Ally Love keeps busy as a popular Peloton fitness instructor, the in-arena host for the Brooklyn Nets, and the CEO of the health and lifestyle Love Squad community.
But despite her hectic schedule, the energetic Love is trying to find time to be kind to herself.
“Thinking and saying kind things to myself is actually pretty hard,” Love said Tuesday during Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Next Gen Summit, a virtual event this year.
With the coronavirus pandemic and the national reckoning over systemic racism, it’s been a particularly difficult time for many Americans to stay positive. To help herself cope, Love said that she’s “taken the time during the pandemic for some personal awareness” and is doing some “internal work.”
Whether that means talking with family members, a therapist, or others that are part of a person’s support group, Love said these conversations have been important for herself as well as for the people who attend her Peloton fitness classes, in which she’s trying to create “space for all people.”
The point is that Love is “making sure I’m being honest.”
“I wouldn’t be who I am if I didn’t talk about anti-racism and racism,” Love said.
Although Love couldn’t pinpoint any specific incident in her life that involved racism, she said that she’s been increasingly more aware of the subtle aspects of racism that can creep into people’s lives, including micro-aggressions.
As she said regarding the subtle ways racism plays into society: “Especially as Black women, we are dehumanized because we have to be stronger than everyone else.”
Story updated Oct. 14 at 11:55 A.M. PT to correct Love’s quote to say “be” instead of “mean.”
