Allison Holker
speaker
558 appearances
4 recordings
3 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard Feb 2025
Allison Holker’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
you know so i saw my mom's work ethic and dedication to just life well she had nothing she didn't have this house my mom never is my mom's never owned a home my mom's never had you know fancy cars or fancy clothes or bags but she just she wanted to bring as much to the table she could to support us and made us you know make us feel seen
So I think I just lived with two very, very different dynamics of parents being the example to show me that I could travel the world and do all this even if I have nothing. But with hard work and dedication, that's what I really learned from my mom is I could find both worlds and put them together.
Yes. It's interesting being a dancer. I will stand tall on this. Dancers are one of the hardest workers in the industry. We always have to know everything that's going on in the room. We always have to dance through injuries. And we're taught from infancy that you better be grateful for any job you get because your lifespan in dance is very short, if you even make it.
I have danced through so many injuries. I've had cracked ribs, sprained ankles, broken limbs. Like I've had a cracked clavicle that I was still dancing through. And I just had to smile and act like everything was okay. And it does translate into social media and to my life sometimes.
And I thought for a long time, if I just put on a pretty face and act like everything's okay, I can convince myself that it is okay. And I thought... I really did think that was an amazing trait that I had. And in times it worked for me. But I had a huge realization for myself of how hurtful that can be to my own self, physically, mentally, and spiritually.
when really I thought I was like, look at me, I'm a champion dancing through all this. And I am championing my way through social media, acting like every day is perfect. And I've had to sit back for myself and really be like, I wouldn't want that for my daughter. I want her to care for her body. I want her to care for her mental health and her spiritual health.
And if she needs to miss school for a day because she wants to sit at home and cry, I hope she'd tell me. And I could sit there and cry with her. And so through all these different experiences, I always thought and I've told people that my strength is my strength. I stood behind that for years. And there's a lot of strength for saying that I'm not okay. There's a lot of strength to that.
And that's something I am just now learning in my life and trying to gain a little bit of a base behind. And it's still very, very hard for me. I think the thing I struggle with the most in my life is asking for help, let alone admitting that I might need help with something. And I have a lot of support right now of people trying to let me lean on them at the times I need it.
And so I'm grateful for that. But that has been the biggest lesson the last couple of years for me.
Yeah, I had experienced my first time really feeling like I'd been taken advantage of from the other gender. Someone taking advantage of my vulnerability and my joy of life and my energy of wanting to constantly learn. I had some older man really take advantage of the vulnerability
the vulnerability that women go through, especially in the dance community, where we look up to our teachers and we just trust them. And dance can be very physical. It can be very sexual, even at young age. And that was taken advantage of. And it really, it tore me apart for a lot of years because I felt like it was my fault.
I felt like it was my fault because how could it have gotten to that place? I must have done something wrong. And I felt so much shame in who I was. And I was so embarrassed. And to this day, it's one of those things, man, if I would have just spoke out for myself, maybe I could have built myself back up and helped other young girls too to not let that happen. But I felt a lot of shame in myself.
And it was really hard for me to work through that for so many years. And I'm proud of myself now to be able to like kind of own that, that it wasn't me. I was taken advantage of. But I wish it did not happen to anyone. I don't know why people do things like that. But I didn't at that time stick up for myself because I was so vulnerable. And I thought and blamed me for years.
I blamed myself for years. And I'll... For myself, when I had my daughter, I realized that I need to build her up to like if anything ever happened to her, come to someone, come to me, come to someone you feel safe with and say this was wrong. And that shouldn't have ever happened.
And I questioned it for a long time with this book because there's already so many other things that I'm kind of an advocate for and a face of. And I've I've had to deal with so many griefs and bringing something that up was it was a really trying conversation to have with myself if I wanted to put that out there.
Not because I don't want to be honest, but just it's a lot emotionally to put some of that out there. But then I realized that was kind of the beginning of me becoming so independent and strong and realizing that I won't ever let someone take anything else from me ever again.
Yeah. And that was a really powerful moment for us because she didn't know. And I realized until I was writing this book, I had never talked with her about that. And it was really important for me to share with her what my experience was and that I do not believe for myself that I handled it the right way. And I don't believe that I should have ever felt so much shame for myself.
But it was a real feeling that a lot of women feel. And so I wanted to share it with her. And I also think it humanized me to my daughter a lot, that something could happen to me and that at that moment, I don't feel like I stood up for myself. And my daughter always tells people that she looks up to me so much for how strong I've been through everything.
And I think it was important for her to see that there are things I've gone through in my life that I now look back on that. I'm like, I could have probably done something different. I don't regret anything. But I could have probably moved differently if I had spoke out to someone, if I had talked to someone, if I stood my ground and saw the strength that I really am and
saw that as something powerful. And so it's really empowered us as a unit together that I share those kinds of stories with her.
Showing 421–440 of 558 · page 22 of 28
← Previous
Next →