We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jojo Diggs. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jojo below.

Jojo, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Have you ever experienced a times when your entire field felt like it was taking a U-Turn?

In 2017, at the forefront of the Black Lives Matter movement, I started speaking these words in an effort to “support.” I loved House, Hip Hop and many facets that had been created by Black people. “My best friend was Black.”

It wasn’t until 2019 when an anti-racist educator informed me that I could love Black music, Black dance forms, Black culture and yet *still* be racist. When they said those words I closed my eyes and clutched my metaphorical pearls. I was honestly shocked and heart broken in that moment. How could I be? After a sleepness night I spent the next 6 months diving into books, articles, videos, and workshops.

Enter the “Great White Awakening” of 2020. It seemed like every white person was waking up or being held accountable if they weren’t. There were lots of conversations and even more “IG Lives” as we all sat at home and prayed for Covid to pass. Listening to an IG Live I heard a woman say that all guests teaching Black art forms was, on some level, creating erasure. My heart dropped. I was known as the “House Dance Queen.” (In hindsight I realize this was inappropriate, but that’s what they called me.)

From that moment on the idea of teaching in Black culture as a white person became very uncomfortable for me. It wasn’t that anyone ever said to me that I couldn’t, but it just didn’t feel the same. As these art forms were filled with teachers white-washing the style and delivery, we had taken up so much space that we would never know what jobs we were taking from more marginalized people. We had defined what was “clean” and “professional” with a waterdowned style that centered popularity.

But I had taken up a lot of space. I had taught all over the world, I had held a freestyle event all over the country that hit nearly 350 events in 6 years. I made a lot of mistakes. Yes, I had worked to honor the culture, but no matter what, I grew up white, and would always be a guest in Black culture.

I really reflected on the fact I would never know whose opportunity I could be taking. I hope and I think a lot of white teachers looked during this Black square U-Turn. I also started doing “reverse interviews” (coined by Jade ‘Soul’ Zuberi) wherein if a company reached out to me I would interview them back; my starting question was “since you are profiting off Black culture, what action steps have you taken to uplift Black people?”

As time went on my inbox got quieter, and quieter.

I would like to think that there’s a handful of people who U-turned in how they participate as guests. And while I think not everyone followed through on this knowing, they can’t un-know it, and perhaps one day will be ready to live in alignment with that integrity.

That said, I don’t think everyone non-Black person needs to give up teaching, but I think a certain responsibility and awareness has to be taken on, an appreciation. I unfortunately don’t think most of us were aware of this at all before 2020. Fortunately, some are aware that weren’t before, just not enough. Lots of small steps, I guess. I think that’s how we’ll get there. But, what do I know?

Jojo, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

In 2002, 22 years old and after a decade of drinking, I quit and started dancing. Yes, started. In 2006 I started studying psychosomatic connections. In 2011 I started ego work. In 2017 I started anti-racism work. In 2019 I started my own healing of unpacking my biases. As I went back into healing spaces they all seemed incomplete.

How can holistic healing exclude the body? How on earth can it exclude the impacts of colonization? How will we truly heal if we can’t understand these interconnections?

So, like all Virgos I said “I’ll create it myself.” And I did. I started my coaching business and it soared in its first year and has continued.

I think what I do is truly holistic. I think the most important thing I do is alter their inner dialogue.

We say over and over in my courses that there’s nowhere to arrive to in our healing. We release the shame and fixing as a motive for our inner work and return to knowing we are already divine.

All that to say – the process is the outcome.

People leave my courses processing differently.

That is a skill people can carry for the rest of their lives into their relationships, conversations, dancing, and even their self-talk.

My business name is “Into The Heartspace.” Getting out of my head has been my life’s work. I think we are all trying to predict and prepare based on our subjective experience. In this we compete and compare. It’s exhausting.

We’re all so, so ran by trying to be “good.”

But we just are.

It is safe to be in our bodies. I want everyone to know this.

And it is my daily practice and remembering, as well.

I hold online and in person community courses for both communication and movement. My work is effective. It’s for those who are ready to let go of the delusion, take responsibility, and live fully alive.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Every great success I had stemmed from just doing something I loved. I am a Virgo, a planner, a military brat, and a mom who was a teacher. Every step of the way I learned how to plan.

But the biggest gifts from Spirit were always rooted in me doing a passion project, filming something for “no reason” – things like that.

I moved to California to dance. I had no plan. I had no plans to be a famous dancer or teacher. I just wanted to dance. I was homeless for nearly 9 months. I slept in my car, in the park, at friends houses. I often bathed in the sink at the grocery store. No one knew. I just didn’t care. I just wanted to dance.

A friend landed me a teaching workshop. The organizer exclaimed that she thought I was amazing and wanted to bring me to Spain for 3 months. “Yea right, I thought to myself.”

Months later, sleeping on the floor I got a phone call. I was going to Spain. Long story short, from that opportunity I did everything in my power to take advantage of being in Europe to make it look like I was getting booked all over the world. I paid for all my flights and lost a lot of money.

But, it worked.

I started booking jobs teaching all over the world.

It came from believing in myself. But the only way I made it there was from surrendering to my passion.

I’m really glad I did.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A hard lesson I’ve learned is to distinguish between empathy and enabling.

I never wanted to be like the people that hurt me so I always gave another chance, and another one…. and another one. But this exhausted me mentally, emotionally, financially, and sexually.

Because I am so deeply understanding, these two distinctions confused me for a long time.

Now this compassion allows me to understand and also let go. It is safe for me to disappoint others. It is safe for me to be villainized. It is safe for me to move through my journey and make mistakes.

It is safe for me understand that people aren’t always hurt more by letting go; sometimes they are hurt more by not honoring your truth.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.intotheheartspace.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jojodiggs
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/jojo-diggs

Image Credits

n/a