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You are a business owner who wants to prioritize people and planet over profits (without sacrificing success). That can feel lonely—but you are not alone! Join host Becky Mollenkamp for in-depth conversations with experts and other founders about how to build a more equitable world through entrepreneurship. It’s time to change the business landscape for good!
Becky Mollenkamp: Hi, Erica, thank you for being here.
Erica Courdae: Hello Becky, thank you for having me.
Becky Mollenkamp: I’m excited to chat with you. Before we dig into all the good stuff, a lot of it around interdependence and collective healing and collective action, I first want to have you tell me about your relationship with feminism.
Erica Courdae: It's not great because it did not originate to be made intersectional. Kimberlé Crenshaw was the one that introduced us to that concept of intersectionality. And it's just very apparent that it was not considered before then because feminism was created for white women. It does not, at its roots, include Black or Brown women or anybody that is not identifying as or, you know, currently, sometimes cosplaying as a white woman. So, you know, the challenge is that when it comes up, it feels like it is, it's just, you know, let's just throw in a pink pussy hat and we're all good. And it's like, no, that's not for everybody. It's not equality. Equality says, I'm gonna give you all the same things. Giving us all the same things is not what's needed. Equity is about what do you need? Cause we're not all starting at the same place. And that's where, you know, feminism is a little bit of a shaky word.
Becky Mollenkamp: Is there a word that you better identify with?
Erica Courdae: Probably interdependence. And the reason that I'll say that is just because interdependence is about all of us getting back to actually being in community with one another and actually supporting one another and not being dependent on a system that does not give a damn about us. Like the system that is set up that we have to eat, drink, be fed and nourished and employed through. It doesn't support us. And so being able to be in a place to where we are collectively figuring out what do we need, how do we get to those needs being met for everyone, even for the most vulnerable in the population together and not leaving people behind, that to me feels much better than to say, well, this only matters if it's here. Now, do I understand that part of what feminism was supposed to be is really about addressing where women were left out of the conversation. But again, to just do that nowadays can also still leave a lot of people behind because that's still a very binary conversation because that is still men and women only, which is where to me interdependence is like, no, no, no, this is not about making this a black or white, men or women type of thing. This is about if community is community, we don't leave people behind hard stop.
Becky Mollenkamp: I'm curious how you see interdependence and intersectionality as different and as similar.
Erica Courdae: Intersectionality is about where different ways that you identify or move through the world or process yourself or other people process you intersect. Interdependence is the acknowledgement that you don't do life on your own. Interdependence is the unlike when people, and I hate this, I hate this as the American lie of I pulled myself up by my bootstraps. I did it all by myself. You didn't do anything by yourself.
Becky Mollenkamp: Yeah, the self-made.
Erica Courdae: Exactly the self-made, I did it, no you didn't. Did you make all your own clothes? Did you fish forage hunt? Did you make your own house? Did you take care of all of your own health needs? Stop it. You talk yourself off of all the ledges? No, stop it. Stop it. It's such a lie. We are fed the lie that because we go to the grocery store to buy food, that we're now disconnected from our food. Because we go to the store online and order clothes, that the disconnection from the people that actually created the fabric and put these garments together, we have no connection to them. And interdependence is more about understanding that you are feeding and clothing and caring for yourself as well as one another because somewhere you helped somebody else and they helped you. The intersectionality is about understanding that your identity is going to at some point cross someone else's and how do these things jive well or not. But the interdependence is that understanding that none of us are a lone ship in the night. And that lie to me is the biggest ruse of all.
Becky Mollenkamp: I want to actually set the stage for who you are and how you've gotten to the place where you're focusing your attention. I didn't know when I read about the fact that you're a 25-year veteran of the beauty industry. Didn't know that. And I was excited to learn about it. I'm curious if you can give us the Cliff's Notes version of how you got from beauty and that industry to where you are now, and how you're showing up and the magic you're bringing to the world now.
Erica Courdae: The beauty industry for me was my first professional entry into where the roots of what is now the acronym of DEI shows up. Because the beauty industry is hyper segregated. It is very much, I go to people that look like me typically to get my hair done. The products are very much marketed to people based on what they look like. And I've learned from over 26 years of experience that that's actually not helpful and it's a lie. But that was where a lot of it came from. And it was what I always wanted to do, even though in high school, my parental unit was like, no, you have to go do this international baccalaureate thing. And I'm like, I don't care about this. I just want to do hair. I enjoy this. And when I was able to actually do what I wanted to do, which was to get into that industry, I saw a lot of the lies that came from the industry itself. But I also began to see how it impacted people. How it was that a Black woman with natural hair had to worry about whether or not she could keep her job. I witnessed what it was to have someone trying to grapple with, is this me or is this who I was kind of forced to have to be, who I was told I have to be? How does this change the world and how it processes me if I don't wanna be processed this way anymore and understanding that the conversation about hair is not actually nearly as, as vapid and surface as people think it is. It is very wrapped into identity. It is very wrapped into the way that diversity does or does not actually show up in life. And it is very, very much a part of what we are conditioned to believe about ourselves and what happens when we no longer want to go along with that program. And so when I then went into the coaching world, for me, DEI was where I initially went into it because it was kind of a no-brainer. And at the same time, I hate how the acronyms, any of the letters, collectively or separately, diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, justice, any of them, they're extremely important and necessary and they've been bastardized and I hate how people are being judged and penalized for wanting to make a difference. And so what I've kind of shifted to at this point is like, okay, I'm gonna focus on the individuals and how it is that we can work on our own healing in order to be in community with one another, ‘cause that's the goal anyway. That didn't change. It was just that I was not willing to fight the fight with people, literally, of how it impacted me in my spirit and my own mental health of like, you're not gonna use me as your literal or figurative whipping post in this life or generations past because somehow my skin isn't a front to you.
Becky Mollenkamp: The hair part of it is such a reminder that the personal is political, that everything is political, and that everything is bigger than just what it seems. Even hair, even skincare, like all of these things are really political. So you found your way into DEI, and I know people by now understand that there was a surge in interest in DEI in 2020 following George Floyd's murder and a very rapid decline in interest in the year, year and a half that followed is does that timing align with some of what zapped you and made you just say, I don't want to stay in this space because people don't really care the way that they are claiming to.
Erica Courdae: Number one, I want to acknowledge that there's nothing about justice inequality that is new. It is just that the letters and how it's framed is different. It's not, it's not a new industry. The fight of it is not new. And it was going on way before I got here. So, you know, when I went into that area, which was before 2020, but 2020 was that point to where everybody kind of started to, and I've said it this way multiple times, it felt like people were grasping at me. Fix me, fix me, fix me. It was a very challenging, thing to do because I am not a person that is gonna say, no, I don't wanna be a part of the change and I don't wanna help. But I also learned in that specific situation what it felt like to want to help and then to realize that it was actually harmful to me physically, mentally, emotionally. The decline happened, but the reality is, is I think that it was, it's representative of if you kind of think about a heartbeat on one of the machines in the hospital, it's just up and down, up and down, up and down. And I think that that's kind of what happens. If something happens to bring everybody's attention to it, then the people that weren't paying attention all of a sudden are paying attention and they want to be a part of it. Or, there's nothing happening right now. So it's not a part of the mainstream conversation. And the moment that it is, it's like, oh, wait, we got to go back to talking about this again. But if there's not a reason to, then it's put on the back burner and it's not prioritized. But for those of us that have to live it on an everyday basis, we don't get to escape it. We don't get to de -prioritize it because it's always there. The up and down of it just became prevalent for me in a different way when it became such a part of my work in that people were wanting it in such an unrealistic way and they had no intentions of making it sustainable. Some people have, so I will say that yes, I still have some clients through my business partner and I and the work that we do on Pause on the Play that have stuck to it. They are still continuing to do it. There are some people that maybe aren't current clients, but they are still doing it. And so therefore they will sometimes come back and my relationship with them is still there and I'm witnessing what they're doing. So I'm not gonna say everybody fell off, but there were too many people that it was for vanity purposes only.
Becky Mollenkamp: Where it has continued is probably where there was at least some awareness and or interest before 2020. At least that's what I've noticed and where it has fallen off is where there was not. And it was truly little more than checking a box. This is a box now I've been told I need to check. Let me check.
Erica Courdae: Literally. Absolutely.
Becky Mollenkamp: And since you just mentioned Pause on the Play, I want to make sure that we note what that is believe it started as a podcast and then became the business collaboration or was it the other way around?
Erica Courdae: It started as a podcast. My business partner, India Jackson, India and I have been friends for about 15 years now at this point. So we've been friends for a very long time. And so we have worked together in multiple capacities over the year. And at one point, it got to this point where people kept being like, you know that the two of you having this conversation people wanna hear it. And so we just kind of started it as a bit of an experiment. Like let's just have the conversations we have and let people into it. And they're like, oh, you have a podcast. We're like, oh no. And the oh no came just because a podcast is a lot. It's a commitment. It was something that really did spread out and bloom in ways that we didn't expect. You know, became a community, it became a consultancy, and it basically became our way to be a part of the change with values as the base.
Becky Mollenkamp: And the podcast I don't think is currently releasing new episodes.
Erica Courdae: Oh no, we needed the hiatus. So we went on hiatus and will it come back? Yes. I think when we come back, actually I know when we come back, when we come back, it will be seasons because that gives us the opportunity to go deep in specific areas as opposed to the every single week, which over 200 episodes later, I was like, Oh God, I have to go horizontal for a while. Cause it was, it was great, but it's a lot. I know you know, so.
Becky Mollenkamp: That is why this now my second podcast is seasons, because I learned that lesson as well, as I think most of us do, is one of the ways we can practice self-care while still trying to put content out into the world and to share the messages we want to share. So I'm glad you're switching. And you just mentioned values, which is perfect, because that was where I was wanting to go next, because you have mentioned, and I agree with you, that all of the work, whether it's DEI work or whether it's personal development work or it's where those things maybe meet needs to start with values. Values are key, and values in the business space anyway, often appear as little more than some words on a website or on a wall that have no real meaning. I know that you take value seriously, and you have a workshop about brand values called From Implicit to Explicit. So I will link to that in the show notes so people can learn about it. But talk to me about why you believe, as do I, that values are so important and what that really means so that it's not just an exercise that you, again, checkbox tick off.
Erica Courdae: Values are the base of your business. It's why you run it the way you run it. It is why you choose the service offerings that you choose. It is why you have the partnerships and collaborations that you have. Every decision that you make is going to come back to it. And it is much better to do it purposefully, intentionally, as opposed to I'm just gonna do this haphazardly and it's just going to happen to me. And one of the things that we found out in doing this work is that India and I realized that implicit to explicit is the foundation for anything else that we wanna do. And this is now and has been for years the starting place for any work that we do with anyone. If you are not willing to do values work, we don't work with you because there is not a single thing that you are going to be able to do that is going to work in the way that you want it to, sustainably, if you don't have values to refer back to. You don't understand why you're doing what you're doing. You don't know how to build a company culture because you don't have any boundaries and guardrails, so to speak, to work with. And so there is not a change in the world, an evolution, a pivot that is happening without values. It's always going to be the thing. The lack of clarity around it is where I think people can kind of get stuck because a lot of the work over the years will tell you, did you need this ICA, this ideal client, this avatar? And the values will very often be around how does it make money? But you make money by being values aligned. And so what we found is that ideal client avatars are racist and exclusionary and limiting. A big chunk of my beauty business was weddings. And so when we would go on site and they're like, who's your client? And they would want this like, you know, 26 to 34, she reads Redbook, she's a nurse. And I'm like, who's this Frankenperson? This is not a human. You took a whole bunch of qualities and decided that you wanted to put them together as opposed to being able to go based on values and then you don't exclude people because then you're able to attract whoever is attracted to those values, as opposed to you now deciding that this person has to be this way because the limiting part about that is if you were to talk about feminism, there are women, that are not feminists. There are men that are feminists. There are non-binary people that are feminists. There are people that don't want anybody to put any gender on them in any way, shape, or form that still will support the feminist agenda minus the trash that we talked about in the beginning. So we're not going to take limitations such as gender, which is very often a part of your ideal client avatar, and then say, if you are not this, you can't be here. We're not serving you. You're not a part of this. That's exclusionary and it's wrong. It's just absolutely trash. So the whole point of the values is you are now connecting with people based on what matters. That is the only way that I want to do things.
Becky Mollenkamp: And you said using it to decide on what you offer, how you price, how you talk about what you're doing, all of these things that we know about. But the piece that I always see is people understand their values or they will do the work to sort of like they have an idea of what their values are. They may have even explicitly stated them. But like you said, as far as using them as a decision-making factor, they're not doing that. And then they wonder why things don't feel good that they're doing or they can't seem to make progress.
Erica Courdae: Right, because again, they end up in a dusty binder on the shelf, they don't get used, they don't share them with their team, which one of the things we advocate for is your values should actually be collaboratively built and agreed upon by your team. Because if you are somebody that has team members and they were not a part of that process, you're not making this a part of the regular process within the business of how they're used. Does everybody understand them? Are we still on the same page? Does anything need to evolve? How does this show up in the work that you're doing with clients? How does this support and/or provide detriment to the life that you live, not only in this business, but outside of this business? All of those things get left behind if you're not addressing them. So it should not be something that is only on a piece of paper, only on a graphic on your website, team doesn't have a part in it, and you're never checking in with one another to figure out whether or not this is still working and healthy for everybody involved or not. Because as we can see, the world keeps moving and we can either tap in and kind of see where we are right now, or we can let it steamroll us.
Becky Mollenkamp: Speaking of values, yours are on your website. They're not just words, there's descriptions of what those mean, which I always think is so helpful because inclusivity can mean something different to different people, right? Faith can mean different things to different people, whatever your values are, they can mean different things to different people. So I love when people really take that time to tell me what you mean by this word. One of yours is foster interdependent community. And you say that your vision is to foster connectivity in every decision we make, every initiative we undertake, and every relationship we build. I know you started to talk about interdependence vs. some of the other, like we talked about intersectionality, but tell me how you went inside of a world that is hyper-independent, that is built on this concept of every man person for themselves. You know, it's the hero's journey of that one person. In this kind of a world, how did you get to a place of understanding interdependence and now helping others cultivate that?
Erica Courdae: Because I didn't get to where I am in life by myself.
Becky Mollenkamp: And as you said earlier, no one does. No one does. And yet so few of us are still, despite that most of us are still sitting in this place of hyper independence. So how did you then make that shift? The recognition to me doesn't feel like enough, right?
Erica Courdae: Recognition is, I think, one of the first motions in the right direction. It's absolutely not enough to stop there, but I know for a fact that in thought and action and feeling, that where I am now, where I am going, things that I'm leaving behind, things that I'm picking up along the way are collectively done. I know for a fact that the good, the bad, and the ugly that I've experienced contributes to who and how I am at this particular junction on my journey. I know for a fact that there are people that recognize that I needed help and offered it even when I didn't know what to ask for. There are people that I care deeply for that I will always go to bat for them. The majority of these people are not people that I'm related to. And I say that because so often we limit it to family as a blood thing. And for me, a lot of the family that has been the most supportive and interactive in my life has been the family that I'm not related to. And as a Black woman in America, knowing how African families were ripped apart and stolen and brought here, family is so much bigger because it has to be. Because some of us don't even know who all of our family really is. And so it's really a call from the soul of like, who feels like family. One of my favorite bands, Hiatus Coyote, has this song called “Make Friends.” And the line is, ‘you don't make friends, you recognize them.’ And that really sticks with me. Friends are not like Legos, you know, we're not putting pieces together. It's you recognizing something that is a call in one way or another, and it's you being able to answer that call. For me, it's become more and more prevalent of, you know, if I recognize something that can help my household, I'm going to share it with someone else that I know of. If I found a good deal on something, I'm going to share it with someone else. If I don't need all of that thing, if I see an opportunity that maybe isn't really for me, but I know that there's someone else that it probably is for, then I was meant to be the conduit, so I'm going to pass that on. Being able to spend time with people and being able to actually make memories because it's more about the intangible than just, you know, how much money can you spend on stuff? So for me that interdependence is about what is a part of thriving in this life, not just existing, and how it is that we're able to create that web that holds all of us together and being able to actually be present for it.
Becky Mollenkamp: Something interesting that my mind is still like wrestling with is in this move from hyper-independence to interdependence, you talk about doing a lot of internal work, which is funny because it feels like that's so me-focused rather than we-focused, but you say it starts from within and then we move sort of externally from there. So, tell me a little bit about that, like what feels a bit like a conundrum or an oxymoron to me of moving from independence to interdependence actually starts with self.
Erica Courdae: Self-exploration and that curiosity within yourself allows you to begin to actually explore what's there. Because the thing about interdependent community is that we are so conditioned to be hyper-independent that we have to figure out what in ourselves is not in support of being in community with one another. And so part of that is if we think, oh, I did it all by myself, I don't need anyone else. I can't let anyone in. I am better than. I don't share my resources or I don't share my knowledge. And I remember that was a big one in the beauty industry. There were some artists that were like, you know, if I share the knowledge that I've gained, then if you're better than me, then you're going to take my job and where's that leave me as opposed to understanding that knowledge is not meant to be hoarded and there's more than enough to go around. So it really is that place of starting with that self exploration in order to figure out what cannot come along for the ride, going from curiosity to community, which are the five pillars. And if you want to be within an interdependent community, with us being taught to be so hyper independent, there's a lot of unlearning that we have to do. And I am by no means done with it, but I think that where I am now is dramatically different from a point to where before it really felt kind of scary to figure out what that meant because I didn't grow up with the greatest type of familial connection. Connection felt a little scary that tightly. But also, again, we're conditioned that we go away from the nest and we move far away. And so our people are not close. And so I've been over the past few years reconsidering things like generational households. What does it mean to want to maintain autonomy while still living in a community unit with others, because I don't think that it means all of a sudden that privacy or needing time to yourself goes away, but it's about figuring out how do these things work together in a way that doesn't have us so separated that when we actually do need one another, we don't have that access. Again, part of why I think any of those disconnections show up, because there are a lot of them, because we are so conditioned to be so hyper independent. And so the thought of how do we not do that? We are still trying to deprogram and to build how does that happen? I mean, think about it. If we're in a community and we're all supposed to be helping one another and we have these different communities that are also supporting other communities. We have laws right now in certain places that say that you can't collect rainwater. Type of fuckery is that? It came from the sky. You don't get to tell me I can't do that. There are places that will actually even in my neighborhood will dictate what I can plant outside of my home. And so when we think about the interdependent community piece, part of it is also being able to understand that it's top down, bottom up in the sense that there are also laws that need to change to let us actually do that because there are a whole lot of things in place to make sure that we are not dependent on one another, which keeps us buying the things that we need in other places. So this is where you do kind of sometimes get in what can feel like an existential crisis of it, because we don't know what it is, but we also can't assume that because we have not seen proof of it in practice yet, that there is nothing better. Because if there wasn't something better, then they wouldn't try to keep forcing us to stay in this little bubble.
Becky Mollenkamp: I love this because you have to do that internal unpacking, deconditioning, unlearning to understand what true community collective experience, interdependence looks like because if you don't start within you bring all of that into whatever community experience you go into. And how many of us have that experience of going into a community, a business sort of community, where, yeah, we're all together, but it feels like 10, 100, however many people there, each one is their own little island, thinking, how do I get mine out of this experience? Instead of how do we create an experience, it's how do I get what I came here for out of this experience? And that is where that is such a great sign that that internal work didn't happen first. So if you try to start by saying, I'll just get into community because that will help me be more interdependent. If you haven't done the internal work, your communities aren't going to be community. They aren't going to be collective.
Erica Courdae: No, and you're very likely gonna create harm. And so I can use the example, it shows up with some of my clients and it shows up for me. I'm a verbal processor. I am not necessarily a linear thinker. I am what my therapist calls a global thinker, which means I'm not going from just A to B. I am very much often going around Robin Hood's barn and I am going to pick up different pieces along the way. But that also means that I have the capacity to hold space for what else is possible and what may not already have been proven to exist currently. And in a lot of ways, and it's a part of a conversation we've been having quite a bit for a while now around those of us that are in some way, shape, or form neurodivergent, we mask. And so I have been conditioned to hide that part of myself. I've been conditioned to position myself as being clear and concise and crisp and really quick and I can get there. And it's like, that's actually not how I work. And being able to let it spread out is where a lot of the magic comes from. And to get in community with someone that was either completely like against, like, I don't want to talk through stuff or they were taught that they need to hide that in them in their own selves and therefore they maybe started to do that to others, well they may bring that in with them and that's not helpful. So to someone like me that is like, I need to verbally process, they're like, hurry up and get to the point and I'm like, oh. And I said this to a client and I didn't even recognize it when I thought it and they were like, oh my gosh, you blew my mind. I don't know the point because I didn't get to start talking yet. I find it out when I work through. I need to be able to work through my own process and we all have our own process and so many of us have been dissuaded from being able to actually work through that process. And so in order to be in a communal setting, regardless of if you want the literal thought of like 60s commune, go forth, whatever that is. Or if you want the visual of like, you know, a little tiny home neighborhood where everyone kind of has their own space, but we're all working together whatever that is, at some point you're interacting with other people. None of us, most of us, some people do want to be an asshole, but a lot of us really don't want to be. And so you don't purposefully want to come in with harmful actions just ready to go at the rip at any moment. And that doesn't mean that harm doesn't still happen. That's where then it's like, okay, well, how do we restore? How do we, you know, repair? A big part of that is being willing to acknowledge what was put on us or what were we taught to put on others that isn't helpful for where we want to go.
Becky Mollenkamp: You mentioned the five pillars of moving from hyper-independence to interdependence, which are on your website. I'll put a link in the show notes, but you have a free course called Shadow Work for Collective Healing, and it’s your book. And then there's a shadow work course on your website where you talk about these five pillars. The first one is curiosity, which is what I think a lot of what you talked about and what I think your book is, which is Shadow Work for Collective Healing, which is that shadow work journal for self exploration, who are you? Which is a book that helps you do that. Get curious about yourself. And I, what I'm hearing is curious about the conditioning, the things you've been told to believe that are, that have forced you to be masking. What's the one question that you have given that's so great? What have I been made to believe?
Erica Courdae: Who have you been that you never consented to be?
Becky Mollenkamp: If you like that one, there's way more like that inside this book. So get it. And so that exploration is beginning of this process. But the other pillars are clarity, intuition, connection, community. I don't want you to give away all the secret sauce here. This is what your work is with people. But can you kind of highlight once you've done some of this internal work, gotten curious, and I'm assuming the clarity is also then the clarity of what that has, how that shows up for you But walk me through those five steps and how they kind of relate to each other. And maybe they're not linear, as you just mentioned.
Erica Courdae: And part of the reason that it's not linear is because we all got different aspects of this programming, which is why certain people tend to really enact different parts of it within community. You know, there are some people that are very much like, no, no, no, no, no, we need to be linear. Other people are like, no, I did this all by myself. Other people are like, no, this is how you identify. So this is how you live life and this is what you need to do. So what we have to unpack is very different depending on where we are. So the reason that it's not linear is because one, healing is not that easily quantifiable. If so, we would all just go through the one, two, three, four, five and be done and things would be different. But we're also not showing up to it in the same way. So it really is that starting place of the curiosity just to even consider, okay, what's possible here. What do I wanna do differently? How does this show up in my own body? And being able to pay more attention to the thinking vs. feeling. As an example, it's so often that I'll hear people, and I hear this a lot in the business space, well, I really feel like, and really what you're thinking is a thought. Feeling is in your body. And so part of it is being able to reconnect with our own intuition and inner knowing in order to be able to acknowledge what's a feeling and what's a thought in our head. Those are not the same thing, but they're often conflated. And that curiosity really has us in this place of like, what is it that I haven't considered about myself? What is it that I haven't considered about the world around me? What's possible? And that clarity shows up in the same way of like, if you think about a shower, eventually that steam starts to kind of dissipate and you start noticing, okay, well, what else is going on? What's the direction that this is going in? How did I even get here? Because I don't want to do it again. I don't want to do it to anyone else. I don't want anyone else to do it to me, intentionally or unintentionally. And part of the intuition part is really, again that inner knowing, that part of us that is often shut down, which helps to keep us under control of being able to trust our own inner knowing, our own inner voice, our own internal compass to be like, hey, I know what needs to happen here and I don't need to be controlled by a system that does not actually have my benefit at heart. And so there's a recalibration that has to go on because as someone that has gone through abuse in relationships, I have had to and I'm continuing to recalibrate my own inner compass to know that I know for me. And I think we're all on a certain journey of that, not only for ourselves, but also how we're in partnership with others. And that's where we begin to move to that place of connection and community. But we can't really get to that place if we're not connected with ourselves, if we're disconnected internally. And that comes from this life or from an epigenetics perspective of what's been passed down through our bloodline because a lot of us happen to be that one in the family that did not ask to be the strong one to decondition a lot of this, but here we are. But in order to work on better being connected with others, we have to address our own connection or lack of connection to ourselves. And that is how we then be able to support others in a way that isn't about, well, if I give this to you, what am I not gonna have that’s lacking. If I support you, can I trust you? Well, we don't know. But if you don't trust them and really what that is is just an external representation of how you don't trust yourself, well, we got some other things to do. And it's not perfect. None of this is perfect. It's not about perfect, but it is about progress.
Becky Mollenkamp: I’m glad you just mentioned perfect because I just finished writing a piece, but by the time this airs, it will have been out for a while. But for my newsletter about perfectionism, in my own sort of discovery, I was just about to talk about this example. And then you said perfect, because it was about perfectionism and about my own understanding of unlearning conditioning, perfectionism being a part of white supremacy culture. And for me to do some of what you're talking about here, first doing the internal work. I was questioning why is it that I haven't been completing content? I have all of these half-baked posts, things that I want to share with the world but haven't. So I started this exploration for myself, which really just started as a journaling exercise that I've turned into something I'm going to share, but asking why have I not shared these things? And getting to the understanding of, oh, I was blaming time, I don't have enough time, but upon a little deeper reflection and getting curious, it became really clear that it was that I didn't want to share it unless it was, quote unquote, perfect. It had to be great. Good enough wasn't good enough. I needed it to be great. And I know, having done a lot of previous work, that perfectionism is part and parcel of white supremacy culture. And from that, though, the piece that was really helpful was I started, as I continued to dig into it, doing the work on myself first, why won't I publish? It was about me wanting to be a perfectionist. But I claim and I thought I believed that I don't hold others to that standard. And I hear people say that all the time. I want to be perfect for me, but I don't hold others to that standard. But the truth is, it is still me buying into white supremacy culture. And if I'm saying that I have to be perfect to be worthy, then I'm still believing in the hierarchical system that is saying some people are better than other people. Meaning I could be better if I was perfect. And I can't believe that about myself if I'm not believing it about people on the whole, because otherwise, who am I ranking myself above or less than? That means that I am inherently ranking people. So that's what begins for me to zoom out and understand a broader way that I'm relating with the world around me. And what does that mean then for my connections with people and the communities I'm inside or creating? As you were just saying all of that, I'm like, I feel like I just literally today went through this exercise of something that felt very hyper personal at the start, and by the end, I was having these like light bulbs go off of like, oh my gosh, this speaks to something so much bigger about the way that I am relating to the world around me. Am I right that that is sort of the work you're talking about?
Erica Courdae: It is. And the reality is that the more you disengage from the prescribed way of doing things, you start to notice more and more holes in it. And it's almost like light shining through and you're like, okay, so what's behind this? But it's not like an opening of a curtain. It is very much like the back of a credit card if you have to scratch off that kind of covering thing. You're not getting the whole thing at once. Like a little bit in these random places at a time, even though you're going in a, you know, probably left the right or up to down kind of linear way to scratch it off. It shows up in a way that it wants to show up. And like you mentioned time and Ixchel Lunar is someone that has shared so generously, so much information around decolonizing time. And you know, the more we think about these seemingly mundane structures that have been co-opted in the worst kinds of ways and been embedded with such harmful rhetoric, the more we have to continue to question. And that's where if you don't have the curiosity, you don't start to notice where it is in everything. And so when we start to really think about something like perfectionism, it feels like, well, no, I just want to be better. And it's like, again, better than what? Better than who? What does better mean? What is less than better? I mean? Where are we going here? And so there really does become this unraveling that has to happen. And you have to begin to pay attention to where this shows up, where it's not helpful for you, where it is that it causes unnecessary judgments to show up of the self or of others. And as a Virgo, nobody can judge me as hard as I judge me, because I tell you what, I will do all the judging. And my goal is not about trying to be better than anyone else. My barometer is about being a better version of myself. Even though society wants me to be better than what it decides is better. And that goalpost is always moving and I have zero desire to chase it.
Becky Mollenkamp: That goalpost, as we know, is rooted in or grounded in the idea of the best being something that neither of us can attain. And I can attain more of it than you, but neither of us could ever attain it because the model is a white, cishet, able -bodied, wealthy white man.
Erica Courdae: These are all the things that we don't value based on the way that our systems are set up, but yet we have to question why. So if all of a sudden youth is what we value, why are we devaluing age? Because if we devalue age, then that means we're also devaluing wisdom. And yet there's always this place of why didn't you know? And it's like, well, but you just told me I need to be young and if I haven't lived the life, then maybe I haven't experienced it yet. And you're saying that the old people aren't worth anything, stick them in a home and ignore them. We don't care for them. We don't take care of them. We don't care about what they have to say, but yet somehow wisdom matters? Make it make sense. That's not congruent. And so if wisdom matters, then being an elder should be a place of reverence, not disposal.
Becky Mollenkamp: Which goes back again to hair. I think that'll be our running, I was gonna say thread, but I guess the running hair throughout this, because we were talking even before we started this about our gray hairs and how confrontational that can be if you decide to let your hair naturally color itself and how that you have to.
Erica Courdae: Let it do what it does out of his scalp. Out of your scalp, it's like, I'm gonna let it be.
Becky Mollenkamp: It feels like, oh, that's not a big deal, right? It's just letting my hair be its natural color, but it's also a political statement. It's saying that I am honoring my age. I'm honoring aging.
Erica Courdae: Because I'm telling you, hair, when it comes to the color of it, the length of it, the texture of it, it has been a running hair strand through everything that I've done. And that's why, even though it seems like it's not a part of what I do, it gave me so much beautiful connection and nuance and understanding around everything else, because it's a beautiful analogy for so much of life. There's always somebody saying for this part of your life, this is what your hair and your body and your skin needs to look like. And so that entire industry of beauty is about saying you are this if you fill in the blank. And if you don't, you are fill in the blank. And I got a middle finger for all of it, to hell with it.
Becky Mollenkamp: Which also, by the way, as you age, part of that beauty of wisdom is having fewer of those fucks to give and more middle fingers to give to all of us.
Erica Courdae: Ooh, the fuck's farm is fresh out. The earth has been scorched, got none. Got none.
Becky Mollenkamp: That's right. The last thing I wanted to ask you about before I ask you for a resource and an organization you want to support is you mentioned intuition. And it's one of the pillars of what we've talked about here. It's really important that getting to a place of inner knowing, of being in tune with your body to understand what you're feeling, not just thinking, which for I think so many people, especially women, especially I think Black women, we often have been very disconnected from our bodies because our bodies have been the source of a lot of trauma. And as a protective safety measure, a trauma response, we've had to disconnect from our bodies. And I find that again and again with my clients, and I'm sure you have as well, that there's just this disconnection. So we think our thoughts are feelings, because we are so disconnected from our bodies to even know what feelings are. So for people to get into that place of intuition, to learn to trust themselves, to hear their inner voice, to know what actually feels right for them can be so challenging, I have found. And I see behind you, crystals. I know that you are very in touch with your spiritual, ‘woo’ side. And I wonder how that and intuition play together for you, because I think that they may, if I'm not mistaken.
Erica Courdae: Number one, yes, I like pretty rocks. I like them lots. I like them a lot. And I know for some people, they do or do not believe in them. And it's, you know, your personal journey is up to you. You like it, I love it for you. And for me, it just so happens that I do enjoy crystals. And if nothing else, even if it's placebo, if it allows me to get present and to pay attention to what is happening in that moment, that it has done its job. So, you know, crystals have been a part of it. Tarot for me was a big part. And so spirituality for me was a big entryway into reconnecting to my intuition. And I noticed how some of the people around me that were not in support of that were some of the ones that were most they played the biggest role in disconnecting me from my own intuition. And I found that for me, the cards helped me to pay attention to what's around me. The crystals helped me to be present and to actually, again, connect to feelings. And it helps me to get a more grounded connection to the world around me. I'm much more aware of where seasons play into life in a sense of like, what season am I in life? But also when it comes to business, when it comes to my relationships with people, I pay attention to how the weather affects how I feel, how it impacts the way that I process moods, things like that. And so being able to reconnect with nature as a whole through some of these conduits for me, has been a big part of that trusting of myself. As a general statement, people are put in the ground when they leave this earth. We bury the dead. And so if nothing else, in some way, shape, or form, we go back to the land, land that was stolen, so I have to acknowledge that. But we go back to the land. And so to reconnect to the land is reconnecting to the knowledge that is in it. It's reconnecting to the energetics that are here. And you do want to make sure that you're not, you know, you don't want to pick up the trash of it, because yes, there's some trash in it, but there's a lot of beauty in it. And to have been so taught to disconnect from nature, my inclination is like, why? Why are we not taught to connect with the world that we live in that nourishes and cares for us and provides resources. So reconnecting with that to me is a part of allowing your body to get its rhythms caught up to what nature actually is as opposed to the colonial Gregorian calendar that we created that was created by man. It's not real. Again, there's the matrix. It's not real.
Becky Mollenkamp: I think finding the thing that works for you, for me, one of the first entry ways was dance, and I'm not a dancer, but sort of that expressive dance of just allowing feelings to move through your body and movement that way. For some people, it's something like yoga or Pilates or walking in nature or whatever. But the idea of finding that thing, and for some people it is through crystals and Tarot and some of these ancient kind of wisdoms, but finding whatever allows you to begin to tap into feeling into your body and what it is saying you actually feel about something, that gut reaction, they call it that for a reason because it's down in your gut and not in your up in your brain. And so starting to feel that is a big part of what you're talking about too of moving out of that hyper-independence and into interdependence.
Erica Courdae: So much of it is being able to figure out, yes, what you said, the moving of emotions through our body and going through our natural process, and also being able to properly honor where things come from. And so whether that's the earth, whether there are, you know, like yoga is something that is actually a religion. So being able to connect with what are the roots of it. And so making sure that we are honoring whatever it is that we are utilizing as a tool for our reconnection and for our healing, but making sure that we are honoring where it came from because so many things have been stolen and not properly credited.
Becky Mollenkamp: The last thing I wanted to talk about, but we don't have time for this episode, so we're gonna do it in some bonus content, is talking about imperfect allyship and imperfect action. It ties into what we're talking about here, but we'll have a separate discussion about that. So if you're not a subscriber to the newsletter, go subscribe and you'll be able to listen to that bonus content. So before we end this, though, the main conversation, I wanna know if there's, besides your wonderful book, which is ‘Who Are You?’ And I will link to it in the show notes. Is there another resource, whether it's a book or a podcast or something else that has helped you in your own journey of getting to interdependence?
Erica Courdae: One of my absolute favorite books and it's like an annual read and I always come back to it. It is ‘The Alchemist’ by Paulo Coelho. And it is a story, but the story is such a beautiful analogy for life and paying attention to the omens and the signs and what it is that we ignore that's right in front of us and the journey that we're going on to really come home. It is that call home. And so for me, it is just such a beautiful, deep, introspective, and yet fluid and just, it is a book that I love..
Becky Mollenkamp: I love that book too. And then an organization that's doing great work in the world that you'd like to highlight.
Erica Courdae: I am going to highlight Backyard Base Camp. It's actually a local organization and a lot of it is really reconnecting Black, Indigenous, and people of color with nature. A lot of us have been told that that's not for us, which is why so many people are like, you know, I don't go out in the woods, I don't go hunting or camping or these types of things. And we were taken away from something that for us was very natural, but it also has disconnected us from being able to care for ourselves and our neighborhoods when it comes to the planting and the harvesting of crops. And so Backyard Base Camp is again a local organization that is supporting land and nature and reconnecting Black, Indigenous, and people of color to it here in Baltimore City.
Becky Mollenkamp: I always think it's fun to find one I don't know. I will make a donation to say thank you for your time, and I hope other people listening will do that as well. We're going to go record some bonus content, so subscribe to the newsletter to get that. And thank you for doing this, Erica. I really appreciate it. I loved this conversation.
Erica Courdae: My pleasure, thanks for having me.