Today we’d like to introduce you to Jay Morris.
Hi Jay, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I moved to Smyrna from Atlanta with $500 to my name almost 10 years ago after graduating from UGA to start a job as an AmeriCorps with a refugee resettlement agency. Working in refugee resettlement opened my eyes to challenges that low-income, immigrant, and refugees experience adjusting to life in the US. At the time, my job focused on helping refugees navigate the Atlanta healthcare system, which forced me to develop resilience, compassion, and a strong intolerance towards injustice against the most vulnerable in this city.
During that time, I also become more involved with the queer poetry and nightlife scenes in Atlanta that are led by some of the most inspiring people I have ever met. Poetry has always been a big part of my life, and has helped me develop what I like to call “human practice” where I get to step out of the monotony of the day-to-day grind and really focus on what gives me life, how I can connect with others, and the importance for standing up for what you believe in even when it’s unpopular and results in having to leave relationships that don’t inspire me to grow.
Since then, I went from making barely $1000 as an AmeriCorps, to finishing my MPH degree at Emory, working at the CDC, and now working at a federal healthcare consulting firm while balancing a yoga business and independent data consulting firm on the side. If I’m not hanging out with Syntax, my cat, you can find me teaching yoga around the city or dancing at a DJ set somewhere around town. You might even catch me gogo dancing at an event near you!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has definitely been challenging. I don’t come from a wealthy family so I was pretty much on my own financially when I moved to Atlanta. I actually worked nights and weekends at The Vortex in Midtown while balancing my AmeriCorps job during the day. Working like that nearly broke me and I’m reminded every day that that is the reality of so many people in this city — working 2-3 jobs just to make ends meet, and barely having time for yourself or your passions. We really underestimate the kind of toxic stress that a person experiences being low-income in a city with one of the widest wealth gaps in the United States.
That stress pushed me to use alcohol as a coping strategy because my financial situation was so overwhelming. At the same time, my family back home in Athens was going through a lot of health and financial troubles that I felt powerless to deal with in Atlana, which forced me to confront my own fears of death, aging, and poverty. Things are definitely a lot better now, and I am grateful that I can look on the challenges that I experienced earlier in my life and used them to give context to the successes I am living now. Me and my therapist talk a lot about offering grace and gratitude to older versions of yourself that were living in survival mode, because being able to survive then gives me the space and clarity to thrive now.
A question I ask myself before making a big decision is this: “Is this decision going to create a life I want to run away from?”
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Well, I think that’s kind of a loaded question if only because I’ve managed to find a way to incorporate my interests and passions into my personal and professional life. The three words that come to mind are poetry, data, and yoga.
Poetry: I’ve been writing and performing poetry since I was 17 years old, starting with open mics and reading events in the Athens scene, before slowly becoming more involved in the Atlanta poetry scene. In Athens, I was a regular of the Athens Word of Mouth reading before founding the Goetry Open Mic series at Go Bar, which ran for 2 years. When I moved to Atlanta I took a break from performing because work was so stressful and focused on releasing chapbooks. To date, I’ve released 4 chapbooks, organized the Poets for Peace mutual aid network during the pandemic, and co-founded the now defunct Symposium poetry reading series at Argosy. Now I split my time between performing at poetry readings, developing my upcoming chapbook, and producing poetry events when the opportunity arises.
Yoga: In the past 5 years, I’ve deepened my relationship with yoga by becoming an instructor. I did my teacher training at CorePower Yoga in Midtown, taught there for two years, and now teach on a freelance basis that gives me a lot of flexibility with my schedule, lets me put a bit more of a my personality into teaching, and gives me the opportuinty to travel around the city to teach some really cool classes. Right now, I teach yoga classes on Sundays at the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, which has been a really cool opportunity that actually came out of me performing poetry at one of their events. Since then I helped cofound the Atlanta Healing Collective, which is a group of queer yogis and somatic practitioners. That effort was born out of frustration with corporate yoga studios who couldn’t take a firm stance on speaking out against humanitarian injustices in the world, and so we created this community for people to fundraise and educate themselves on global humanitarian struggles, while also offering a safe, queer-led space for people who want to build their yoga practices outside of the corporate studio framework.
Data: Lastly, and wow I feel like I’ve dumped a lot already, but I’ve slowly been building traction as an independent data consultant using skills I’ve learned from grad school and my time at CDC. This has been a cool opportunity for me to take on data projects geared towards developing anti-racist models for understanding public health, supporting mothers who suffer from postpartum depression, while also helping individuals understand how AI and data impacts their every day lives. I’ve worked with Howard University in the past to help them understand how public health communications supported Black communities during the COVID Pandemic, led a professional development sessions for recently laid off federal public health workers to learn new data science and AI skills, and will soon be leading my second workshop on using ethical machine learning practices to write surrealist poetry with the Fulton County Public Arts Futures Lab.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
You can connect with me on Instagram or via email!
@jaymo.flows.atl is my yoga page if you ever want to schedule a private or group session, and you can check out @callanwoldefinearts for updates on my Sunday yoga class there.
@data.coachr is my data consulting and coaching page and @coachr679@gmail.com is the email I use if your interested in working on a data project or or workshop together!
@hauntedbussy is my personal/gogo dancing profile
Pricing:
- 1:1 Yoga: Sliding Scale
- Group Yoga: 20$/person
- Callanwolde: ~$17-$20/person
- Data Consulting: Contact for more information
- Gogo Dancing: $125 base/rate+ tips
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @jaymo.flows.atl; @datacoachr
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephdalemorris/
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coachr-r-coaching-and-consultation/
Image Credits
IG: @relivethemomentphotography
