Audacious AND - guest Anna Knight

Start Time:: 00:00:02

End Time: 00:34:10.450

Jenn Wilson: Hi everyone and welcome to today's irregular humans. Podcast with me, irregular. Jen Wilson, with me today is the wonderful Anna Knight, Anna is a coach and a whole bunch of other things I'm sure that they'll tell us about, and they work with people who are stubbornly hopeful. I love this expression. So I want to get into that. So Hello, Anna.

Anna Knight: Hi Jen!

Jenn Wilson: So tell us about your irregular work and and the stubbornly hopeful people that you work with.

Anna Knight: I'd love to.

Anna Knight: Yeah. My work all came out of my journey, and I believe that that is how a lot of people who are trying to change the world where their work comes from.

Anna Knight: If you'd met me

Anna Knight: before I turned 30 you'd have met a very different version of Anna, because that was Anna behind a mask. I had a sleek brunette, Bob and I, Power dressed, and I tried to be as normal and regular as you possibly can.

Anna Knight: I had a high powered job. I was on the senior leadership team of a school. At 1 point I reached the senior leadership team at 26. That was very important to me. I married a man who was not ideal, but that in my family you get married young, that's what you did. I had the cookie cutter perfect, regular lifestyle.

Anna Knight: And I was miserable, miserable.

Anna Knight: My

Anna Knight: My relationship fell apart, was characterized by all the professionals supporting me at the time as abusive, and I

Anna Knight: halfway through. Being 30, I left my now ex-husband

Anna Knight: and looked at my life and went well. Well, this is rock bottom.

Jenn Wilson: Where do I go from? Here?

Anna Knight: What do I do? I'd given up everything that I thought would bring me love, acceptability, stability, respectability.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: I changed jobs at that point as well, and wasn't really happy in my job.

Jenn Wilson: And.

Anna Knight: And I looked around me, and I was like, I don't know who I am.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: I don't recognize this person.

Jenn Wilson: Okay.

Anna Knight: If teenage me had met me in my twenties she'd have been horrified.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: And so for me, coaching was the thing that helped me come back to who I am. If you're watching on the video now, you'll see someone with

Anna Knight: bright pink hair, a dress covered in raccoons.

Anna Knight: I've gone. I've come out as bisexual. I've come out as on the asexual spectrum. I've come out as non-binary. I realized that I was neurodivergent, which, considering I had a master's in autism and the 1st 10 years of my career was working with autistic and Adhd people

Anna Knight: quite impressive that I hadn't noticed that in myself until.

Jenn Wilson: Amazing, isn't it? Though?

Jenn Wilson: Point, it's amazing how much that can happen. And like, almost like

Jenn Wilson: it becomes like neurodivergence is your special interest.

Anna Knight: Yeah, exactly.

Jenn Wilson: But you don't see that in yourself. Yeah, I mean, your journey is fascinating, Anna, because I mean, like mine was around 40. But it's almost exactly the same kind of experience I had of thinking that following a standard, straightforward, normal, regular path through life was the key to happiness, and finding that it really wasn't.

Jenn Wilson: and you know, and actually finding finding joy when I let all of that go and started being irregular and being my real self. And yeah, here we are, with our colored hair together, and having a lovely time. Exactly. Tell me more.

Anna Knight: The fascinating thing is, Jen. I think at the time I thought I was doing a brilliant job of masking.

Jenn Wilson: Hmm.

Anna Knight: But I look back at how people treated me, at how they interacted with me. And I don't think the mask was actually that good. I think people could tell. It was paper, thin.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: Because there were, there were always the the little jabs and the little comments and the

Anna Knight: oh, you're a bit weird like. But at the time weird was like the worst thing I could be now I love being weird, now

Anna Knight: proudly embraced the word, weird as a descriptor for me, but at the time

Anna Knight: I was so afraid of being unlovable.

Anna Knight: So deeply afraid, and being in a relationship that was reinforcing, that with the way that I was being treated was obviously very difficult.

Jenn Wilson: Of course.

Anna Knight: But I was bringing that to every relationship, professional, personal, family friend like

Anna Knight: I. I didn't know how to be lovable because I wasn't loving myself.

Jenn Wilson: Hmm, hmm.

Anna Knight: That for me was the big thing is that I was. I was deeply unhappy in my relationship with myself.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: And so, of course, it was terrifying to let my weird out there, because if I found it unlovable, how could I ask anyone else to look at me with love as well.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. So what you said, you kind of turned to coaching. Was there an actual? You said a rock bottom? Was there a turning point where you went.

Jenn Wilson: where you suddenly became stubbornly hopeful. Is that the expression? I've forgotten it already.

Anna Knight: Yeah, no, it is stubbornly hopeful. I think the thing is.

Anna Knight: I've always been stubbornly hopeful. So even at that rock bottom.

Anna Knight: even when I was at my worst when I was suicidal. The thing that kept me going was going.

Anna Knight: No, I reckon it can change. I don't know how. I don't know what that looks like, but I'll just do tomorrow, because I reckon it can change.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: Maybe it'll be better.

Anna Knight: and to me that is a kind of stubborn. It would have been so easy to go. You know what

Anna Knight: I'm I'm 30. I hate my job. I'm single. I'm living in a damp little flat all by myself.

Anna Knight: I'm traumatized. I don't like to leave the house like I could have retreated, but it was that thread of

Anna Knight: hopefulness that kept me going.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, yeah.

Anna Knight: And oh, sorry!

Jenn Wilson: I was just going to say again, I really resonate with what everything that you're saying. And

Jenn Wilson: I I have this thing that in my dark days is is my my kind of like 3 point like monotal monitor thing.

Jenn Wilson: And I say that I have days where I'm just. Nope, just Nope, I'm not. Just don't want to get out of bed. I just don't feel any. Everything's just all too hard. I say days. It could be hours or minutes or weeks, it could be any length of time. But Nope, moments. And then there's cope moments where it's just all right. Everything's all right. I'm getting on.

Jenn Wilson: you know. Life's okay. And then there's hope moments in there, and those glimmers I've worked with clients who've been in full on Nope. But those glimmers of like I know that it could be a bit better.

Jenn Wilson: And and the and the what if in those moments, what if it could be better. What if I could feel happier about this situation, happier about myself? What if I can? Is such a powerful thing, that little glimmer of hope, isn't it.

Anna Knight: Yeah. Yeah.

Anna Knight: And and I talk to clients a lot about not needing to turn it completely around instantly. Yeah, so many coaches out there sell transformation in 12 weeks, and and I hate that.

Jenn Wilson: And.

Anna Knight: Because, 1st of all.

Anna Knight: do you actually need to transform? Or do you just need to be a bit kinder to yourself?

Jenn Wilson: Yes.

Anna Knight: So you need to recognize how awesome you are. And, secondly, why, 12 weeks.

Jenn Wilson: Hmm.

Anna Knight: Who decided that 12 weeks is the optimum time to transform from one state to another.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: We talk a lot in my with my clients about the aggregate of incremental gains, and it comes from a really random place. It's 1 of my favorite stories. It's a niche type of fixation of mine is the Tour de France. You wouldn't look at me and think, oh, that's a girl who loves road racing, cycling.

Anna Knight: But about 10 years ago now, maybe a little bit more.

Anna Knight: there was a Tour de France team started completely out of nowhere. It was Team Sky. It was the British team and they went to.

Anna Knight: I think, their 1st year. They came second in the Tour de France. In their second year they won the Tour de France. Wow! And this was in the era of doping and cycling. So everyone was going.

Anna Knight: Oh, they're doping! They must be doping.

Anna Knight: But what Dave Brailsford, who was the the head of the team, said, We don't dope. We were very strictly anti-doping. What we did is we broke down every single part of the process of winning a cycle race, and we improved it by 1%.

Anna Knight: We made our suits 1% more aerodynamic. We made our drinks handoffs 1% quicker. We made our bikes 1% lighter. We made our helmets 1% safer. We took everything. We made our cyclists, 1% more psychologically robust, 1%, 1%, 1%. And when you aggregate them all together, you get a winning team.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, yeah, just those tiny glimmers of hope, those little steps. Huge things. Yeah, yeah.

Anna Knight: So even when you're at Nope.

Anna Knight: 1st of all, going. Oh, it's okay. I'm like, Nope, cool. I can let myself do this. And then listening to that little? What if voice of your head of going? What if it was just 1% better? What would that look like?

Anna Knight: Okay, I can do that. I could.

Jenn Wilson: Could do.

Anna Knight: 1%.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, I can make myself a cup of tea. I can't get that far, you know.

Anna Knight: Socks on like whatever that 1% is for you. On my partner's regulation plan that he's just written. One of the steps is bupa cat.

Anna Knight: We have 3.

Anna Knight: That's the same.

Anna Knight: Might join us at some point, but Booper Cat is one of the steps because it makes him laugh.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, gets him 1% happier, awesome. That is so simple.

Anna Knight: And yeah, has such a profound effect when you add it to the other steps on that plan.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Jenn Wilson: And also when you make them make them manifest, I'm going to say, not manifestation, because I'm not a big fan of manifesting, although I you know, not dissing anyone's thing. I just know that there's some people who are a bit

Jenn Wilson: you know. It's that 12 week promise that you were describing. Oh, just wish yourself wealthy, you know, kind of thing, but making it. Noticing is what I call it

Jenn Wilson: in my my practice. The noticing of the fact that when you boop a cat you just feel a little smile inside, and then it magnifies it because you've noticed it. You don't just boop the cat and feel better. You beep the cat and feel better, and notice you feel better. So you feel better because of that. As well. Yeah, yeah.

Anna Knight: Yeah.

Jenn Wilson: Brilliant.

Anna Knight: And I love the word manifest. I'm a real word, Sturge. My former career was speech therapist. I love a good linguistic thing because it also, like people who talk about manifestation in the oh, wish it into being thing. Forget that for something to be manifest it has to be real. It has to be done.

Anna Knight: And psychologists talk about the psychology of hope.

Anna Knight: We think of hope as an emotion. We think of it as some wishy feeling inside. Hope's actually a psychological process. It's got 3 really clear steps to it. So if you want to feel hopeful, you have to know where you're going, you have to be able to kind of imagine something better than this.

Anna Knight: You have to have pathway thinking, which is a fancy word for creativity to accept that whatever path you take to that eventual aim is fine. It could be booping a cat, it could be putting socks on. It could be sitting in the sun, whatever that is.

Anna Knight: and then you have to do something. You have to act.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: That is so important. And that's where what so many of the people that I work with have in common is that their hope leads them to action.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: They're still there. They're still doing the work they're still

Anna Knight: to use your words being a regular to. They're still making change, that

Anna Knight: they're doing it, and it is tough out there like

Anna Knight: there's no denying the world is kind of on fire at the moment.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: And so it brings me so much joy supporting the people who are

Anna Knight: demonstrating that stubborn hope who are going? Yeah, I'm doing it. I'm here, but God, I could use a helping hand.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it is. And and I love the word done. And that expression I've I've heard a lot. And

Jenn Wilson: entrepreneur circle which is

Jenn Wilson: done is better than perfection, you know, like you're done is I booped the cat, you know, and.

Anna Knight: Yeah.

Jenn Wilson: Step, tiny step, one tiny step 2, you know, it doesn't have to be much. But it's actually doing something, just something. Yeah.

Anna Knight: Hmm.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: Yeah, I describe a lot of the activism that I do as imperfect activism.

Anna Knight: I'm never going to be a perfect activist, because I partly don't think that exists.

Jenn Wilson: But if I yeah.

Anna Knight: If I held myself to the idea of activism's only worth doing, if I do it perfectly, I'd never do it.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: You'd need to be imperfect. You need to give yourself that permission to

Anna Knight: to say I'm I'm doing it with what I've got today.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: That's it's 1 of the central pillars of the work I do. My brand is called the Audacious, and because I want to leave people space for the imperfection. So I mobilize people to a petition today.

Anna Knight: and I snapped at my partner because I got really dysregulated.

Anna Knight: I put out some beautiful social media graphics about the thing that I'm doing and haven't done the dishes today.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: Like allowing ourselves to be contradictory, is so important to me.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, very much. So, yeah, absolutely. And I I sometimes call that tiny act of rebellion. And you know, and in being a regular it is.

Jenn Wilson: I was I was doing my

Jenn Wilson: mission. Irregular sort of series of little free series of prompts for people. And I asked someone

Jenn Wilson: what their tiny act of rebellion was going to be, and this was a man shaped person. I don't know if they're a man, or if they're non-binary, or what? But and they work in a really Bro office, you know, full of.

Jenn Wilson: Full of blokes who are blokey and

Jenn Wilson: they are bisexual, this person. And he said, I am going to talk about mental health at work, because talking about bisexuality at work was way too huge and scary and coming out, and all of the things that would happen in that particular work. Culture was just way too big a step, you know. That was what he wanted to do was be the authentic person that he is in his Workspace, but that was too big.

Jenn Wilson: and he'd been giving himself a hard time about that, you know, about not being fully himself like me. And you going? Yeah, we've dyed our hair, and we're really weird. And we love it, you know, like, it can be a bit intimidating, almost that, you know, if you're.

Anna Knight: Yeah.

Jenn Wilson: There on that journey. But his was, I'm just going to talk about mental health at work. And that was just a really meaningful step forward, a really meaningful

Jenn Wilson: type, you know, small act of rebellion in his context. That will. That is this thing about shaping the world around our weirdness, shaping the world around our irregular, wibbly, wobbly ways of of being.

Jenn Wilson: So. Yeah, yeah.

Anna Knight: I love that gem because I think

Anna Knight: people think of unmasking, of authenticity, of whatever it is, as having to go like

Anna Knight: full, full throttle at it.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: And I want to make it really clear that my journey was not. I got 12 weeks of coaching. And suddenly was this like pink haired vision in the world like

Anna Knight: I. I dyed my hair a slightly purple tinted brown first, st and then I got it

Anna Knight: cut in an undercut, and then I came out as bisexual, but didn't deal with the rest of it, and then I came out I talked about my disabilities more openly, and then I started talking about asexuality. And then I started talking about my neurodiversity. And I've only actually come out about my gender confusion of whatever.

Jenn Wilson: And.

Anna Knight: Like, I've only been able to call myself non-binary in the last 3 or 4 months openly. Yeah.

Anna Knight: it's an unfolding and unpeeling. You're not doing authenticity wrong. If you're not a hundred percent naked on the streets

Anna Knight: doing it right. If you're 1% more, you.

Jenn Wilson: Yes, that is scary.

Jenn Wilson: it is scary, it is scary and and like, and also, you know, we you don't have to be dying. Your hair bright colours to be you. That's not you, you know, like, I think, that a lot of us. I'm really conscious of that, that. You know. I'm out here being irregular and visibly irregular.

Jenn Wilson: But but you know, for some people their irregularity looks really different to mine. You know, their irregularity is standing up for something that they believe in. It's not at all about anything that they look like or anything like that. It's, you know, it's being able to

Jenn Wilson: say no to a family member, or

Jenn Wilson: hold the boundary a bit better, or

Jenn Wilson: choose to eat differently, or you know it's all kinds of things, isn't it?

Anna Knight: Forgive themselves for not having done the dishes.

Anna Knight: Yeah, that's 1 of my

Anna Knight: clients. Talk to me a lot about their. They're bad because their house is a mess. Housework doesn't have a moral value like that. That is something that we made up that you're good. If you have a tidy house, and bad like that's ableist. That's oh, yeah.

Anna Knight: but it's about knowing who you are like. I have hot pink hair. My partner has his natural hair, and yet he is just as

Anna Knight: irregular, authentic

Anna Knight: as me, but he does it in him. I dress in bright colors. If he's got a color that isn't black on it's gray like.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Jenn Wilson: And and that bit of the of the work of this, you know. Oh, there's that old cliche healing isn't linear. And like you, said the layers of it, you know again. Similarly, you know, it's been layers and layers for me, and I'm in my fifties.

Jenn Wilson: and I think I finally realized that although I think I'm pretty much

Jenn Wilson: living inside my own truth and reality

Jenn Wilson: most of the time now, unless you know, and if I don't. It's because I'm aware, you know, I'm in where and intentional of going right? I'm going to dress a different way today, because I actually want to present this sort of thing to these sorts of people, and it's worth playing a role today to do that. Well, I'm a performing artist as well. So I literally do that, you know, dress up in dragon, wild costumes and things, but but I also am aware that I sometimes

Jenn Wilson: like consciously adopt a mask for a particular.

Jenn Wilson: because if I was my most out there, me and I'm trying to persuade someone of something important.

Jenn Wilson: I mean, I suppose, for example, one arena where I will sometimes

Jenn Wilson: absolutely adopt my gender queerness and other times

Jenn Wilson: not do is when I'm talking about trans identities, because actually, you know, with someone. I think a lot of people in in

Jenn Wilson: a lot of people who push back against trans rights from a feminist point of view aren't turfs and aren't gender critical people. They're just women who are older, who've been feminist for a long time, and who don't really understand and don't really know what to do, and they've got questions

Jenn Wilson: and sometimes meeting them where they are in a slightly more

Jenn Wilson: gentle femme kind of presentation and going. Yeah, I know I've I've been a feminist my whole life, too.

Jenn Wilson: and letting them use she her pronouns, and not not telling them I'm a they them and that sort of thing is, it is a form of of

Jenn Wilson: inauthenticity. But it's not because I'm consciously choosing to do that and go.

Anna Knight: Oh!

Jenn Wilson: I'll meet you where where you are, and and then, you know, once they've got to know me. Go, actually my pronouns, are they them. And then, Oh, yeah, you know, like, and they can come on the journey with you if you can just meet them a little bit in that direction. Do you find that sometimes.

Anna Knight: I mean I am. I'm a fairly firm presenting non binary person, anyway, so

Anna Knight: like that I am generally in dresses or dungarees like I'm pink and girly.

Anna Knight: and I'm non-binary, and I think, living that like not having to.

Anna Knight: When I came out I think there was a lot of pressure to look non-binary from internally as well.

Jenn Wilson: Yes, absolutely. And it's.

Anna Knight: Taken me a lot of work to go. Actually, I can be non-binary and still have pink hair and a dress, and like makeup.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: Because it's just an internal felt thing.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: But yes, definitely meeting people where they are meeting them with love. I remember I did a training for an independent advocacy group in Newcastle about a year ago, and it was on trans rights, and I didn't know what I was walking into. I was going in completely blind. I'd just been asked to do this.

Jenn Wilson: And.

Anna Knight: And was met with some younger people, some older people, and was going, okay. This is a mixed crowd.

Jenn Wilson: Hmm.

Anna Knight: And the 1st thing that I did was like this is a space where you can ask

Anna Knight: what you think of the stupid questions, the ignorant questions. You don't have to worry how you word it with me, because for this hour I'm not going to take offense.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: I'm just gonna let you say what you need to say.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: By the end of that hour I'd been asked

Anna Knight: all kinds of things, some about trans rights and trans identities, and some about they'd obviously gone. This person is safe. Tell us about asexuality. What does that mean like.

Jenn Wilson: But by the end of it all of them were saying, Oh, my God, thank you! We needed someone who would.

Anna Knight: Meet us where we were.

Anna Knight: My my parents are a great example of this.

Anna Knight: When I was a teenager, my parents, particularly my dad.

Anna Knight: were very homophobic, outwardly homophobic. That's why I didn't come out as a teenager, because Sunday mornings in my house where the

Anna Knight: the debate shows about current issues, and with the age that I was. It was the the end of section 28. It was

Anna Knight: civil partnerships coming into law. It was all those things. So as a child I was not just witnessing, but I was brought into. I was part of those debates about. Should gay people be allowed to marry, and I was very strongly. Yes, but my dad was very strongly. No.

Anna Knight: that's the household. I grew up in.

Anna Knight: When I came out at 30, my parents

Anna Knight: have admitted they found it hard. They still loved me, they

Anna Knight: they still wanted me as their child, but that was an adjustment period for them. When I started dating my current partner, he was

Anna Knight: in his woman disguise, as we call it. He was pre-transition, so they to them. I was entering into a lesbian relationship that was really difficult for them.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: When Mel came out as trans. He he's known his whole life practically. He came out 2 years ago now.

Jenn Wilson: Hmm.

Anna Knight: And the big reason that he hadn't come out earlier was because we didn't know what my parents were going to say.

Anna Knight: and he didn't want to damage the good relationship he'd built with them.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, yeah.

Anna Knight: The thing that helped him come out was actually one of my nephews, Kieran, who I absolutely adore

Anna Knight: at a family Christmas, showing him a showing Mel a.

Anna Knight: A present he bought for a friend, which was a

Anna Knight: a trans. Frog. I can't remember how this frog was trans now, but it was.

Anna Knight: and it it gave Mel that bit of courage that there would be someone in the family, someone who was loudly on his side.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: When he came out to my parents they were like, Oh.

Anna Knight: kind of makes sense. Yeah, cool.

Anna Knight: Do they get his pronouns right every time. No, they do not, but they are trying.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: Are they now loudly angry about the recent ruling about trans bathrooms? Yes, they are.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, yeah.

Anna Knight: The last time I was downstaying with them

Anna Knight: I was talking to my mom about trans rights. And my mom, who is 75, currently

Anna Knight: started talking about. Oh, you know I've never felt like

Anna Knight: I fit in with other women, and I know I'm not a man.

Anna Knight: but I've never. I've never got woman. I've never done woman like I I've always felt like I'm doing woman wrong.

Anna Knight: And that was when I came out to my mom. I was like, well, yeah, me, too. And I call that non-binary.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, yeah.

Anna Knight: And you could see this dawning light. And my mom was like, Okay.

Anna Knight: not going to do anything with this. But.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah. But I recognize that.

Anna Knight: That's an option. Okay? Okay.

Jenn Wilson: Hmm.

Anna Knight: If I'd have held them to the standard of the things that they said in my teens.

Anna Knight: not only would I be closing myself off to the great relationship I have with my parents. Now

Anna Knight: I'd have been closing them off to a whole lot of personal growths.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, yeah.

Anna Knight: They've had similar realizations like they now wear their neurodivergence fairly openly.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: My mom more than my dad.

Anna Knight: They've explored their own health needs. They've explored how to look after themselves better. They've explored boundaries like

Anna Knight: in the mid to late seventies.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. And there's this whole thing, isn't there, that people are too old. It's their age. They're never going to learn. But actually, I don't think we ever stop learning. I can't think of the quote, but I'm pretty sure there's a David Attenborough quote somewhere who's in his, you know. He's 99 now about, you know, always continually learning, and and that thing of this

Jenn Wilson: unlayering, and the and the and the challenge of that self-discovery, and that there are days when it's really hard, because.

Jenn Wilson: You're breaking moulds, you're breaking barriers. You're doing this tiny act of personal rebellion just existing just.

Anna Knight: Yeah.

Jenn Wilson: Through the world, and you know, and we can end up sort of

Jenn Wilson: being us against the world if we're not careful, can't we? You know, and putting up protective shells, not masks anymore, but but protective shells of just being with people who who are just like us, and never kind of putting ourselves in the discomfort of meeting other people where they are. But for me, that's absolutely the essence of what makes makes you and me irregular is that.

Jenn Wilson: Trying to shape the world around us by by

Jenn Wilson: meeting people in this middle ground and reaching for that, and reaching for that space where we can find an understanding. Even if we don't completely align, we can find a way to be together.

Anna Knight: I. There's an activist, and I can never remember his name. It really bugs me

Anna Knight: but he really inspires me. He's a black man in the South of America who goes and befriends members of the clown.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: And he does it by just being friendly at them.

Jenn Wilson: And.

Anna Knight: And he has in his home a collection of the robes of all the people who've left the clan just because he met them where they are. He didn't go in guns blazing. How dare you? You're disgusting people! He just went in and talked to them about their lives and their kids and his life and his kid. He!

Anna Knight: You! There's a theory that you can't empathize with someone. If you don't see them as part of your community.

Anna Knight: There is amazing kinship in being around people who are like you don't get me wrong. All my friends are spicy.

Jenn Wilson: Those spaces feel safe and they're important. They're so important.

Anna Knight: Yeah.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: But if you can insert yourself into being in community with people who aren't like you.

Anna Knight: they're so much more likely to empathize with you. There's a you shouldn't need

Anna Knight: a daughter to care about. Women's rights is said a lot.

Jenn Wilson: Okay.

Anna Knight: But how many

Anna Knight: men out there have had their opinion on women's rights changed by listening to their wife, their daughter, their niece, their female coworker because they're part of their community.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Anna Knight: And so that is why I am open about all my ands about being disabled and neurodivergent and queer and gender wonky, and

Anna Knight: a nerd and a cat, mama, like all those things to show that I'm a rounded person. I'm not scary. I'm not gonna

Anna Knight: attack anyone in a bathroom like I am just

Anna Knight: Anna out here in the world, and if you can see me as part of your community.

Anna Knight: then you'll be able to extend that to other gender diverse people, you'll be able to extend it to other LGBT people, other disabled people, other neurodivergent people. Because I don't look like a cookie cutter. One of any of those things, because I'm just an Anna.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah. Yeah.

Jenn Wilson: Oh, brilliant Anna, I think that's a fantastic place to say, thank you. And close this wonderful irregular humans conversation that we've had today. It's always a pleasure to talk to you and to hear about your amazing work. I will share your links and stuff in the show notes. But is there anything that you want to just say about where people can find you, and what you can do.

Anna Knight: Yes, so I am the audacious, and on all social media platforms. I would love it if you come and join me here and talk about self-love and embracing all your ands. And I have a membership launching soon, and that will be resilient skills for the stubbornly hopeful. So if you're out there doing the work going. Oh, my God, it's exhausting, and want a little bit of a boost every month. Come, find me, and let's chat.

Jenn Wilson: Fantastic, and I'll look forward to finding out more about your membership myself, too, so brilliant. We'll share all that in the show notes, Anna Knight. Thank you very much for being on the irregular humans podcast with me today.

Anna Knight: Thank you for having me.