CIIS Public Programs Podcast

transcript

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This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by the Public Programs department of California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. Through our programming, we strive to amplify the voices of those who have historically been under-represented. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms.  
 
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Monique: Thank you everyone. Wonderful to meet you and see you not really out here in the beautiful CIIS world. I am Monique or Dr. Mon and I want to first start us in a little bit of a meditation to start so that we can make sure that we're in the right space. So, in a moment, I'll invite you to pull up with your coffee or your tea or your cocktail, but for right now, I would love it if you want to surround yourselves and put things down and maybe you're finding yourself in a chair or standing or sitting on the floor or maybe you're multitasking at the stove, but just for a moment, find a comfortable place to stand or sit and take a breath together, breathing in through our nose…[softly] 

And out through our mouth. And breathing in through our nose. And out through our mouth. And on this last one breathing in, holding. So, breathing in…hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, and breathe out with sound. Haaaa [sighing sound] Allowing yourself, if you feel like you are so inclined, and you are right-handed, take your right hand. If you are left-handed, take your left hand and just tap your heart a little bit. Just going to tap our heart. Opening our heart. Maybe we've closed it off from a long day. Or it's...just hard in the world right now. Just open your heart and be gentle with ourselves as we do. Imagining a rose in the center of our heart and imagining it blooming all the way through you. So just breathing into that. And gently, if you feel like releasing your hand. And allowing your rose to be in the center of your chest as we have this beautiful conversation tonight.  

I am so...so, so, so, so, so thrilled to be having a conversation, a fireside conversation, and now you can pull up if you want with your cocktail. [laughs] You can get yourself in to relax, but I hope that you get a chance, please buy this book: Joyous Resilience: A Path to Individual Healing and Collective Thriving in an Inequitable World. We have Anjuli Sherin. And Anjuli, I'm saying "an-ja-lee". I've heard "an-ju-lee". Could you please pronounce your name how you want to be spoken about? 

Anjuli: Thank you for asking. Yeah, I mean either of those are fine. I say "an-ja-lee". But "an-ju-lee" has also been used for a couple of decades, so I'm used to that one too. [laughs gently] 

Monique: Wonderful. So welcome tonight, to our conversation, and I wanted to first say this quote that I had just read in your book. It's in chapter 1. It is from Rumi. You say, "your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." And that's from Rumi, 13th century Sufi poet. So, I am imagining that this has been part of your journey about opening your heart and to find barriers where there has been maybe not opening or not blocking, and I wondered if you would mind just sharing with us a little bit about how you got to this work and I know that you've described yourself as an immigrant and now citizen. But would you like to describe yourself for our audience; how you like to identify yourself and how you've gotten to this journey with heart opening and writing and just what has been your path here? Just a little bit about you if that would be okay. 

Anjuli: Thank you, yeah, of course. Let's see, you've asked a lot in that question. 

Monique: Of course!  

Anjuli: Going back in time! I love that you started with a quote because I think that's the essence of the journey right, especially I think like other spiritual journey or personal transformation. I think we want to feel love, I believe we are love. There's all these ways in which hurts pile up and keep us from actually expressing that. And I'm going to combine the immigration journey and the therapy journey because they come in close together.  

I left Pakistan at 18, my family still lives there. So, the first part of maybe the hurt and the joy, it is an extreme example, is getting to come to this country, getting to go to college, it was a huge deal getting to begin my profession independently, especially as a woman, especially as a woman of Pakistani origin. I was still like, rare at that time especially to come alone, and it's still rare. And at the same time not realizing because you're 18 and at that point, freedom and starting a new life in all that, the loneliness of migration. And the loneliness of being separated from land, culture, and language. I mean, that's where I grew up. And I think also how young 18 is. I think 18 never really knows how young that is until later. And so, some of the emotional development that hadn't happened in that time and probably couple of years in some of that began to show in a breakdown, as is pretty common, I think at that age. It shows up in relationship, I think it can show up academically. It can show up in a relationship or both; for me, it was showing up in a relationship as anxiety, depression, also, anger. You know, I had this kind of acting out, dysregulation and not really knowing I didn't have those words, even. Or like what's going on. [Monique: Yes!] I just knew I was unhappy, and I think it was easy to blame it outside [Monique: Externalize], "this person, that person". It also took time to figure out I needed help. I think some of that is also cultural and I think that can be across cultures. Especially with immigrant populations, any marginalized population, along that side is taboo against getting help. It's the learned, it's not necessarily resilience but I think it's-- [Monique: Protection.] --protection. Yeah, exactly. Like "I don't need help, I can do it on my own. Something is wrong if I am feeling this way, and so I need to hide it." So, my close friends from the time love to jokingly remind me of so long ago that I actually have forgotten it that when I first told my friend, "have you considered therapy?" Which, you know, there is such a taboo in such a reaction of like "What do you mean? Why would I need that?" Just really hilarious. Even with what happened, of course. 

Monique: Well now you’re a therapist, right? [laughs] 

Anjuli: Yes! And actually, how soon after, I think it was maybe a couple of years later, 21 or 22. I feel very lucky actually to have begun therapy that early. Because the moment I got in, it just felt like...I don't know if you agree, Monique, but I wish that these tools were there from the onset [Monique: Oh my god, yes. Oh my god, yes.] as children. Just something as simple as "what are my emotions? why am I feeling what I'm feeling?" 

Monique:  What am I'm feeling?! [laughs] Wait, am I crying because I'm sad or am I actually angry or frustrated? [Anjuli: That's right.] We're not allowed to express through anger often.  

Anjuli: That's right. In my ever-presenting problem, I was feeling pretty angry and for me the learning was underneath the anger and the softer feelings of hurt and pain and how to actually express them. And also, underneath the anger are real needs and real boundaries. I didn't even have the word 'boundaries' back then. 

Monique: What does that mean? [laughter] Or what's a boundary and what do I like? Like, what do I like, what do I want, what do I need for myself? 

Anjuli: Absolutely. And I think especially, yeah, as women, in this culture, as women of color, but I mean growing up in Pakistan under the patriarchy, same as over here, not really being asked.  And I mean, I was lucky growing up in a family where it was that machine: freedom as a woman to have choices to read and write; and yet, we were still steeped in that patriarchy and they were so much anger in me around not being asked for permission for my body. But I had no knowledge of this, just knew "marry". And I'm having a hard time in my relationship was not really working out. I want romantic love but boy, oh boy, it's not really happening for me and thankfully being able to turn the mirror and realized that there is a way, and that way is about learning and discovering this body, this self, these emotions, knowing myself, and the time that takes.  

And becoming, (and so I'll talk about later, it's in the book), becoming the nurturer and becoming the protector that I needed. This was the tagline. When I first began therapy, the person that I was working with had a tagline on their card that said, "Come home to yourself." And I didn't know what that meant either. I think I learned early that was the answer: learning to come home to yourself, especially being an immigrant, you and I were talking about this earlier on the call, like how many of us are displaced? Displaced from land, displaced from culture, displaced from our bodies. So, coming home to ourselves was a perfect tagline and coming home to myself, there's a home in here where I have a friend, I have a place, and I get to have that wherever I go. And I am committed to those I love, I have a deep sense of yearning inside of me and that became the crux of the work I wanted to do, and I think the real spiritual, therapeutic work there is to do. What does it mean to come home to ourselves and collectively, what does it mean to create a home where all of us feel at home? And it's not just some bodies that get to feel at home. So that brings us to the start of the therapy, where it all began. 

Monique: Wow, there's so many different places I want to take this, and I think one of the things that you literally just said and is just about this piece of being able to do something for ourselves versus doing it for outside of ourselves. So other people you're angry what's going on? What's happening? Why are you "dadada"? Right? The judgments that other people make and then what does it mean to actually do this process for ourselves?  

Because a lot of women not necessarily, you know, you're saying well, it's not working. So, I'm doing this maybe for the relationship or because of these other things and I'm thinking of myself, you know, although certainly I got referred to therapy in college [laughter] and I went one time and the lady tried to give me a book about toxic parenting [laughter] and I said, "oh, peace!"  I'm like, what does it have to do with my incompletes and having 19 library books overdrawn? How does that connect to toxic parenting? How does it connect that I cry every time I go to the registrar's office? How does it impact my mother's in the emergency room every other weekend. Like how does that- like my sister's crying and in the bed when I leave, when I left home, you know, you know, I'm worried that my mother is you know, she's using alcohol or marijuana or pills because she's so disembodied and still in so much pain. How does that have to do with toxic parenting? You can tell me about that lady from the Western psychology framework, but you can't tell me that from my place in my body in my, my lived experience, right? Because yeah, maybe there were some boundaries that needed to be set, right, everything that you just talked about. But there's also the other place of what I have to be able to do it for myself and it took me- because often we learn I think through relationship and certainly the therapeutic relationship is the thing that I learned from probably the most and it's the place that I had with my mentor and my therapist for a long time where I was actually able to do that relational work that I wasn't able to do with an ill parent and X, Y and Z partner because you actually get to do that work. Hopefully the therapist has done enough of their own work where they're not projecting and they're actually able to see you in context right?   

And so, you're talking about some bodies don't have the capacity to be able to do the work for themselves, or maybe not the luxury of therapy. And that everyone has this different place in space or at least that's what I'm interpreting in some of what you said and that there's a privilege that comes with being able to do the therapy and do it early and learn ourselves and learn all of our feelings and I just wanted to say thank you for the framing of this book. I really picked it up multiple times and you know life has been so busy, but what I, what I really wrote to myself was I am choosing joy. I am choosing joy and I'm placing that at the center of my life. That was my affirmation after reading your intro.  

Anjuli: I love that. I mean, you went right to the heart of- that is the center. How was that to you? 

Monique: It's beautiful! But of course, I have the questions, right? [Anjuli: Yes?] So, you know, you know me and, and the scholar so I'm like, okay. So, you say one, the power to feel, we want that, we all have inside of ourselves. Three great forces, you say; one is the power to feel deeply protected. What's that? How do we get there? You know my first real foray into relation- into therapy was coming out of an abusive- well, in being in an abusive relationship and the therapist having to help us get out of it without killing each other. So, what is protection, right? What is protection and we're talking about that in a society where we have police-sanctioned violence and you know lynching of Black and brown people on television by the police. So, what is that, you know, "deeply protected"? So, I'm going to say all three of these [Anjuli: That's fine.] and then maybe you could go into each one and then two, the power to feel lovingly nurtured. [Anjuli: Yes.] Again, I laid out, you know, some of my parenting challenges. Number three, the power to be joyously free to thrive. Wow, the power to be joyously, joyously free to thrive. With those three ingredients make this- or you say "unleash" like woo-hoo! [Anjuli: That's right.] We're gonna get free! We're gonna unleash! Resilience and that resilience matters and joy matters. And so that's the book, right? Joyously resilient. Those three things. So, I wondered, could you share with us a little bit about how one gets to those three places?  

Anjuli: Absolutely and thank you. Thank you so much for bringing in like, your story, right, and the nuances in your story, just like I bring in mine and realize that here we sit and there's so much complexity to what we brought into- I think both of us in our therapeutic journeys. I want to go back to what you said about therapist who goes "here, here is the way" versus you didn't describe so much the healthier therapeutic journey, but I imagine that was like you said, more contextual, right? Going to what is the way, who are you, what happened around protection, what happened during this? How did it make sense? So, I say that like everything else that is about to come out of my mouth. The thing behind it needs to be for whoever is listening is context. [Monique: Yes] Sure, there are certain things that we can build up inside of ourselves like nurturance and like protection but what it looks like, how it's going to look, even at a certain stage in your life right now, describing about being in a relationship. What did protection look like then as opposed to maybe some years later? And so, the respect to be able to be heard in where we are.  

And I would say, so for both nurturance and protection, the first bottom line is, well, you know we were laughing about it earlier, which is, "what do I feel? What do I need? I have needs? How do I begin to listen inside?" So, the first basis of our protection is actually having that opportunity to be able to connect to what is happening for us. What are we feeling, the context of our experience and at least the idea, if certainly not the lived reality for a lot of us, but it is your body. Even if society, systemic racism, or patriarchy, or capitalism have told you it's not your body and it needs to be fixed and it should be owned and shifted and changed. Just even that mirroring of, like, actually it is, it still is your body and it's telling you things and it's telling you things usually through sensations and your emotions and if you can slow down and actually learn about this and the caveat there is slowing down can feel dangerous and hard when there has been so much pain and so much hurt and so much violation around that. So, then we have to go back and face - would you like to - what works for you to sit down and listen to your body? And that's protection. So, it could be in a therapeutic relationship. It could be whoever's hearing this right now and how we approach our children, right, when we go like it's your body, you get to say yes and no, here are the names of your body parts, if someone approaches you this is how you say "yes I want to," "no I don't." And start that early. It starts in how we speak to each other, and you go "would you like to do this? Where are you at with that? Does this pace work for you?" All those things are actually societal ways of, relational ways of practicing "protection" - as in you have a right to consent and you have a right to boundaries. 

Monique: You have a right to consent, and what was the second one? 

Anjuli: Boundaries. Right to consent, and right to boundaries. 

Monique: Oh, I must have a problem with that one, I can't hear you. "What did she say?"  

[Both laugh] 

Anjuli: Yes, and I get that a lot with teaching, yes, and even the fact that you're saying "what did she say," right, slow down and go on, and how does it make sense that that is so, in the lived reality of your life? And then again, where do we forge a respect and go "great, tell us how it makes sense and tell us what you would like to shift, if anything, around that." So the point is that at essence though. It is your body. It is your life. It is your spirit. And I will just say this - we do deserve to be taught that we have that 'yes,' that 'no,' that 'maybe' inside of us. And that it does deserve to be respected. Even if it has not been. Right? And that that is the essence of protection.  

Over here, I turn to nurturance. Now, I do believe, we don't come in as anything but love, we come in as pure essence, and I think we also come in wired - we would not survive without nurturance, we're wired for that. And, you know, that most loving part of at least can look at babies, right? We have that heart open like "ah, I want to be there for you." That's in us, even if it gets hidden. So, the need to be nurtured I would say is also universal, and that kindness - that like attunement, all those things that go back to being with infants, right? Like, here I am with you. I see you. I mirror back to you what you feel. When I see your needs, I'm there for you. We need that as babies, and the point is that we need that also as adults, and so that's what I mean about, like. You know, when you say I love you, I hear you, I wanna listen to you, I see the smile on your face right now, like, there's no way, I think, not to be touched by that and how much that softens us. And how without that, how hard it is to be resilient, how hard it is to really do anything. [Monique: Yeah, yeah.] If I don't have permission to care for the basic level.  

So, that's what I mean by, like, it's in us, we need it, and it is for me as I follow my therapeutic journey, the way out, the way back to where transformational joy or even peace of mind is the cultivation of these aspects, which I think of them as the healthy parents, like you said. The healthy parents, which when they respond to our most vulnerable self, right, like which could be "I'm really tired at the end of a hard week." A lot has happened, and my heart is sore, I have a lot of feelings, and at that point if you're met with attunement, like, wow, yes, that's hard, I'm here for you, what do you need? And the protector who might go - especially I think in, like, any kind of community healing work, activist work, mothers, women, the "healers" of the world, you go and you too deserve to turn off the phone or at least put it on vibrate if not that, and take that shower and have that meal, and take that afternoon or that day, because I want to protect you in order to be able to go back out and serve again. So, with these two in hand, I can actually stay resilient instead of vulnerable and deteriorating.  

Monique: Well-- 

Anjuli: Yes? 

Monique: Oh, I don't want to take you off your thought. 

Anjuli: Last thing I was just going to say is like the joy aspect, you know, like I feel like obviously when we're loved in this way, there is a relief, there is a peace, I mean, if your voice inside of your head is deeply fine and the voice inside of your head is kind of your ally and going "I'm going to support you in speaking your truth." Or communicating, or even just like going at your own pace. And I'm going to be - there is an innate alertness, aliveness, joy, happiness that comes back. And then there's another piece which is - with this and with some of the pain lessened, with some of the guilt and the shame all of that kind of unwound, there is another level of joy that comes back, which is play, creativity, laughter. And I think that's a really beautiful thing, as well, right? That in this healing - and those things are innately healing, as well - that healing is not just talk therapy, going back to the Western health mindset. That healing can happen when the nurturer, even the nurturer in your therapist or your spiritual community or your community center goes "let's play music and break bread together and make art together, and let's cry together and grieve in that way, and let's dance together and grieve in that way, and let's make rituals and altars." These are ways that we can come back into aliveness, too, and that's part of the magic and power we have, that I think has been co-opted by pharmacology. [Monique: I--] Tell me. 

Monique: Anjuli, I was just getting very excited about the way that you talk in the book about…it feels very vibrant. So first of all, of course, I need to know your sign, you know, for all of our CIIS people. I'm like, "she must be a fire or maybe a water sign [Anjuli: Very good! Sagittarius, fire.] but not an Earth.”  

[both laugh] 

Anjuli: I'm a Sag, yes, lots of fire. 

Monique: Love it, love it. One of my best friends is a Sag, so. 

Anjuli: What are you? 

Monique: I'm a Libra - air, balance. But I have, you know, I have Cancer and Leo in my chart, so I have a little fire in there. But not any Earth, so bless us as we say thank you to all the tech people and all of the amazing people that set up all of this because they keep us grounded. So, the fire, right? So, the fire, which also really makes me think about you with the anger. Right, that you had more access to that. I had air, so I had access to ideas, and from the Cancer sign the access of the water, the feelings, like ugh. But I wanted to bring in the concept of play and creativity into joy and resilience. Because I really feel that to be playful, to be able to be… well, I guess let me just say back to what you were talking about building altars, right? [Anjuli: Yes.] Building altars and having meals together and crying together. But there's something to me about being able to be creative. [Anjuli: Mhm] That accesses deeply my spirit and my joy. And I don't know if you have a creative practice that you do or you just play, or if you have a child around you that you can play a lot. 

Anjuli: I definitely have childlike people around me that I'm very, very lucky to be able to play in that way, right? Because I have to say it still surprises me - it shouldn't, but it does - how much grown-ups don't play, or have no idea what to do when we talk about play, besides it sometimes feels like substance use. I mean, not that people conflate mushrooms, psychedelics, and all of that, but I think like that whole like, you know, we go to the bar and we have alcohol and that's the way that we play, or it's only then that we're allowed to dance, you know, that kind of, like, being cut off. So yes, play. Creativity.  

There's a few things I thought of. I think one thing I love about creativity, and I would love to know more about what kind, is going out of verbal sometimes and into non-verbal. Right? So, I think about, like, imagery and art and music and how they're just things that we feel, or experiences we have, that have to transcend words. And through those mediums that it can get expressed, which I think we do need to be able to digest and integrate, and I think it's so wonderful to be able to go beyond "I have to put a linear word or story" and actually this experience is nonlinear, and it can come out through art. For me, Monique, the past five years it's actually been dance. You know, we grew up with, like, Bollywood and, like, the Bollywood movies. I don't know if you know them? 

Monique: Of course, I do! Are you a "third line" or are you in the front? That's what I want to know.  

[both laugh] 

Anjuli: We didn't have lines, it was mostly like, you know, the four girls in the neighborhood, or the sisters in the living room dancing, which is I think kind of universal, actually, right? That happens here as well. But I grew up, I think, with music and dancing a lot more available without actually realizing that that was something, and then again, I came to the West and like, you know, we'll talk more about that, but it feels like all the emphasis on, like, academia and you're studying and you getting your degrees and then you're learning and taking trainings and like all very important stuff. But it didn't feel like there was a lot of room for like the other aspects of things that actually do produce aliveness and joy, and probably I would have really benefited from early on in my therapeutic journey. So yeah, in the past five-six years, just like coming back to dance, like any kind of dance, and realizing how much I can move out of me in one dance session, that again putting words to would take a long time. [Monique: Yeah.] Just the sheer joy of being able to play. Whether it's like partner dancing or on my own. So that's one. Yeah, many others, but that's definitely one. 

Monique: I love that. I mean, I think about it as you're saying it. It's just like in, you know, sort of, if we go back, dial it back, and it's Black History Month. So, I'm going to take a little [Anjuli: Please.] a little detour, just briefly. So, you know, during enslavement there was often, the South, in the US context. There's often not a lot of access to being able - to any of those boundary things, first of all.  

So, I wanted to say that concept that you talked about as 'protector.' I have always thought of as the nurturer - so I never thought that protector would tell you that "oh, you can turn something off," that that's protection. I always viewed that as judgment or a boundary, that you're not allowed to do something, right? And so, I've always been the one that’s “don't tell me what not to do!” So, it's so interesting that you view it as a protector. So, I'm going to have to really engage with that, because I love it. I just, I probably need to, it's almost like I feel like I want to harness some masculinity as a protector, and I've always thought of my protector as a sort of more feminine power, but it feels like I want something that's like, you know, I want to incorporate more masculine energy into myself that says "no! You know what? No, I can take care of myself" or "no, I'm taking care of myself or you as me, little Monique, I'm going to take care of you, and I'm going to say, you know what, put that phone away. You deserve it. You deserve it. You have permission." Because the feminine part of me is always like "I need to take care of these people." I got 10 people calling me right now that are in crisis, right? [Anjuli: Yeah.] And I need to address those crises.  

So, I love what you said about the protector piece. But when I dial it back into enslavement, right, I think about times where folks would steal away. I don't know if you ever got to read the book Beloved by Toni Morrison, one of our [Anjuli: Long time ago, yeah.] Yes. Yes. Yes, yes. Exactly, right? Exactly. And I think about African American psychology in a bit in two senses: the Beloved character, which is often - and it can express itself in a masculine kind of form too, but in the book, it's very feminine. And in the book, it's like this deep need that can never be satiated, right? The need for love, the need for protection, the need for boundaries, right? The need is just like "agh," you know, and then I think of Killmonger, so I don't know if you saw Black Panther? 

Anjuli: No, I didn't actually. I have not seen it. 

Monique: Oh, you have to see it. 

Anjuli: I have not been in the "movies" zone. But I will. 

Monique: You see Black Panther - Black Panther, you know, basically there's an African proverb that I think about when I think about Black Panther, there's a character that basically is the - there's the protagonist, which is sort of the, you know, the one that you I think that's the one you like, right? And then the antagonist. The protagonist is the hero, and the antagonist is the one that's like the anti-hero.  

So, the anti-hero kind of comes in, and his name is Killmonger, and he comes in because he was rejected by the village, basically, and so the African proverb is "the child will burn the village down if it has not received the love and care of the village," right? and so I think about those in sort of some of our - what's happening in my community now. So, you see, like, masculine or feminine rage is allowed, right? To a certain extent, you know, it's propagated or, but the neediness part is not allowed. So, it's disavowed, right? And then I think back to… I know I'm going everywhere, but I think back… if you're tracing me. I know you are, as a therapist you really, we're really good at this part. [laughs] 

Anjuli: Yeah, I am! I've got you, I'm listening. [laughs] 

Monique: Exactly, I know you do. So, going back to enslavement and thinking about our body as not our own, and stealing away to have a moment to process, right, to have a moment to have spirit, to connect to joy, to connect to creativity, you know? And in Beloved they talk about it as a "circular process" - there's a stop, basically. And so, I'm thinking about it almost as what you express - it's like, we weren't-- nobody was using alcohol or drugs or anything like that. There was the drum. [Anjuli: Yes.] And if there wasn't a drum there was a stick, and if there wasn't a stick to pound there was the body. [Anjuli: Yeah.] Or the voice, right? And we used all those things to help move that energy, that trauma, out of us.  

Now, we had those spaces and those places together where we could help hold and heal each other. And just those moments - a day, a half a day - some time when you can steal away to the forest or to the woods and have those moments to heal, right? Now we dial it forward and [singing] we're all up in the club and everybody's going out, and you hear the music, and you got the bass, and you know, maybe you're drinking or you're smoking your blunt or whatever you're doing. You're not actually… and there can be in some of those places a deep connection to healing. [Anjuli: Yes.] But there's also the disconnection of our body.  

And so, I remember, you know, I would need to drink, to be able to really dance and connect in my body, and I would feel like out on a Saturday night like I had expressed everything, and my body had, you know. I would, you know [Anjuli: Released.] You release, you catch the spirit, like spirit of alcohol comes and comes to you. Right? But I'm looking for the place that we can connect to that in our own body without those substances, like, right? Without the entheogens or the ways to play. Like, how do we, how do you imagine? How do you support your clients in that space of healing where you don't need anything external to yourself, and you can come in and feel spirit and cry and heal and dance and move, and move it all through you. You know, what is your way of working with clients to get to that transcendent place of just, like, body healing and spirit healing? Does that make sense? 

Anjuli: Oh, absolutely it does, it does. I love, and I'm so happy you brought that context and story, right? Because yes, that's one of the places where it was most practiced and profoundly practiced. I think the first thing I think of is time, you know, what you're describing, like how you got that healing in the clubs and with the substances and you needed them. And that goes back to what we were talking about about pacing and time and meeting somebody where they are. And so, I think if you're in a place where it is a substance that’s getting you there, I definitely - and this a little bit goes back to the protector piece you were talking about, so I'm gonna knit them. You mentioned like the tone of voice you were using with yourself, right, around the phone, like, [critical tone] "don't do it!" and then you shifted it to, like, [gentle tone] "don't do it, you deserve this." And you're talking about the journey - in the book I say between the critic and the protector.  

So, the opposite of the protector is the critic, who will actually put you down. [Monique: Yes.] Whereas the protector is there to actually uplift and go "you do need this boundary, because I care for you, but I'm not going to put you down around it and I'm going to tell you that you deserve it." And so, to go back to the substances and the club and the dancing, you would first begin with, like, we're not going into criticism, [critical tone] "why are you doing this?" But we might start with going [gentle tone] "why are you doing this?" And I think we would have learned, like, with your story, there's some awesome things you're getting out of this. You feel good afterwards, and there's release and actually there is memory in your body, ancestral memory, of this is the way. Somewhere in there, this is the way.  

And then I think it's pacing and time about, like, tolerance, because if someone is only able to really feel it in that big alive way with a substance, usually it means first they just feel it, you know, in bite-size pieces in session, right? So it's like "oh you cried with me here, and I didn't fall off my chair and you weren't judged and you survived, and you got to feel that aliveness right now with me without undue influence," and then maybe we smile and we laugh together, and then maybe we went "tell me, tell me about your favorite song that you dance to in the clubs, and would you be willing to listen to it for one song, one repeat without the substance?" And actually just see what it feels like. I think it's also letting go of, like, that's a different feeling, like aliveness when you're on substances. Feeling aliveness in this way, it's different. [Monique: It is.] So, building that tolerance for like this is what aliveness can feel like, can taste like, and I am safe in it. And so, I can tolerate a little bit more of it, you know, all the way to, like, I run this jewelry circle, which I love. It's like a-- it's a year-long program. We used to meet live before COVID. You know, a group of people coming together. And part of the jewelry circle is that we would end usually with dancing. And that's a great example because on that journey - and it was a learning journey for me too, especially when we moved to Zoom - that we started to go "okay, we're going to dance at the end." And then I got some really good feedback from people going "I want to, but boy it's a lot. It's a lot to be on video. I'm watching myself, I'm not sure." And so, it was such a great lesson in pacing to be able to go, okay, how do we meet you where you are? You can turn off your video. You don't have to dance. Like, you can watch those of us who are comfortable, and maybe that will help you, and what I will say was beautiful is some of them are many years in - everybody dances now. And they love it. And it's such a joy to me. And it didn't have to be. It's also really okay, because they also know they can say no. They don't have to do it, they still belong. So that's back to the protector and the boundaries, right? Like, pacing, time, building tolerance, and then doing it together. You know, you don't learn to dance in that way alone, I think. We can, but it's a whole other thing to be with… 

Monique: Yeah. 

Anjuli: Yeah. 

Monique: Yeah, it just, that touches me, that part about not having to be alone. I think some of us with this COVID, right? I mean, I live alone and I'm not trying to get anybody else sick. And so, I'm trying to just stay in a bubble with my family and with my staff, and it's so hard to be alone and miss hugs. 

Anjuli: It is so hard. It is so hard. Yes. Yes. How have you and your community cared for that? That is so real. It's one of the greatest pains of this time. 

Monique: It really is, it really is. Well, you know, I have many different ways of course, but… 

Anjuli: What are your joyful ways? 

Monique: I think - well, right. Right. What are the joyful ones? Well right now, I was challenged with my kitchen, so my niece came over and she helped me organize the cabinets, because at the beginning of COVID, I started ordering food, because, you know, my grandparents and everything, you know, you don't want to not have food. If there's not gonna be food. 

Anjuli: Toilet paper and food! 

Monique: Toilet paper and food, and paper towels and cleaning supplies. But I had - my cabinets were, like, spilling out onto my counter. So, she came over and she organized it, and she helped me with that, and I let her help me with that, and she felt really good about helping me with that. And then what I then had been - now I'm in my kitchen a lot more, and during COVID I've cultivated plants. So, I have plants and orchids and, yeah, mostly orchids. And so, people are always like, "well they don't rebloom." I'm like, "well, mine do rebloom." 

Anjuli: That's the love! 

Monique: Yes, that's the love, and also because I sing to them, and so - right? [both laugh] So, I'm in the kitchen in the morning and I started to sing to them, and there's just a thing that we call a "zipper song," you take one word out and you put in another word. And it's like a prayer. And I'll just say it really briefly. [Anjuli: Please.] It's a... [singing] come healing, come into my bones. Come healing, make this body your home. And then you can say - and joy is one of them, right? Come joy, come into my home. My bones are my home. My bones, I come into,  like joy come into my bones, you know, peace come into my bones, peace come into my home. Peace come into my city, you know, peace come, you know, peace come into my family, you know, protection come into my family, you know, health come into my family, health come into my bones. You know, so I'm singing this and now my orchids are like popping off, you know, like "ooh, I wanna bloom, I wanna bloom, I wanna bloom!" [laughing] 

Anjuli: Absolutely! [laughing] I mean, they are fed by our word, there's research on that, right, they're fed by - and they make music! I don't know if you know, but they have their own music. 

Monique: I know! Well, because I think sometimes, they're talking to me and I forget - I've forgotten - I'm not listening. So, I have to get quiet at home now. And I have to listen, you know, I have to listen to myself, you know, as you say in your book, you also have to have space to grieve. Like we don't want to do this spiritual bypassing, right? And so, I wondered if you could talk about that, and then any, because I know we have to start to wrap up for…I know, it's gone so fast. 

Anjuli: Damn. I'm having fun. You helped me have fun and get over my nerves, thank you. 

Monique: Yay! You know, so - mine is singing and plants, yours is dance. So, we talked about joy. When you're feeling the grief, or in the times of COVID and how it's been so hard with isolation. For many people - and I don't want to project what it's been like for you - but I imagine also you're seeing clients over Zoom, yeah? 

Anjuli: Yes, everything moved to Zoom last March, the anniversary is coming up. It was incredible, right, overnight. Yes. 

Monique: Yeah. So how do you cultivate joy with your clients, you know, during this COVID time, right? And then also how do you allow for the spaces where you don't support them in spiritually bypassing? And what I mean by that is, you know, that I believe sort of in a Western psychology or the Western interpretation of Buddhism. The Western interpretation of Sufism, the Western and interpretation of, I guess I'll say "spiritualness." [Anjuli: Spirituality, yeah.] Spirituality - is that you don't feel bad. You're gonna just go sit up on a mountaintop. And it's all going to be lovely, and it's going to - you know, you're gonna be like, "oh, people, oh you poor people down there. You're just, you know, you're lower vibration. I'm going to just" - Weber, you know. Unfortunately, he would judge and delineate people as lower vibrations, right, and higher vibrations. And so how do we shift that in this context and in a real enriched way and say, you know what, there can be joy and suffering at the same time, like, right, we've cried, and we've laughed. 

Anjuli: Yes, yes, yes. And I think that we've laughed more freely because we know that we're free to cry, and back and forth. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah, and I think back to that whole, I think there's also not only the hierarchy, but also this idea of like "why aren't you over it yet?" Well, okay, maybe you can feel sad, but how long? And if it's going on for whatever a 'long time' is, it depends on the person, then something is wrong, right? Yeah, and then again, maybe you're not doing your work or you're not doing enough or if you were just working harder or healing faster then you wouldn't feel this way.  

So, in the book I talk about - and I think the premise is joy is - in my point of view in here - aliveness, and aliveness is permission to feel all of you. So that is where the joy springs from, is that I am free to feel what I feel when I feel, for how long I feel it, and there's no wrongness inside of it, it just is, and that's kind of like the water, you know, it's like the water just gets to flow and flow freely. And the joy is - I have tools inside of it, not to cover it over, but to feel it again back at the pace and in the ways and in the containers that don't let me be completely overwhelmed by it. And if I am overwhelmed by it there's nothing wrong, it just means I probably need more of a container, I need more support. [Monique: Right.] So that, right? There is no hierarchy, there's just we all feel feelings so that's just gonna say that to whoever needs to hear it. Everybody feels feelings. If you have not felt grief in the past year, I mean that's incredible, but I don't know anyone. Myself, that's not possible. And I wouldn't want not to feel grief - to go back to love, if you love deeply you are signing up for grief at some point, because you… 

Monique: Love, yes, love is the mother of grief. 

Anjuli: That's right. That's right. I love that - I've never heard of it, but like I love that. Yes, love is the mother of grief. And so that is what we have attempted to do to the best of our ability in my personal life and in clients, is like how do we mother the profound grief that came out this past year? Which we are all still living and digesting, and you know, I mean it's like clear and yet the ripples are there. By I think first, like, really validating, like, I think nothing hurts more than you're grieving and then you're told you should not and it's not for you. [Monique: "Get over it."] That's the knife, you know? Yeah, and that is what prolongs grief and I think turns it into depression and hopelessness and pessimism and all of those things, instead of if it was met with "of course you feel this way, because you love profoundly and you're empathic." And how do I hold a space where I give you permission to just feel this and we feel this together?  

And what I've found is that, like, also grief is not, again, meant to be felt alone. So, we just keep going back to that, right, like grief especially - meant to be shared. I read this beautiful quote once, I've never forgotten it. It was from a father, I think, who had lost their, like, son, maybe age 2 or 3. And he says, "grief shatters you into a million pieces, and then you are meant to digest them - one, one, one by one." And so, some of it is that, right? That we just need time, session after session, in our joy circle - talk about an oxymoron last year I'm running a joy circle - and, you know, I can't tell you Monique, right, like, circle after circle the fires are burning our homes down. The sky is orange. You know, I mean, the very important protests, and then like Black people dying, which has always been true, and yet it was very important to see and feel the tremendous pain of that. How do we say we're having a joy circle, and this is happening?  

And I think what was important there was to go "we have to center our resilience." Like, we have to have some way of focusing on what's going to keep us alive, what's going to keep us going, because if we don't, the alternative is so bleak - and also, it's letting that pain, that like oppression win, right? That, like, back to my body, it's my one lifetime. Maybe there'll be more. But I will not be cheated out of my laughter or my tears, my rage, or my capacity to share my fears, my ability to dance with you and feel with you, and eat, and, like, remember the land is still here. Like, I will not be cheated out of that because capitalism and patriarchy and white supremacy and all of these things want me to basically give up and die. You know, really you would not do it, like you will either kill me, you kill our people, or you will continuously teach us that there is not that much worth living for.  

So, we have to center joy and resilience, and we have to include in that allowance to feel all that we feel, and to feel it together. Those were some of the premises we did. And singing and plants - nature saved me, many of us. Yeah, all of that. 

Monique: My heart is so full. 

Anjuli: I see it. 

Monique: It's such a wonderful opportunity to be with you. I know we're almost at the eight o'clock time, and I wanted to see if…what else do you…what else is from your book or from your life or from your spirit right now? What message do you have for the community listening and for our relatives? 

Anjuli: I think first just thank you for whoever is spending their Friday evening sitting here listening to our conversation. Thank you for being here. I think I would say to each of them maybe take a moment right now and, like, reconnect back to the grounding and, like, what - feel your feet on the floor, so much has been said, and often we're listening, like you said, when we're cooking or we're getting ready for bed, probably, some of us. And I just want to make sure that you do use the breath to - let me just do this together, right, Monique?  

Like, taking a couple of those deep breaths in that Monique taught us and exhaling out through our mouths. [sighing sound] Resetting our nervous system is actually just one conscious breath away. So yes, just a few deep breaths in, deep breaths out, to actually bring your attention back now if it hasn't been with your own bodies, you sitting wherever you are, standing, your feet on the ground, your back supported. And then yes, if it feels good just like Monique did, like bring the hand of care to your heart and maybe even a hand to your belly or wherever would feel good to your body, just saying "hello." I'm saying thank you for showing up here tonight and taking this time. And then maybe taking a moment and listening to, like, what brought you here tonight? Like, whatever that thread was, what was it that your heart, that rose, was opening to receiving?  

And the next few breaths that you take I'm just going to ask that like the lessons - there were so many lessons and so much wisdom, and of course each of you who is listening now or later - there's so much wisdom that you carry deep within yourself. And so just let those little sparkles of wisdom, the highlights, just kind of come now, come to your heart, whatever it was that it took. And then what I want to remind you - I'm going to do it with the words of this beautiful poet if it's okay, actually, so just staying there with your rose and your heart, and this is what came, so this is what must be wanting to be heard.  

So, this is advice from María Sabina, who was a Mexican healer and a poet. And she says: "heal yourself with the light of the sun and the rays of the moon. With the sound of the river and the waterfall. With the swaying of the sea and the fluttering of birds. Heal yourself with mint, neem, and eucalyptus. Sweeten with lavender, rosemary, and chamomile. Hug yourself with a cocoa bean and a hint of cinnamon. Put love in tea instead of sugar, and drink it looking at the stars. Heal yourself with the kisses that the wind gives you" - especially, this is my addition, if you're alone - "heal yourself with the kisses that the wind gives you and the hugs of the rain. Stand strong with your bare feet on the ground and with everything that comes from it. Stand strong with your bare feet on the ground and with everything that comes from it. Be smarter every day by listening to your intuition. Jump, dance, sing, so that you live happier. Heal yourself with beautiful love, and always remember you are the medicine. You are the medicine. You are the medicine. We are the medicine. It's inside of us. We come to it together." 

Monique: Thank you. 

Anjuli: Thank you. 

Monique: So beautiful. 

Anjuli: This was so lovely, I want to keep talking to you! What have you done, you've totally taken away my nerves, you're the nurturer and the protector. 

Monique: Very good at doing it for others, now I will internalize doing it for myself, even differently. 

Anjuli: Yes. I support you in that. 

Monique: Thank you. I want to add the saying: "we are the answer to the ancestors' prayers." 

Anjuli: Yes. 

Monique: To everything that you just said is so beautiful.  

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live. 
 
Podcast production is supervised by Kirstin Van Cleef at CIIS Public Programs. Audio production is supervised by Lyle Barrere at Desired Effect. The CIIS Public Programs team includes Kyle DeMedio, Alex Elliott, Emlyn Guiney, Jason McArthur, and Patty Pforte. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe wherever you find podcasts, visit our website ciis.edu, and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms. 
 
CIIS Public Programs commits to use our in-person and online platforms to uplift the stories and teachings of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color; those in the LGBTQIA+ community; and all those whose lives emerge from the intersections of multiple identities.  
 
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