Alexis Artin: Even though I knew women that had postpartum depression and talked openly about it in an effort to potentially prepare me, but there is no preparation for what that experience is going to be for you. I had an unexpected birth experience that threw me sideways, and my hormones just went absolutely berserk, and I had one time I was supposed to get on airplane to go fly to Jamaica to lead a retreat, and literally the car pulled up in front of my house to pick me up and take me to the airport, and hundreds of women are counting on me delivering what I need to deliver at this retreat, and I couldn't get in the car. I was in a ball on the floor rocking back and forth.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the MILF Podcast. This is the show where we talk about motherhood and sexuality with amazing women with fascinating stories to share on the joys of being a MILF. Now here's your host, the MILFiest MILF I know, Jennifer Tracy.
Jennifer Tracy: Hey, guys. Welcome back to this show. This is MILF Podcast, the show where we talk about motherhood, entrepreneurship, sexuality, and everything in between. My name is Jennifer Tracy. I am your host. I'm so glad you guys are here. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Andrea last week. She is so funny, and her farting dogs. I do still think we might open a dog fart facial stand. You never know. It could be a thing. This is LA, anything goes.
Jennifer Tracy: I want to announce a couple things. As you know, every month I choose a charity to become involved with, because that's a really important part of my mission and my message is that not only is my podcast and my work women supporting women within this community, but I want to magnify that outward. So it's really important to me. Every month, I choose an organization that's usually supporting women and/or children. Every month, I give $25 to whichever charity I've chosen for every iTunes review that you guys write. So you guys have been really great in writing. I get a couple a month, and sometimes I'll do like a hashtag challenge and give a dollar for every hashtag, but mainly it's really just about bringing awareness to you guys, to all of us, to myself included, and talking about it.
Jennifer Tracy: This month's charity is Save the Children. I was introduced to them by my friend Cobie Smulders. You can find them online. They are also on my giving page on my website, milfpodcast.com. There is that. Number two is if you haven't already, it already started, but there's still time to sign up and you can catch up, sign up for my free online 21-day writing course. It started Monday, May 6th, but you can still sign up and catch up with us. It's so fun. It's free. It's 21 days of interacting with me. I'm giving you writing prompts. I'm helping you unlock your story. I love doing it. I love doing it. It's just so amazing connecting with that community of writers. Join me for that.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm launching a full, just a regular paid course in June. I'll be talking about that later. But on with the show. Oh, I almost forgot. There's one more fun announcement. I can't announce the date or the location yet. Hopefully, I'll be able to next week. I'm doing a live podcasting event, you guys, in the summer. I'm not allowed to say when yet. But I'm doing a live podcasting event here in Los Angeles. I really hope you guys can come. It's going to be so much fun. There are going to be a lot of MILFs there. There's going to be at least five of us on the stage, maybe more actually because I have some surprises up my sleeve, but anyway I will tell you to mark your calendar when I can tell you the exact date of it, but I'm so excited about this. This is going to be the first MILF Podcast live event. Stay tuned.
Jennifer Tracy: I want to introduce today's guest, Alexis Artin, who is a woman of many, many, many, many, many talents. Several of my guests, almost all of my guests, we all juggle several things. Alexis juggles maybe 20 more things. I was introduced to her through our pole dancing community. She was actually the teacher. I don't know if you guys remember back in January when I hit my head on the pole so hard that I had a huge black and blue egg on my forehead for a good four weeks. Alexis was the teacher in that class.
Jennifer Tracy: Because of who she is, and because of all of her training, and because of what she does for a living, and because she embodies the work that she does and talks about, she stayed with me and with some other women that were comforting me after class and really literally held me with her hands as I cried for two hours, because I hit my head... and for those of you who don't know, I hit my head on the pole. It's a dark room. I had my eyes closed. It's one of those things that happens. I hit my head on the pole. I was like, "Oh, I'm fine." Then I started crying, and I couldn't stop for about two hours.
Jennifer Tracy: I probably had a concussion. That's usually means you have a concussion, but I'm fine. I'm fine. I eventually went to the doctor and they were like, "Well, you're fine now. It's a little late. You should've come in the first 24 hours." Anyway, Alexis really held me. She just knew exactly what to do. A couple months later, I went to her house to interview her for the podcast and really got to know the depth of her story. I mean, within an hour. There's way more, obviously. But what a woman. What a journey. What a story.
Jennifer Tracy: Alexis is now a life coach. She's a mom of two. I got to meet her little, her youngest child, her little boy. He is so precious. She's happily married. She's got a thriving business. She's writing a book. She is an embodiment, empowerment, leader. She's amazing. She's just amazing. My introduction does nothing, because the actual interview says it all. She is just so brilliantly articulate. She knows who she is, and it's so sexy. It's just it's really sexy. She is a mom I'd like to follow and I do follow. Anyway, I really hope you enjoy my conversation with Alexis Artin.
Jennifer Tracy: Hi, Alexis.
Alexis Artin: Hi, Jen.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank you so much for being here.
Alexis Artin: Oh my god. Thank you for being here. This is thrilling. I'm the one who reached out to you. Like, let's do this.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my god. I was so, so happy to get your email. I just want to start off by saying, you are the teacher who was there when I hit my head on the pole.
Alexis Artin: This is so true.
Jennifer Tracy: I've shared about this on the podcast. I don't know if you actually know this part of the story, but I'm going to tell it. You know that my friend died in October. Then in January, I hit my head on the pole. It was very traumatic. You took such good care of me. It was so hard to receive that. You watched. You watched how hard it was for me to receive that nurturing from you and all the other women. You were so steady and so nurturing and loving, and just exactly what I needed as I cried for like two hours. I probably definitely had a concussion, but I would not go to the doctor. Do you remember?
Alexis Artin: You refused.
Jennifer Tracy: I was like, "I'm not going to go to the doctor." Tara drove me home. Two weeks later, I was having severe suicidal ideation. I went to the hospital.
Alexis Artin: I did not know that.
Jennifer Tracy: I called Tara and I said... And I've shared about this on the podcast as well.
Alexis Artin: Naughty Tara. Why didn't she tell me. I had texted with her after the fact checking in on you.
Jennifer Tracy: Well, this was two weeks later. This was two weeks later.
Alexis Artin: Okay, but still, Tara, if you're listening.
Jennifer Tracy: I called her and my therapist and Tara said, "Okay. I'll be right there. I'm taking you to the psychiatrist." I was like, "No. No. No. I'm okay." She's like, "Nope. You're done. You're done." Her thinking I guess she's... Oh.
Alexis Artin: Well done.
Jennifer Tracy: She's amazing. Drove me to the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist was like, "Okay. You're going to UCLA," went to UCLA. They took all my clothes. They took all my purse. I'm in the scrubs and there all day. I get evaluated by the psychiatry department. I get evaluated by just an ER doc to check out my... He asked me all the questions that they would've asked me two weeks ago. He's like, "Look, it's been two weeks. You're fine, but I'm just going to do this."
Jennifer Tracy: But then I did this research. Head injuries can cause, or are directly linked with depression and episodes like this.
Alexis Artin: Isn't there like CTE where the football players that incur severe concussions over and over and over again end up later in life, some of them, having this CTE diagnosis, and [crosstalk 00:09:30] they end up-
Jennifer Tracy: What is CTE?
Alexis Artin: ... committing suicide.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes. Yes. Yes. You're right. Yes. Anyway, that was such a journey for me of like... The point is the circle of women that you are such a part of creating your community in our community that I'm lucky to be a part of now created such a nurturing space that I think it helped me in that moment, that plus like my whole lifetime of being in recovery and knowing how to ask for help, but I was able to call and ask for help, because I was suicidal ideating so badly that it I was dissociated for myself. I was really thinking of like, oh, like checking off a list. I've got to get the life insurance policy to my ex husband. It was bonkers. And it was also the three-month mark of my friend's death.
Alexis Artin: And as bonkers as it is, it makes total sense to me. I've recently been studying on something called the polyvagal theory. It's talking about our nervous system and how there is this vagus nerve that regulates our nervous system in terms of flight or fight, right? It talks about how any time that we incur any sort of trauma, be it physical or emotional, that obviously our primal instinct, right, it's basically like a moral imperative or a biological imperative, more to the point, for us to stay safe. That's our nervous system's job. It's its primal job.
Alexis Artin: So there's the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system, right? The sympathetic is what takes us into fight or flight, and the parasympathetic, think of like a parachute launching, kind of lowers and slows down and softens that activation. What's so interesting is that there are times when you can't fight, and you can't flee, right? Think about maybe even when you're a small child, and where are you going to go? You're reliant on your caregivers, or if you were restrained to some degree.
Alexis Artin: But a lot of times, we are restrained, even just if not physically, mentally we feel stuck in a situation. We kind of taskmaster ourselves in that moment to just freeze and deal with it. When that happens, in an animal, the body will feign death, but when you're a human being, you have to regulate your nervous system. If you're just so fired up, and you can't fight, and you can't get the fuck out of there, your body is going to do what it needs to do to get you safely out of the situation and that's to dissociate. It doesn't matter if it's just mere daydreaming or if it's to completely check out and create multiple personality disorder, or anything in between. It's just about staying safe. That's how important staying safe is. That's how intelligent the body is, is to know what to do in that scenario to keep you safe.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Alexis Artin: Right? I mean, it's wild. To me, what happened to you was both emotional and physical trauma in that moment.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes. Yes.
Alexis Artin: Really truly.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Alexis Artin: You had to go through that process until you were able to kind of re-ground and re-center back into your truth and that you're safe. It makes perfect sense to me. Sorry to go on that huge diet drive, but-
Jennifer Tracy: Oh no. That's why I wanted to bring it up because it's a shared experience that I have with you that kind of bonded me to you, and also like speaks to a lot of the work that you do that you already do. Thank you for being there for me that day and in general.
Alexis Artin: Absolutely. You know, I really believe that we're spiritual beings having a human experience, and that there's a dichotomy in that because the spiritual being is very selfless, and the human nature of us is very selfish. It has to be to get its needs met and survive. So there's this... I don't know what the word is, but there's this kind of natural fisticuffs happening in our being, right, this time around. I believe that when the human body isn't really paying attention, the spiritual being will conk you in the head.
Alexis Artin: That's kind of what happens. It's like you know that saying of like you'll get tickled with a feather, but if you don't listen, you'll get hit by a Mack truck.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, I got hit by a pole.
Alexis Artin: A big, metal pole.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, definitely.
Alexis Artin: Yeah. So whatever it takes, you know. I'm glad that I could've been part of the tribe to care for you in that moment.
Jennifer Tracy: It was profound, and just such a profound thing to feel, like to experience how uncomfortable I was receiving that kind of care, because I can give it all day long, but to be on that end of it was so uncomfortable and just something to really look at made me kind of acknowledge that piece.
Alexis Artin: And isn't that so often just strangely, and without trying to make any sort of a blanket statement here, kind of the role of women.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh yeah. Oh god, yes.
Alexis Artin: Right? And as mothers specifically, we become, if we aren't already... I mean I believe that our society cultivates in us that responsibility to care for others, but when you become a mother, there's no denying that responsibility. It's like a corporate takeover of your being, right? It's like full on espionage of your being. All of a sudden, it's everything from the biology of your body is now about giving, whether it's breast-feeding or something else, to the mentality of, "Oh, wow. There's a grieving process of the fact that it's really not about taking care of myself as much as it is taking care of this defenseless little being."
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Alexis Artin: And like all of your resources go to that. It's wild. It's wild. And nobody talks about that. Nobody ever talks about the grieving process that you go through. I mean, I personally had massive postpartum depression, which was...
Jennifer Tracy: With your first?
Alexis Artin: With my first.
Jennifer Tracy: Well, because your second is only... How old is he now?
Alexis Artin: He's eight months.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh.
Alexis Artin: Yeah. I didn't have the same experience with him.
Jennifer Tracy: Do you think that's because you were prepped from your first experience?
Alexis Artin: I hope so, because I'd like to believe that if I could do it, other women can do it as well. But I can say that the first time around, I was so unprepared for that, even though I knew women that had postpartum depression and talked openly about it in an effort to potentially prepare me, but there is no preparation for what that experience is going to be for you.
Alexis Artin: I had an unexpected birth experience that threw me sideways, and my hormones just went absolutely berserk. One time, I was supposed to get on a airplane to go fly to Jamaica to lead a retreat and literally the car pulled up in front of my house to pick me up and take me to the airport and hundreds of women are counting on me delivering what I need to deliver at this retreat, and I couldn't get in the car. I was in a ball on the floor rocking back and forth, barely able to get a sentence out, because I couldn't even breathe. I was hyperventilating and crying. I was in the middle of like a PTSD, emotional breakdown.
Alexis Artin: I didn't end up getting on the plane and ended up in a psychiatrist office, under emergency scenario because I couldn't pull it together to even take care of my son. It was a really wild, wild ride for about, I would say, a year. I feel like it was at his first birthday that I started to feel some sense of joy and real bond, that I could feel like, "Oh, okay. I didn't ruin my life." What a wild thing to experience when you're pregnant for the first time. You think the second this baby lands in my arms, I am just going to know what it is to feel the way that all these mothers say they feel about their sons, and how it's going to change everything. I'm going to fall immediately in love, and not my experience, not my experience. Yeah, wild. Wild.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow. Well, thank god you got the help that you needed.
Alexis Artin: Really thank God. I love that there's so much awareness coming around now about postpartum depression, an even worse, postpartum psychosis and women being able to get the help they need. My husband the other day actually mentioned to me that he was listening to a podcast and heard that they've come out with some sort of an IV now for women in either postpartum depression or maybe even more specifically psychosis.
Jennifer Tracy: I saw this. I saw an article about it in the New York Times the other day.
Alexis Artin: It's like 30 or $40,000 to get this IV. It takes 60 hours for the IV treatment, but that it supposedly cures postpartum depression-
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. That's incredible.
Alexis Artin: ... at a price tag of like, yeah, 30 or $40,000-
Jennifer Tracy: Which is crazy.
Alexis Artin: ... which is just...
Jennifer Tracy: Like .02% of the population can afford it for now. But maybe they'll make it... You know, those things happen where they roll it out and then it becomes more affordable, I guess.
Alexis Artin: And here's hoping that insurance or something...
Jennifer Tracy: Something.
Alexis Artin: Why do we have insurance?
Jennifer Tracy: I mean...
Alexis Artin: It should cover that.
Jennifer Tracy: It should.
Alexis Artin: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow. I hear your babes.
Alexis Artin: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: He's trying to go down for a nap right now. But this is so perfect because this is why I started the podcast, because that's such a real-life example of like you're doing this. You have a caregiver that's able to put him down. But I would imagine, just because my mom... and it's not my son. I haven't even met him yet. But like there's that pull of like...
Alexis Artin: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: You know? But you got to do with the work. There's just always a pull. It's always a pull one way or the other.
Alexis Artin: It really is, follow my bliss or follow his, is... one of my mentors once said that to me, and that it is going to be the great challenge in a life of a mother. That makes perfect sense to me. You know that quote about it's your heart walking around outside of your body, couldn't be truer. Really truly is my experience of what it is to be a mother. Doubling down and now having two is, well, now my heart's going in two different directions at the same time. How do you keep up with that? Plus, follow your own bliss to the change that you want to be or to create in the world as an individual.
Jennifer Tracy: Let's talk about that.
Alexis Artin: Yeah. Let's do it.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay. I know you as a movement instructor and a woman in our community. I also know you... I haven't experienced you as a life coach. I mean, I have in a way because I just get to be around you and be in class, and it just comes out of you, but were you always in that arena? Growing up, what did you want to be or...
Alexis Artin: Oh boy. How long is this podcast?
Jennifer Tracy: Long. Long.
Alexis Artin: Long enough?
Jennifer Tracy: Take your time. Take your time.
Alexis Artin: Okay. Well, I'll try to be succinct. I, growing up in Philadelphia, where my parents and my brothers still reside, although I'm trying to...
Jennifer Tracy: Get them out here.
Alexis Artin: ... cast my fishing rod and reel them over here. We're working on it. I grew up there. From the moment I popped out, is from what I understand, from what I'm told, I was, it was a star is born. I was just a natural actress, performer, dancer my whole life, singer, writer, create tricks, maven, woman, always beyond my years intellectually. I used the word hematoma when I was five instead of "I have a boo-boo" or an owie.
Jennifer Tracy: I have a hematoma. Oh, that's so cute.
Alexis Artin: Really truly. I was a whippersnapper.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Alexis Artin: They called me, instead of Sandra Bernhard, they called me Sandra Heartburn. I mean, there was all kinds of magic happening when I came around. Okay. Born and raised there. I took a trip out to California to visit some family when I was young. I absolutely loved it and had made the decision at that bright young age of maybe six that I knew that I wanted to move to Hollywood and be an actress. I mean, it was, the deal had kind of been sealed at that point.
Alexis Artin: Cut to moving out to Los Angeles when I was about 17, I was in a abusive relationship at 17. Then by 19, I had taken a trip out here again to visit, and meaning here in Hollywood, Los Angeles, and called my parents and said, "Just pack up my stuff and send it. I'm not even coming home for it." My parents said, "Over our dead body. If you want to make an adult decision like moving across the country and leaving school and all of these things, you're going to have to do it the adult way. You're going to have to come home. You're going to have to pack your things. You're going to have to make a plan of where you're going to live and transfer schools," and all of that nonsense.
Jennifer Tracy: Good for them. That's good parenting.
Alexis Artin: Great parenting. I reluctantly agreed. I came home and I said, "One year from today, come hell or high water, get in where you fit in, I am moving to Los Angeles." I did. One year from that day, me and my little shih tzu puppy at that time, Gizmo, got on an airplane and cross country by ourselves at 19, came out to LA to live into a dream.
Alexis Artin: I was lucky enough at the time to have a mentor that was, I'm a little bit ashamed to say, at the time, the head of casting for Miramax with the boss that we shall not name.
Jennifer Tracy: Got it. I'm like, "Why is she... Oh, right." Yes, of course.
Alexis Artin: Anyway, she was lovely and very helpful and very supportive and a girl's girl, and had set me up with a bunch of casting directors, I mean the biggest of the biggest in the business. It was like I had like Mary Vernieu calling me and going, "Let's have lunch," which is an actress's dream come true. I did not realize the weight and the relevance of that at that age. I was so young and as intellectual and advanced as I was, relatively immature to understand the gift that I was being handed on a silver platter at the time. Suffice to say, I kind of in the end blew it. I never followed up. I never really seized the opportunity. I think that insecurity really had a hold of me at the time, to the point where I had actually gone through so much bullying when I was a kid and insecurity and unhealthy relationships and all of these things that I really just wanted a do over in terms of who I was in order to gain the love and the respect and the confidence that I didn't innately have.
Alexis Artin: So I literally carved myself up on a plastic surgery table for about 12 hours and had at the very youthful age, when I really didn't need it, very severe surgeries, staples and screws in my head and broken nose, and liposuction throughout every area of my body that really didn't even have the fat on it to suck out. It was really wild. While it did give me a presentational confidence, it definitely didn't touch the depths of me that really needed the makeover needed to heal.
Alexis Artin: In the process of all of that, I was really questioning, is acting the place for me? Is putting myself in front of audition rooms and cameras and being asked to do things that didn't feel an integrity, because I just wasn't confident enough in myself, did that feel like the right thing to do? I was so gun shy to even step into those rooms anymore. I ended up working at Hooters. I ended up working for a chiropractor. I ended up becoming a makeup artist. I was a total career gypsy. A lot of my friends called me the Forrest Gump of the feminine, because I just seemed to... Like anybody who's like, "I need an event planner," I'm like "I had an event planner company. I can help you." "I need somebody to do my makeup." "I was a makeup artist. I even trained with Tina Earnshaw who won an Academy Award. I've got your back." Really, everybody laughs. Like, "We'll just ask Alexa. She either did it or she knows somebody that did it."
Alexis Artin: Once I had the opportunity to really land in a place that felt like it made sense for me was in the entertainment industry but behind the camera. I was lucky enough to have a lot of really great opportunities. I always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. I was an executive assistant to a-list celebrities. I was able to be a producer on the number one hit show on Comedy Central. I was on the number one comedy tour around the country that year. We were making movies with Ben Stiller and Forest Whitaker, and all of these incredible talents. I was then working at a management company for a whole roster of a-list celebrities, and getting to manage really brilliant careers alongside some really talented teams, behind those artists, and got to do a lot of really incredible things. I was in proximity with true greatness a lot of the time, and my role was to help them be great.
Alexis Artin: I seemed to be very good at fast tracking people to their personal best. It was a sweet spot for me.
Jennifer Tracy: And you were young. You were in your 20s.
Alexis Artin: I was young. I was in my 20s, and traveling on private jets with these totally amazing people. I'm both starstruck and at the same time having to protect them from other people that were starstruck, and either trying to take advantage of them, or anything of that nature, and really trying to structure a trajectory for them to maintain that status of celebrity and achievement and success in their chosen careers, because they're just human beings, too.
Alexis Artin: What I came to realize was that there was just as much dysfunction finding me behind the camera as there was finding me in front of the camera, if not more so. In the midst of all of this, I had been in the entertainment industry about 10 years when I went to go take said pole dancing class. Like I had said, I had been a dancer my whole life, and even minored in it in college, which by the way I went to five colleges and never matriculated. There's that, because I ended up literally going into the working world and getting my master's in real life, everything.
Alexis Artin: I was taking this pole dancing class, because a friend of mine had dragged me there. She had been doing it about four months and swore that it changed her life, which to me was a real head scratcher. Pole dancing class changed your life? Okay. I went in. I have to say that it wasn't even so much the class that was an aha moment for me. It was at the end of the class, my friend that took me to the class and dragged me there, the one that had been doing this for four months, I adored her to the end of the earth. I mean, this was the girl that I would cry on her shoulder. I would laugh hysterically with her. I would share my deepest, darkest secrets with her. But she was not my, air quotes here, sexy friend.
Alexis Artin: At the time. I mean obviously now I see it very differently. I'll get to that. But she got up to demo her movement at the end of the class. There was an opportunity for the current students who brought new students in to demo and show what they could do, show their stuff. Within five seconds of the song coming on and her starting to demo, really just what that means to me now, is move within the grace and integrity of her body, the truth of her body and her eroticism and her sexuality. The whole world, I think, just flipped on its axes. I went, "Oh my god. Not only is she no longer in the box of my lovely but unsexy friend, she's actually the sexiest thing I've ever seen on two legs."
Alexis Artin: If that was a lie that I had lived under for so long, if that wasn't true, what else wasn't true that I had assigned myself to my whole life?
Jennifer Tracy: Wait. Say that again because I messed up the soundbite. That's going to be a great soundbite. If that wasn't true.
Alexis Artin: If that wasn't true, then what else wasn't true? What else had I assigned myself to in my life that was a lie? What? Brain exploding all over in a million pieces and never going to come back together again the same way.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Alexis Artin: I mean, I literally pushed people out of the way when the class was over to be the first person to get to the front desk. God forbid there wasn't enough to go around. I threw down my credit card. I said, "Don't even tell me. I don't even want to know. Just ring it up. Whatever she's got, I want it," because I had always thought I was the sexy one. I really did. I was like, "I go to the club. I do my thing. I whip my hair around. Like, I want my tight jeans on with my liposuctioned body. I am the hot girl in the club." Then I realized, "Oh my god. I'm a total fraud. Teach me how to do it right. I just want some of that. Wow, that looks like confidence melting in a body. Bring it."
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Alexis Artin: So I started taking class. It's funny. I've been listening to other podcasts of yours, and I've heard people talk about their experience of finding this movement and what it did for them. I giggle because every time I always hear how everybody falls in love with their first teacher. Well, me too. Total girl crush. I mean, just massive girl crush on my teacher. When she approached me to become a teacher of the movement, there was no way I was going to say no to this woman. I mean, it just didn't matter what she asked me. Absolutely, it was going to be a yes, and especially to be able to step into being a teacher. Oh my god. What an honor. What an opportunity. What a privilege really was how I viewed it. It didn't matter that I was working full-time in the entertainment industry and had a lot of stress and demand on me, I was going to find time to also do teacher training full time.
Alexis Artin: This was a two-month commitment at the time. It was this very rigorous training. It was five days a week, eight hours a day for two months, and not to mention shadowing classes and all of that in addition.
Jennifer Tracy: That's a lot.
Alexis Artin: It was a lot, and working full-time in the entertainment industry.
Jennifer Tracy: Were you married yet?
Alexis Artin: I was with my husband at the time, but we were not yet married or engaged.
Jennifer Tracy: But you had a partner-
Alexis Artin: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: ... to also consider.
Alexis Artin: You better believe it. Literally, I was like a ping-pong ball, going back and forth, back and forth, shuttling without sleep between training and my job. At the time, I was working for a celebrity that I shall not name, but a household name for sure. While I was working for this person, they were engaging in behavior that was very misaligned with my values and integrity. I was going from that job to teacher training, so it felt like I was going from a place that was very soul-sucking, to a place that was very soul-fulfilling back and forth, back and forth. The lack of sleep and the back and forth between those two totally juxtaposed energies, it all of a sudden got brilliantly clear to me that I was done with the entertainment industry, and I was ready to devote myself absolutely to what I had discovered at this movement practice and this empowerment practice full-time, at any cost. It did cost me.
Alexis Artin: So I quit the entertainment industry altogether. I said, "I'm done." I went into this world of empowerment and took a 75% pay cut to do it.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Alexis Artin: At first, what that looked like was more than 75% pay cut, because all I was going to be doing was graduating teacher training and teaching classes. You're not paid the way you are in the entertainment industry when you teach these classes. We'll just say that. I was very, "Oh my gosh, what am I going to do to earn a living now if I'm only getting pittance here and there for teaching these pole dancing classes? I'm not going to go back to the entertainment industry, so now what?"
Alexis Artin: At that time, it turned out the company that I was teaching for was hiring for a creative director. I won't belabor you with the details. I ended up getting that job. I was both the creative director at this company as well as a teacher at this company, and eventually became a master teacher, and then became a trainer who was not only teaching teachers to teach, but teaching teachers to become master teachers, and building up the events portion of this company to be really successful in cultivating transformational journeys for women. I stayed in that role for four years, and segued out, and just focused on still consulting creating journeys for women, but focusing a lot more on the teacher aspect of things and the training of teachers aspect of things, because I really wanted to use my time to gift women what I had been gifted in the way that felt most purposeful for me and filled with passion.
Alexis Artin: Through all of this, I started working with a coach, because I had been in therapy since I was five.
Jennifer Tracy: Ever since the hematoma?
Alexis Artin: Really truly. Actually, I went into therapy when I was five because I was diagnosed with what they call magical thinking, which was I was just not living in reality a lot of the time. I was making up wild stories.
Jennifer Tracy: I still have that, but just now I make a living from it.
Alexis Artin: Isn't it amazing? It's amazing. I mean, what a gift, right?.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Alexis Artin: I mean, why is that a clinical diagnosis? Shouldn't we be celebrating this?
Jennifer Tracy: Right. Right.
Alexis Artin: But I guess it was a problem because I think I had said at one point like my dad was beating me with a rubber hose, but I think I only said that because he wouldn't buy me a puppy. I think it was a little bit slightly naughty and-
Jennifer Tracy: Slightly, Alexis.
Alexis Artin: ... a little bit worrisome. Like when they tackled my dad when he came to pick me up at school and interrogated him. Thank god I had no bruises on my body.
Jennifer Tracy: It's so specific, though. That's what I love about it. He beat me with a rubber hose.
Alexis Artin: Where a five-year-old would have gotten that information. I mean, we didn't have YouTube back then, so I don't know where it came from. My magical thinking mind, there you go.
Jennifer Tracy: Inspired.
Alexis Artin: It really truly. Wasted gift there. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: You got a coach.
Alexis Artin: I really truly. I got a coach. It changed everything. I had never been approached. I have sought out... I worked side-by-side with the world's greatest gurus and thought leaders. I mean, from Tony Robbins on down because the company that I currently work for, we have partnered with him on creating events and so forth. I've had the privilege of working alongside Marie Forleo and the great minds of empowerment of our time.
Alexis Artin: I have to tell you that coaching was, of anything that I've ever done, the biggest game changer. There was no hierarchal diagnosis of what was wrong with me from a psychologist or a therapist. I'm not knocking them. I think that they're highly valuable. I worship that world. I really think that it's super helpful. I'm in no way comparing, but I will say that for me, the results that I got from coaching far outweighed anything else from meditation courses, to therapeutic endeavors, whatever it may have been. It was really coaching that shifted everything for me.
Alexis Artin: I finally was able to achieve what I had been seeking my whole life in plastic surgery and in therapy and in my movement practice. All of those things just were falling short of that internal makeover that I was really seeking. It was coaching that really allowed me to arrive at tapping into my truth, my purpose, my passion, my potential, and being able to love and advocate for myself fiercely without apology, without the need for permission. It really was the key to me getting in the driver's seat of my life and realizing that I didn't need to just go along for the ride anymore. I didn't have to be afraid anymore. Because at the end of the day, what I came home to was love, and it was the love that I was able to give for myself which is really what I was seeking all along.
Alexis Artin: I had just internalized all these voices in my life to keep myself safe. I didn't need to do that anymore, because my internal voice had become so different. That's why the movement practice that you and I talk about was so powerful, is because the teacher sits in the center of the room, and basically talks and talks and talks while you move and gives you a new inner monologue about-
Jennifer Tracy: That's so powerful.
Alexis Artin: ... yourself, about your body, about your ability to step into loving and appreciating and dare I even say turning the volume up on what is unique about you, and thereby brilliant and amazing and radiant and sexy and powerful about you, right?
Jennifer Tracy: And unmatched by anyone else's body.
Alexis Artin: Totally.
Jennifer Tracy: I mean, that's the huge thing of like... People ask me about the class that I take. "Do you still take it? What do you love about it?" I'm like, it taught me not only to see the beauty in myself, but to see the beauty in every single woman that I come across, like genuinely-
Alexis Artin: Because it's no longer a competition, and she's no longer a threat. She's a reflection of you and your beauty and your power. When there are no mirrors in a classroom of movement, who's your mirror? Your sister across the way. She looks beautiful doing it, so do you, and vice versa. She'll let you know, and your body is so heightened in her senses that she will feel that awareness, she will feel that gaze, she will hear and receive the vibration of applause and screaming and yelling for what is so magnificent about you just being in your truth without apology and, quote unquote, crushing shame.
Alexis Artin: It really is something that women don't have in our current culture. It's just not woven into the fabric of a patriarchy that we are living in. It then becomes a question of, "Well, how do I bridge the gap of feeling that way in the safety of that classroom and walking it out into a world that doesn't create that same safe space for it?" Forget celebrate and elevate it, right, but just even hold a safe space for it. That's where coaching really came in for me, was this is how you walk it into your life on a daily basis. This is how you don't need to be inside of a particular four-walled space, just of women, and a teacher who is a master of creating that space for you, and validating you and acknowledging you, and giving you the tools and resources that you need in every moment to cultivate that experience, but really walk it out into your life and be solely responsible for it, and know you got it. Like, I've got this. I've got this.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. You got this, a life coach was what you started working with? Okay. A woman?
Alexis Artin: A woman. I'm totally going to give her a shout out. Her name is Barb Wade. She's been doing this for 20 something years. She has her master's in spiritual psychology-
Jennifer Tracy: From the Santa Monica?
Alexis Artin: ... from USM.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, so good.
Alexis Artin: Amazing. I mean, she really is brilliant beyond brilliant. I really related to her, because she was a high achiever. She was an actress. I mean, of all the things that she did, the one that really just stops my heart is she was on Saved by the Bell. I mean, come on. I mean, all over the walls when I was a kid. Zack Morris, get of here, which go figure, I ended up making out with Mario Lopez on camera later in life and I'm like, "Slider. I missed the boat. I wanted it to be Zack." No. It's so funny. I'm like, "I got paid to make out with you right now. This is amazing."
Jennifer Tracy: Did you ever see the Weeds episode where he came and like had sex with her in the bar?
Alexis Artin: No. I never watched Weeds. I probably should, because I love [crosstalk 00:47:25]...
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, girl. I mean, I think I found it on YouTube after it aired. This is years ago. I had a toddler at the time. My son was a toddler. I was just like starting to kind of feel sexual again when I saw that video. I was like, "Oh my god." I just watched it on repeat.
Alexis Artin: Oh my god. Just-
Jennifer Tracy: Anyway, I will send it to you.
Alexis Artin: Send me the link. Then I will send you the photo or the video of me making out with Mario Lopez.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Alexis Artin: We could superimpose the two.
Jennifer Tracy: Perfect.
Alexis Artin: So amazing. He is a lovely guy. Anywho, so Barb is amazing, and a very brilliant and talented coach, and really worked with me on walking the road that she had walked prior. Yes, she was an actress, but then she had this similar experience to me of saying, "You know what, being in front of the cameras and [inaudible 00:48:14] go behind the camera." Long story short, she ended up being one of the core first round of people that started DreamWorks and was working under Steven Spielberg, and, you know, Mr. Spielberg, and really have this very high-powered career and was on a trajectory to the stars, and yet came to this realization, to this deep, deep truth that she was in burnout. There was something deeper that was being missed, a purpose, a calling. She was just definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results and not getting them.
Alexis Artin: She took a sabbatical. During that sabbatical, was taking courses at USM, and just had this aha moment of "This is it. I can't go back." She left a very coveted position at DreamWorks to become a life coach.
Jennifer Tracy: I love that.
Alexis Artin: The lives that she has changed since, I can't even imagine if she had chosen not to do that. I only speak for myself, if she hadn't chosen to do that. It's really kismet that I have a mentor like her to really truly help me in my healing journey. Because as much as our movement practice, don't get me wrong, provided a lot to me, it was definitely a doorway to self-love. It didn't give me everything that I needed to really arrive at having all the tools that I need to go, "I've got this. I don't need anything outside of my skin any longer to bring me joy, happiness, enthusiasm, peace, permission, love, any of those things." Really, what a gift.
Jennifer Tracy: Income.
Alexis Artin: Hello.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, that's a huge piece.
Alexis Artin: Huge piece.
Jennifer Tracy: Especially for us women, where it's like... I struggled for a long time where I felt like I didn't deserve that, or I hadn't quite earned it yet because I had been a stay-at-home parent for so long, or even though I was balancing my writing, but I didn't count that, because at the time I wasn't getting paid for it.
Alexis Artin: Sure.
Jennifer Tracy: I was like, "Well, I'm just..." just the value systems that I had imposed on myself [crosstalk 00:50:36] is just it's unbelievable, and the limitations that then the... And it takes time to unwind that. For me too, I fully have a similar experience of the movement practice was and is and continues to be a doorway for me, but it was a doorway to then a path of like, "Here's the real work. This is a deep work," you know?
Alexis Artin: Yes. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow. That inspired you to say, "This is meant for me. This is my calling."
Alexis Artin: Absolutely. I love you touching on this idea of value, because it really does come down to that. It comes down to our sense of self-worth, and that in our society translates so predominantly to finances. As women, our number one need is safety. A lot of times, we get that safety through connection, specifically as women, but we also get that in our culture financially. Even though some people, the small minority of people actually say that they value a life without material objects, items, that's where real freedom lies, other people would feel the opposite, and that's the majority of people. There is such an emphasis in our culture on money being the most, quote unquote, valuable resource, although there are more resources. There's time. There's energy. There's emotion. Those are all resources. There's an emphasis on money being the most coveted resource.
Alexis Artin: What we forget is that money really is just a form of energy. It's just printed green pieces of paper, which by the way, when we first started trading, didn't exist, right? If you read Kate Northrup's Money: A Love Story, which I think is a great book.
Jennifer Tracy: I haven't read that.
Alexis Artin: Oh, great book. Great book.
Jennifer Tracy: I love her.
Alexis Artin: She talks about how money was invented in Mesopotamia years and years ago, but before that, it was "Give me your cow. I'll give you my horse." Right? "I'll give you this grain, you give me sex."
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, totally. Right. Right. Yeah.
Alexis Artin: I mean, look prostitution is the oldest career that exists, and it was "I will trade you this value for the value of your body and your intimacy and your eroticism."
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Alexis Artin: Right? So inherent to who we are is the value of us.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Alexis Artin: Look at the oldest profession in the world. If that's not testimony to our value now, we've also elevated to the point where it's not just our bodies that are of value, but our minds, our hearts, our souls, right? We have a lot to offer. But Kate's book really talks about, so you want to generate more income, offer more value.
Alexis Artin: We spin on this idea as women that we don't have the value to offer in order to generate the income. That's just not true. We are emotional geniuses, right? We're communication geniuses, right? These are our special set of skills as women. That has, anyone who's a genius in anything, has tons of value to offer. So it's about turning up the acknowledgment on how valuable you actually are, which you've internalized that other people have questioned that value, but that's not for them to say "Your value is immeasurable."
Alexis Artin: Imagine a little baby. You look at a little baby. Like, I look at my little eight-month-old, but I'm sure everybody that's listening to this has seen a baby at some point in their life. Can you imagine ever looking at a baby and going "Yeah, I don't know. I don't think they're going to amount to much. No. Not a lot of value there. No."
Jennifer Tracy: Totally.
Alexis Artin: Right? Why would that ever change?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Alexis Artin: We're still that same soul, that same spirit, that same pure love energy, that same... God dwells within us as us. We are all of the same immeasurable value. Our value is not the stock market. It doesn't go up or down because of public opinion.
Jennifer Tracy: Right. It just expands and expands. I think, too, like you're born with that and that purity, and whatever we come into this world with, which I don't know for sure, but like I personally believe in reincarnation and past lives and-
Alexis Artin: Dido.
Jennifer Tracy: ... and that we bring in a lot already. So already, we do that. Then you add on life experience right, and that can't be bought. That can't be implanted, excuse me. That has such value. I mean, I always talk about this on the show. The reason I started this podcast, Moms I'd Like to Follow, also the double meaning of Moms I'd Like to Fuck, because I love that, and it pushes the envelope and it elevates it.
Alexis Artin: Your voice totally went down on the word fuck.
Jennifer Tracy: Did it?
Alexis Artin: It was so cute.
Jennifer Tracy: You know why? Because I was thinking of the baby and the nanny. Isn't that funny?
Alexis Artin: I love it.
Jennifer Tracy: I was like, "Oh, should I..." Isn't that funny? I've gotten some flack for it, but we'll get to that in a minute. But because everything I've learned, really since I moved to LA when I just turned 23, is from other women, other moms, but other women. Like Moms I'd Like to Follow. I just I learned that from other women's experience and their wisdom from that experience.
Alexis Artin: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: That is immeasurable.
Alexis Artin: Immeasurable is really the thing. And we live in a world that loves to measure.
Jennifer Tracy: Boy, yes.
Alexis Artin: So it can be dangerous if you don't watch out for it. I really believe that awareness is our superpower. The more we're aware of something, the more we can do something about it. It's like it's the difference between walking around with the lights off and walking around with the lights on.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Alexis Artin: When they're off, you're going to trip over things you don't see, you're going to trip over things that don't belong to you. You're going to get hurt. You're not going to actually see clearly what it is you want, let alone how to get it. Flip the lights on and then you get to make choices that align with your deepest truth and desire and purpose. When you do that, what's in your highest good is always isn't always in the highest good of everyone.
Alexis Artin: So when you align with those choices, when you really follow your truth and your path and your purpose and your passion without apology, everyone is going to be served by that. It really is a matter of feelings lead to thoughts, right, thoughts lead to choices, and choices lead to behavior, action. You put that out in the world, the world is going to give you feedback, and the process starts all over again. I really believe that we all have created a mind matrix, right? Now, remember, if you've ever seen the movie The Matrix, The Matrix actually isn't real. It will disintegrate. It's made of nothing, right? Yet everybody is walking around like robots operating in this fantasy world, because they've been told that it's real.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my god, it's Instagram.
Alexis Artin: Thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: I love Instagram.
Alexis Artin: It's really everywhere.
Jennifer Tracy: I use it, but it is... yeah.
Alexis Artin: But that's us.
Jennifer Tracy: That's us.
Alexis Artin: I mean, basically when you are born and you're super vulnerable, and we're responsible for doing this with our kids, and somebody was responsible for doing it for us, but when you're a child and you're vulnerable and you're innocent, and you come in, this pure love energy, let's just call it, pure consciousness of the unconscious kind, because you're so young, you are inhabiting this, like I said, human body, but you're a spiritual being, so you're trying to make meaning of the world around you. Well, who's going to do that for you? Your caregivers, your society, your culture. It's like, how do you know your name is Jen?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, they told me.
Alexis Artin: Because somebody told you.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Alexis Artin: Somebody assigned that meaning to you. You might not be Jen. You might be Sunshine Rainbow Jones for all I know, right? But that happens with everything. This is what love is. This is what being valuable looks like in life. This is what money means.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Alexis Artin: Right? Whatever value systems you're, quote unquote, born into in your world, are going to create your matrix, and you're going to live through that filter. You're going to live in that matrix until the awareness, or the lights go on and you go, "Oh, this actually isn't real. I'm living stories that don't belong to me." Then the matrix disintegrates, and then you create your life based on nothing but who you really are and what you really want. That's real empowerment. Hashtag real empowerment right there, is to really be in the driver's seat of your life and letting love drive and not fear, even though fear is really only trying to get us to love.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Alexis Artin: It really is. It's going "Oh God, wait. On the way to love, I really don't want you to hit that pothole. It's going to hurt. Go left. Go left. Go left." Right? I mean, it really is just trying to protect us. But that's a big job. That fear in us is born because something happened along the way that didn't feel real good. So a part of you splits off and goes, "Well, at the moment, we didn't have the resources to handle that, and it didn't feel good, and I'll be damned if that's ever going to happen again. Excuse me. Get out of the way."
Alexis Artin: Then its whole job from that point on is to forward face and look for any incoming threat. That means that it's looking for it in places where it may not even be, and keeping good things from coming in, but it's also not only forward facing, it's backward facing, and it's looking at you and going, "Now you're being a threat to us, so you better stop doing that. Stop talking like that. Stop dressing like that. Lose that weight. Don't be so loud. Don't use curse words. It's your fault that that happened. Knock it off. Get small. Get quiet."
Alexis Artin: So it really goes round and round and round until we stop the abusive cycle of owning and hijacking other people's fears and stories and values and truths as our own. Pretty powerful.
Jennifer Tracy: That's incredible. It's profound.
Alexis Artin: Very freeing.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Alexis Artin: Very freeing.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Alexis Artin: To me, it's really about creating that relationship with your self and who you were in those formative years, right? It's really about what I call the process that I use a lot in my coaching practice is this process of reparenting. It's about going back to that child who created that matrix, who adopted these stories, and hijacked those values, and squeezed themselves into like a square peg in a round hole, a very uncomfortable truth that doesn't fit them. It's like wearing a dress three sizes too small. It's uncomfortable. It doesn't belong to you. And strip away those truths and redo it from a place of nothing but love and compassion.
Alexis Artin: Our parents were doing our best. They were just trying to keep themselves safe based on how they were parented, right? It's like I have a... Mom, I'm so sorry I'm going to tell this story.
Alexis Artin: There was this time that my mom, when I was a preteen, took me to a doctor's office for my physical before the summer. I was going to summer camp. I went to summer camp every year. Shout out Camp Kweebec. I went to a summer camp every summer for two months.
Jennifer Tracy: The best.
Alexis Artin: The best. My mom in my pre-summer checkup... I was always the youngest, by the way. I have to preface this story by saying in school I was always the youngest. At camp, I was always the youngest. Because I was so intelligent when I was a child, hematoma, they started me in school early-
Jennifer Tracy: She air quoted intelligent.
Alexis Artin: I did.
Jennifer Tracy: But we obviously know she's brilliant.
Alexis Artin: I started probably too young. I was developmentally and emotionally behind everybody else, and constantly having to play catch-up, right, which is exhausting, right? But my mom took me to the doctor and lifted up my shirt and grabbed a fistful of flesh on my belly and said, "What is this? Why does she have this? How do we get rid of it?"
Jennifer Tracy: Gosh.
Alexis Artin: My mom did that because she loved me so much. She was afraid that I was going to be bullied at the pool that summer, because I was the youngest one, who the doctor verified, it's baby fat, still had baby fat, and the other girls at the pool were older and they didn't. She was afraid that I was going to suffer as a result of being teased, bullied, left out, whatever it may be. She was trying to protect me, and more importantly trying to protect herself from the pain that she would feel when she knew I was in pain.
Alexis Artin: It was all in the service of a greater good. I know that now, but at the time, you better believe that's part of why I went and got liposuction when I was too young to get it and really didn't need it, and why to this day my belly is still very shy. It's to the point of now I have to go back in time and I have to give love to that little preteen and permission to that little preteen to say, "You're so beautiful. I'm so sorry that I wasn't there to protect you."
Alexis Artin: Everybody has that. It doesn't determine your value, or what's possible for you, or your potential, or how lovable you are or were. Even though you feel sad and alone and in pain, I'm not going to bully you over that. I'm going to let you have those feelings. I'm also going to let you know that you don't have to go it alone. You're not going to have to be in pain without tools or resources to manage that pain and be alone and die that way, because that's really at the root of everyone's fear. Anybody that I've ever coached, I've always walked through a process of looking at one relevant fear that they have. At the bottom of every fear... I kid you not. I've coached so many people I couldn't count them. I've never not done that exercise. Every time, regardless of who I'm talking to, what their station in life is, the root fear is always the same, "I'm going to be alone. I'm going to be in pain without resources to do anything about it. And I'm going to die that way."
Alexis Artin: If you just go back and be there with yourself, right, as if you would talking about moms. You were a small child. If my kid ever came to me and said, "Mommy, I'm fat. Kids are going to make fun of me. Kids are going to bully me. Everybody knows that I'm fat. They've even pulled up my shirt and grabbed a fistful of my flesh. There's something wrong with me."
Alexis Artin: Can you imagine what I would say to my son if I heard him say that? You better believe that I would say... I hear that fear. I would acknowledge it. I wouldn't railroad over it, but I would also get down and say. "I'm not going to let that happen to you. I've got you. That flesh on your belly is nourishment for your body. You're supposed to have that there. I absolutely think you're the most amazing, brilliant, handsome kid on the planet. I'm lucky to know you and to be friends with you. It doesn't matter what clothes you have on, or how much skin you have or don't have on your body, that's not what this is about, kiddo. What's going to make you feel safe? Let's make a plan. What do you need from me? You don't want to go to the party, let's not go."
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Alexis Artin: Right? It's really about kind of going back and doing the reparations through reparenting all of those beliefs that you took on that really didn't belong to you. It's hard work, but it's so rewarding. It's just like parenting, it's hard work, but it's so rewarding. It's just about going back and being the parent for yourself, that I'm sure your parents wanted to be, tried to be, but just didn't have the ability to because they're in it.
Jennifer Tracy: And no one gave them the tools or resources.
Alexis Artin: That's right.
Jennifer Tracy: You can't give from something [crosstalk 01:06:59]...
Alexis Artin: Nobody modeled it for them, and nobody modeled it for us, so how are we going to know any different? Nobody was modeling for me my value or how that would turn into income or anything else, right? So I pedaled myself to the highest bidder constantly throughout my life until I realized, no, actually, this is my gift. This is my genius. These are my prices. I don't negotiate my value in my prices or anywhere else.
Jennifer Tracy: Right. Just as you wouldn't negotiate your son's value.
Alexis Artin: Hello.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Alexis Artin: Ding. Ding. Ding.
Jennifer Tracy: You have two boys.
Alexis Artin: I do. I do.
Jennifer Tracy: You have a full, very full work practice.
Alexis Artin: Full with a wait-list, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: You have all of the wait-list. That's awesome.
Alexis Artin: It's wild
Jennifer Tracy: And you have a husband, and you have a house, and you... and you teach dance. This is such a funny question, because it's like you can't really answer it in one answer, but what does it look like to balance all of that and get a decent night's sleep and take care of yourself?
Alexis Artin: Great question. I work smarter, not harder. To me, that looks like not trying to play superhero, and realize that my superpowers lie in my dream team, or what I call them as my soul support squad. That idea for me really set in when I had my first son. I really came to the conclusion that it does take a village, and if that takes a village... Like, I'm a believer in how you do one thing is how you do everything. Well, if that's true with raising a child, why isn't it true with raising myself, right, and raising my business, and all of these other things?
Alexis Artin: I'm a proponent of beg, borrow, barter, or buy your village. Leverage what you can. There are big A agenda items and little A agenda items per iPAQ. I really subscribe to them. Big A agenda items are things that only I can do, meaning nobody can go to the bathroom for me, right? I have to be the one who... I can't be like, "Hey, Jen. Can you quickly run to the bathroom and pee for me while I do this other thing?" Right? Like, I have to do that. I can't benefit from exercise if I have you go take my Pilates class for me. I have to go do that. I can sub out classes. I can get somebody else to do that kind of thing for me.
Alexis Artin: There are certain things like I have to write my blog, but I can certainly have my associate, my soul supporter, Kaylee, post those things for me and take up the time that that would take. I have a nanny who helps me with my two kids and getting food on their plates, and taking them to school. Does that replace the times that I'm really needed as a mom in their presence? Absolutely not. I will fiercely protect my time with them and take them to doctors' appointments, if it's a specific doctor's appointment. If there's a special thing at school, I'm going to go to that. Again, that's a big A agenda item. But the little A agenda items, like I don't need to be the one to make that peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I will leverage that.
Alexis Artin: I've really kind of beautifully done that in my life. I have created a dream team. I believe that anybody that really wants to make the most of the resources of their time, energy, money will leverage things. That's why athletes have coaches, and actors have agents, and politicians have advisors, and so on and so forth. It's why I have a coach.
Alexis Artin: I mean, I have a big, beautiful team. I could sit here and list them all, but it's not the Academy Awards. But I have a big, beautiful lush team that really helps me be able to focus on what I'm really here to do.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Me, too. I couldn't do this. I've shared openly about it in the podcast. I couldn't do this podcast to the degree of beauty and elevation that I want to give voice to these amazing women, like yourself who are on the show, without a team. There's no way I could do it by myself-
Alexis Artin: No way.
Jennifer Tracy: ... and mother my son, and take care of myself, and work out, and get sleep. It's just it's not possible. So I delegate.
Alexis Artin: That's right. And we don't do anything unless it serves us. There's always a, "What's in it for me?" That's for everybody. That's human nature. That's the selfishness that I'm talking about it being at a human body. You always have to put your oxygen mask on first.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Alexis Artin: Right? So when it comes to not doing anything unless it serves us in some way, oftentimes we'll even do things that don't serve us, but because there's secondary gain in it. So why wouldn't somebody give up certain responsibilities? There's a lot. We're talking about moms, right? There's a lot of moms that just won't give up the control aspect of, "No, I have to be the one to do this with my kid," right? It's about really asking the harder open-ended questions, the whats, the wheres, the whys, the hows, of well, what about that is serving you? What's it costing you?
Jennifer Tracy: Yes. I was just going to say, what is it costing? And getting to that, I'm sure in the process that you're talking about, is that it boils down to a fear.
Alexis Artin: Always. What's at the root of the fear? I'm going to be alone. I'm going to be in pain. I'm not going to have the resources to deal with it. I'm going to die that way. It really is at the root of every fear. I know people probably are like, "That's a little bit of a stretch," but I promise you, if you were to ask enough questions the right way at the right time, you would get to the truth.
Alexis Artin: It really is all in an effort to stay safe. Everything in life is in an effort to stay safe, to get love, to live in an impulse, or a desire inside of you. It's about doing the deep listening, which again is why... I was listening to the podcast that you did with Christina [Gratz 01:13:22]. She was talking about how her movement practice gave her the space and the permission to do a deep listening to herself that she hadn't had the ability to access prior, because she didn't have the tools or the safe space, or whatever else. It really is premise of my private practice is, you're the expert on you. That's it. I mean, there is no negotiating around the fact that we so often seek answers outside of ourselves from gurus, from diet plans, from this, from that.
Alexis Artin: I'm not saying that experts in the world don't have resources for you. I'm not saying they don't have brilliant tools and skill sets to offer you. I think that those are all very important. I think somebody holding up a mirror and asking powerful questions and revealing blind spots, all of vital importance, but nobody will ever be the expert on you the way you are, because nobody has lived inside of your body, mind, heart and soul, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, right, literally getting up in the morning and then putting their head on the pillow at night, from the moment that you were born until the moment that you leave this go around. How could you not be the expert there?
Alexis Artin: All the answers are inside. Dial in for answers every time. Anybody that tries to insert themselves between you and the divine, I always say, watch out. Watch out.
Jennifer Tracy: It's so true. I always tell my writers, mine your own backyard.
Alexis Artin: Stay in your lane.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. The answers are all in your backyard. You don't really have to go that far. If it's a fiction writer, even easier. Like what in your experiences is informing this feeling that you have to write about in this character in this scene in this story? It's all right there.
Alexis Artin: How is somebody else going to tell you what's true for you?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, or what your story is.
Alexis Artin: Exactly. I really believe that specificity is such an important piece of that.
Jennifer Tracy: Huge.
Alexis Artin: Because I can't get in my car... I said this on a webinar once. I was like, "Oh that was actually really good," that you can't get in a car and type in to Waze, "I don't know where I want to go. Take me."
Jennifer Tracy: Right. Exactly.
Alexis Artin: Yeah, right? I mean, you know? Or you could be like, "Well, I want to go over to Venice, but I don't know where in Venice. It's this place in Venice, but I don't know where it is." Well, good luck, right? Like, specificity is everything in getting anywhere that you desire to go, right, in your mind, in your heart.
Alexis Artin: I mean, your body is there to serve that process, but it's the inside that's delivering that information for your body to go out and get it, so get specific in there.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, absolutely.
Alexis Artin: Right? Crazy. Crazy.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay. I'm going to ask you ... Oh my gosh, yes. I'm going to ask you the three questions I ask every guest.
Alexis Artin: Oh boy.
Jennifer Tracy: Then we're going to go into a lightning round of questions.
Alexis Artin: Okay.
Jennifer Tracy: There's no time limit on this or rush or anything. We can go off into tangents, as we often do. So you don't have to be on the clock or anything. What do you think about Alexis when you hear the word MILF?
Alexis Artin: Sexy, hot, powerful, enticing. I just see a set of salivating lips and teeth.
Jennifer Tracy: What's something you've changed your mind about recently?
Alexis Artin: My kid's bedtime.
Jennifer Tracy: In what way?
Alexis Artin: It seemed like he was maybe going down a little too early. So we pushed it. Now it feels like maybe it's a little too late. I'm changing my mind again. I think I'm going to be in the middle.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Alexis Artin: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Good. This is your older child-
Alexis Artin: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: ... or both? Okay.
Alexis Artin: Yeah, my older.
Jennifer Tracy: How do you define success?
Alexis Artin: Really living in alignment with my values, and not compromising on them, and living with a sense of joy and enthusiasm, really living into my edge so that I feel like I am pushing the limits of what's possible for me, and in all the ways that I can. I think success feels like the abundant love that I have with my family and my friends. I feel like that is the ultimate reflection of who I am and why I'm here.
Alexis Artin: Success to me looks like creating freedom in my life, where I desire it. It looks like the deep and powerful and profound and very authentic connections that I have with women who are hungry to rise to their greatness.
Jennifer Tracy: I just got chills. Okay lightning round of questions.
Alexis Artin: Lightning.
Jennifer Tracy: Ocean or desert?
Alexis Artin: Ocean.
Jennifer Tracy: Favorite junk food.
Alexis Artin: French fries.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my god, me too.
Alexis Artin: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: I love french fries so much.
Alexis Artin: Put a little cheese on there.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh.
Alexis Artin: Maybe some bacon.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh.
Alexis Artin: I'm getting carried away.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my god. Okay. Movies or Broadway show?
Alexis Artin: Movies.
Jennifer Tracy: Daytime sex or nighttime sex?
Alexis Artin: Nighttime.
Jennifer Tracy: Texting or talking?
Alexis Artin: Talking.
Jennifer Tracy: Cat person or dog person?
Alexis Artin: Dog person.
Jennifer Tracy: Have you ever worn a unitard?
Alexis Artin: Absolutely.
Jennifer Tracy: Shower or bathtub.
Alexis Artin: Both.
Jennifer Tracy: Ice cream or chocolate.
Alexis Artin: Chocolate.
Jennifer Tracy: On a scale of 1 to 10, how good are you at ping-pong?
Alexis Artin: Four.
Jennifer Tracy: What did you-
Alexis Artin: No.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Alexis Artin: No. No. No. Uh-uh (negative), uh-uh (negative). Uh-uh (negative). Five. Five.
Jennifer Tracy: I thought there was going to be a bigger leap there. That's good though. I love that you gave yourself an extra [crosstalk 01:19:22]...
Alexis Artin: I'm authentic. You can't take the authentic out of the girl.
Jennifer Tracy: I love it. What is your biggest pet peeve?
Alexis Artin: Inauthenticity. Can't stand it. Drives me up a wall.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. If you could push a button and it would make everyone in the world 7% happier, but it would also place a worldwide ban on all hairstyling products, would you push it?
Alexis Artin: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Superpower choice, invisibility, ability to fly, or super strength?
Alexis Artin: Invisibility, flying or super strength? Flying.
Jennifer Tracy: Would you rather have a penis where your tailbone is, or a third eye?
Alexis Artin: Third eye. Duh.
Jennifer Tracy: What was the name of your first pet?
Alexis Artin: My first pet? Peanut.
Jennifer Tracy: What was the name of the street you grew up on?
Alexis Artin: Springhouse Road.
Jennifer Tracy: Your poor name is Peanut Springhouse?
Alexis Artin: Yes, unfortunately, it is.
Jennifer Tracy: I don't think that's unfortunate at all. I think Peanut Springhouse is Southern.
Alexis Artin: Okay.
Jennifer Tracy: I think she wants to be a cabaret dancer.
Alexis Artin: Okay. She has aspirations?
Jennifer Tracy: Yes. And she wants to move to the big city, but she just needs to really get in touch with her true power and say "I just have to do this and embrace my name and embrace who I am."
Alexis Artin: Sure.
Jennifer Tracy: Right? You're not buying it?
Alexis Artin: Not really. I don't think I'm going to go to the porn store and buy the Peanut Springhouse special. It's not going to work out for me. There's nothing MILF-y about that. I can't.
Jennifer Tracy: Well, Alexis, there's everything MILF-y about you.
Alexis Artin: Well, god bless. Dido. Back at you ten times.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank you so much for being on the show. This was a treasure.
Alexis Artin: Total treasure. I mean, like let's do it over and over and over again.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes. Yes. Sign me up.
Alexis Artin: Sign me up. Here we go.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, and if people want to find you, and we're going to put this in our show notes and everything, but if people want to find you, if they want to sign up on the waiting list to be a client, how do we find you?
Alexis Artin: Oh my goodness. Well, I mean my website's probably the best place, alexisartin.com.
Jennifer Tracy: Great. Thank you so much.
Jennifer Tracy: Thanks so much for listening, guys. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Alexis. Join me next week when I interview [Hayes Hawk Rosen 01:21:48], who is another woman of many, many talents. She is a doula and a midwife and a healer. That was a really fun conversation, too.
Jennifer Tracy: Also, if you enjoyed today's episode, please go ahead and share it with somebody. Just text it. You know, you can share episode. Hit those little three dots to the right of the screen on your iPhone or android or whatever you have. You can share this episode. Even if you just share it with one woman, you might change her day, or her week, or her month. I love you guys so much. Thank you so much for listening. Talk to you next week.