Sah D’Simone: Becoming Spiritually Sassy: Awaken Your Megaboss
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You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today my guest is the super sassy Sah D’Simone. Sah is a spiritual guide, meditation teacher, transformational speaker, and bestselling author. He leads a heart-based healing movement rooted in tried-and-true techniques, pioneering a spiritually sassy approach in which joy and authenticity illuminate the spiritual path. Born in Brazil, Sah immigrated to the US at age 16. By his early 20s he had found great success in the fashion industry yet was overwhelmed by addiction, depression, and anxiety. In 2012, he walked away from everything and began an intensive search for health and well-being. His search resulted in the realization of essential spiritual truths that Sah presents in his very own unique, supremely engaging, and powerful way. Sah is not just sassy; he’s downright lovable, real, and true. Here’s my conversation with Sah D’Simone.
Sah, your new book is called Spiritually Sassy. What does it mean to be spiritually sassy?
Sah D’Simone: Beautiful. Thank you for opening with that. And I just wanted to reiterate what’s such an honor and a joy to be talking to you and to be in such great company. Thank you so much.
Spiritually sassy, I mean, there’s a few ways of looking at it. I think of spiritually sassy as a movement and as a home for all of us who didn’t feel like we could fit into the normally white, heteronormative, cisgender wellness or healing spaces. And I didn’t really understand the necessity of it because I was doing the thing that I think a lot of queer and brown-Black folks do: we try to fit in. So we try to subdue our volume, subdue our extra-ness, our fullness, our authenticity, to fit in.
So I found myself in retreats—a 30-day meditation retreat in Kathmandu, Nepal, years ago, 250 people—and could count on my hands Black or brown bodies and queer-expressed people in the space. And it took me a minute to really realize what I was doing, that I was trying to mimic and model after people who, for them, spirituality looked to be this very quiet, subdued, don’t laugh too loud, don’t dance, don’t you do this, don’t you do that. All these—that what we call is this “zombie Zen” or this forced seriousness that I thought was necessary to progress you in a spiritual path. But little did I know, what was missing was joy. What was missing was self-expression. What was missing was reclaiming beauty and playfulness and lightheartedness.
So spiritually sassy is homage to all the mahasiddhas, to all the radical saints that have come before us and continue to guide my teaching and my style, and delivered in a way that’s approachable and relatable, especially for those who never felt like they had a home in a spiritual place. So that’s a little short version, and it was a transition from being in the Himalayas and doing that zombie Zen thing, the forced seriousness, really. And that was very helpful for me to deconstruct my identity, and then it was all about getting rid of my destructive tendencies, all of my lies, all of my bullshit, and then developing my heart. And I found the spark of joy at a dance floor in Bali. And that’s when I knew, it was like, oh my God, I think this is the missing link to it.
And then I quote Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo in the book. I had a private audience with her while in India, and we’re talking about the paramitas, the perfections—I think everybody here knows the language—back to paramitas. So the perfections. In different schools of Buddhism, there’s 10; others, there’s six. And we’re referring to the one that has six. And she was saying that, “The seventh paramita should be joy. And I think that’s what you’re here to do.” And like, metaphorically speaking, I fell off the chair because I look up to this living saint, this woman who spent 12 years in a cave. I’ve been so immersed in her work, followed her around the Himalayas to just get a little taste of her presence, and to then hear that from her. And I think what’s spiritually sassy is really being a joy activist. It’s really approaching the highs and the low, knowing the brahmaviharas, knowing what lives at the base of your being, no matter what’s your experience and, really, bringing joy to anything and everything.
So these are kind of some of the ways to look at what spiritually sassy-ness means. And it’s one other aspect to it: it’s like doing good, feeling good, while looking amazing. I think it’s important. People have to look at you. And I think another big part of it, why I think the movement sort of grew fast, was I said this to people and it can be taken out of context, but I find that it’s my job to seduce people to take care of themselves. So like, when you look great and you present yourself in a relatable and fashionable way, it’s easier for people to be like, “Oh shit, I want to look like that, but I really want to feel like this. I want to have this magnetic, charismatic energy.” And what you’re seeing in me, it’s in you. It’s the seed of it is just dormant at the base of your being.
So I think in a variety of ways and throughout the book, we speak to what spiritually sassy-ness means. So it’s really an invitation for people to take care of themselves and be of service to the world while feeling good and looking great.
TS: Now, you said a lot right here in the beginning. One thing I want to pick up on is this being a joy activist, because I notice in my relationships with the people I work with at Sounds True, since the pandemic has started, there’s been a dearth of joy. There has not been a whole—it’s been hard to find joy. And when I find it in people, it’s like such good medicine, when it’s real, when it’s genuine, and they’re just bubble—it’s like, wow, even in the midst of all of the terrible things that are happening, the divisiveness, the injustice. So how do you stay tapped into joy?
SD: A variety of ways, but I just want to sort of give a little bit of background what it means to be a joy activist. It doesn’t mean that I don’t wake up crunchy. It doesn’t mean that I don’t experience destructive emotions. It doesn’t mean that painful memories don’t visit me and I don’t get hooked, where I go into catastrophizing or ruminating. What it means is that I’m aware of their empty and transient nature more often, that I’m doing my best effort to recognize that they’re passing, to recognize that I’m the motherfucking sky and I’m as bright as the sun and I’m not just a passing cloud. And that recognition, that awareness and the connection to the deep breath, has really allowed me to like unhook and drop into the base of my being.
And then what arises naturally when you do this enough is joy. It’s a high level of contentment where you’re just—you relax inside yourself, you can see things for what they are, and you’re not adding additional layers. When things are bad, our conditioned mind does a great job of making it worse, right? So being a joy activist is just recognizing that we can be part of the solution. That every state of mind matters. That every time we’re overly identifying with a state of mind, it’s impacting the collective. It’s making a vow every day to be part of the solution because your words matter, your actions matter. And we want to create the most positive, wholesome karma we can while we are alive. So being a joy activist is the continuous choice to recognize, How am I impacting the tapestry that we’re all connected to? Am I being of support in my healing or am I not?
And it doesn’t only happen outside on the streets when people are looking at you. It’s who are you when no one’s watching? Who are you when the doors are closed? That will then dictate who you are out in the world. And there’s a Zen saying, I think it says, how you do one thing is how you do everything. And I think being a joy activist is drawing upon that, it’s that recognition that joy is available to us. And then one of my teachers says, Tenzin Chokey, she says, “Enlightenment is as close to us as our eyelashes. We just can’t see it.” But if we’re constantly trying to see it, it’s in that trying, that intention to see, the intention to touch base, that intention to become one with it, that what arises is our best qualities, because we’re not getting caught up with the bullshit. We’re not getting caught up with the polarized mind. Does that make sense?
TS: It does. Now, I want our listeners to get to know you and your history a little bit.
SD: OK.
TS: What I know is that you started off in the fashion industry and that you were a successful creative director of an international fashion magazine and then it all kind of went sour. What went sour and put you on this spiritual quest that you went on?
SD: That’s right. Yes, so I started this fashion magazine when I was 23, without any sort of training. It was just relying on my creativity. And then when I was 27, turning 28—it was November 22nd, 2012. I remember the exact date. I had a falling out with my business partners, and they bought me out of the company. So my entire identity, my entire notion of self-worth, was dictated by what I had to show for. I had an apartment, I had this, I had the clothes, I had all this external stuff. And when I left—mind you, throughout this entire time I was performing really well as someone struggling with addiction, depression, and anxiety. And I was doing a great job of showing the world that I’m OK. Everything is OK.
So when 2012 happened, when I left the fashion industry, I went to Florida, got this little beach house in Madeira Beach. And I spent a year there sort of just rethinking my life and trying to figure out what to do next. And I started to meditate. It was like a little glimpse, five minutes. I’d be like, ooh, this feels nice. What’s going on here? And I changed how I ate, started exercising, started changing what I watch, what I listened to. And then through that year, I started to deepen my—be more curious about mindfulness and meditation and spirituality in general. But every time I would sit down to go deeper into practice, my mind would drag all the way back to the terrible things that have happened to me, the terrible things that I had done to other people. My inability to forgive set me off to the path.
People ask me, What started your path? It’s like, I think at the baseline of the anxiety, of the depression, of the addiction, was my inability to make peace with my past. And then I watched a documentary from Krishna Das, and I said, “I’m going to go visit all these South Indian gurus.” I have this whole pilgrimage planned out. And then my dad walks into the house, and he says, “You should go north. You should go up to the Himalayas; you should study with the Dalai Lama.” And I was like, “Excuse me, what the fuck do you know, honey?” He just knew. And I googled the Dalai Lama. I looked up his photo, and it was just that moment of like, oh, this is my dude. I need to go see this—I need to go where he’s at.
So I went to Dharmasthala and did a 10-day silent retreat. And during that silent retreat, I heard a few words that were just utterly wild. It was, you have basic goodness. I grew up with loving parents. I grew up in a loving home, but just that understanding that your mistakes do not define who you are, your past doesn’t define who you are. And we all—every single human being is innately good at the base of their being. It was a very massive moment for me. And the teacher wasn’t speaking directly to me; he was speaking to the whole crowd of people. And then after the—the last three days of the retreat, we meditated on death. And we have these—I became physically sick, coughing, fever, body ache, because of engaging in conceptual meditation, engaging in the visualization of my own death. And during that time, I was like, oh my God, I have never contemplated my mortality to this degree. And that started to really change the way I wanted to be a global citizen, the way I wanted to relate to myself.
And then it all sort of took ahold when I went to Nepal that fall, when I did a 30-day meditation retreat. And it was during that retreat that the initial noise of the mind settled a little bit and all this stuff that was underneath the surface like, hey girl, we’re here, let’s work through this shit. And it was when I entered the third week of the retreat—the first two weeks I was judging everybody because they were having breakthroughs, and I was judging myself because I wasn’t crying and screaming and having experiences. Little did I know that third week was going to be my time.
And because we’re in silence, people are just passing notes. I hope you’re OK, hope everything’s OK. That kind of exchange. And then that’s when I, at the end of the retreat, I had an opportunity to meet with the Lama Zopa Rinpoche. And he said, “You’re going to teach. So you might as well start doing the purification work.” I said, “Honey, I’m in it for me. I’m selfish. It’s nothing about anybody else; it’s purely for myself. I want to feel well. I want to get out of the hole that I’m in.” And then the day after I had this private audience, we had an opportunity to take refuge and take the vows. And I said, “OK, if I commit to my healing and not to my bullshit, if I commit to my healing, not to my lies, for a year, let’s see what happens.” So I committed for a year, and instead of bar hopping, I was monastery hopping, ashram hopping, retreat hopping all over. And I just—radical change starts to take place inside of me. I started to feel really terribly but have a way out. And that was really wild. And slowly, slowly, I decided to just accumulate all the notes and all the things that were landing for me. And then kept going to retreat, kept studying. And then in the fall of 2016, I came back and I had the first teaching opportunity at Omega Institute. And I was teaching the volunteers and the staff, but the feedback was really awesome. And I said, “OK, this is where my joy lives.” And in the book I speak about “purpose” being when you find what brings you joy and that joy helps people. So that’s when I knew. I was like, oh, this is where I need to be going. So that’s a little bit of the backstory.
TS: Now, Sah, you said something interesting as you were talking about the time that you were in Florida and you started to meditate. That you realized that it was a lack of ability to forgive your past that was keeping you stuck. How did you work that out?
SD: Such a good question. And that’s literally the foundation of my work. There was a variety of things, right? In Buddhist psychology it explains that there’s three kinds of forgiveness: towards yourself, forgiving those who’ve caused you pain, and then asking for forgiveness of those that you’ve caused pain, intentionally or unintentionally. And it was a variety of different things. It was in meditation, and then writing letters, and then remembering that forgiveness is an independent process, never grasping the need of turning the letter in or reading it to somebody, but just doing the work between me and me.
And I wrote letters over and over and over again. That was one aspect. And then another aspect is every time the memory surfaced in my mind, depending on which memory was it, I would say, “I forgive you, forgive me. May you be happy, may I be happy.” So it was concentrating the mind to be able to even have access to call back these memories and then apply the antidote. So concentration of mind—foundational to any healing—relearning how to breathe so we are able to regulate the nervous system when we’re working with traumatic memories, and then applying the antidote as I’m walking, driving, folding laundry, washing dishes. Constantly having this antidote in the mind: I forgive you, forgive me. May you be happy, may I be happy.
And then the writing of the letters, really putting pen to paper and saying, “Forgive me for all the ways I’ve caused you pain, intentionally and unintentionally.” Going through in very, very detailed—and then ending the letters always with the altruistic motivation, with the compassionate motivation. Like, “I genuinely wish you to be happy and for you to be free of suffering.” And working with that until the point that it then becomes genuine. You recognize that you cause pain to others because you’re in pain. People cause pain to you because they’re in pain. Because if we’re so relaxed inside ourselves, we’ll never cause pain to other people. It just doesn’t make any sense.
And then I knew that the moment had changed, that something had radically changed. It was when I would be just doing whatever, living, and the memory surfaced in the mind and would pass the mind’s eye, and I wouldn’t have a flare-up. My entire system would be crunchy, and my perception would be closed off; it would be a sort of a relaxed, harmonious passing without residue, without a psychological residue. And that’s when I knew, OK, something is radically changing inside of me.
And the most miraculous thing that I always have to mention is the moment that I had landed at the next level, I had an email from my business partner. You can’t make this shit up. You know what I mean? And then when I started to teach these—all of our retreats, we have a whole day where we do forgiveness practice, right? It’s a very hard day for the retreaters because our inability to make peace with the past is completely dictating or running and ruining our life. Right? So in all these retreats, the day that we would do these letters, the next day would always have somebody coming up to me and saying, “Sah, you’re not going to believe what happened. I got a text from my ex.” “I got an email from this one.” I got a—the most epic things were miraculously happening in people’s lives.
So I can’t stress enough the importance of bringing forgiveness to the forefront. And as I call it in the book, putting on your spiritual fanny pack and having it there for everything. And apply forgiveness to every night you go to sleep and you’re holding grudges. You may be holding a grudge because your Uber driver is playing loud music or talking a foreign language. You can just, whatever little grasp and little grudge that you were overly identifying with it, apply the antidote of forgiveness. Feel the release and that long exhale, that ahh that happens when you’re able to allow it to move and allow yourself to not be overly identified with it.
But I have to say it’s an active practice, and it’s a radical choice to stop the cycle of harm, stopping the cycle of harm. It doesn’t take away from the people involved. It doesn’t take the responsibility of the people involved in the co-creation of the trauma, but it gives you an opportunity to say, “I am done regurgitating my trauma. I am done replaying the past. I am done playing that horror movie in my mind 275,000 fucking times. I am done with that story.” It takes you to step up and say enough is enough. And that’s what’s going to give you the fuel and the push for you to say, “I’m going to do this forgiveness practice. I’m going to practice until I’m free.” Every single dance practice that I open, or meditation, we always open with a prayer: I’ll practice until I’m free. And may my freedom light up the way for the freedom of others. Keeping that altruistic motivation in mind will help you to have more energy towards writing a genuine forgiveness letter.
And at the beginning, it’s going to feel fake as shit. It’s going to feel really like, oh, I don’t want to do this. But just try, bring yourself to the edge every single day. And you do it, and at some point you’re going to be like, oh, OK, here it is. The memory is passing by, and it just passes by. And you’re like, hey girl.
TS: Now, you talked about what it was like to be one of a handful of people who wasn’t white sitting on their meditation cushion during the retreats where you were being trained. And here you are, you’re talking about going to India. A lot of Indian spirituality is not interested in honoring the body, honoring the earth, honoring the feminine. And it’s a patriarchal tradition from guru to a student. How do you think the spirituality from India that so many of us feel connected to in our bones needs to evolve at this time through us so that it’s expressed differently? Clearly, you have a very sassy, super sassy, supremely sassy, mega sassy way, but what are the elements of it, of the evolution that’s needed in our time?
SD: I think we need better commentators. We need better translators. We need Black and brown and queer bodies that are saying, after the ways that we have been conditioned to believe things have to be done in a certain way, and just carve your way in and have people like mentors teach and support systems like you, Tami at Sounds True, to say, “Here, I’m going to give you this opportunity to publish this book and help people in this way.” But I think we just need—I think a lot of the problem is that the sacred texts have turned into misinterpreted literature where it’s the privileged few who’ve had an opportunity to go there, have translated in a way that fits their view, it fits their addiction to their suffering, it fits their comfort level.
And we’re living in a world where that comfort no longer works, honey. That’s my take on it. And I think this is such a good question. I have to sort of put more thought into it, but I think, really, if you are a teacher or if you are in these spaces, looking around and making the front row of your places Black and brown and queer bodies, changing the paradigm of how Black and brown and queer bodies are seen in these spaces, putting them on the stage with you, speaking in a panel together with them, hearing their texture of their trauma and what happens in their bodies when they’re walking into spaces. I think these are very important topics, and I thank you for this question. It’s sort of activating my mind to think more fully about this.
TS: Now, you write in Spiritually Sassy about “coming out” spiritually.
SD: That’s right.
TS: And I thought that was interesting. And just for a moment, a little bit of a confessional moment, which is often when I talk to people about my own life story, I say coming out as a lesbian was easy; coming out spiritually took a whole hell of a lot of courage, for me to share what really matters the most to me, which is my relationship with Source. Like that’s really—but it took a lot of courage for me to talk about it, to own it. And so I’m wondering, because you’re the only other person I’ve ever really heard talk about this coming out spiritually, what coming out spiritually has meant for you.
SD: Yes, that’s so good. And thank you for bringing that up. Coming out spiritually is the recognition that 15 minutes in the morning, sorry, honey, it’s not enough. You got to align every area of your life with intention and attention, and that will connect you to Source, that will connect you to your heart. And coming out of the spiritual closet is spiritualizing every hour of your life. You’re waiting in line—instead of you being impatient and eating your nails and itching and becoming jittery. So whisper a mantra in your mind, whatever it is that you’re doing, how could you use that opportunity to train your mind, to open your heart, and to open up to the infinite intelligence to energize your body? Coming out of the spiritual closet is prioritizing that, what you said, is connection to source and recognizing the ultimate goal of human life is to become free so we can help others to become free. Right?
And I’m not talking about freedom as in the tall order of enlightenment. I’m talking about just a relax-inside-of-yourself kind of way, where your thoughts are more positive, where your feelings are more easeful, where your body’s energized, your perception is not so limited. I’m speaking about that kind of thing. And coming out of the spiritual closet, it was extremely difficult for me too. I think coming out as gay, it took me a long time to do it. I was 23 when I did it, and it took me to start the magazine and have stuff to show for and say, “I don’t need anything from you. I’m going to come out. I’m gay. So I’m independent from whatever you think about me.” And then coming out of the spiritual closet was a really difficult thing because all the people that were in my life were people in the fashion industry, and they thought I lost my shit.
They thought I went batshit crazy because I was now in monasteries in India doing my thing and talking about healing and talking about transformation and running after teachers, and people were just like, “What the fuck happened to you?” And then slowly, slowly, they were like, “I want some of that too. I want that relaxation. I want that joy.” Because all the photos I used to take were like this [makes face] and now I didn’t know that I take—it’s like, it’s all about letting the inner smile radiate in the face, over and over again. But it took a minute, and I think coming out of the spiritual closet, it’s a radical choice in a world that says no, in a world that says, “Stay small, be small, and fit in.” Coming out of the spiritual closet, it’s making a radical choice to be authentically you and to make the radical choice to activate your heart and find the ways to share the qualities of the heart in your own unique way with the world.
And that takes a lot of courage, right? Because a lot of people are doing jobs they don’t like, hanging out with people they don’t like, not healing relationships, and blaming other people for how they feel. Coming out of the spiritual closet asks you to take inventory of every area of your life and say, “What? How could I spiritually align every single aspect of my life and be honest about it?” That’s a little something in there. Does that make sense?
TS: It does. At the very beginning of Spiritual Sassy, right at the very, very beginning of the book, you introduce Sah’s sassy glossary. And I had so much fun reading about this. And one of them is the way you use—I mean, you’ve been using the word “honey” in this conversation, that’s sweet—but then it kind of goes up, it starts going up various levels. And you talk about how you can call someone “girl,” and why don’t you explain? The terms that got my attention were “girl,” “bitch,” and “megaboss.”
SD: OK.
TS: So go ahead and define these three terms the sassy way.
SD: Yes. So “girl”—I think if I’m correct from what I wrote—this is a year and a half ago—but the way I use it, it’s not gendered. It’s a loving, kind way of saying “darling” or “sweetie,” but it has the edge, like girl, like almost like you have to give a little bit of a break in the back and a snap to like call somebody in, like, “Girl, check your shit.”
And then “bitch”—it’s like another degree. All of these words have sort of like two ways. It could be like, “Bitch, what’s up?” Or like, “Bitch.” It’s either wake your shit up or celebrate you. It’s never negative. They’re both like wake up to your shit and not in a negative way, but like, hi, bring awareness to this. Or also like, “Let’s celebrate you, bitch,” that kind of thing.
And then “megaboss.” It’s someone who is living in their truth, someone who has figured out what brings them joy, someone who knows how to serve the world, someone who knows who they are at the base of their being. And it’s something that I say often to people, “Awaken your megaboss.” And when you awaken your megaboss, you have spiritualized every area of your life.
That’s what I’m remembering from it. I should probably pull up the glossary because I say this so often now, that it’s—I think the words sort of, they’re getting new meaning the more I use it too. Let me see.
TS: All right, well, I want to celebrate you, bitch. And I want to celebrate you, bitch, by talking about the social media videos that you have of yourself that last about 30 seconds—20, 30 seconds—and you are dancing in some gorgeous outfits and you’re communicating spiritual truths at the same time. Now, to me, talk about a 21st-century way of sharing the dharma, something like this. So share with me a little bit about the inspiration behind these dance videos.
SD: Thank you for that, my love, that is such a good one because I had a lot of fear being in a guesthouse in Dharamsala and putting on a kimono and some sexy underwear. And knowing that that was my way in to get people to read about suicide, read about mental health, read about the mind, get to know themselves. I knew that that was my way in, to lure people in to become aware of this stuff, but it took—again, it was another coming out of the spiritual closet. It was another way of me being more truthful, more authentic, more radically myself. I was like, “Who am I to say that I’m sharing the Buddha dharma in this way, that is so not the way. You’re doing a disservice to the lineage. You’re fucking shit up.”
But I said, no, there’s the whisper in my heart, the knowing that arises from the most awakened part of me guides me towards, yes, this is the way to do it. This is the way that you are meant to share that. So it took a lot of courage to step in and say, “You know what? This is what I’m going to do.” And then slowly, slowly, that created a whole movement in itself. And it’s been incredible to see, guiding people to dance with attention and intention, not just dancing for the sake of dance, but gathering the energy of the mind into the present moment and then treating that spacious awareness that we create with concentration, with an intention, and saying, “I’ll dance for my freedom. I’ll dance my sorrows. I’ll pour my anger into this dance. I’m dancing to transform. I’m dancing to heal.” And that just sort of took off.
And it was interesting this Sah method where it’s exotic dance, meditation, breath work, and mantra combined. It was something that I was just doing it for myself and posting it as a way to draw people in to this practice, to this peace, to peek into my world of how I was healing. And then Deepak Chopra’s team was like, “Girl, what are you doing over there? That’s a look. Come into our office.” So I go to their office, six people sitting around; they have already read everything that was on me. They have already seen everything I had to say. They were just sort of interviewing me. And they’re like, “We want you to teach this at our retreat.” And like yourself, it’s such an honor and so intimidating to be in your presence. Same with Deepak and all these masters who I’ve ended up having the honor to be next to, and then to go to Deepak Chopra’s retreat and share this thing that I had no language for, that was just me bringing attention and intention to dance and transforming.
And then I had to create a method for—I had to create a terminology for and structure to it. And then that sort of took off. But it really comes down to creating the conditions for you to tap into the flow state where you’re then able to think laterally beyond logic. And that’s when these whispers come through, and you do things that surprise yourself, and you’re like, damn girl, that’s a look. And then you get feedback from the world saying this is the right way, go forward. So that communion with life was happening the more I was posting these videos. And I can’t wait to dance with you, honey.
TS: All right. Now, in the very beginning of our conversation, you paid homage to the mahasiddhas. That in a sense who you are today is living on their shoulders in a certain sense. And I don’t know if all of our listeners will be familiar with the mahasiddhas. I think of them, talk about megabosses.
SD: That’s right.
TS: They’re the megabosses, but maybe you can share a little about how you’ve been inspired by them.
SD: That’s right. I have them right here. They’re the Buddhist lions, also known as the—the literature speaks of 84 mahasiddhas, and these are great saints, and these are people who are radical. They didn’t follow the traditional setting of perhaps going to a monastery and sitting quietly. They’ve used all their pain, all their suffering, their craft—they’ve used everything to become free. And that freedom to support other people in the—I just love that because what excites me, it’s the notion of out of the monastery, out of the cave, into the streets. And using your relationship to people, and to yourself, and to your environment to become free. So I recommend to just—just as a beautiful poetry and beautiful experience—to read about the Buddhist lions or these radical saints that have paved the way for a different kind of spirituality, for a spirituality that’s radical, that uses everything and anything to become free.
And one thing that I also loved when I was just getting started on this path was that this Vajrayana, this tantric Buddhism and this mahasiddha way, was for people who have access to extreme emotions and who are visionaries and creative types. So through the book, it talks about sex workers and different kinds of these radical saints who are transforming, are reclaiming our view of what spirituality is. And I think that is so phenomenal for someone who was trying to fit in, for someone who was so desperately trying to fit into these spiritual places. That’s a modern way of talking about it. I encourage everybody to just look up on Google and get the—maybe Sounds True has a modern book on it.
TS: I don’t think we do.
SD: OK.
TS: But you may have to be the one to write it, Sah.
SD: Oh my God! Imagine how amazing would it be to create incredible visuals to show them. And I do have a course that I created where there’s 10 modern-day mahasiddhas that we’re drawing upon the radical visionary energy. People who have truly been in a traumatic previous experience, and then they really said, “You know what? After this I’m going to create from my pain. I’m going to transform my pain into my dharma.” And it’s—
TS: Can you give an example of that just to make it real for people?
SD: Yes. Same exactly for me. Now I help people with my becoming a mental health advocate and studying the Buddha dharma and contemplative psychotherapy, like all the things that I’ve struggled with—depression, suicidal ideation, anxiety, addiction—that is the foundation of where my work lives. And the next stage to something that I’m really excited about is helping people—young boys, queer brown folks, specifically—get to know themselves from the age of 16 to 19. Those are the most traumatic times in my life. Those are the times that I literally, oh my God, have done the most ruthless things towards myself, towards other people, without guidance, without support.
So the next level of my work is now that I’m establishing myself in this place, helping people with depression, anxiety, and addiction, to then go into that place and help young people in that age. So I say oftentimes, not for everybody, but depending what you have overcome, depending on what’s been your most traumatic experience and you found your way out of the valley of shadows onto the other shore, whatever tools that you’ve accumulated through that journey, that might be what you’re asked to do in this lifetime. That might be where your purpose lives. That might be where your most source of joy lives. And that’s where you are most of service, so that is transforming your pain into your mission. That is you living like a megaboss, honey.
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TS: Now, in your book Spiritually Sassy, you identify eight steps for the spiritually sassy way, and there’s a couple of steps I wanted to talk to you a little bit about. We can’t go over all of them, but in step six, you talk about “believe you’re amazing.” And my question for you is how do you work with it when you don’t feel amazing? What do you do?
SD: Great question. I think first things first is, this baseline of feeling like inadequate and wrong and walking around like a mortal sin or walking around with this idea that—it goes back to the forgiveness, right? It literally goes back to that because I think a lot of us interpret, “My actions are bad. I’m a bad person.” This misinterpretation puts you in this state of complacency, of inability to recognize that if my actions were bad, it doesn’t mean that I’m a bad person. My actions are not a reflection on the self, on my source energy or my Buddha nature.
So this is why the steps in the book are—they are linear. They are meant to be worked on one after the next, because when you do land at “believe you’re amazing,” at that point, you’re going to have already started to look at the main pain points in your mind that take you for a spin. You’re going to have already looked at your belief systems. You’re going to have introduced a new set of belief systems into the mix. You’re going to have already started to train your mind—concentration of mind, I can’t say enough at all. I think a lot of people are so drawn to conceptual meditations and visualizations and visualize yourself. Amazing, great, all this stuff, it’s perfect and delicious. But in the literature itself is you have to concentrate the mind.
So concentration of mind is foundational. Relearning how to breathe, I say this so often. And then have a practice that makes you feel sexy. I think sensuality and sexuality have been so looked down upon in the hive, in the spiritual teachings of sorts. But I think something that I’ve developed later, that I’ve been talking about, is putting on your spiritual stilettos. And I’m talking about tiptoes or putting on your high heels, even if you don’t wear them. And I think whoever created the stilettos or the high heels was a spiritual master, unaware of what they were doing. Because when you put on the heel, you’re rolling your shoulders back. Your spine is straight. Your chin is parallel to the ground. You have a different view of yourself and the world.
And it asks you to walk with presence, regardless if you’re on autopilot, regardless if a lot of people now are using the high heels to hide their pain, to hide their crunchiness. But I think the truth of it, it’s rolling your shoulders back and putting this spiritual stiletto, that in itself is a simple practice that will help people to—walk up and down your house, put on a delicious song, and just walk, putting your tiptoes. Is that how you say it in English, tiptoes, right, like that? And just walk up and down, and then as you’re walking up and down, visualize the whole world sending you love, visualize the whole world happy that you’re alive, visualize the whole world bowing because you’re walking in your power, like have that interplay, have that communion with life.
But really everyone—boys, girls, and nonbinary, fluid people of all sorts—try this experience of walking your tiptoes. I call this spiritual stiletto practice. And something that has just landed for me in the last couple months as I’ve been continuing to upgrade my teaching. And it does wonders for people. It literally puts you in that place of like, “Oh shit, I’m a visionary. I’m a megaboss, bitch.” So try that out. And again, it’s a daily reminder and it starts with what you see in the mirror in the morning. Are you like how I used to be? I’m still struggling with acne scars, but my skin was terrible, like cystic acne in my chest, in my back, in my face. And I used to look at myself in the mirror and be like, “You’re gross.” First thing I would say to myself in the morning. Imagine the impact that it had believing that, entering the world from that place.
So who are you and what are you saying to yourself as soon as you wake up? To believe you are amazing, you have to change your internal vocabulary. Treat the mind to—say the things that you say to your best friends, tell them to yourself. Say the things that you say to your lover, but tell them to yourself over and over again. No wonder I have a freaking Buddha tattoo in my hand, and a compassion date in the other one. And I’m about to continue to—these are reminders. We need reminders, put sticky notes in your bathroom wall, whatever it takes you to do. I have a Manjushri in my background in my phone because I want to be reminded of my unconditional potential to be wise at any given moment.
Every single thing around me is a reminder of my potential to be amazing, to remember that you have this unconditional potential to be amazing and visionary. And to recognize you have a purpose here over and over again, you need reminders. These are your sangha. These are your teachers. This is your practice. And this is your house. Turn your room into a shrine, honey, stuff like that.
TS: Sah D’Simone, you’ve inspired me for the first time in my life at age 58 to go buy a pair of stilettos.
SD: Yay! Please tell me what happens.
TS: All right. OK. Now I’ve read that you actually have a name for your inner critic, that you call your inner critic “Bianka” with a k.
SD: That’s right.
TS: Why name your inner critic, and why Bianka?
SD: That’s right. That’s so funny because it was another radical moment. I’m sitting at ABC Home, Deepak’s home base in New York, around very serious meditation teachers. And everyone’s like, “This is what I do with my mind. This is what happens.” And everyone’s like that. And I said, “OK, I’m going to tell a story about Bianka with a k.” Everyone starts laughing. And I was like, OK, the work is working because joy—if we’re laughing, healing is taking place. So the healing has already started, and don’t take me wrong, like whatever path towards freedom that works for you, do you, but I think the importance of laughter. So when I hear Bianka with a k, it already sparks a little bit of joy. And when you give your inner critic a name, what you’re doing is you’re recognizing spacious awareness.
You’re recognizing that you are the sky, as vast as the sky and as bright as the sun, and you’re not just a passing cloud. Over and over again we are, unintentionally because of our condition, we’re overly identifying with our thoughts, with our feelings, with our emotions. A thought passes by; we put on that old prom dress that doesn’t even fit you anymore, and we enter the world, all squeezed up and tight, and we’re operating from that place. So we’re saying unkind things, and we’re doing unwholesome actions. So when we are naming the inner critic, you’re able to recognize that this is a part of you that’s crunchy. It’s not who you are. Stop putting yourself in a box by believing your thoughts and your feelings and your emotion to be the truth indicator of who you are. You’re unboxable, honey, nothing could put you in a box.
And when you are—there’s a variety of ways to also approach this. But the baseline of it is “parts” vocabulary. Saying a part of me feels this, a part of me is experiencing that, a part of me is this, helps you to create spacious awareness. And the inner critic, it goes back to being spiritually sassy. It calls upon joy, it calls upon laughter, it calls upon playfulness, which I think it really is the—you can gauge the depth of your spiritual progress by how lighthearted you are and how much you can laugh at yourself. So calling—and I invite everybody who’s listening to give your inner critic a name. And when you start to go into catastrophizing or ruminating or worst-case scenario mindset—any variation of states of mind that are unwholesome, that are destructive, that are unkind, that are vicious—give it a name.
By giving it a name—and this is also, it falls back into a Buddhist teaching of labeling the internal weather pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral, without attachment or aversion, right? So the footing is in the Buddhist psychology, but I just try to find a way to modernize it for people, and it’s good. Like even when I’m caught up in my shit, my sister’s like, “Bianka is here. Tell her to take a virgin margarita and go back to the beach.” Or I say to myself, “Oh, Bianka is around. Let me put the coffee to go. She’s not coming in for coffee. I’m not bringing out the beautiful ceramic mug and having her in. And I’m not letting her move in either.” You know? So it gives you that playfulness to change the mind.
And slowly, slowly, when we stop overly identifying with every single internal distraction that arises in the mind, the mind naturally calms itself because you’re stopping the momentum. Feelings become thoughts; we claim the feelings and then we react. If you’re able to pause in that middle—and when you call it Bianka, you’re stepping into the audience and saying, “Oh, look who’s performing right now. Bianka. Hey girl, that’s a fierce performance. Oscar-winning performance, honey, but I’m not buying it anymore. I’m stepping off.” It’s that kind of energy. And the laugh, laughing towards myself was something that I learned at an ashram in the south of India. On this ashram there was a guy who was laughing at himself all the time, and I was so triggered by it. But then I built the courage to ask him, “Why do you laugh out loud towards yourself multiple times a day?”
And he says, “Every time I get caught up in a negative spiral, I laugh at myself to recognize how empty and how transient these thoughts and these feelings are. And I laugh at myself when I get caught up in them, and that laughter helps me to unhook, helps me to recognize that I’m taken.” And I was like, “Oh, what a guru! You’re a genius.” What a legendary, beautiful teaching. But the aversion that came from my inability to see that that was a high teaching right there. So that’s a little bit about Bianka. She’s not around so often. She comes in, sometimes it’s late afternoon when I have done everything I need to do for the day. And then she’s like, “You haven’t done enough, honey. Where you at? You’re not producing enough. Everybody else is doing so much; you’re not.” Competition and comparison shows up. That’s Bianka.
Or in the morning, wake up feeling crunchy, like, “Oh, you’re going to be crunchy all day. You suck.” That is Bianka. So I’m like, “Oh, hey girl, what you need, boo? What you need?” And then slowly she phases, she passes.
TS: OK. So I wanted to ask you a question about this sentence that I pulled from the book that I thought to myself, I really want to know how to do this. And what you wrote is, “On the spiritually sassy path, you will learn to connect with the heart on demand.” On demand. And I’ve been in situations where I don’t feel like I can access my heart, feels shut off or whatever. So how do you connect with the heart on demand?
SD: Great question and big delicious question. I just also want to preface quickly that at that point of working, having worked through your shit through the book, at that point, you’re going to have a variety of different tools. I have to say this over and over again: it requires you to have a deep relationship to the breath. Research shows that an ordinary—all of us experience anxiety and depression; we’re breathing anywhere from 12 to 16 times per minute. And the healing breath that gives us access to a different perspective—gives us access to a rolled-up shoulder, a chin that’s parallel to the ground, a fierce look, a relaxed face—is a breath that’s four to six times per minute. So relearning how to breathe, I mean, it’s the secret sauce I think for connecting to the heart on demand and slowly, slowly, being able to identify what that whisper feels like, the quality of that whisper.
And then slowly, slowly, you’re going to—it will feel more like the default of the mind. But it’s a practice and it’s something that it’s a continuous effort. It’s not something that—I think we could all agree we could be years into the practice and we still get caught up. Bianka still takes over and we are meeting with a friend and we are in a social gathering, or you’re stepping to stage to teach and then all of a sudden you’re caught up in imposter syndrome. You’re caught up in judgment and comparison and whatever it is. But I think the foundation of the work requires us to take a deep belly breath, a long exhale, reclaim ownership over your nervous system, reclaim agency over your internal world.
And notice if our perception is limited of ourselves or the world. And also, carry a mantra with you. I work with the Tara mantra over and over and over again, when I’m being limited in compassion towards myself or limited in compassion towards other people, or the Manjushri mantra. Wisdom and compassion are my go-to: Om Tare Tuttare Ture Svaha, Om a Ra Pa Ca Na Dhih. And in the last chapter of the book is where I offered a lot of the tantric Buddhist mantras, and check it out—some of these mantras might be transformative for you. I know between these two, the Manjushri, wisdom, and the Tara compassion mantra, have literally given me access to heart on demand.
And I knew that I had access to the heart on demand more fully, more regularly, when I would be caught up in this internal season, and I’ll be hooked and taken by it. And then the natural next thing that would happen, the mantra would show up in my mind. And I was like, “Oh shit, this is working.” I didn’t have to fetch into my spiritual fanny pack so often to pull out the mantra. I didn’t have to take a deep breath, because my nervous system already knew a different way of relating to stress. My mind already knew a different way of relating to destructive thoughts, feelings, and emotions, with the mantra, with the breath, that is—does that make sense?
TS: It does. And it’s interesting that you’re pointing to this final chapter of the book, “More Meditations, Prayers, and Mantras for Your Journey,” where you offer these mantras as you just described. But the very first practice that you offer in this chapter is the practice of taking a primal scream.
SD: I know.
TS: And I also, I thought that was really interesting. And I’ll tell you why, Sah, just here we are being super sassy together. That’s something that I’ve found I’ve had to do. I’ve had to do it. I’ve never talked about it before, and I don’t know how I’ll feel in an hour, but sometimes I’ve just had to take a primal scream. It’s just like something in me, but I’ve never heard anybody really talk about it in a contemporary way. So tell me how you came to this.
SD: Oh, honey. Well, I had to reclaim the primal scream. I grew up in a household—again, very loving parents—but screaming was a default. Mom and Dad communicated with screaming, and it wasn’t kind, it wasn’t the healing kind. It was the one that triggered you and made you want to run away. But slowly, slowly, as I started to rebuild myself and reclaim my relationship to a lot of things and translate screaming in a healing way, I decided to just do research around the power of singing and the power of screaming. And then there is research that really shows that it’s an extremely healing practice.
And at all of our retreats, we do it after we do the forgiveness day. The last bit of the forgiveness day, we go into the forest. And we’ve done this at Kripalu. We’ve done this at different places where people are doing that kind of work [whispers] like this. And then here we are being loud as fuck, letting the gods and goddesses know that we’re healing, letting them know that we’re not finished, that we’re going to the next level. Please pay attention to me, that kind of thing. So the screaming has been tremendously powerful for myself and for a lot of people. And what I do, if you live in a city or in an apartment and you can’t do it, go to your car, go to your car, close the door, drive up to a parking lot, and just let it out. Take a deep belly breath, really long inhale, and then just let out the scream and set the intention. I’m going to scream my sorrows; I’m going to scream my regrets. I’m going to—set an intention for it.
And that is what the primal scream is. Set an intention for it and say, “I have something that I’m not aware of what’s happening. There’s crunchy energy, wobbly energy, within me right now, and I need it out. I want it out.” So test that out. Or I’ve had students who are screaming into the pillow, but I think you really do need to be sort of—you guys are in Boulder, you have the forest you can go to, you could do it there. But if you’re in a New York City or a place like that, see what you can do, but try that. And I always say to people, if screaming was something that was triggering for you, if hearing a scream was something that was, made you tense, work up to it, but experience that.
It also helps you to reclaim your voice. I think a lot of us—women, queer, Black, brown folks—we’ve been told to stay quiet, mute yourself. So screaming it out, saying, “I am done muting myself. I am done silencing myself,” use that intention for your scream. That’s another powerful way to really reclaim ownership of your life. And I recommend everybody to try it.
TS: You are a screaming megaboss.
SD: Thank you.
TS: OK. Now I know I’m off, bringing up some of these steps all out of order.
SD: That’s OK.
TS: And just referring to them here and there. But I’m just trying to underscore some of the things that I was the most curious about. And in your eight-part sassy way, step five is “name your superpower.” And of course the subtitle of the book is also these Eight Radical Steps to Activate Your Innate Superpowers.
SD: That’s right.
TS: So what’s all this superpower talk?
SD: Superpower is your unique way of expressing the brahmaviharas. Again, Buddhist jargon, but the brahmaviharas are the four innate qualities to our hearts according to the historical Buddha. The literature speaks to them a little bit different. I translate it in a way that I find most relatable. So equanimity is now known as wisdom. Sympathetic joy is just known as joy. Lovingkindness is just known as love, and mahakaruna is just known as compassion. So it’s—we all have these four qualities in our heart. Superpower is you finding your own unique way of communicating these four qualities into the world. My unique way of communicating my superpowers into the world is showing up in a full, expressed, sassy way. So it’s communicating wisdom in a sassy way; it’s communicating compassion in a sassy way, love and joy in a sassy way. We all have our own unique way of conveying love, compassion, wisdom, and joy back into the world.
And that’s our mission, is to find our own unique way of conveying that back into the world. And it might show up for you as you’re making jewelry, as you’re writing, as you’re speaking, as you’re dressing somebody, as you’re painting, whatever it may be. Your gift for me is sassy language, is communication in a sassy way. So your superpower in this piece right here is finding your own unique way of conveying love, compassion, wisdom, joy back into the world. And it will take you to, again, go through these steps because there’s a lot of amazing—this is a practice book, it’s—you read the theory and you read the wisdom part and then I really put you to do the work.
And as you do the work, you’re going to figure out where does joy live for me? Like, what makes me feel most—makes me come alive? So there’s a lot of different bits and pieces of practice that will help you to find your own unique way. I think a lot of people that are on a spiritual path, they think that their superpower—they’re conveying their superpowers by doing something like Tami, starting a spiritual publishing house. Or doing something like Sah, stepping into this role of teaching. Or fundraising for an NGO or whatever. It’s not that; it’s find your own unique way. If you’re doing something that helps you to stay connected to that most awakened part of you, to your Buddha nature, whatever you touch with that intention will permeate the grid system. It will help other people, even if your superpower is working with Excel sheets, which they make me—they overwhelm me and I went into a trance when I look at them—but like my accountants, they do it from a place of intention and from that place of wisdom within them.
When you look at them, when you look at them, it relaxes your system because someone’s doing from a place of intention. People who make jewelry from that place of wisdom, compassion, love, and joy, when you look at that beautiful jewelry, when someone paints someone’s hair or creates clothes, whatever it is, whatever unique way you have that is only you know how to do, to help you access and create and uniquely convey that back into the world, that’s your superpower. Does that make sense?
TS: It does. But I’m imagining that person, Sah, who says, “Yes, look, Sah’s so flamboyant. He’s so funny, so clever. He’s dancing like a mega bitch.”
SD: Very loud.
TS: Yes. It’s easy for him to say, claim your superpower even if it’s just Excel spreadsheets or making a beautiful dinner. It doesn’t really feel like a superpower. That part of the listener who goes into their comparing mind and says, “My superpower feels like a mini-power.”
SD: Bullshit. I call it bullshit. I call that—it’s you listening to Bianka. I call that you have to make friends with Bianka, so in order for you to listen to the whisper of your heart more fully, listen to the part of you that celebrates you, listen to the part of you that loves you and is really devoted to your healing. And know that it’s the comparison and competition—people thinking that like, “I need to help millions of people. If I’m not helping millions of people, I’m not helping at all.” That’s such a conditioned capitalistic way of approaching your life and healing in general. Recognize that quality over quantity, honey. And if you are helping five people, if you’re helping 10 people, or if you’re exercising your superpower and you’re making that beautiful dinner at your small bed-and-breakfast place in upstate New York, or in Boulder, Colorado, you are helping the grid system. You’re helping the collective to awaken.
I think that the conditioning, that of comparison of “Sah’s doing it that way, you’re doing it this way,” like, honey, listen to this right now. You’ve been my mother, I’ve been your mother, we’ve just switched roles right now. You know what I mean? I’m just here to remind you what you already know. And that’s important to know. I went up to this—to see this oracle in Dharmasthala, and I was hoping he would give me this super complicated tantric practice. He said, “Sah, honey, the only thing you need to do is engage with everybody as if they have been your mother.” And I was like, “Oh, fuck you. I want some really complicated tantric practice. And this is what you’re giving me?” It took me a couple days to even entertain the idea of working with that.
So when you’re comparing and competing with other people, it’s the delusioned mind speaking, because someone who you’re inspired by, they’re just reminding you of what you could do. They’re reminding you of your potential. The seed of inspiration is in you. What you see in me is in you. There’s nothing that I have that you don’t have, this separateness that we are approaching life with, it’s delusion mind. It’s the stuff that we are here to clean up. So that’s in short a little bit about that. I wish I can shake somebody up and be like, “Honey, no, no, no, this is not the real thing. You have it; you can do it.”
TS: I just want to end with one final question, Sah, which is, this podcast is called Insights at the Edge. And one of the things I’m always curious about is what somebody’s growth edge is, what they’re working on. If they were to tell the truth, like this is the part of me that’s not so evolved that I’m working on, so it can become more evolved. And part of the reason I like to ask this question often is because I think we tend to pedestalize people. And just by all of us coming off the pedestal and talking about what we’re working on—
SD: That’s right.
TS: —I think gets people to just know that we’re all on a journey. So I’m curious in your journey, what’s your edge?
SD: It still comes back to inadequacy. Still comes back to a surfacing feeling of feeling inadequate, feeling like I’m wrong or I’m undeserving. I’m unlovable. And why that’s showing up is because I am finally at a place in my life that I want partnership. I want a companion. I want to share my life with somebody. And I’ve had a few heartbreaks, even in the time of COVID and of the pandemic, and that rejection has really flared up this like, I’m unlovable, I’m—that really has been something that’s come up for me. And I spent two weeks at the beginning of the pandemic walking around, just recognizing my pain. I’m in pain. I’m in pain. Because I had met this guy at a retreat and, first of all, I broke the silence in retreat, which I never do. But he said “hi” to me. So I ended up saying “hi” back, whatever.
Make a long story short, we ended up talking. And I felt, oh my God, my dream has always been to meet somebody at a retreat center, because that means that they’re interested in the same things I’m interested in—blah, blah, blah, was not the case. I had put him on a pedestal. I have done a great job that we do, but I had really glorified a lot of that experience. And then when I encountered the rejection, it really put me on a spin of feeling inadequate again and feeling unlovable, feeling wrong, feeling like I’m a bad person at the base of my being. And that was something that I had sort of faced many, many years ago. And it came back again, and the more I put myself out there in relationship—and I hope whoever’s listening, if you’re single, honey, hi, say hi, don’t be shy. I’m not intimidating at all. I would probably squeeze you and give you a big hug.
It really has been a huge thing for me, and wanting to find companionship and experiencing this inadequacy as it shows up, that’s been a big thing for me. And also resurfacing feelings of addiction. Like contemplating, are people having so much more fun than me because they’re drunk or they’re high? And I’m like, “Do I want to have that again? Do I want to go in that place?” So these are some of the things that have surfaced for me. And thank you for bringing up this question because it’s very necessary for us to—I never want to be put on a pedestal, ever. So I think that’s a necessary piece to sort of anchor in. Relationship and crunchiness and stickiness around drugs and alcohol now that I’m three years in—May, June, July, August—three years and three months sober.
TS: I want to thank you, Sah, for being so honest and vulnerable and being so trustworthy. What I notice is that when people share what’s really happening, I trust them. And also, I just want to say, I love you.
SD: I love you.
TS: Spontaneously and, really, thank you for being so wickedly sassy and funny and reverently irreverent and carrying the torch in our world for a new generation. Thank you so much.
SD: Oh my God, honey, thank you so much for supporting the work and really giving me this opportunity to be here with you and Sounds True family, like dreams coming true. And thank you for that. Truly love you, and I can’t wait to dance with you, and us both in our stilettos, the hair out and the whole vision. Thank you so much, really.
TS: I’m speaking with Sah D’Simone. He’s the author of the new book Spiritually Sassy: Eight Radical Steps to Activate Your Innate Superpowers.
Thank you for listening to Insights at the Edge. You can read a full transcript of today’s interview at SoundsTrue.com/podcast. And if you’re interested, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app. And also if you feel inspired, head to iTunes and leave Insights at the Edge a review. I love getting your feedback, being in connection with you, and learning how we can continue to evolve and improve our program. Working together, I believe we can create a kinder and wiser world.
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