Your Queer Inner Child with Jae Windley

Britt East [00:00:02] Welcome to Not Going Quietly, the podcast where we inspire growth, beat down biases and get into all sorts of good trouble with your host, Britt East. No topic is off limits as we explore ways to help everyone leap into life with a greater sense of clarity, passion, purpose, and joy. So get ready to join us for some courageous conversation, because not going quietly starts right now.

Britt East [00:00:30] Hey everyone, welcome to Not Going Quietly, the podcast for outraged optimists and heartbroken healers all over the world, where we surface life's searing truths in the name of radical togetherness. I'm your host, Britt East, and I have a fantastic featured guest for you today. So let me introduce you. Jae is a writer, counselor, and fully functioning adult who is definitely not two kids hiding under a trench coat. Based in Chicago, Jae serves as a grief counselor for kids who have lost a parent or guardian, and also volunteers with queer teens and young adults in leadership spaces to encourage their activism and social justice engagement. Jae has a master's in LGBTQ affirmative psychology and is currently pursuing licensure and as a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor in Illinois. In his work with children, Jae has noticed the striking similarities between the way eight year olds interact and the way adults communicate. (Is that a read???) And believes that working with one's inner child can facilitate healing and greater opportunities for joy and connection. As a rule, Jae loves queer stories with happy endings, hates writing bios about them, (So now that's a read.) and is passionate about Kitano and LGBTQIA+ joy. Jae, how the hell are you doing today? Thanks for joining us.

Jae Windley [00:01:51] No problem. Thank you for having me. It is, it is. And I'll I'll throw that like typical therapist question back at you. Like do you think it's a read?

Britt East [00:02:02] Yeah, I'm good with therapists because I just, like, cut to the chase. But I think it's a read. But it's good. I mean, you know, I kind of wanted to know what you meant by that. Like the striking similarities between the way eight year olds interact and adults communicate. I'm like, oh, maybe eight year old is doing good. Maybe I would have guessed even a little bit younger. So like, I want to hear more about that.

Jae Windley [00:02:22] Yeah, yeah. Well no, what I, what I've noticed, is that we all sort of we're all still trying to do that thing that we do on the playground right there, but the idea of, like. Taking on roles and. Which one of us is is the leader? Which one of us is the smart one? Which one of us is. And like, we still do all of that in adult spaces. And that's that's the thing that I've noticed where people sometimes feel a little bit more comfortable in the background, maybe doing this thing. Sometimes people feel a lot more comfortable being the leader, you know, that sort of thing. And yeah, it's just I just noticed how how close it is, you know, I, I can't really think of an example right now. No, I, I it it was something that sort of like struck me. Yeah.

Britt East [00:03:12] I think that's perfect. I got exactly what you're saying. I had flashes to my days as a child on the playground and my days as a as a current person practicing adulting. And I guess it's not that dissimilar now that I think about it. It's like they're these little games that we play, these roles that we play the, kind of primate social structure hierarchy. I mean, it's it's really it's like, you know, that old thing, everything you ever needed to know, you learned in kindergarten. It's kind of a twist on that. It's also, you know, every every part of you that you're ever going to be you became in kindergarten to a certain point.

Jae Windley [00:03:50] Yeah, that's exactly right. I love that you use the phrase practicing adulting, because I think that's that's actually all that we're ever doing. Right. Like the idea that like. At the end of the day, we all just want friends, right? And so that's something that never changed. That's something that never changed from, from kindergarten. And the only thing that has changed is the fact that we have credit cards now, you know, so that's that's sort of my, my, my core belief. I think, oh my God, that is so bad.

Britt East [00:04:22] That's that. Yeah. You're right. I mean it's like, basically little kids with credit cards. So it's like, explains a lot about what we're experiencing now in, 2024. So what what I wanted to talk with you about today primarily is, as a concept. I know you've been, writing a lot about and thinking a lot about speaking about. And that's the inner queer child. What does that concept mean? I suspect a lot of our listeners have never thought in those terms of for. So. So who is that? What is the inner core child?

Jae Windley [00:04:53] Sure. So we all have an inner child, right? And there there's a bunch of programs and books that we can read or do to to get more in contact with that inner child. But where the concept for me, the inner queer Child came from, was all of the, thinking about all of the injuries that we may have suffered while being queer. Hearing our parents maybe talk badly about gay people growing up and having to sort of hide that part of ourselves, and having to hide the part of self that loves to express the part of ourselves that loves to, like, be joyful and be in that queer joy. And how how that has in and of itself sort of turned us into like these misshapen adults. Because we had to we had to hide that part of ourselves. So we first and foremost learned how to be straight adults. And then the sort of queer part came when we maybe found community. If we have found community.

Britt East [00:05:53] If there's so much I want to unpack there, like, so what are my theories? And you're the expert, so please correct me if I'm wrong and dunk on me if I say something stupid. One of my theories is like even the most well-intentioned straight parents lack the requisite lived experience to parent a queer child in and alone. And so it really takes exposing queer children to a wide range of diversity to, to, to transmit cultural norms, to model what it's like to be a queer person, especially in this culture, which is just saturated in straight supremacy, like even if the parents are well-intended and trying their hardest, if they're straight, if they have no lived experience as queer people, the default of society is oriented to straight supremacy. So it's like, you know, in every moment we're not counteracting that. We're experiencing straight supremacy. So as a cute little queer child, you can see, like you alluded to, how the contours of their lives might get a little bit changed.

Jae Windley [00:06:59] Absolutely, absolutely. And something that that comes up for me, a lot is, like being black. For example, I have my black parents to teach me how to do that. Being queer, where did I work? How did I how did I learn how to do that? Like my parents weren't about to teach me even the most? Like you said, the most well-intentioned parents, they don't have the capacity to teach that to us. It's something that we sort of have to figure out on our own. And if we're, we're if we're doing that as, as kids, it's it's just it's a mess, you know, and that's. Why I've, why I've seen like especially in queer communities today. We're still sort of trying to figure that out.

Britt East [00:07:42] Yeah, absolutely. You know, I know a lot of well-intentioned straight parents. And when I say these kinds of incendiary things to them, they get aghast and defensive, as, of course, they're kind of meant to, because I'm kind of a brat and, you know, they, like, well, what do you mean? I love my question. I don't judge them at all, but it's that's not enough because you're not around them 24 seven. They're with peers at school. They're watching media on the internet and television, and they're getting messages of street supremacy piped into their little brains. It's not 24 seven, at least a good portion of the day. So we have to counteract that. So I think maybe, like, what I'm getting here is like what's implicit in your, your idea of like the attending to attuning to the inner queer child is like, we have to go back and and be with that little queer line in a way that maybe we didn't have the capacity to at the time.

Jae Windley [00:08:44] Right. Yeah. Learning how to learn how to parent that that that little queer like, I love that you have that phrase. Yeah. And like he again this the most well intentioned straight parents are doing the best job they can. But and, they still there's still a lot that they, they don't know how to handle. So it is it is incumbent upon us as the adult, to talk to that in our inner queer part of ourselves, to learn how to sort of go back and reorder things so that we learn how to express ourselves a little bit better.

Britt East [00:09:19] Yeah, let's let's peel it apart some. So it's like, okay, think of it from the queer adult perspective. Let's save that. I, I had some adverse experiences growing up, and they did kind of shape some of, the contours of my life. And maybe I don't have or I don't think I have the parenting skills. I don't know, I don't know how to parent. Maybe I'm not a parent yet, and I and I don't really know how to get started. What does all of this mean about, you know, okay, we talked about what the inner queer child is, who that represents. But what does it mean to re parent that like, if especially if I didn't get the skills growing up and you know, if queer culture isn't always oriented towards parenthood, it's like where can I get those skills? How do I get started? What does all this mean.

Jae Windley [00:10:11] Yeah, that's a that's a good question. It starts with, in my opinion, just being kind to yourself. I think that's where the base level is. It's it's where my journey started. Right? Like. The number of times that I would beat myself up for getting something wrong, or for missing a deadline, or for saying the wrong thing. It was just overwhelming, you know? And so once I started to treat myself a little bit kinder, then I was able to sort of begin that journey toward trying to understand where all of that, that that self beating up came from, you know. And I think about like, well, if it came from that young age or any like, any anything, if anything came from that young age, would I talk to a kid this way? And, you know, I work with kids, so I absolutely, absolutely would not like I would not tell them like, hey, you got that wrong. What's wrong with you? Those sort of things. And so it starts there, like taking how you would talk to a kid and putting that toward yourself. And then eventually that little kid, you start to I, I don't want to say you start to hear voices below, but like, eventually some part of you starts to, like, sort of show up a little bit like parts of you that need to be, nurtured and you'll, you'll hear it get louder and louder, the kinder you are to yourself.

Britt East [00:11:38] Yeah. You know, I started thinking we were talking. It's like there's kind of a dilemma in in queer culture about kindness. And part of our culture is a long standing tradition of reading, like we were joking about at the beginning. And, you know, my theory on the history of reading is that it's, complex, but it is it was, in part a benevolent, loving act done through relationship and trust to toughen and wise in young queer people up to the brutalities of our primitive culture. And so on the one hand, we are potentially having adverse experiences as queer children. And then as we grow up, and form queer relationships, platonic, romantic, whatever we might be experiencing, some of that, toughening up behavior, to, to to prepare us for the brutalities of society, which can vary widely depending on where and when you live. But then now all of a sudden, we might come to a point in our life where for some reason, some part of us has been maybe calloused over, has been cordoned off, and we lose some sort of sweetness, connection to delight and wonder. And we have to, like, go back and to to that time when the wonder exists. It's not that the. And this is my theory, not yours. It's not that the reading culture was wrong or bad. I'm definitely not saying that it's that maybe an unintended consequence is that it calloused over areas of our life that we now have to go back in and tend to, to recover that sweetness and joy in my in my life and my misunderstanding that.

Jae Windley [00:13:35] I can see how, like, the concept of reading within the queer community can be a form of protection. I guess it's sort of that that idea of like, the world is going to be cruel to you, so we're going to toughen you up here at home, that sort of idea. So yeah, I absolutely agree with that. And I think, I think that there is, there is a difference between, protection from community, and taking some of that and turning it inward, if that makes any sense. Right. The, the idea of like, okay, well, like, my family can make fun of me. But I need to be kind to myself. And the only way that I can take what my family's giving me is because I know in myself that I am not all of those things that they say that I am, even if they're saying it from a place of love, and they likely are saying it from the likes of love, the like going inside and being like, okay, well, I know that I'm not that I know that I'm not. Whatever they call me, they're saying it from a place of love. That's I think that's sort of where that is, where that lies. Yeah. And I, I'm wondering like. I wonder how much of that is, how much of that sort of reading within the community is? Well, like where that line is, you know, in terms of like, well, the world is going to do it when you're outside, so you might as well do it here. Just like, can we are we allowed it to to change that a little bit. Yeah.

Britt East [00:15:05] And and I have never talked about this on the podcast. So I'm really glad the conversation drifted here. So I think like you're saying, it's like if we are secure in our relationships and we feel seen through the humor, even if the humor is self-deprecating, even though other people are saying it's deprecating. I guess if I feel seen and known and I can laugh at myself, I'm strong enough in the moment, resilient enough in the moment. Everybody's reading the room with love and to laugh at myself, even if it's a biting remark. I feel seen and known and, and, and I think there's a bolstering that goes on now. It can easily, but I think, drift into bullying. If all of a sudden there is no relationship or there is no common ground or context or language, you know, like you're saying in and out of the queer community or or even among queer people who are strangers or don't have best intentions at heart. And I think that it's like when I don't feel seen and known by the humor, now all of a sudden I'm just experiencing it as bullying and as being made fun of, and now it's alienating and just another adverse experience for me to kind of lump into this whole epidemic of loneliness. That's so that's part of our culture.

Jae Windley [00:16:21] Yeah. That's interesting that you say that, because I think of I remember the first time I was called out for help, for self-deprecating humor, for like, saying something against myself. And it was, it was sort of a defense mechanism that I had had prior to all of my inner child work. It was a defense mechanism I had had. And someone who I adore so deeply. She called me out on it, I think, like I was making, like I had met someone and I said, you know, it's like, oh, it's great to see your face. And I was like, oh, sorry to disappoint. And my friend was like, she's fine. That's me. She's like, why would you say that about yourself? And she said it with like, so much love and so much care. But I was like, why would I say that?

Britt East [00:17:07] It was cathartic.

Jae Windley [00:17:10] And what it can be. I mean, that's the thing. It can be and I can see how it can also shift when being overused. It can be it can shift into something that is, that can be toxic because you start to it. You start to tell yourself these sort of narratives about like your worth or your beauty or any of those things. And if it weren't for someone who showed me that care that I mean, not that she treated me like a child, but like, who showed me the care of, like, someone who loves you? I would have never known that I was so deep into this sort of self-deprecating, life. I guess that, like, I was, I was it was it was shocking to people.

Britt East [00:17:56] Yeah. I think a lot of us, before we do this inner journey, this inner work, we, reflexively have old tapes that we trot out. And in your scenario, what I'm hearing is kind of like, you trotted out an old tape and she corrected you with love to it and alerted you and attuned you to that. Hey, maybe that's an old tape. And then you did the healing work on your so like you're saying. So there is an irony there that, you know, she didn't instill a new tape. She kind of exposed an old tape. So maybe that's part of it too. But to bring it back to the inner child piece, it seems like. And you and you started this conversation with kindness. It seems like then maybe if we, if we look at something tangible we can do and we're going to talk a lot about things that actually, you know, practices we can do. Maybe one of them is to examine all of these, old tapes that surface over the course of our lives, over the course of a day, a week. You know, when we find ourselves being self-deprecating, like in your example, Jay, or we find ourselves, getting reflected something back to us that's painful or weird or surprising. Then maybe that's then the opportunity to go back and think like, okay, where have I repeated this message to myself or heard this message myself, and then go back and look at what's under that rock? And maybe that's the inner queer child peace, that adverse experience. That's not about the analysis. More about the emotional attunement. Am I on the right track here?

Jae Windley [00:19:25] Yes, absolutely. It is about that emotional humility, and it's about how we view, how we reflect upon our past as well, how we take that, those old tapes and carry that into the future, whether they're relevant or not. One example would be sort of. Well, I'm like one example would be maybe our relationship with our parents. Going back to like the whole notion of, queer parents or not queer parents, straight parents, the idea of acceptance within, a family or something like that, where you sort of because of that, the tape that you have is I'm not accepted. I'm not loved for who I am. And so you take that tape with you into your adult life. And so the idea of having someone come in and shut that off, within the queer community can be really just quite healing, I think. I think the idea of, again, maybe parents are doing the best they can, but maybe they should say something. I'll hand it. Or, you know, your your your father maybe, is not happy that you're not on the basketball team, that you want it to do dance instead. There's still that sort of underlying you can feel it disappointment there, and that becomes a tape that you sort of carry into your future, into your present being that adult that's always trying to please because you were never good enough, because you'd like to do dance instead of, let's say, football or basketball, remember? But because you wanted to because you wanted to do dance instead of play sports that sort that tape becomes your present, and it runs and runs and runs. And as an adult, you're still using that tape, still trying to impress people because you're still trying to impress your parents at some point. I don't know if that makes sense, but, that's sort of where my where I had noticed, especially working with queer kids.

Britt East [00:21:36] Yeah. And there's, a famous book in the community. Anyway, that came out in the I think it was the early 80s and it was probably, you know, I haven't read it in decades, is probably gay centric and maybe even, like, whites is gay centric. I can't remember, but it was called the Best Little boy in the world. And the premise was that you you had this really high achieving, maybe even overachieving, gay man who kind of wondered why I'm not happy. Or I went to Harvard. I did have a bajillion dollars, I have a fancy job, blah, blah, blah. I have all the things in life that society tells me I should have. Obviously, this story is not unique to the queer community, but then what makes it kind of more common to our experiences? What's under that rock? What's what? What? Maybe, the inner queer child work, what got left behind? What got left unattended to, as a child that that maybe drove some of that intense over achievement at the expense maybe of some other things, even if only inadvertently, maybe there were some unintended consequences. Obviously nothing wrong with going to Harvard or having a high paying job or whatever. No. Yeah, yeah. But it's like, you know, maybe like if our life is a series of choices and experience, maybe those choices have been intended and unintended consequences. And if we wake up one day and wonder why we are where we are, it could be that some of this inner queer child, work might, help might enrich our emotional life in the present. And, you know, so I want to dig into to, some ways that we can nurture our queer child, like we've talked about kindness. We've talked about kind of monitoring messages. What else? I mean, when I think of child, I think of play something. I'm guessing I haven't. I'm not an expert in this work, but I'm guessing there's something around play that's involved or creativity.

Jae Windley [00:23:38] The nail on the head, nail on the head. Because we do not we don't play enough. And that is what most of my work with kids entails, is trying to make sure that they they are kids. And I think so many adults can benefit from that. We don't play enough. I think that is the number one sort of thing that can be the most healing for, for any sort of block regard, like whether it's at, it's a block around your inner child work, it's a block around, like taking tests or anything like I think that just play the idea of not striving so hard every, every minute of every day and just taking the time to, to color or to pick up some action figures to do any of those things. It's it can be such a healing thing and it can. The goal is to integrate. Right? The goal is to integrate our inner child with our adults so that we are one all being, to, to get back to the parts of ourselves that we're. Just sort of covered up by adulthood. You know, like kids, you know, kids like kids. They're just they do not have a filter. They just say whatever they want, and we don't fault them for that. And as they grow up, they we learn how to maybe not say exactly what we think, but, you know, we still learn how to express ourselves. But as we continue to grow, there's this these like layers and layers and layers of adulthood that eventually we become. We go from these like joyful little creatures in the playground to these, like, hard working, cubicle bound adults, in gray suits. And there's no play happening. And we we stay in that gray and you can no shade. The gray suit.

Britt East [00:25:35] Look.

Jae Windley [00:25:35] Good to me. But we we stay that light sort of gray adults forever and ever until we die. Because we don't. We don't play. We don't connect to that inner child. We don't integrate. Eventually becoming one whole joyful being.

Britt East [00:25:53] Yeah. When you talk.

Jae Windley [00:25:54] So yes, play is absolutely the the best thing.

Britt East [00:25:57] When you were talking, I couldn't help but think of there's this famous so there's a famous, black lesbian comic named Wanda Sykes who's been a probably everybody knows her in case they don't check her out. And she has a bit about play where she's, you know, she's married to a white woman. And, you know, they have kids that are very young and some something about her, you know, her kids wanted to play with her and her, and she was just like, get away from me. I'm trying to. I'm busy. I'm trying to do something adult like. And then, be a grown up and and, you know, her kids were, like, kind of put off by it. And her wife is like, what's wrong with you? And then this created a catharsis in one of Sykes. And she talks about how the language, maybe particularly to the black community, but also in the queer community around play, like, don't play with me. Why are you playing? You know, all this kind of stuff. It's like, it's interesting how that, word has power over us in certain circumstances and communities, and I couldn't help but think of that bit when you're talking about the importance of play and then also like the transition to adult. So what I started thinking about was how fast it's required of us. You know, some of us go to college of some kind after high school. Which high school is, you know, you're living at home most of the time. And a lot of us who go to college don't live at home or or if you skipped college and you're moving out of the house in a lot of cases, and all of a sudden, you are, like you said, you you are expected to very quickly, maybe even brutally pick up the cues of adulthood and learn all these things they don't teach you in high school about balancing a checkbook and managing finances and having a job. And, you know, all of a sudden the realities of this zero sum, flavor of our capitalism hit you relentlessly about turning a buck. And so, yes, it's really easy to wake up in 20 years, be like, I haven't played in 20 years. So my question is like, how do I then go find an action figure? It seems like there's a gap. Like it's like or stuffed animal like, how do I if I haven't played, if I've been working my butt off and I'm tired and I'm, feeling a little broken and I'm struggling, it's like, how do we. Because these can seem like esoteric concepts in a career child. So. So it's like, okay, you gave us some great tools around play. It's like coloring book. Okay. That's something that seems like anybody can grab a coloring book, you know, and have fun with right away. Or there's some other things that we can do as, as adults with jobs that maybe have lost that spark of joy that are kind of, yeah, palatable bite sized chunks.

Jae Windley [00:28:38] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I started with action figures because that's that was what I did when I was younger. But my, my advice was, is to start with whatever your hobbies are, because they don't have to be childlike hobbies at all. They can just be hobby. So if it's like golf or, just running or just any anything that is not for the purposes of making money. And I'll say about anything that brings you joy, that does not make money. In fact, I always say, like it, if it starts to make you money, then it's not. It's not I love it, it's it's something I love it. So anything that like brings you genuine joy that you are already doing that you already love. Because we all have hobbies. So if you're doing that, just keep doing more of that. Or rather make it more intentional. You know, just turn it. Turn it into something that like I am, I am actively putting into my schedule the same way that I would a work meeting, or the same way that I would a social meeting. You know, because hobbies and social can be two different things. They can also be the same. But the same way that you would block out time to do something that is considered quote unquote important, right? By by capitalistic standards, you put in something fun that does not make money, that does not make anybody else money. And that may not even make any sense to anybody but you. But it's just it's just a moment of joy. I think that's always the place to start. And again, eventually things start to fall in place after that.

Britt East [00:30:15] I love it. I love it because it's so clarifying. It's like if I make a dime, I'm not doing it right. That's not play. That doesn't count. It's like, oh, you can't monetize your your inner child work. You know, you can't be on the grind and inner child work. Let's look at it from a different angle. What are some of the types of things that our inner queer child might want to experience?

Jae Windley [00:30:42] One thing that immediately comes to mind is creches. I love it. The inner child is not. It's not necessarily like a five year old like we think about like the inner queer teen riot crushes. I think it's just the the one thing that just like, immediately popped out, like we weren't we weren't allowed to have those, like at age 13, like if we told if we told our friends that like, that boy across the hall was cute. That's that was it for our social career, right? Yeah. So, like, one of the things that we we can start to experience is just like the other. The other day I played, there's this, video on YouTube and there's a bunch of them, like Smash or Pass, like, yeah, smash surpassed Male Celebrity Edition. And we just went through celebrities and like, oh, like he's hot. Oh no, I'll pass on him and that sort of thing. And that's just it serves no purpose. It doesn't make money. It doesn't get us any closer or further from anything. It is just us exchanging our queer little, our little hearts out, like just gushing over, like who we think is God and and just sort of incorporating that into it, into our framework. Like, you know, you weren't allowed to do it as a kid. Why not do it as an adult and take joy?

Britt East [00:31:54] Exactly. And what I love about that as a lot of things, one of the things I love about that is especially if you share it with a friend, then it becomes the joy just increases exponentially and you take up more space in the world as a queer person, even if it's just with another queer friend. I believe in that. That energy starts to radiate outwards. I also love that it's completely problematic. And who cares? Because kids don't worry about that crap and we don't have to be on all the time as social justice warriors. That's, I think, part of what I'm taking away from the inner queer child work is we're self-indulgent, like children are. We're self-involved in those moments, like children are. So especially in the privacy of our own homes, where the harm is minimized. Any in the, you know, problematic stuff we engage on, like, you know, hot or not or smash or pass or whatever. It's like, it's fun. It's like, give ourselves permission to not be on quote unquote every second of the day. We can sit down our sword and our shield as social justice warriors and just experience some pleasure and fun and joy. And even better, if we share it with a friend and laugh with abandon.

Jae Windley [00:33:09] I like that. I like the the fact that you use the word self-indulgent. Sort of. It makes me. It makes me think a little bit. Because how many, how many of us know sort of that person in the, in the, in the queer group? Who is that who acts like a child. Yeah, but like in the worst possible way, because they are sort of self-indulgent and and like, self-absorbed. And so I'd like I want to think that there is, I imagine, a difference between that person and the what we're what we're going for. Because I think it all it all stems from, that sort of disconnect to the inner inner inner child, because the person in the group who is just a brat is very well connected to their inner child, but that inner child has no parent, right? Whereas those of us who are just a little bit more like gang gray suits and in cubicles, we have too much parent. So there is there is definitely a middle ground there. So I do want to make back like there is. There is a middle ground, like some people are too in touch with their inner child who they don't have an adult. So like there's there's definitely there's a place.

Britt East [00:34:26] Right? There's containers and boundaries and all that kind of stuff. And you don't necessarily have to be your inner child at work. It's it's really great in the comfort of your own home. So how do we learn to recognize our inner queer child when they show up?

Jae Windley [00:34:40] That is that is one I'm still sort of sitting with myself. Because. Back. Well, I'll give you an example. I like to cook, I love I love cooking, and because I'm like, I'm getting my license, I haven't had a lot of free time in order to do that. So one day I was just in the kitchen making up something, and I was like, I was dancing a little bit, you know, and I like, I felt that sort of like spark of joy there. And I was like, oh, is that is that if family is that my inner child sort of saying something? And it absolutely. I think it absolutely is, because. I mean, obviously I need to cook, right? But the idea of, like, having fun while doing it. Having fun while doing this completely mundane, boring adult thing. There was a there was a connection there, like, oh, you know what? Like, I need to eat, but why not have fun with it? That's that's pure integration, right?

Britt East [00:35:46] So it's like it's it sounds like a at least in that moment, some spark spontaneously arose for some reason, some set of circumstances. And it's like you recognize that you recognize the energy, the feeling, the joy, maybe. And you gave yourself the space to go with it and laugh at yourself, without worry of looking silly. Is that right?

Jae Windley [00:36:10] Yeah. Because kids are. Yeah. Looking silly. Do they just. They just do it. Yeah, they I think to recognize when you're in a kid is coming out is. And maybe it might be something more physical for for some people, it's just this sort of feeling of ease, right? The, the idea that, like, even if someone was judging me, I'm having a good time, I feel lighter, I feel more more full, full of joy. That I the it's the feeling that I don't feel when I'm doing work or when I'm like, hanging out with the wrong people. Right. And then you can sort of start to you can start to use that, when you are hanging out with the wrong people, for example, or you're like, actually, this these group of people doesn't make me happy because I'm not feeling that same spark of joy that I feel when I'm doing something I truly, truly love. And I think it was I want to I think it was Adrian Lori Brown who said that once you feel that type of pleasure or that type of joy, you don't really want to settle for anything else like use you. You sort of have that joyful experience and you go back into the real world and you're like, I don't I don't want to put up with that anymore. And so you start to that, you start to follow the joy and the pleasure where that leads you and you, you end up leaving situations or places or people that don't shine for you.

Britt East [00:37:44] I love that so much. What a great example. I started thinking though, like, what about if we have a lot of hangups and and we feel inhibited and embarrassed and just feel kind of tense and anxious? How do we start to dabble with this? Is do we do we self-soothe first, or do we just kind of find private moments and jump into the play? Like, how do we get started?

Jae Windley [00:38:15] Right? How do you mean? Hang ups? Because, you.

Britt East [00:38:17] Know, like, if I feel. If I feel like. Like I have had to overachieve. Because as a young queer person, I thought I had to be ten times better, quote unquote, than everybody else to get half the recognition or have half the chance of success in life, whatever that meant to me. Maybe I developed, over time, an overreliance on my work persona and role and adulation. And then as the decades went by, I found myself working all the time. Even when I am, not at work, I'm analytical, probative, cautious. A little solitary. I'm almost have become like the CEO of my life. And so we're talking about something that's maybe diametrically opposed to that. And I can't help but wonder if there's a lot of folks out there thinking like, oh my gosh, okay, well, you know, I can buy a coloring book and kind of done with you there. I can kind of recognize these, frequent tapes that kind of come up like we talked about. I can kind of go with the energy, but when I want to consciously cultivate it in a given moment, even in the privacy of my own home, even if it's completely solitary, I might feel stuck or stymied because I just don't know how that one to psych thing again, I just don't know how to play. Or I didn't learn to play. You know, it's dangerous. The world is a dangerous place. And so I haven't quit. And so my question is like, is it a chicken or the egg? It's like, do we have to first soothe and set down the anxious, aggressive energy? Or do we leap right into the pond as a child might to the deep end with with both feet.

Jae Windley [00:40:03] Oh, okay. Well, I'll say to that, something that is probably going to be really difficult. It takes time. If if you or the even if you are the kind of person who, like, jumps in with both feet. Life is going to come along and sort of like call you right back out of it. It takes time. And that's that is really the sucky, sucky thing about it is that, like, you can buy the coloring book and chances are the coloring books are going to sit in the back of the closet for a couple months. You started the process, but it's it's still it's still a little slow going. It's going to be slow going. And that's what sucks about it. Even even the concept of like, putting it into, like putting it, scheduling it into your calendar, it's going to take time to do that because life will always come along and switch it up and throw something at you and you. It sort of doesn't. It's not a priority anymore. But you have to keep practicing. You have to keep going. Going back to what you said at the beginning, or you're like practicing adulthood. You can practice childhood, but it it's a practice. It is not something that even to to even to the experts. It is not something that comes easy. It is something that has to be done intentionally and over time. And that may be months, maybe years. But it takes time and I know that that's God. I like if someone had told me that, like when I started, I'd been like, okay, that. But I start like, forget it, I, I want this tomorrow. But it's like, it's just how it panned out, where I'm like, okay, I, I've been doing this for a few weeks now and I've noticed small things here or there, but like overall, my life hasn't really changed. You keep going, you keep climbing that mountain. And that's just it sucks. But that's that's that's what it sounds like. It's time. And it sounds.

Britt East [00:42:00] Like maybe that's some of the kindness that you alluded to at the beginning is having that self empathy and compassion towards yourself. And maybe that's the entry point, to the inner child is starting with that kindness and self empathy and compassion softness that when you feel yourself softening, maybe that's the inner queer child coming forward. You know, I noticed as you were speaking, I was thinking about even how I framed the question. There was kind of the air of implicit perfectionism to it. Like, you know, I want to be really good. I want to get an A at my inner queer child work. How do I get a gold star?

Jae Windley [00:42:38] And that's there, you know.

Britt East [00:42:40] And it's so it's like, maybe the softening is a clue that my inner quibbling is, is ready to, to, to come out and play. And so I guess my next question to Jay is, you know, it's kind of an esoteric concept maybe to some people, but is, you know, is our inner child something we need to awaken, or is it some part of us that's always been there?

Jae Windley [00:43:07] That's interesting. That's an interesting question, I think. I think it's a little bit of both. And it absolutely depends on who you are as an individual, on how much, play or joy is already in your life. For some people who have maybe had, difficult childhoods and like you said earlier, had to grow up a little bit earlier. That part is. Not asleep but just very very very very deep. and so yeah it can, it can be, it can be a little bit of a challenge to sort of bring, bring that kid back up to a level where you are sort of conscious and having a conversation with each other.

Britt East [00:43:53] Absolutely. Is connection something we feel or something we choose? I was thinking, like you were talking about as you were talking, it was almost like reconnecting with a part of myself. I for some reason, I love the word deep in that sentence. Yeah. For some reason, I love the word deep in the in the sentence that you had. And, I kind of that kind of struck with me. Are we reconnecting with some part of us? Is that is that connection something that we feel, or is the connection something that we choose?

Jae Windley [00:44:32] I don't think it's chosen. I like I think it's just part of being human. And I think, I think what you're trying to sort of get at is maybe a little bit more of that pragmatic, like, how do I know when it's sort of how do I know when when it's happening? And. You know, it is different for everyone. I am I'm also like, I'm a very I'm a very brainy person. So, I, I had the same question where I'm like, what does that look like? You know, like, what does it look like when my inner child is like, when is online, you know, and. It takes a lot of getting out of your head and into the body. For me, that's what that's what it did. As someone who is as like in my head as I am. It took a lot of that to understand that connection and. It's sometimes you're not going to feel it. You just sort of have to believe it. If that makes sense. Yeah. Because there is a lot of, especially for people who are a little bit more, more brainy, more more intellectual or more had head strong and heavy. I don't know what the word is. You just sort of have to. Believe that that is working. And I know that that's it sounds very woo. And it sounds like, like culty I know, but I'm like on some level because you're not always going to. You're not always going to feel it. But eventually you will start to see it. And there won't be a clear like. One day you'll wake up and you know it's there. It'll sort of be something that, in my experience, something that happened already, that you're just sort of walking along and realizing like, oh, actually, I handled that differently than I would have prior to starting this work. You know. Yeah. So I would love to offer you those are sort of like pragmatic, like, here's exactly when you know, it's on, here's exactly when you know that your inner child work is working and there's not really a clear answer aside from something like sometimes you'll just know when it happens and you have to sometimes believe that it is working because you want it to work.

Britt East [00:47:01] I love that example, actually, and I don't think it's, two for the audience. That where I went is like one of the things I'd love to do is go to the gym and lift weights, and lifting weights is a matter of faith. Which sounds weird, but it's because you don't see changes quickly in your body. You don't feel changes quickly in your body. And then, as you're saying, randomly, as time goes by, you'll notice that clothes fit a little differently, or you look a little differently in the mirror. And it sounds kind of similar to that where, you might notice the fruits of your labor, but you might also notice the experience of silliness. The sound of your laughter in places that you that you hadn't heard it before. So what are some of the other things you do to cultivate joy? You talked about cooking and dancing. What else do you like to do to, connect with your inner child?

Jae Windley [00:47:55] Me personally? Well, let's see. So one thing that I had done back when I first started doing inner child work in general, one of my practices was to just go to the toy aisle at target and just sort of walk through it to just to, like, look at, like, look at all the toys that I, you know, like, and knowing that, like, as a grown ass man, I could buy any of these. I have, I have my own budget. I could like, I could do whatever I want. And then eventually I started thinking about sort of and on the queer spec, on the queer angle, I thought about like, well, which of these toys would I not have been allowed to play with either at home or like on the playground? And just sort of going through that and maybe even maybe even buying one of them. Right, like, like picking on that Barbie doll and being like, you know, I wasn't allowed to play with this Barbie doll as a, as a kid, but now I can do whatever I want. I'm an adult. So I'm going to I'm going to bring this Barbie doll home and I'm going to play with it. And like if the cashier at target wants to say something, whatever, you know, like you're not paying my bills. So if that's something that I had started doing to sort of cultivate along with the coloring, I have a I have a Disney Princess coloring book that I color and, I try to get to every Friday, but it's not always, you know, again, life will throw stuff out at you. But I have a Disney Princess coloring book that I love to. I love to color in listening to music that I listened to when I was younger is something that I love to do, especially like music that is a little bit more like. Okay, let's just go ahead and say it. Music that's just like like, listen to my Britney. Like on blast. Because I can because it's it's my it's my space. I'm allowed to listen to it. Even on the bus, you know, like things, things that I maybe wasn't allowed to do as a kid, especially because they were two gay or two queer and just doing them now. So great. And that's how I sort of been cultivating that connection.

Britt East [00:49:54] That is so great. I'm going to fly to Chicago and go to target with you, because I want to see you wide eyed and bushy tailed in the toy aisle. That is adorable. I can't believe it, guys.

Jae Windley [00:50:05] And we have a we have the two story target here so that there's like five oh miles. So just like 0:00 they're.

Britt East [00:50:11] Like target megastore. What gives you hope in this day and age these days? J I just we hope.

Jae Windley [00:50:21] Working with kids definitely gives me hope. I think that there is a lot of. There's a lot of like Gen Z versus millennial stuff going on, and I think that's just us repeating the patterns that, like boomers gave us, like where we have to compete against the generation below us. And I think that that's just I think it's silly. And so, like having conversations with kids now, who they are just as aware as we are as adults. And they just don't have really the, the, the language or the power to do anything about it. But they still know. They still know that things need to change. And they still know that they still know right and wrong. They still know what they like and what they don't like, and pulling joy from them, pulling that sort of simplicity from the younger kids, I'll say, because the teenagers are they are not doing okay. They have a lot on their plates now. But from the younger kids pulling, pulling that joy and simplicity is really, really helpful. In, in cultivating my own sense of joy because, like, things don't always have to be complicated. Like when I, when a kid asks like, why can't I do this? And it's like, you know, I actually don't know where to go for rules, I guess, but there's not really I'm sort of having to break it down and explain it. It's just like, yeah, I guess the older I got, the more complicated I made it. Yeah, but it's not really that complicated. And so pulling, pulling that pulling that sort of simplicity and that joy from, from the kids. Right. It gives me hope. It gives me and it fills me. It's so great I love it.

Britt East [00:52:09] Where do you seek refuge.

Jae Windley [00:52:10] Yeah. In in my friendships. Because, you know, being someone who's a little bit more brainy, I can be. It can be an echo chamber up here. And so when I go to my friends, especially the friends who, like, love, just sitting on the couch and doing nothing. It can be. So it can be restorative. And it can be a sort of, a place where I get to be all of myself.

Britt East [00:52:37] Absolutely beautiful. I have just really enjoyed talking with you today. I learned a lot. I'm so grateful to reconnect with you. It's been way too long, and I think that the audience is just going to, really love the opportunity to explore relationships with their inner queer children or their straight, their inner children. I think you gave a lot of really great pragmatic advice and tips and tricks and, also shared some of the magic, which I think is so key to all of this work. And it's like it's not just grunt work and drudgery. It's like there has to be that spark of joy and silliness and laughter and magic.

Jae Windley [00:53:22] And yeah, if it is grunt work and drudgery, then you're you're.

Britt East [00:53:26] You're not getting any.

Jae Windley [00:53:28] You're not getting. You're not getting. Yeah.

Britt East [00:53:32] So, Jay, thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate it.

Jae Windley [00:53:36] Thank you for having and I really appreciate coming on and having this little lot this conversation with you.

Britt East [00:53:43] It's been my pleasure. Well everybody you have done it. You've made it through another hour of Not Going Quietly. We're so grateful for you. We would not have this show without your love and support and we really appreciate that. So until next time, take care. Bye bye.

Britt East [00:54:00] You've been listening to Not Going Quietly with your host, Britt East. Thanks so much for joining us on this wild ride. As we explore ways to help everyone leap into life with a greater sense of clarity, passion, purpose, and joy. Check out our show notes for links, additional information, and episodes located on your favorite podcast platform.