[00:00:00] Ellington Brown: Welcome to SpeakUP! International with Rita Burke and Elton Brown! 

[00:00:08] Rita Burke: Yesterday we had our conversation with someone from Chicago, and today we've traveled to New York. That's why we are called SpeakUP! International. Today we'll be talking with Fannie Tristan, who is a trauma therapist and singles coach.

She's the daughter of Afro Peruvian immigrants and also a retreat leader. Fannie's work explores the intersection of love. Identity and the untapped opportunities that Singlehood provides. There's so much more that I wanna say about Fannie Tristan, but for now I'm gonna leave it there so she can tell her own story because it makes it much more authentic.

So Fannie Tristan, welcome to SpeakUP! International! 

[00:01:06] Fanny Tristan: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. That's such a wonderful introduction! 

[00:01:12] Ellington Brown: I'm really happy that you're here as well. It took us a hop and a skip, but we made it so that's really good. So what inspired you to, take this journey as a trauma therapist and empowerment coach for women of colour?

[00:01:30] Fanny Tristan: Yeah. So both of my business's restorative space, which is my therapy practice and her soul supply, which is my coaching practice for single black and brown women. I. Those stories are very intertwined. And so my foundations are really in social work, clinical social work. I've been in the field working as a social worker and mental health provider for a little over 15 years now.

It's, I have my bachelor's in social work, my master's in social work and quickly went into community mental health and family work in New York City. And so I've always loved working with women and their families and I always loved learning about systems, the systems in which people live in and, are structured in and how they sometimes have to survive them.

And I think that really spoke to just my upbringing, right? Being someone who. Has felt very marginalized because I am black and Latina, right? And so that has come with its own marginalizations around what it's to be Latin and what it means to be black. Growing up an immigrant feeling like you are not part of the molt in a way.

And also growing up with a parent who really struggles with mental illness themselves. Trauma is something that really isolates a child from the world sometimes from their family. And so I think I've always grown up feeling like I've been on a margin on the margins of communities and societies.

And I think one of the benefits of that is being able to see very clearly what the systems are that are in place, right? Because I was forced to have to understand why. I was not part of something or why I felt like I was an exception to something, right? And so I've always had the ability to really analyze that.

It taught me about the value of code switching and understanding that at an early age and understanding that's actually currency social currency, and. So these were I'm growing up in the world, understanding it as I see it developmentally as a child, but also in a way where I was thinking about it very critically and I think social work was a field where I was allowed to really explore those things and understand them in a much more clinical way, in a way that is just more, more based in, in.

The history of humanity because that is really the study of social work, right? It is the study of humanity and people and connection and community. From child welfare work to mental health to social services, to crisis management, right? Social work has a lot of things, and it's all about understanding human behavior in society.

And so that really spoke to me from a very early age and realizing, that I wanted to really work in mental health and psychiatry. And so by 2020 I had started my own private practice. And so in restorative space, I focused my work with eldest daughters at the intersection of trauma. So I do a specific trauma therapy with them and really focus on a lot of the big themes that impact.

Firstborn daughters or eldest daughters and family that often have to do with being very parentified or experiencing the brunt of some childhood trauma, the relationships between their siblings, perfectionism, control, and a lot of those things. And I realized that even though I was loving my work and it's still work that I do today, that I noticed that there was a pattern, there was a pattern of women coming into my practice.

They believed that their issue that they needed therapy for is the fact that they were single. That they were still single, either they had never really had a successful relationship or had gone through a divorce or a really bad breakup and feeling really lost about their lives and not knowing where to go, and just this overall sentiment that there's something wrong with me for being single, or why I couldn't make something happen to me successfully or why I'm not.

Following the plan that I had set for myself.

[00:05:51] Rita Burke: You mentioned the fact that some of the women who come to you may think or perceive that there's something wrong with them for being single. How would you help them?

How do you help them grapple with that? Something that may be wrong? 

[00:06:11] Fanny Tristan: I think that's what I was I'm speaking to, is that they were coming into my practice feeling this way. And as someone who has felt the way that they have, because I, didn't date until later in my life and had a lot of kind of self-esteem issues.

And I really related to a lot of the women that were coming in with this problem and. As someone who's been on the other side I'm now married, I have a 6-year-old daughter. I also knew that my Singlehood period was incredibly crucial in having curated the life that I have today and really being intentional about building the type of community that I needed.

Building a lot of the, the things about myself that just were really lacking around my confidence, around my self-acceptance around really finding who I was as an adult, as a person that didn't actually have any reflection to bigger systems, like what my family wanted for me, or the patriarchy or, just what society expects of women, right?

And finding that version of me and being able to actually live that version of me. Helped me gravitate towards the people that are actually my people. And those people ended up becoming my bigger family and community that I feel a strong foundation with today. And so I knew that is something that I wanted to offer the women that were coming into my practice, and some women did have some trauma work to do and we did some really wonderful work together, but I also knew.

That they needed community, that they needed to travel, that they needed to be with each other in realizing that they are not alone in this experience. And then ultimately, there is actually nothing wrong with you for being single woman, and I don't wanna diagnose you as that, right? And so that's really what Birded personal Supply, which is my coaching platform.

Where I'm able to do all the things that felt limited in my therapy practice, which is a very medical model that I have to diagnose, that I am treating. But the coaching platform at Hersal Supply, I am giving single women tools, education, communic community with each other so that they can grow into the type of women that they want to be.

To actually find and accept the things that they want in their lives no matter what it is. And so it's not a dating platform. I'm not telling you know what to do or what to desire in your life, but I am teaching women to challenge the status quo a little bit, doing some of that internal work, learning some skills about doing some of that external work with others, like learning how to communicate, learning healthy versus unhealthy relationship patterns.

A lot of things that I do in my work. And then being able to grow with each other and be able to do things like in-person events or even travel retreats like I've done last year to really help women kickstart, building a life that actually feels theirs and accepting whatever comes along the way.

[00:09:07] Ellington Brown: Sounds good to me! You and I definitely have a common denominator. My mom is black, my father is from San Salvador, so I too come from this. It was very difficult for me to say, okay, where do I belong?

I'm with these people that are black and they have their way of doing things, but yet still, when I go visit my father's people, it's a whole different ballgame. 'cause they're totally a hundred percent Latin. Latin period. And so to have to figure out where do I belong, is. It is a challenge. It is definitely a challenge.

So I can see how just on that level alone, how it may be difficult for individuals to find their place in life so that they are happy. So can you share a pivotal moment in your life that led you to reframe singlehood as, season of power and growth. 

[00:10:17] Fanny Tristan: A moment in time in which I saw it as a moment of growth?

[00:10:21] Ellington Brown: Yes. 

[00:10:23] Fanny Tristan: Yeah. I started off I had been single for a very long time and didn't have my first partner until I was well into college. And I think a lot of the things that I've learned about how to make the best of your single hood journey is a lot of the realizations that I had after my breakup.

I think that looking back at that time where I really forced myself to see a bigger world because I felt like my world was so small. And was even smaller without that person there. And I look back and really think about how it was a blessing that he wanted to let me go.

I wouldn't say that to his face. I think he should keep thinking that he missed out on a great thing. But I. Do believe that I would be a very different version of myself if I kept trying to be a version that I know that he would've wanted. And I had a really hard time accepting that at the time, which is why the heartbreak was so bad, right?

Feeling like I wasn't good enough to be this person's partner. And so I think having engaged back with more of my friends. Engaging more with my inner child, exploring new things, really following my intuition in terms of what can bring me joy and what can be fun. Helped me tap back into a version of myself that I didn't realize I had muted a lot in my relationship because it was all about deferring to his needs.

What made him comfortable? What made him happy. And being the version of me that was gonna optimize the relationship by making him happy. And no real thought about what that meant in reverse, right? And so there was a real power imbalance in the relationship, even if I didn't think there was. And so it was going without that made me realize how much I had changed.

And I didn't ever think of myself as the type of woman that changes in the relationship. And so much of that lesson has gone into why I see the world a certain way, why I look at relationships, the way that I look at them, and what ultimately became the focus when I dated people. 

[00:12:45] Ellington Brown: Do you find that any of the people that you interview , women that you interview, are chameleons. Where they try to more or less change in order to please the person that they are interested in. Because it sounds like you went through that process as well where you were trying to give this space to please your partner and then when that didn't work, it just, it led to additional heartbreak.

Am I incorrect? 

[00:13:17] Fanny Tristan: No you're right. I think that. I think that women are by default program programmed to be chameleons because I think that there's been a social order, a social standard that prioritizes the needs of man and of patriarchy, and women play a role in the upholding of that patriarchy.

And so that means that women have to act a certain way and they have to look a certain way in exchange for the power that you get from patriarchy. And so you see this play out in the way that men treat women in the way that women treat women in the kind of social hierarchy we've created internally, whether it's around race, colour or gender.

And I think that we are primed as women, especially as women of colour, to try to fit a mold to be chosen by a man instead of getting the messaging that we choose and that we are on our own timeline. The timeline that we're given is you better start having babies because once once the family deems, you should start having babies is when you should start having babies.

So when that doesn't happen, you are the problem or your standards are too high or you don't care about the things that you should be caring about and that's irresponsible. Your clock is ticking. And a lot of that is being touted by your own family members. Sometimes reflected in your own friendships where maybe your friends don't necessarily say that to you.

Some of them do. But it's also a reflection of, okay, I keep going to these weddings. Or I keep not being able to keep my friendships because all of my friends are married or having kids, and their entire identity is about that, and they don't care about their friendships anymore, or they've lost their own identity into the identity of motherhood or wife.

Because that is the expectation. That is the role that is expected in patriarchy when it doesn't actually have to be that way. And so I think that we are programmed. To slip into the role that most benefits us in the structure that has been given to us, which is patriarch. 

[00:15:31] Rita Burke: In many ways, in many ways, what I'm hearing is that society's done a number on us and it's really hard to, for us to shift away from that paradigm, from that way of thinking, ultimate and ultimately that way of behaving as women, in particularly as black women.

You said so many things that I that I find particularly fascinating and interesting. But the one thing I want to go back as social currency, when I was growing up, that language wasn't used. Code Switching was new language to me. Talk to us a little bit about the significance and exactly what that means, please.

[00:16:13] Fanny Tristan: Yeah, code switching is the practice of changing the way in which you present in order to be able to get ultimately the, your needs met. This is often talked about in the context of race. Because we know that as people of colour, we are up against certain social norms or what I call tools of white supremacy, right?

That provide us access if we are able to pass the test, quote unquote. And so one of those tests is the way that you dress, the way that you speak your temperament. The things that are worth speaking up about, right? And so when you do all those things in this correct way that makes white folks feel comfortable, then you get more privileges that align with white supremacy.

Which, if that is the dominant culture or what is valued as the most valued way to be, right? You don't have to be. In a country that's all white to experience white supremacy because colonialism exists, right? People uphold colonial ideas. I think that we have learned to navigate and survive these systems by understanding how to use these tools in our favor.

So if you are someone who doesn't pass the test whether you don't dress a certain way. Or you don't speak in a way that makes someone think that you are from a similar community or tribe, right? Then your access to certain things gets shut down, right? And so I learned from a very early age that if I I would have friends, I would have friends in school who would invite me to things.

If I was a people pleaser, if I was super nice and I never argued with anybody even if they were doing something that was personally offensive to me knowing very early on that white people do not wanna be called out for their racism or even at a young age, not even knowing that it's racism, right?

Because it's such a norm. And, I grew up because I grew up in this in a very diasporic understanding of blackness in America, right? I'm not traditionally a black American. But I grew up in America as a black woman, and my parents are descendants of enslaved people that went to Peru instead of the U.S., right?

And so that's really the only difference between me and a Black American, and that is why I speak Spanish. But my black American peers growing up in childhood and elementary school time, kids are harsh. They are very ignorant. They don't know better, right? And no one was teaching kids about diaspora, right?

And so I was bullied a lot for not being like them. I was also a quite a heavy child, and that was a low hanging fruit for a lot of kids. And so I was bullied by people that looked like me. And so my response to that was, okay, then I'm gonna go on this bus and take this route home because these kids at least don't pay attention to me in that way.

Or if they do talk to me they're a little friendlier and they don't tease me. And so I learned to want to please. Please them in order to stay comfortable in that environment. And that I think, kicked off a lot of internalized racism for myself. A disconnection from my blackness and internalization of a lot of microaggressions that I didn't realize were eroding my self-esteem and a lot of these things that led me to the type of relationship that ultimately became unhealthy.

Because that's how I thought I was supposed to be treated. And so I think I've gone off on a bit of a tangent, like explaining code switching, but I guess I'm explaining the kind of pros and cons of it, right? Because it is something that exists. It is still currency. Someone goes to court.

They wear their best clothes, right? You wear your tie, you wear something very conservative, right? Because you are trying to switch into this version of you so that the initial impression is this person looks like an upstanding citizen. So I think that we all do it in some way. But it is definitely a way to build social currency and growth.

In order to get your needs met. And so essentially it's a survival tactic for a lot of people of colour. 

[00:21:00] Rita Burke: It's elton's turn to ask a question, but based on something you just said, I need to come back, so forgive me please. Elton, I'm cheating. You talked about internalized racism. Talk to us about what that looks like and feels like and sounds please.

Because a lot of people don't know about that concept, that notion of internalized racism. And we experience it. We do it. Talk to us a little bit about that, please. 

[00:21:30] Fanny Tristan: Oh, yeah. I think that internalized racism is a function of how, you know how white supremacy will use the tool of internalized racism to continue doing its work without actually needing white people. It's almost what's that saying? Like the master's tool, you can't break down the master's house with the master's tools. And so because of anti-blackness.

There is a social norm that there's something inherently wrong with black people, right? It's in how people are prioritized in society, how people's needs are met, how people talk about needs that people have. It's very much embedded in the fabric of how we talk and how we commune with each other.

And so there are overt and covert ways that we receive those messages about being good enough or not, and I think that it is to the effect in which a white person no longer has to tell you're not good enough. You have already accepted the propaganda that you are not good enough. Because of the subliminal ways in which you are receiving that, right?

Whether it's the teacher that continues to keep favoring the white kids or the service provider that pays less attention to you. 'cause they don't wanna service you the way that they serve people that look like them, right? Or someone that is just overtly racist to you, right? It's coming in a lot of different ways.

Media representation, things like that. And a lot of times, especially as you're young, right? You interpret things on the psychological level that makes sense to you as a child, right? And when you're children, things are quite black and white, right? Because that's how we're all raised, right? You do good things, you get rewards, you do bad things, you get a negative consequence, right?

There are good things and bad things. There's the good people and the bad people. There's right and wrong, and so kids internalize. Everything is quite black and white. And so what does that mean? When you grow up in a world where the only people on TV are white people or the only people that seem to succeed in a story in a TV show or a movie are the white people and the black people are service providers or their friends.

And side characters that aren't really developed. So you don't really see yourself reflected in them until you defer to the main character that tends to be white. And now you think of them as the model internally and externally that has absolutely nothing to do with your background or your identity at all.

Not that you can't identify with people that don't look like you, but when that is literally the standard then that does something to the way that you see yourself in the world. So I think a lot of times when the messaging is, being a model minority, right? That's a myth that a lot of people hold onto.

That you have to be, if you are gonna be not white that you need to be this model of a person that is not white, that is going to give you all of your fortune and all of your opportunity. When in reality we know that's not how socioeconomic wealth and growth even work. From a tangible standpoint.

But we will compare each other on that and say they're not succeeding because they're lazy and they're not willing to work hard when we're not really questioning okay, but you've been working hard and you still didn't get that job, or you still didn't get that promotion over this other person, and so what does that really mean?

Things don't necessarily add up, and so we're not necessarily. Really questioning the gray nature of it all right? And so when we think about things like internalized racism, it is the standards that we have maintained from either colonization or white supremacy that force us to compare ourselves to something that we by default think it's better than us.

So we measure ourselves against that, and then we measure other people or peers against that.

[00:25:28] Ellington Brown: I wanna start by talking a little bit about self-hate it goes a lot with what you just said. It's about trying to find that standard and being from a mixed race, it's can be very difficult because you try to fit in with the people that look like you, but.

Some, for some reason, maybe that doesn't work. There's a disconnect. And then of course, on the Latin side, you certainly don't look like them. And so it's whoa, so where am I? I don't belong anywhere and God, I wish I, I was. And then you look at the TV and it's a white person, so then you think, oh.

If I would, if I was white, it would be a whole different ball game. And therefore this is where the code switching falls into place. Okay? So you behave and act one way when you're in front of Caucasians, and difference in terms of black and then versus Latin. So you're trying to be all of these people at once and it's very draining.

So I can see how women. Decide that they need to come to you to like weed all this stuff out so that they can live lives as they see fit. You often talk about decolonizing mindsets. So I wanna know what's that process look like for single women of colour?

[00:27:00] Fanny Tristan: So the concept of decolonizing your singlehood mindset is really about challenging some of the norms that you've accepted as fact about who you are in the world as an attractive being. And that can go for. Honestly, any kind of relationship, right? It doesn't have to be romantic, but it's also the ways in which we navigate friendship.

And so decolonizing single hood is really about challenging how you measure yourself up in the world. And how much of that is based on the male gaze or based on a standard of whiteness that actually has nothing to do with you, but more about the lack of education that people have about women and about women of colour, and women like you.

And how much of your life is dictated by those norms that are either spoken or not spoken that limit your ability to think expansively about yourself and your life. And so that, that can range from being able to really explore your different parts of your identity, right? Your sexual identity what you think about how you manage money.

What you think about who manages money better your ability to be able to change your own circumstances, right? A lot of women are under the impression that partnership is what's going to save them from loneliness is going to save their finances is going to give them the happiness that they are seeking.

I think that ultimately when you speak to a lot of women who are married and are on the other side of that who do try to maintain their identity, who do try to live a happy and fulfilling life, the grass is not always greener, right? A lot of women have to fight to maintain their identities in their marriage because either.

Patriarchy is really poking itself in and they have to work on that in their marriage. Or a lot of women choose to separate from their partners because they are not being seen as the women that they are today. You see this a lot in motherhood where there is this, what they call the invisible load and the kind of gendered injustice in the motherhood process, and how a lot of mothers actually feel incredibly lonely in their experiences.

Even if they do have a partner. And so I think a lot of these things are not one size fits all, and you have to get rid of the idea that a man or a romantic partner is going to settle all of these feelings that you have about yourself.

[00:29:39] Rita Burke: We've talked about a lot of very serious concepts, ideas, thoughts, but I want to segue a little bit into asking a very basic, fundamental question. What brings you joy?

[00:30:01] Fanny Tristan: Good question. What brings me joy? What brings me joy is seeing women who genuinely live out their truth, that feel that they can identify freedom as a word to describe their lives. It brings me a lot of joy because I have my own daughter who I wanna make sure is growing up in a world that is going to be full of women like this.

Who will be able to model to my daughters that your happiness is not on hold for men. That your happiness is not specific to what men think in your family, in your life. And that you don't need to wait to be chosen in order to live your best life. And I think seeing that in the world.

Seeing my daughter pick up on that and that, and having that kind of confidence and being able to raise her in that mindset, it brings me a lot of joy. 

[00:30:58] Ellington Brown: I wanna thank you so much for your in-depth conversation. 

I didn't expect for it to go this far under the water, but it was extremely educational and entirely entertaining. Talking about your personal journey and finding your identity and then mindset and the healing process for women who feel that they are not, good enough. I think that this conversation is something that everyone can relate to men and women, because feelings are feelings and I don't see where they're different just because a woman has them versus a man.

It's just. Who talks about them? Who's gonna be the first person that stands up and say, okay, I've got this problem here. Or, I have this thing whirling in the back of my head and I need to get it cleared out. So I think that in itself makes you an international figure in terms of being able to help anyone get past this so that they're able to live their own truth.

Rita, would you like to add anything to that? 

[00:32:19] Rita Burke: I just wanted to say to Fannie Tristan that I feel like I was at therapy listening to you tell your story. I. Just wish, I don't know how, at what time do we begin to teach our people, our community about decolonizing the mindset, because I think it begins there.

But I certainly appreciate everything you said and how you said it and on SpeakUP! International, we seek to inform, to inspire and to educate. And this certainly was an educating experience and I thank you! 

[00:33:03] Fanny Tristan: Thank you So much. It's been a pleasure! 

[00:33:09] Ellington Brown: Thank you for tuning in to SpeakUP! International. If you wish to contact our guest, Miss Fannie Tristan, please be prepared to submit your name, your email address, and the reason why you wish to contact Ms. Tristan at https://www.hersoulsupply.com/. Ms. Tristan has other social media accounts you can use to contact her that will be listed in the description section on Spotify and other social media platforms. 

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