this talk: is about rejection and the route to empowerment - with Leila Davis
The first time I was aware that I was struggling with mental health, I was fifteen. I kept facing rejection, from friends, family and love interests. I always felt like I was lacking like-ability, I felt like I lacked qualities deserving of love and adoration. I saw so many others with the romantic love I desired. I always knew I was talented, hard-working, intelligent and worthy; I just couldn’t see why I wasn’t desirable to the people I wanted close. This created self-esteem instability, which drove me to feel extremely depressed in my late teens. Aged nineteen, I had come out of a year-long on and off relationship with someone I felt I was deeply in love with. My depression reached an all-time low. During my recovery from this post break up reactional depression, I was having regular therapy. This therapy was helping me to restructure my thoughts and see the inadequacies in the people I felt rejected by. It helped me to reframe how I felt about rejection and to develop healthy coping mechanisms.
One day my friend showed me a documentary about women deemed to have “non-conventional” body types pole dancing as a form of empowerment. Then and there I said, “I am going to try this”. The following week, a week after I turned nineteen, I took myself to my first pole dance beginners’ class in the middle of nowhere. I was nervous at first and did not know what to expect, but quickly that nervousness dissipated because I realised that we were all in the same position and what’s the worst that could happen? I loved the class, my body did things I had never dreamed of. I was so proud of myself, so in awe and in love with myself, I felt impenetrable. Almost a year into my pole journey, I took an instructor training course because I wanted to make people feel as special as I did in my first classes. After passing my course I started university and immediately joined the pole society. I spent the entirety of my degree performing in showcases and competing for national and regional titles which me and my team won.
I experienced a lot of trauma and loss during my final year at university, I really struggled but pole dancing held me down. Whenever I entered the studio, I was unstoppable, I was reminded that I was strong, capable, awe-inspiring and deserving. Whenever I felt down or worried, I knew one pole session would improve my mood and be an outlet for my anger, sadness, and pain. The added benefit of physical fitness also helped. I think through taking the time to pole and spending time with other pole dancers who had my back was one of the biggest factors that helped me to uphold positive mental health.
I currently teach at Kelechnekoff studio in Peckham whilst being a professional pole dancer who performs regionally at different events and is hoping to start competing again in the next year.
I think for a lot of pole dancers, myself included, there is something so anxiety-inducing about the fear of rejection from judges during competitions. Especially for me as a black woman in a white-dominated industry where black performers are often mistreated and overlooked, I especially feel it. I must keep reminding myself that I am not doing it for them. I don’t need to care about their rejection, because I know I am excellent, and no rejection will erode that. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The more people see me perform; the more people will know my story.
I do think that there is a problem surrounding mental wellbeing in the pole industry. I think a lot of that comes from feelings of inadequacy which lead pole dancers to have low self-esteem. There is a façade that people are doing well and not struggling to keep up with one another. With the popularisation of difficult strength-based and flexibility-based moves and sequences, comes the expectation for us all to be that strong and flexible, and we equate this to how good we are, feeling inadequate when we cannot do certain things in a certain way. On the one hand, this can boost self-esteem and confidence, positively impacting mental health when people achieve things that are hyped. On the other hand, when people are unable to do things that are so popularised it can lead to self-doubt, feelings of defeat and low self-esteem. It shouldn’t be like that, our self-worth as pole dancers should not be derived from this. Every pole dancer who is trying their best out there is worthy, it doesn’t matter how strong or flexible you are, how many titles you have, how fat or thin you are, your gender, your height, etc. you are, and always will be, worthy of adoration as long as you’re doing what you’re doing. I think we need to stop basing our worth as polers on moves others are capable of and start basing it on our personal growth and mental states. We need to look after ourselves.
None of this is to say that I don’t still occasionally struggle with feelings of rejection, depression, anxiety and low self-esteem linked to inadequacy, because I do. The road to positive mental health is not linear, what is important is the tools we put in place to protect ourselves and to manage these feelings, so we do not spiral. I have re-started therapy, reading black feminist literature, tried not to compare myself to others, tried to open up more to my friends about how I feel because they can offer advice from a place of proximity that therapists do not have. I do these things combined with regularly pole dancing for myself. These have been my tools for maintaining positive mental health.