Sinnead #mixedmonday
Sinnead
Our first #mixedmonday of 2023 is the talented @sinnead.wombyoga.
I'm Sinnead and I'm the eldest of 6 sisters. They're the funniest, sweetest bunch of girls, and being their sister is the best thing in my life.
I grew up in Cardiff with a short stint in London as a child and then returned for uni. I moved to Thailand to teach yoga when I was 25, this took me to Singapore for four years where I got more into women's wellness. I trained as a perinatal yoga teacher and began hosting women's circle's and founded SPARK, Asia's first sexual wellness festival.
I then worked as a community manager for a sex-tech company and lived between Bali and Singapore before COVID brought me back to the UK. During lockdowns, I began training as an abdominal massage therapist and FINALLY qualified to practice this month!
I also trained as a perinatal doula with Mars Lord and Nicola Goodall and I now work for a charity that supports pregnant women seeking sanctuary during pregnancy, birth and postpartum. I am passionate about creating yoga sequences for the different menstrual cycle phases and promoting all things periods! I also stared @biaseeds, a seed cycling product that's having a short hiatus while I'm feeling more called to movement and gatherings.
How would you describe your ethnicity?
My parents both grew up in Cardiff. My dad's mum is Welsh and my dad's dad came to the UK from Jamaica as a child on a ship.
My mum's mum is Maltese-Arabic and my mum's dad is Black from Texas, but his mother was a Welsh-Bangladeshi woman. Being mixed heritage runs deep in my family. Cardiff is a very multicultural place!
For a long time, I used to shrug and say I'm a pic-n-mix because I'm not even "half" anything racially! I have recently started saying mixed heritage. Ethnicity wise though I feel most culturally drawn to the Caribbean side of my family. I love island life, nature, healing foods, and I'm in the top 4% of Spotify listeners! I have music on constantly. Movement and music are in my blood.
I also felt surprisingly at home in Malta and loved the Middle Eastern influences there, it was the first time I felt like I looked like the people around me.
Has your mixed-ness influenced your career in any way?
I think the underlying theme has been that I've felt quite alone; I've always sought roles that have given me a lot of personal space and freedom. I've had a few painful experiences around race in work settings and it's made me super cautious about who I work with/for.
The result and irony of feeling alone in a lot of my work life has meant that I always want to help others feel seen and in community with others, i.e. the women's circles and encouraging conversations about things that are a bit taboo. Unlearning shame and promoting self-love have been a theme in my career and I think that may come from feeling like I've not belonged anywhere and feeling quite apologetic about that.
If you could describe your mixed identity in one word, what would it be?
In-progress
What is the best thing about being mixed heritage?
I love that my lineage is rooted in so many rich cultures. It blows my mind when I think about all the people who weathered so much and traveled such distances at times when travel was much more challenging; all to meet another person from the other side of the planet who had their own story and journey...all to birth my grandparents, parents and eventually, little old me! It's really cool to think about how those people even crossed paths, to begin with! I love that I come from such adventurous, open-hearted people.
