CIIS Public Programs Podcast

TRANSCRIPT

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[Cheerful theme music begins] 

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. 

Author, creative, host, and self-proclaimed "pleasure doula" Sara Elise is on a quest to examine the ingredients of our lives—those essential components that make up our days—in support of systemic transformation and radical change. Sara’s work, and latest book, A Recipe for More, offer a profound and challenging inquiry into the forces that keep us in a state of survival and limitation, asking us to consider a new way to live. H 

In this episode, Sara is joined in conversation with Meckell Milburn, founder of the holistic wellness organization, Revolutionary Healing, and an Integrative Health Practitioner. Sara and Meckell explore the ideas of abundance, pleasure, and self-expansion by examining our connection to concepts like self-inflicted suffering, toxic positivity, rest, rage, visibility, and agency and share ways of bringing the ingredients of abundance to our own lives. 

This episode was recorded during a live online event on May 11th, 2023. You can also watch it on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube channel. A transcript is available at ciispod.com. To find out more about CIIS and public programs just like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms. 

[Theme music concludes] 

Meckell Milburn: Peace, everyone. Peace, Sara. 

Sara Elise: Hi, Meckell. Nice to see you.  

Meckell: Really nice to see you. To start, I want to thank everyone for their presence this evening. Just because this is a virtual event, I feel like sometimes we think we're just pushing a button and logging on. But I do think it's important to name that we're all coming from different places, different spaces, and different mindsets this evening, and that it takes intention and energy to show up in community. So, we're thankful for you choosing to show up with us tonight. And Sara, thank you first for this transformative book. I feel like I read it at the time that I needed to read it in my life. And I look forward to hearing more of your story tonight.  

Sara: Thank you, Meckell. I'm very much looking forward to being in conversation with you. 

Meckell: First, how is your heart doin tonight? How are you? 

Sara: My heart is really good. I'm just coming off of my book release week. So, my book came out this past Tuesday. So, this whole past week, well, no, I guess it was last Tuesday. Time's a blur right now. That's where I'm at. Time's a blur. Last Tuesday, my book came out, and I've just been kind of in back-to-back events and interviews and celebrations. So, I am feeling very grateful and very filled by community and the support I've been receiving and the affirmation I've been receiving for this deeply vulnerable work that felt very scary to put out in many ways. So, it's been feeling really wonderful to see the way that it's being received. And I'm also feeling very exhausted. So yeah, I think I'm carrying both of those things and feeling overall excited to be in connection with you today.  

Meckell: Again, really grateful for you putting your vulnerability into those pages, because I do think it's going to inspire so many folks. And we can actually start there with the book. It's called A Recipe for More, Ingredients for a Life of Abundance and Ease, which feels like a very fitting title. One, because food is such a big part of your life. But two, you mention in the book that since you were younger, you kind of view your life in sections or ingredients. And so, when we talk about this part of your life, how would you define abundance and ease? 

Sara: Yeah, when I think of abundance, I think of us present and mindful to what's around us. And more simply, us and this is, you know, what so much of the book is about, or the underlying backbone of the book, us living a life that we're thriving in, not a life where we're fighting for our survival. I think abundance also, for me, has to do a lot with reciprocity. So having the privilege and the choice to live outside of our survival instincts, but also within that being in a culture of reciprocity and support, where we're all interconnected with each other and the Earth. So, the decisions that we're doing, the decisions that we're making to support our flow, we know also are supporting the flow in the life of other people around us and the Earth that we're inhabiting. So, when I think that's what I think of when I think of abundance.  

And ease, I was just saying this on another interview, but I think that I learned a lot about ease from Buddhist meditation, tactics, and concepts. And basically, thinking about, you know, when you're meditating, or when I'm meditating, I'll speak from an I perspective, I still have tons of thoughts that are flowing in and crowding my brain. And ease is not necessarily being in control of those thoughts or judging those thoughts or being like, okay, I have this thought, I'm meditating, so I'm not allowed to have the thought. But ease to me feels like allowing the thoughts to come in and kind of just observing them and then and then letting them flow out. So, when I think of ease, I think of living a life with energetic flow that doesn't have the constraint of energetic bottlenecks. And the bottlenecks are often our judgment of ourselves, or the voice in our head, or our upper limiting. So yeah, just prioritizing this idea of more in our lives in a way that feels effortless and in flow with all that's around us.  

Meckell: Really beautiful ways to put that, this reciprocity. And this concept to have energy flow both feel very, you know, it's the giving and receiving this relationship and these beautiful concepts that should be so accessible to us. Just unfortunately, we don't often give ourselves that permission, right to lean into them. And, you know, a lot of the stories that you tell in the book, I recognize that a lot of these lessons have come to you, you know, over the years of your life. And I feel like, for many people, it was COVID in 2020, and pausing, and having things kind of be interrupted, that really sparked an opportunity for folks to be able to start unpacking some of those things or have that moment where they were able to let some of those thoughts in kind of like you mentioned with the meditation piece. And one of those things feels like the opportunity to give ourselves permission for abundance and abundance mindset, which you speak to a lot in the book. And so, I'm curious of that process for you. What was your experience when you first began giving yourself that permission? And what do you think contributed to being able to grant yourself that space?  

Sara: Yeah, I feel like, yeah, that's a great question. I think I wasn't, like so many of us, I wasn't, I didn't really grow up thinking about abundance. I came from a family, my dad actually did talk a lot about financial abundance. And I think that a lot of us when we think of abundance, we think money, we think that it's financial, which can be true, but isn't necessarily true. And then also in my family, celebration and pleasure, which to me really go hand in hand with abundance, were kind of reserved, or set aside for special occasions or holidays.  

So, I really didn't start questioning that until I was working in financial services. And I had done the thing that I was told to do. I had followed the socially prescribed path, I was on my path to success. And I made it right. I was a Black, queer, I didn't know I was autistic then, but as a Black, queer, autistic woman working on Wall Street, and I, you know, I made it, but I wasn't happy or fulfilled. And I never actually along the way questioned whether happiness or fulfillment was going to be part of the plan. I just did the thing that I had been told to do, and really fought hard for it too. I was really connected to this idea of what my perfect life would look like.  

So, I think when I made it to what I thought should have been my perfect life, and I didn't have the emotional fulfillment or results that I was looking for, I think that's the moment that I really began to question everything. And then from that questioning sprung a new way of being. So that questioning led to, you know, what are my interests outside of work? Because oftentimes, in our capitalistic society, we're not encouraged to have hobbies that don't make money, or interests that don't serve our production towards this grand social purpose in some way. So, when I was questioning what my interests and hobbies were, and I started cooking from that, and then really started to observe how cooking was making my body feel differently and making my having different effects on my mental health.  

So, then that started to lead me to do this deep upheaval of everything that was going on with my mental health, and learning about how food and food and basically everything you do contributes to your holistic well-being. So yeah, I think that was kind of the start of the questioning journey that then led to me really just changing my entire life. And I don't really think I ever struggled with giving myself permission to engage in a more abundant lifestyle. I think the thing that I was mainly struggling with was the social rules and restrictions that were placed on me that I was trying to adhere to. So, I was really forcing myself to adhere to this way of being or this lifestyle that I deemed as valuable or deemed as important. And then once I kind of unraveled all of that, and I was able to fully lean in, you know, gradually over time, I think the unraveling was part of giving myself the permission and just affirming that none of these things were made for me. These systems weren't created for me to survive in. So why am I forcing myself to be part of systems that don't support me? So, once I kind of broke that down, I was able to move on. 

Meckell: Thank you for that. You know, I've been in wellness for about 16 years. And it took me many years in my career, even as someone who was like always talking about wellness and holding spaces and talking about these things that should be very nourishing. But I started realizing that the lens that I was coming into wellness conversations with was reinforcing that exact same culture. It was like, take care of yourself so that you can work harder. Or as you mentioned in your book, it's your, it's only a reward for the things that you're doing. And, you know, sometimes I think people can feel like they don't know where to start. And I will name that this book has some really great inquiry, inquiries for you to get an opportunity to just start asking questions and taking that peek in. But you kind of touched on something that I found really impactful in the book. And it's the chapter “Fuck Being Busy”. And you get this very vivid and very like visceral description about that impact of doing everything right. Checking all the boxes of the capitalistic successful life. And then that resulting in this deep realization that ultimately led to these inquiries that you talk about and supported you in accessing that abundance that liberation. Grind culture is something that is very prevalent right now. What advice would you give to someone who wants to release themselves from the pressures that grind culture has created? 

Sara: Yeah. I mean, I would say to read my chapter, “Fuck Being Busy”, like you mentioned, so thank you for that shout out. [laughing gently] But yeah, no, I think it's also worth noticing and getting curious about why our culture has an addiction to busy. Because that's what it is. It's an addiction. I think especially in New York or in larger cities. But I think just noticing and observing within ourselves that the addiction to our ideas of financial abundance, it's all tied to our ideas of importance and self-value. So really breaking that down, I think is, or even just getting curious about how that impacts your life, I think I would say is one of the first steps. Because only once we can confront that and really begin questioning and dismantling that within ourselves, can we get to exploring a life of abundance. Because the self-value and the importance being tied to how busy we are, stems from a feeling of lack, a feeling of scarcity. And scarcity is the opposite of abundance. And the feelings of scarcity support what we've been told, right? It's not our fault. We've been told our whole lives that we are not deserving of abundance. We're not deserving of pleasure. We're not deserving of rest that we need to produce, produce, produce. So, once we can get to the belief that we are all deserving of abundance and rest and pleasure as our birthright, I think that's the quickest way to get back to the ease, the flow of energy that supports an abundant lifestyle.  

Meckell: Yeah, absolutely. One thing that I recognize people name often when moving into that space are feelings of guilt and shame that can arise when we start allowing ourselves to feel okay, receiving good things and leaning into that abundance mindset. And so, I think because of that, you often name this as a radical act. It is radical to be asking questions, getting to know yourself better, leaning into that abundance mindset and away from this idea that everything, time especially, is something that comes up as being the scarcity mindset. How do you navigate feeling okay, receiving abundance and kind of expecting more from life?  

Sara: Yeah, I think that I, and I mentioned this in my book, I don't really ever experience feelings of shame. I am not sure if it's an autistic gift or because I experienced many other feelings very intensely and deeply, but I don't experience what people describe to me as feelings of shame. I think what I struggled with more are upper limiting, which I also talk about in my book, where it's basically when we self-sabotage and bring ourselves, we place a barrier on ourselves and bring ourselves, like you said, kind of back to our comfort zone. So, a lot of people get, experience the feelings of shame or guilt as another big one when stepping outside of their comfort zone, because choosing to live an abundant life or choosing to prioritize rest or pleasure or ease when you've been told your whole life that your only purpose is production. And especially as a Black and Indigenous woman, oftentimes we're told that our only purpose is to be of service to others. So, choosing to do all of these things is therefore radical, but oftentimes when we do, then we have shame or guilt that accompanies it. And so, then we pull ourselves back down into our comfort zone by upper limiting or by self-sabotaging, because it feels too uncomfortable to be in this other place.  

So, I think that's something that I talk about and I also experience a lot and it's just a practice that I have to really focus every day on being disciplined with because it's just something that creeps up often subconsciously. Like I'll take a nap and then I'll wake up and I'm like, oh, well, now that I took a nap, I should definitely send out these emails so that I can feel productive. And it's like, why are we constantly doing this balancing act? I don't need to pay for my rest. I just am inherently deserving of it. So, I think that's something, not so much the shame, but the upper limiting is something that I do struggle with. And I think, yeah, it's just practice and anything that we practice, we get better at, right? So, as I'm practicing, I'm noticing more the upper limiting that subconsciously just floats into my brain and I'm getting more kind of strict with it, not in a mean way. I'm not mean to myself when it creeps in, but kind of just like a no tolerance policy. So, when it does creep in and I notice it, now I just do the opposite thing. So, when I wake up from the nap and I'm like, oh, well now you need to send emails because you weren’t productive, I stop that narrative and I choose something else that brings me pleasure or rest. 

Meckell: It's such an important practice. And like you said, it takes some time, it's not going to feel comfortable. I often say, I want to cultivate being comfortable with discomfort where growth can happen. And it's not to say that that excludes lots of time for pleasure and leaning into those things, but really just understanding. Actually, one of my favorite quotes is don't believe everything that you think. It just feels like it gives me permission to dismantle those patterns that are telling me that I can't have that, that I can't lean into that. And I can't, I have to stay busy. I have to experience the guilt. I have to feel drawn to work, work and work, answer the emails like you said.  

Sara: Right. No, I love that. And I, yeah, I love just realizing and recognizing that our thoughts are not always from our source place, right? We have, and I like what you said in one of our introductory emails, you were saying that we have all of this noise around us all the time. And I think the noise contributes to the voice in our head. So, we think oftentimes that the thought we have is our thought, but it's really not. It's just many things that we've been told and conditioned to believe about ourselves, stories, even about that we've been told about ourselves our entire lives. So just thinking about how do we constantly and consistently practice pushing against those voices and returning, getting rid of the noise so that we can return to self and center.  

Meckell: Again, powerful, simple practice, but transformative. 

Sara: Yeah.  

Meckell: Radical. So, kind of along those lines, there's a passage in the book that I deeply resonated with around this idea of what feeling good actually means and kind of understanding that we're often told that we can only feel good in certain times or spaces. And so, what you're just saying reminds me of this idea that now you're at the spa, so feel really good, but now you're at work or doing this thing or presenting. So, you need to cut all that out and just focus and be on. And it reminds me of times I work in office culture and just laughing with colleagues, just bringing some joy into that space. And there's always someone who comes over and they say, you're having too much fun. It's like, why can we not just be in our joy in that moment? And so, I think you speak wonderfully to this idea of tuning in so that you're able to, regardless of where you're at, be able to let in some of that feel good, let in some of that joy and just really be in flow with yourself. How do you think you transformed your experience of feeling good to kind of extend beyond those designated feel good places to a more universal and everyday experience? 

Sara: Yeah, I think that one of the ways I've done that is by getting comfortable showing all parts of who I am everywhere I am. So, which to do that, I have to give myself permission to show up honestly. Right. And so, like even earlier when you asked me how I was and I said, these are all the things I'm feeling, which includes feeling exhausted. I, old Sara at least, would have never said that. I would never in an interview or on an event ever claimed that I was tired or claimed anything other than like this toxically positive answer that I'm like, this is the way that I should present and be for this event. This is what people expect of me. But I don't do that anymore. I don't do that anymore. I'm working on just showing up honestly with all aspects of who I am to everywhere that I go. Because then each space is any space. It's every space is the space that I'm experiencing, right? So, every space is just how I'm experiencing it in that moment, the energy that I'm giving towards it in that moment, which is kind of a deep thing. If you think about it in terms of perspective and how our perspective influences how we show up in spaces or exist in the world, or even the story we tell ourselves about our entire lives. But that's a tangent. But yeah, so I think that that's one of the ways that I've kind of cultivated my life as a feel good space versus having work be a workspace. Playing paddleball with my friends is a place or a space for play or going to the spa as a space for self-care. I can experience self-care in any of these spaces because I'm just present and in touch with what I need in every single space. And I'm allowing myself to show up as my full self in each space, regardless of where I'm at or regardless of what the space calls for necessarily.  

Meckell: I wish younger me knew that. It is okay to not perform likeability all the time. And you speak to that as well in the book, just giving yourself permission to show up authentically and the dynamic of having both joy and some exhaustion present at the same time, how much that kind of creates space for us to be our authentic selves. But yeah, younger me, could hace saved a lot of time and energy and right.  

Sara: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. It's like, you know, we all know that we know logically that each person contains multitudes, right? So, if I know that you contain multitudes, I know that you're probably carrying many complex and conflicting, often times, feelings and emotions inside of you states of being inside of you at any given time. But then when we're a public person or in the public eye or even doing an event, it's like we want to perform this idea that we're what? A perfect robot? I don't know what exactly I tried to perform. But yeah, I just I'm kind of getting to a place where it's just not beneficial. It's much more beneficial, I think, for the connection and that the energetic building with other people to just be exactly how you are in that moment, because maybe someone else is also feeling that exact same thing and can connect with you on that realm. No one's ever feeling like a toxically positive robot. [Meckell laughs] Or maybe, I don't know. I don't want to yuck anyone's yum. Maybe that's-  

Meckell: Make any generalization. But yeah, probably not. Yeah. That reminds me of relationships and my ideas about being in relationships with folks. And I won't go on a tangent either. I love a good tangent. But this idea that, you know, if we are either loving and seeing someone fully, but also being seen fully as evolving beings. But why do we kind of come in sometimes with this idea that we have to be one way or we have to project certain things in relationship with other people, when in reality, if we're creating space for all of those multitudes of identities and the evolving identities that we hold, it's just it really helps me understand how vast love and relationships can really be because it creates space for much more depth than what we kind of limit it to. Right.  

Sara: 100%. But you know, it's a risk. It's so much easier said than doing it in practice, especially if you've never done it. I think at this point, for us, maybe because it seems like we have been practicing this for a while, it feels natural to show up in a space as our as our fullest selves. But I think and you know, also, sometimes it doesn't sometimes I still perform likeability and try to overperform to meet people where they're at. But which then often is a detriment to me or even a detriment and or a detriment to what could have been our connection. So, it's a lesson I'm continuing to learn. But I think that, it, the practice itself feels so risky for folks because we have all of these false beliefs about what we need to do to be loved. Right. Because that's what it comes down to. It comes down to wanting to be loved and accepted unconditionally. And so many of us have never felt that before, which is something that I cry about often. It's deeply, it's a deeply sad reality of the world that we live in. We're so connected through technology, but also so separate and so lonely. And so, I think a lot of us don't know that the risk is worth it, right? The risk of showing up and showing up as your full self, even though it feels really wild and vulnerable, is oftentimes going to be the most rewarding and long-lasting thing.  

Meckell: Yeah, it feels like you said that risk is, it comes with so much reward. But it's something that we don't often see modeled for us either. You know, and so we can shy away from it. And you mentioned, you kind of speak to this in the book to go. Sometimes that stems from us not knowing ourselves. Knowing what we like and who we are or liking who we are. And so again, this self-inquiry process is also something that can really support just deepening that and being able to really lean into that and be okay being seen.  

Sara: It's true. Yeah. And then also, I think the deepening with yourself also makes it easier when you do get pushback from other people, because everyone's not gonna like us. Right. So, when that pushback does happen, it's easier to kind of recenter and ground in ourselves or what we know to be true, versus feeling very ungrounded in the judgment or the feelings of misunderstanding, or the feelings of being misunderstood.  

Meckell: You actually say in the book, I hope my very existence out loud and unapologetic empowers.  

Sara: I do. I hope that for all of us.  

Meckell: I'm curious if you have any early memories of this being modeled, folks kind of being in their authentic selves or leaning into that, and how that may have impacted you.  

Sara: Yeah, I, I don't really have many early memories, I have a very bad memory. But I do have a memory of a cousin in my family, an older cousin who I'm not really, I'm not in touch with her anymore, but I remember she, you know, my family is Baptist Christian, very strict church goers. And she kind of broke away from the church and decided to marry a Muslim man and, which was just like a huge thing. And she changed her name. And my family was, I just remember them kind of talking so much shit about her and just sharing for like a while just talking about how she's so confused, and she'll come back, and she has no idea what she wants. And she has no idea what she's doing. And hopefully she's safe and all these things.  

And I just remember seeing her then on Facebook, and she's not that social media is any semblance of what's real for many people. But I just remember seeing her on Facebook, and she seemed really happy. And I just remember thinking it was so odd that everyone seemed to have such an issue with her making decisions for her own life that had nothing to do with them. And I remember feeling really inspired. So even through the shit talking, I was like, huh, okay, that's really cool that she's just doing her own thing and seems to be happy doing it like, okay, noted. So, I think that was maybe my earliest memory of seeing someone who was close to me at the time, make other decisions for their life. And despite all the haters, my family, continue doing the thing that she was doing.  

Meckell: Sometimes I feel like when- it took me a long time, I'll say, to recognize that when folks are talking shit or being super critical that sometimes it's a reflection of themselves. And their own fear, right, like sharing their own fear, sharing parts of their selves, and moving away from what's the norm, and everything that that brings up for them. And so, when you do see someone who is thriving, who is happy, and also that's coupled with them kind of moving away from the norm, yeah, that upsets people. It's really interesting when you start taking note of that. And I think it can sit you like position us as we start moving in that direction and witnessing or recognizing people respond in ways that may be critical or shit talking as well, and be able to identify like that's their stuff, right, like their fears that are talking.  

Sara: Yeah, that's so true. And it's, again, really hard because, you know, we're all deeply self-centered. So, when other people are having talking shit or having opinions, it triggers our feelings of likability and wanting to be loved and not wanting to be rejected. And so, then we start judging ourselves and rejecting ourselves. So, it's this whole cycle. But I think, yeah, the more that we can remind ourselves that everyone's on their own journey, and oftentimes when people are talking shit, it's a reflection of their own discomfort and has nothing to do with you. I think the more used to living outside of the socially appropriate lines we can be comfortable with.  

Meckell: Yeah, and forging communities that feel nourishing, right, being able to identify what that looks like. I think for me personally, the entire book, let me just pause and say, run, don't walk to get this book, y'all. The entire book for me feels like something that I can come back to and get wisdom each time. But specifically for me, the part of the book that I feel like I really needed, I feel myself getting a little emotional actually, is queering your friendships. And in that chapter, Sara has a recorded conversation with some of her closest friends. And it really kind of expands on this idea of what community, like the role a nourishing and supportive and reciprocal community can have in this ideal of living our authentic lives and being our fullest selves and abundance and being. Yeah, I'm curious, like what that has done for you personally, like this idea of queering our community, but how does that enrich you individually? 

Sara: Yeah, that's a great question. I think the easiest way to sum it up is to say that it's changed my entire life. I would not be where I am in my mental health journey, or my relationship with self, if I didn't drastically rethink my friendships. And if I didn't drastically rethink how building community, and not just building it, but nurturing it and committing to it changes every aspect of who I am and how I show up in the world. And then I think more specifically, one of the major ways that queering my friendships has changed my life is I grew up in a family that not intentionally, but probably unintentionally and in many different ways taught me how to be an island and taught me how to really fortify my island and myself. And that's what I need to focus on. And I don't necessarily let other people onto my island when I need help, but they can come on when I'm feeling fine, and I want to be interacted with. But I think that in queering my- oh- so then in part of that and being an island and having this separate sense of self, I then would have romantic and sexual partners that I would then go to for everything.  

So, I would have one person who also did a lot of caretaking for my autistic needs, and they would be my autistic caretaker in many ways, my sexual partner, and my emotional support and there for me for whatever I need at any moment of day or night, which great, but yeah, it's a lot for one person. Thankfully, I've had people step up to the point. But yeah, no, it's a lot for one person. And I think that a lot of us do that a lot of us divest from our friends and our community when we get into a relationship or when we get married or when we have a baby or when we do these things to build our family unit, we then divest from the other potential support in our lives.  

So, queering my friendships has taught me that that is not the way I want to live my life. It's not fair to just one person. And there's also so many people that I can give a chance to show up for me and build this reciprocity of energetic support that then fills both of us, right? It's a gift. It's a gift for me to reach out to a friend and say, I need help. Can you help me? And then they get the gift of getting to show up for me. And in giving me that gift, they know that they can also be vulnerable with me at a time that they need help, and I'll show up for them. So, it just becomes this foundation building this brick laying that then builds this beautiful. I'm trying to think of like a good brick metaphor. I'm like that builds a beautiful pathway. Yeah. It's changed my life 100%. It's probably the biggest rethinking friendship has probably been one of the biggest gifts to my life.  

Meckell: Yeah, that's the place that I feel like I've had to come full circle with because I think, you know, obviously it's a byproduct of capitalism, this idea of being the individual and making it on your own or what have you. And I feel like there's been this path in my life and that's with, I think many people where, well, I won't speak for anyone else but myself, but starting off just kind of being this open energetically and not having great boundaries and being involved with community in a way that wasn't necessarily nourishing because I didn't know how, what I needed and how to communicate those needs. Right. And then coming to a place where I was like, okay, me, me, me, my life. Right. These are the things I want. This is where I'm headed. And like you were saying, like I'm on this island, come visit me in two weeks between 2PM and 4PM when we have to, we can schedule each other out, which is definitely a trend.  

Sara: When I can prepare and have a full face of makeup and make my apartment look really cute. Then you can come visiting.  

Meckell: When everything is yes, absolutely. Yeah. And then coming to this place now at this point in my life where it feels like coming full circle, I know the things that I need. I know how to communicate that I understand how to move forward as an individual, but that is never going to be not intrinsically linked with community. Right. And that support and that idea of this, this nourishment and this cyclical relationship.  

Sara: Yeah. 

Meckell: That's risky, right? It can feel really uncomfortable for folks when we start queering our relationships, because it's not something that we often see modeled. Sometimes, you know, we are able to witness folks or being community or, you know, be able to understand more of what that looks like. But it can be a risk, like you mentioned, to push back against those norms. And so here come the feelings of guilt again, right? And not knowing how to balance that. And so, I am curious what advice you might give someone who feels challenged by that idea of pushing back against those norms. 

Sara: Yeah, I would say just do it. And, you know, I think that most beneficial things that and again, I'll also speak from an I perspective, most, if not all beneficial things or things that I desire for my life, I either have so much anxiety around, so much fear around, or it feels deeply risky, deeply vulnerable. And, you know, I just do it. You just got to do it. And I think that the more you can definitely identify and that goes back to what I was talking about, about meditation, you can identify the racing thoughts, you can identify the feelings of risk of vulnerability of feeling unsure of feeling like, again, that you want to be loved and liked and accepted. All of those things are 100% okay to feel. And then you just got to do the thing anyway. And I think that the more like we said, it's a practice. So, the more you do it, the better at it you'll get. And the more comfortable you'll feel pushing yourself within that realm. And then there's going to be another realm that you then feel really uncomfortable about. And it's not linear, right? It's like, I'm like, oh, I got this in the bag this day, and then the next day, it's the same exact thing, the same type of event, the same type of workshop, and I have a completely different reaction to it and need to do all this self-coaching and all of this self-affirmation work. So, it really changes every day, but each day, you got to just push through. And it will get easier. And then some days it's harder. But overall, the overarching line is an upward line.  

Meckell: I'm feeling like someone needs to hear that like there's someone tuning in that really needed to hear that. So, you know, you describe in the book how cooking was a big part of your life, as you were coming to a lot of these big questions, and it's really starting to know yourself a lot better. And I really live for the deep intention that you put into your hosting events and cooking. As someone with a Venus in Taurus and lots of Taurus and Earth on their chart, you were mentioning things like a eucalyptus, you know, like, I can just feel the cozy. But it's it is coming from this place that feels born from the way that you have built the relationship with your own self-awareness. Right. And so, I'm curious, what other lessons you feel like cooking and hosting events with such intention have brought into your life? 

Sara: I think that, well, one, I would love to host you at any time. So, whenever you're in New 

York, we can make that happen. And two, I think that cooking and hosting provide a similar lesson for me in presence and embodiment, which like I talk about in my book is ultimately the root of mindfulness, which actually is mindlessness, in a sense, and feeling good, which I that's a chapter in my book. But yeah, I think presence and embodiment, I can't really cook. I mean, I can kind of follow a recipe that I'm reading. And I guess just like follow it to the T and, you know, only be thinking about it. But the food doesn't turn out as good. I can taste the difference when I'm cooking with heart and cooking with presence. Then if I'm cooking kind of mindlessly, like not really paying attention, or even if I'm just cooking with like very strict mental boundaries or recipe following.  

And I think the same is similar for, it's similar for hosting if I'm not fully present with my guests and the energy of the space that I'm creating. It's not the same event, you know, people don't. I don't know, I can just I can tell the difference in the energy of the room, I can tell the difference in how people are reacting or responding to different conversations or how open people are to each other. I can just see different dynamics happening. And when I'm present in the energy that I'm creating, I'm fully in tune. There's nothing else that I'm focused on. And I think that that's when all of the juiciness comes out. And that that those are the moments that I'm most interested in in life, moments filled with embodied presence. Because I think that's when we really get to what we were talking about before at the core of who we are without the noise. So, I think cooking and hosting our rituals that really helped me tune into that.  

Meckell: Reminds me, have you ever read the book, Like Water for Chocolate?  

Sara: No, but isn't it a movie?  

Meckell: They do have a movie as well.  

Sara: I think I've seen the movie.  

Meckell: Yes, it's that's what came to mind this idea of the emotions that a person who is cooking. It's just being embedded in the food and really deeply impacting the folks that are present in these really profound ways. It's really food has that impact. Also, I would be honored to be hosted by you. It makes my heart just smile. So yes, I would love that. You mentioned earlier, and you've actually touched on this a few times on your identities. You mentioned being autistic is something you cite as being one of your greatest gifts in your story. And I find that you frequently recenter us on your identities throughout the book, which I feel like is really important as we move through the story. So, are there parts of your identity that feel more salient or have that more salient to you at different parts of your journey? And I'm curious kind of how you bring not just visibility, but some tenderness also to different parts of yourself.  

Sara: Yeah, I think that my Blackness is something that has always been what was the- what was the phrase you used? It's not more visible, but it's more salient. Yeah, more soon. I think Yeah, I think my Blackness because it's the way that I've, I've always been Black, and the world perceives me as a Black woman. So that's an identity that I'm constantly engaging with and have been engaging with my whole life. So that's always been at the forefront of my knowing of myself. And also, my pride in myself in my culture and my people, my community and who I am, my ancestors informing who I am.  

And then I think my other identities, I've kind of had a deep dive into each one as I've discovered them in a sense. And this the discovering is knowing myself more, right, because I've always been queer, but I just didn't know that I was queer until university, when I started figuring it out. And then I'm like, oh, I'm trying to read all the literature I can get on it. And it's like, this is the forefront of my identity right now. This is who I am.  

And I think when my grandmother passed, who is Cherokee, that informed a lot of my deep diving into my Indigenous history and learning a lot about that. And that's, like every identity actually kind of just an ongoing learning and an ongoing self-discovery.  

And then when I received my diagnosis several years ago, that started a deep dive into that again, is just ever evolving of who I am, as an autistic person and what that means for me and kind of just piecing together all of the points of my life that now because of this language makes sense. So, I think that yeah, it's, I think, naming is really important because we're reclaiming the stories that the world tells us all the time about ourselves.  

So, like I said, people perceive me as a Black woman. But people like to- people might not perceive me as an autistic femme. But I think that my naming of that makes those things visible. And then I can reclaim that identification for myself, and I can reclaim that power for myself and kind of infuse it within me versus just having people deciding things willy-nilly for me that I don't necessarily consent to. So, I think that, yeah, the naming is part of the reclaiming of ourselves. And it's really important.  

Meckell: Yeah, you name it your special sauce in your book, which I really like. I found that more recently because I have a deeper awareness of my identities, it's been more of a practice for me of understanding in the moment, how different parts of my identity are being activated or silence, which is really interesting. As I move through the world. And, you know, like, for instance, even we have a lot of shared identity. So, I really felt seen by a lot of things 

that you named in your book.  

Something that has been really salient for myself, as I travel overseas is my American identity to which, as we talk about the systems we're a part of, it's like, you know, I can be very critical of American capitalism. And I noticed when I'm in other spaces, I have to be deeply connected to that, because it brings my awareness to how I'm showing up in other spaces, you know, and it's not something that I've always held as a very salient identity, but it's just so interesting that I just feel so connected in the moment to what is present for me and how that's informing, you know, how I'm feeling how I'm showing up and my energy levels.  

Sara: Yeah, that's so real. And also, you know, our privilege and informs our privilege too because that's something I completely agree, I never really identified as American, I have a lot of criticisms and a lot of pushback against everything that other people would say, like, this is what being American is, I never felt any of that. But when traveling overseas, even if I'm not identifying as American, other people are identifying me as American and that then becomes a privilege or a detriment, oftentimes, or privilege. And then you have to recognize how you're contending with having that privilege and how you're using it, and how you're making space for other people, given the fact that now something you didn't even identify as something for yourself is now being seen as a privilege that other people feel oppressed by. So, it's all very complex.  

Meckell: I would love to know how you would describe the texture of your current life.  

Sara: I would describe the texture of my current life. Kind of similarly, I guess, to the texture of my book cover, which was why I wanted the book cover to be this particular texture. I wanted it, the book in itself to feel representative of who I am and how I'm living. So, I would say, soft. My life right now feels very soft and satisfying. And I, that hasn't always been the case. So, I'm being present with this moment, and I'm feeling it and I'm letting it sink in how good it feels.  

Meckell: You are so deserving of that softness and that feeling good. I know you see that for yourself, but I feel like as Black women and femmes, we don't hear that enough.  

Sara: That's true. And I would say the same for you as well.  

Meckell: I just want to say thank you for your vulnerabilities, for your stories and for taking the time to not only write the book but also to share with us tonight.  

Sara: Thank you and thank you for your amazing questions. I had such a great time talking with you and for cultivating this really safe space that we can all explore together. So, thank you.  

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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 Izzy Angus, Kyle DeMedio, Alex Elliott, Emlyn Guiney, Patty Pforte, and Nikki Roda. 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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