Possibly the episode I was most excited to record, and the one that has been the most personal and close to home for me! Amber was my yoga/pilates teacher for many years when I lived in downtown Toronto - I was at her studio for 10-15 hours a week at the top of my practice. Her movement style was deeply transformative, and I haven't found a movement teacher who is so magical and gifted before or since. If you were in touch with the yoga/pilates/dance scene in Toronto in the mid 2010's, you'll have heard of Misfit Studio and Amber Joliat. Many studios who came after hers, were deeply influenced by her style of movement, as well as the aesthetic of her studios.
During the mass "reckoning" of summer 2020, Amber was the target of much hate and vitriol, and ended up effectively "cancelled" by her own movement community of teachers and students. In this episode, we get into the deep dark depths of what happened, why it happened, and what we can all take from what all happened back then.
What happens when a successful, unique community later is scapegoated? What happens when someone is publicly shamed and ousted, despite not deserving it? What happens when someone's story is - ignorantly - rewritten for them? How can we heal when we lose everything - friends, family, business, opportunities, and our hometown?
We also talk about the nitty gritty of scaling a business, the balance of keeping our own hand in our own creation as we grow; we also get into the unique betrayal of sisterhood in wellness spaces, including the verbal and visceral mob violence unique to groups of women. It's so much easier to destroy someone, than create something of your own.