you had changed your name yes and I wanted to tell you that I had decided to use my middle name clear which means bright and I realized the importance of using that middle name to the name that my name I grew up with was Sherryl and everybody knew me by that name but that is where all my trauma was and so I realized wow clear my middle name was never touched I started to realize that I had to really heal deeply from all this stuff I started to use my name middle name
and I realized something when I was going through the hospital my middle name was not touched the only name on my on all my paperwork was Sherryl but your remain free and Claire is not touched by any of that and I was like oh that’s amazing so pretty much use it as my artist’s name and my name in the world now because it feels like it gives me new life and that brightness and optimism of the name is really amazing and I thought it related to what Amaranthia told me about your your name

Avery:
I know you can’t see me right now but I am covered in goosebumps and I have tears in my eyes that just connected so much to my heart Claire thank you so much for sharing that

Claire:
It’s very important because it’s just like you you can have a new life and then you begin in and you can create it in ways that you wouldn’t even know just by having that middle name that so many of us don’t even talk about our middle names

Avery:
Absolutely

Amaranthia:
Yes that’s true

Avery:
Oh my goodness like what a beautiful way to wrap things up just like really talk about the importance of a name and what that can truly mean for you

Claire:
How healing it can be

Avery:
oh oh yeah now like just covered in all of the goosebumps so good so uh just before we wrap things up of course we’re going to put in all of your links and things so two things first how can people learn more about you what is your social media your website like how can people learn more about you in the movement.

Amaranthia:
Yeah um so right now we have an instagram and and linked in and our website
which is all Sista Creatives Rising and our website is sistacreativesrising .com and so yeah if they follow our website or instagram or linked in especially our instagram to learn more about what we’re doing.

Claire:
and we have a newsletter

Amaranthia:
Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah we can sign up on the website yes so we haven’t bought if you scroll all the way down to the bottom you’ll find a sign up um for the for the newsletter but we’re trying to figure out how to do a pop -up so it’s easily more easily accessible exactly yeah um we had a pop -up that looks like right there but um it was like accessibility issues so you just go to the bottom of our site you could sign up that’s where you get updates about everything we’re doing we send them maybe a couple newsletters a month maybe two to three yeah whenever we have something like a podcast or yeah and so we’ll get no information about our submission form things like that and um on our instagram we were always posting about what podcasts we’ve been on or like sharing things relevant to what we’re we’re doing and our mission and more things will be ramping up in May to learn more about art and mind and you also go to our website and learn more about my mom’s cancer journey she just said a talk with called Voices of Women and that’s like a 20 -minute virtual conference she did telling her story and showing the images of what she went through and how she went through that yeah and overcame it’s all there

Avery:
Beautiful so we’re linked to all of those things and then my last question for you is for the person listening now if you want them to only get one thing out of this entire episode what would you want it to be what would you want them to remember?

Claire:
Yeah um my whole thing with all of this is I get ahead of life before life gets ahead of you be pro your life really trust yourself believe in yourself and don’t doubt when you really feel those things telling you that something is wrong you don’t want to listen because of this because of that no be proactive in your life.

Amaranthia:
I think with me something that consistently with all the things that we were talking about with the bullying and the cancer and isolation is um self -advocacy I know we briefly discussed a burnout that we’ve experienced and how art had helped us work through that burnout but sometimes the art wasn’t there because we’d be so exhausted when being able to even utilize our art in writing because so much was happening and so I spent a lot of time getting self-care and self -advocacy and I know a lot of people here just never give up but really we never gave up and you could hear from our story is you know my mom going through domestic violence me with bullying having to become homeschooled online all those things and there were times I wanted to give up and I was like I’m I’m so done I want to drop out of school but I kept going because I was like if I have so few advocates my mom being my number one I was like you know what I have i have to believe in myself and I have to really take care of myself and so I kept standing up for myself and saying no this is what I need and if something wasn’t fit i kept saying next and next and next over and over again and I just never let someone tell
me no and because of that that’s where we’re at we created our own platform to be able to advocate for ourselves and not let anyone tell us no anymore

Claire:
Exactly don’t let anybody tell you no exactly

Avery:
Claire and Amaranthia that was such a lovely both of your pieces were so perfect thank you so much

Claire:
Yeah thank you

Amaranthia:
Thank you

Avery:
Thank you so much for listening i really hope you found this episode helpful and validating and maybe you even got a few ideas to try yourself if you did enjoy this episode I just ask that you share it with someone that you think might also benefit from listening to this podcast in doing this you’re not only helping those that you love you’re also helping me get this podcast into the hands of more people together we can really make a difference and before I let you go do you know your default self -sabotage style there are four main self -sabotage styles that ultimately lead to burnout and knowing yours can make a really big difference in your ability to prevent burnout from taking over awareness is the first step and the second step what you can do with this awareness if your default self -sabotage style I will send you some ideas for what that second step could be after you complete your quiz results so are you ready for this quick quiz go to becomingavery .com slash quiz to try it out for yourself and take the first step on your intentional burnout recovery journey becomingavory .com slash quiz for that self-sabotage style assessment that’s it for now see you next week!