Episode Intro:

Hello there, happy Wednesday and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Female Guides Requested Podcast. I am your host Ting Ting. Today's guest is Jay Louie. Jay uses they/them pronoun. I knew Jay because they approached me for an affinity SPI assessment. Promoting diversity and inclusion in the guiding community has always been important to me and even though I had no experience working with queer folks I decided to give it a try.

I was very impressed by Jay's work ethics. They went to every possible exam crag and built anchors for all the possible lines and climbed them. Of course Jay passed the assessment with flying colors.

Jay is a licensed psychotherapist and has experimented incorporating indoor climbing to promote healing. With the SPI cert, Jay can further take this approach outside in nature. In our conversation, we didn't talk about guiding in the traditional sense, but something broader, something interdisciplinary and creative.I really enjoyed the conversations with Jay because they opened my eyes to different perspectives and new possibilities. I won't spoil it here, and sincerely invite you to be on the journey with us.

Jay’s Links:

• Jay’s Instagram @jayplantperson
• Jay’s “anchor job” – Therapist at 3rdculturetherapy.com
• Jay is the President & Co-Founder at Queer Crush – website www.queercrush.org Instagram @queercrushclimbing

Things we talked about:

• Scholarships! Scholarships are important for Jay's past, present, and future. Jay's unique perspective of looking at a scholarship opportunity.
• Being queer, being an immigrant (or say expat), being multilingual ... how identities and past experience shape people's lives and affect their behaviors.
• Mind, body, and more. How climbing is a metaphor of life and how climbing helps healing.
• Integrate climbing with therapy.
• With SPI Jay can further take climbing therapy outdoors.
• How queer community help Jay find and stay in climbing community?
• The ever evolving pronouns.
• How important are affinity groups? You don't know they are important until you find they are important.
• How to gain trust? Be humble. Ask questions. Malleable assumptions
• And more ...

https://femaleguidesrequested.com/podcast/ep-10-jay-louie-climb-to-heal/