286: Collective Liberation w/ Caroline J. Sumlin

* Rough Transcript *

Ep. 286

Caroline: [00:00:00] You absolutely can use your privilege to help work in an anti-white supremacy, anti colonization, anti-racism, anti paternalism kind of way. And I definitely think if you begin to look into what it looks like to actually deprogram and decondition, and you may feel like because you haven’t seen it that way because of your neurodivergence, that you may not have that conditioning, but it’s still in there. It’s just going to present differently in you. So figuring out the way that it’s presenting in you, and then working to kind of deprogram that.

Aurora: Welcome to the Embracing Intensity podcast. I’ll be sharing interviews and tips for gifted, creative, twice exceptional, and outside the box thinkers who use their fire in a positive way. My name is Aurora Remember Holtzman. After years of feeling too much, I finally realized that intensity is the source of my greatest power.

Now, instead of beating myself up about not [00:01:00] measuring up to my own self imposed standards. I’m on a mission to help people embrace their own intensity and befriend their brains so they can share their gifts with the world through the Embracing Intensity community, coaching, educational assessment, and other tools to help you use your fire without getting burned.

You can join us at embracingintensity. com.

Hello. I am super thrilled to share part of our guest call on Collective Liberation with Caroline j Sumlin, author of We’ll All Be Free and you can hear a little bit more about her personal story on episode 2 [00:02:00] 81 and I was super excited that she was willing to come back for a second call with the community and have a really powerful discussion on collective liberation.

So you can find the recording of the full discussion in the guest call library and Embracing Intensity membership. Link in the show notes and you can continue the discussion in the Embracing Intensity community at community. dot embracing intensity.com.

I am diving into my last summer before going back full-time as a school psych in the fall. So you’ll probably see a little bit less content coming from me, but I am working on some behind the scenes restructuring of my membership and other tools to help move forward. And so keep your eye out for that and keep joining us in the embracing Intensity [00:03:00] community.

Enjoy.

Aurora: Welcome everyone. I’m so thrilled to have Caroline Sumlin join us, author of We’ll All Be Free, and I got the opportunity to interview her earlier in the year, and I’m so glad to have you. Welcome.

Caroline: Oh, thank you for having me. I appreciate

Aurora: it.

Before we get started, I love to have people introduce themselves. Glad to see all of you. Welcome Caroline. I’d love to have you introduce yourself and share a little bit about your work and then I’m gonna open up the chat for q and a. So if you guys have any specific questions that come up feel free to put them in the chat. And then I also have a few here to get us started. So welcome.

Caroline: Yes. Thank you all for having me today. It’s really lovely to meet all of you. I am Caroline j Sumlin. I’m an author and speaker. I also am a homeschool parent. I am in the Washington DC metropolitan area, but I’m originally from Minneapolis St. Paul. My work is centered on liberation, specifically from [00:04:00] white supremacy culture.

And the angle that I take with that is actually how white supremacy culture or our dominant societal culture impacts the way that we see ourselves, our self-worth, and the messages that society has been feeding us all of our lives that come from systemic oppression and systemic white supremacy that essentially caused all to feel as though we are not worthy enough or we have to constantly be chasing standards that were essentially dictated by, who has placed themselves at the top of our racial and social and economic hierarchy in society. So, that is what my book is about. It’s called, we’ll All Be Free, how a Culture of White Supremacy Devalues Us and How We can Reclaim Our True Worth. And it’s essentially a guide helping you navigate how you have been impacted by white supremacy, understanding the history and how the culture was developed as well as how you can essentially break free from and unlearn those standards, those norms that we’ve all been conditioned to believe and how you can live a life of freedom and kind of come home to who you truly are.

[00:05:00] So that is my work in a nutshell. Other than that, I’m, chasing after an eight and a 6-year-old in some way, shape or form, or I’m on the tennis court playing tennis for drinking coffee. That’s me.

Aurora: Awesome. And I’ve really appreciated your work both both on social media and in your book.

Which I finished actually on my trip to the A DHD conference in the fall.

Caroline: Oh wow.

Aurora: So then I finally reached out to you after that which was really awesome to have you. So, if you guys have specific questions, you can put them in the chat. I would love to hear them. And I’m gonna start with a few here, but I’ll prioritize the ones from the audience if you guys put anything in the chat.

So, I’m gonna start out with a question because this is definitely relevant to me. And that is, why do you think it’s essential for us all to understand how white supremacy culture affects everyone and not just those who are marginalized the most?

Caroline: I love this question so much because I think this is one of the biggest ways that we as a society, [00:06:00] like to divide or like to disassociate or feel as though that it has nothing to do with me or feel defensive in nature when we talk about something like white supremacy.

In fact, I am before I got on this call, I was looking at some comments from a post that I posted on threads and there’s, it was talking about urgency, which is one of those characteristics of white supremacy and a lot of people are right, you know, understand what I’m talking about. Then of course there’s always those people that are like, sure, bring race into it.

Yeah, this, yeah, I guess this makes me racist, or I guess it makes me a white supremacist. That’s usually what you kind of hear when you talk about white supremacy because there’s this idea, this feeling that it’s an attack on white people or the existence of whiteness or it’s not something that has to do with you if you do not identify as a marginalized person.

Or navigate our society in a marginalized body. But it is so essential that we understand that there’s no us and them when it comes to white supremacy. When it comes to a [00:07:00] system of oppression, though the system of oppression was designed to harm the most marginalized, it does not mean if you are someone that doesn’t exist in a marginalized body or as marginalized of a body, so to speak, because there’s obviously a range of that.

As somebody else or who this assume was intended to harm, that does not mean you are exempt from that harm. Anything that harms. You know, in a collective, when one person is harmed, one person is marginalized, when one person, or a small group of people or what have you are suffering, then that suffering is going to trickle and affect everybody.

There’s no way that anybody can live in freedom or live in true liberation when there is somebody that is not living in liberation. This is gonna be an interesting, maybe weird analogy that no one will maybe understand, but I’m gonna try anyway. So, I’m in a sorority and when I was pledging my sorority in college, we were taught a lot about, ’cause when you pledge the sorority that I’m in, you have what’s [00:08:00] called a line and there’s, a certain amount of girls on the line.

And so the girls that are on the line are your line sisters. That’s like we were taught, like this is your unit. When one sister is not well, your line is not well. You have to come together and you have to do what you can to bring that sister back up and help her become her best self.

When one of you is impacted, you are all impacted. You are your sister’s keeper, right? In our society, it’s the same way We have been taught that individualistically, we should all just be focused on ourselves. And if it doesn’t impact me, then it doesn’t matter. And if somebody else is marginalized, that’s their problem, or what we’re really taught is, well, you’re probably just not working hard enough.

You’re probably just not doing enough. If you are suffering from X, Y, and Z, we’re taught that, Hey, that’s a you problem. You probably brought that on yourself. Maybe it’s your own culture. Maybe it’s your people. Maybe it’s this, maybe it’s that. You need to fix that yourself. And that’s done on purpose to essentially try to prevent us from seeing [00:09:00] that it’s a collective problem and also prevent us from seeing that even in a place of privilege, you can still be harmed by this system because once you realize you’re harmed by it, then you want to dismantle it, right?

Once you realize that there’s a system out there that is harming you too, you want to do something about it. The other analogy I like to make is like, and this is an unfortunate one to make, but say for example, the issue of cancer, right? So if somebody is diagnosed with cancer, then all of a sudden they’re the ones that are like, well, I’m gonna show up now.

I’ve, beat cancer. I’m gonna be at the marathons. I’m gonna be at those races. I really care about this research. Like this is so important to me. If someone was never diagnosed with cancer, they may. Like, I always get sympathy and empathy mixed up, but they may sympathize.

Like they may be like, okay, yeah, that matters. You know, I care a little bit. I might donate some money here and there. I might, cheer somebody on. But then all of a sudden, once it hits you and somebody that you love or impacts you personally, all of a sudden you start to realize and your eyes get open to everything [00:10:00] in that’s wrong with that particular problem.

Now all of a sudden you are ready to fight too. Well, our society exists in such a way where if it can keep most of us from realizing that we are being harmed by the way the system is run, by the way our society is operated, then most of us aren’t gonna try to fight back. So once we realize that we are harmed, more of us are gonna try to fight back, and then the system can’t stand a chance.

So I hope that answers the question, but it’s so essential because number one, none of us are free until the least of these are free. But also, number two, when you realize you are being harmed from a system. No matter whether you are marginalized or not, now all of a sudden we all have a collective understanding that because it’s harming all of us, we have to do something about it.

And there’s no if, ands, or buts about it, once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Then you realize something needs to be done. It’s no longer something you can sit back and say, oh, well, sucks for them, but at least I’m fine. That’s what they want us to do.

Aurora: Yeah, absolutely. And I always think of the canary in the coal mine kind of [00:11:00] theory where people, you know, maybe feel it first, but it’s bad for everyone.

Right.

And you had mentioned the urgency piece as being part of that system and it made me think of one of the things especially with A DHD, but a lot of neurodivergence have difficulty with kind of getting themselves motivated. And it just reminded me of one of the things that motivates A DHD is that urgency and without urgency, sometimes we get nothing done.

And it just made me look up that real quick. There’s a there’s a acronym, INCUP, which is interest, novelty, challenge, urgency, and passion. Those are kind of the areas that help motivate folks with A DHD and often other executive functioning concerns. But I guess that just kind of brought my question to if you have any thoughts around what are some ways that have helped to motivate you outside of that concept of urgency, for motivation?

Caroline: Well, I [00:12:00] think the first thing to understand is that urgency when it’s being weaponized in white supremacy is different from like an urgency say, my doctor’s appointment is at 10 o’clock, I need to be there at 10 o’clock. Right? Like there’s a difference there. When we talk about urgency in the way that it’s weaponized, it’s more so this idea that if you are not constantly moving or constantly feeling as though you need to be, essentially treating life as if it’s a rat race, then you’re falling behind, then you are failing.

So we get these ideas in our head that we’re all competing against each other and I have to be ahead of you in order to be worthy, in order to be successful, in order to be seen. So I do essentially, whatever I can to knock you out of the way, focusing on myself, individualism in an urgent sense because I must be running out of time or I must be wrong.

I must not be doing something correctly if I’m not on the timeline that society says I should be on. [00:13:00] It can also be weaponized in certain organizational or institutionalized settings when you think about the workplace or what have you, because it can be used to make you feel as though you are less than If you say cannot produce at this rush timeline than what may be asked of you.

Essentially trying to rip your humanity away. The more that you operate like some type of robot that’s just literally rushing to get things done the better it ties. Along with that quantity over quality, which is another characteristic where it’s like, you know, we just want more. We don’t care if it’s done well.

We want mass produced. We want you to do as much as possible is what looks more productive or what looks more worthy in society. We’re taught that. Like, when I think about when I was in college and the idea was that the longer, the more beefed up your resume was because you were doing 17 organizations, right?

Stretching [00:14:00] yourself thin and constantly, like on a hamster wheel of being involved in everything and then of course, not to mention it wasn’t enough just to be involved, but you had to be a chair. You had to be a president, you had to be on the e-board. The more you did. The better you looked, the better you were presented, the better you were, what have you.

Instead of being able to say, I can do these one or two things really, really well and I’m gonna produce the best quality in this work that I’m doing and be able to do it at a pace that allows me to do that. Right. So I just wanna make sure that we understand that when we’re saying these different characteristics, it’s not the isolated characteristic itself.

It’s not that urgency in general is never necessary. And for people that are neurodivergent, if you have to kind of create your own urgency for certain things and you have strategies and tasks that you can do to help you navigate that, that’s not conflicting with how you see yourself, but it’s more so a strategy that you’re using, then that’s great.

But systemically and culturally, the idea that [00:15:00] everything has to be urgent and right now. Even like, and we see it everywhere. It’s normalized. So think of, if you’re ever like on social media or something like that, or you’re watching whatever, and you get a message about like, it’s March, you gotta get summer ready.

It’s just five weeks till summer or whatever. Like the idea that you have to be racing to prepare for a season and you have to get ahead and you have to ramp up your routine. That’s how that can be weaponized. And if you are not, you’re behind. And if your body doesn’t look like this or you’re not ahead of your goals.

Another way urgency would present itself was like back in October, people were starting their winter arcs. It was like, oh, get a headstart on your goals. Now imagine what happens when January 1st comes and you’re ahead of your goals and you’re ahead of everybody else. Why?

We’re people, what are we competing with each other for? On social media? And it’s not just social media. That’s how it presents itself. Now, these things have always existed in our society and culture. They just morph over time with the trends. [00:16:00] But we see more of it on social media now. So just using that for example, like what’s actually the point of competing in a sense of urgency to be able to say, come January 1st, look at me.

I am two months ahead of my goals than you. So you see what I’m saying? That’s the urgency part. So I know your question is like, how do you navigate things without the urgency, if it’s a tool that you’re using for neurodivergence and you know you can use that in a way that is beneficial to you, then great.

But separate that from the idea that you need to be constantly moving urgently. To be ahead of something. I know for me, my neurodivergence, there are days where I am able to use urgency to my advantage and then there are days where I know I have to be slower and take things a lot more slowly to be productive.

And I allow [00:17:00] my body to dictate what that looks like for me on a day-to-day basis. But obviously I can’t speak to what that will look like for everybody. ’cause Neurodivergence is so complex.

Aurora: Absolutely. And I think that brings to mind that for me there’s a difference between people pleasing and doing things or making commitments to other people that are things I already wanna do.

So like I can use others to motivate me to do the things I want to do. Not necessarily to do the things because of the other people, but if I make a commitment to do the things I wanted to do anyway, then that helps use that tendency to care about what other people think, to help motivate myself to do something that I already wanted to do.

So I’m not doing it because they want me to, but it does help me to do it because I said I would. So, mm-hmm. I see that. And I see you have a great question in the chat on the neurodivergent thing. I’d like to circle back to that when we get to the discussion. ’cause I think you can probably speak more to that.

I have a couple more [00:18:00] questions and if you guys have specific questions feel free to put ’em in the chat. But we’ll do a couple more questions and then we’ll open it up for discussion.

So, I did wanna to ask your thoughts on finding that balance between calling people in and also connecting with their humanity and keeping your own peace.

Caroline: Yeah. I love this question because I do think nowadays we do tend to kind of use protecting our peace as a crutch sometimes, right? And that a lot of people don’t wanna hear that. ’cause we kind of are like in a time, and I know there’s multiple generations on this call, but right now we’re at a time where it’s like, well, if it bothers me or makes me uncomfortable or messes with the way I’m feeling like it’s a no for me and I’m just gonna completely tune that out.

Right? And that does come with some privilege. I’m not saying that there is never like time to do that. I definitely have times where I check in with my body and if I really feel a strain in my mental health, [00:19:00] in my anxiety, I feel as though if I see one more news headline, it’s going to have a very

concerning effect on me, then that’s my cue. We need some space. Let me take a day or two to protect my peace, so to speak, because we never want to get to a point where we are essentially martyring ourselves and for the sake of, to say that we never gave in or never gave up, or we were super social justice warriors.

Something like that, which I do see people doing that too. Right? I see the other side of that where it’s like never, ever, ever taking a break or allowing yourself to have those very real human needs, and that’s not safe. So if you feel yourself, your mind, your body telling you, hey.

[00:20:00] You’re not safe right now, then absolutely follow that. Right. But also understand too that things that are hard and uncomfortable are not impossible. Okay. And the way that we’re able to navigate the things that are hard and uncomfortable are when our basic human needs, our fundamental human needs, are the most taken care of.

So I always tell people that allowing yourself to be called in or tuning into the activism and, the liberation work and being present in that doesn’t negate the fact that you are a human. And the fact that you do have human needs. It is that cliche where you still have to fill yourself up before you can pour.

So no one’s saying also negate sleep, negate needs, negate eating, negate joy, negate those things. If you aren’t filling your life with [00:21:00] your human needs and not just eat, sleep, air, you know, water, but actual joy and I forget what the other ones are, but like, you know, you think about the the Maslow’s hierarchy, right?

Make sure that you are taking care of the mental, the emotional and the physical needs, and still ensuring that there’s as much joy present in your life as possible. Still ensuring that family is present, still ensuring that you’re getting the physical touch from your loved ones, et cetera, et cetera.

’cause when you do have that, then you have the capacity to be able to tap in. I know, like, I do my best work and this work is taxing, it’s daunting. It’s the constant need to be on in this. Space and be present and reading all these headlines and reading all these opinions and offering something.

If I’m spent, I have nothing to offer and that doesn’t do anyone any good. So I still have to make sure that I am taken care of in all of the things I’m getting. My exercise, I’m sleeping. I don’t touch the work until the [00:22:00] physical part is being cared for. So I have the capacity to endure the uncomfortable to endure, the difficult to endure the emotions that come with that.

But I also recognize too that yeah, there’s absolutely needs for timeouts and sometimes that’s two, three days and that’s okay too.

Aurora: Absolutely. I’m gonna do a couple more questions and then we’re gonna open up for discussion. So, let’s see. It sounds like you’re saying the social hierarchies we live in don’t serve anyone.

And white supremacy is one of those hierarchies, but you’re saying that white supremacy is the single overarching hierarchy over all the others, capitalism, gender, et cetera. If so, how does that work?

Caroline: Well, you wrote my book for me. It sounds like you wrote it. Yeah.

That’s essentially what I’m saying. And I will say this, there are different takes on this. Some people believe it is capitalism that is the overarching one. And white supremacy exists as a system of oppression under that umbrella. I see it differently. [00:23:00] I see white supremacy as the umbrella.

I’ve used both metaphors. I use the umbrella metaphor, and then I also use like the foundation of like a house metaphor, right? Like you build your foundation and then you have the pillars and things like that come up in the home to create the entire house, but it doesn’t stand or function without the foundation.

I use both metaphors. And the reason why I say that is because, so, okay, a couple things, I wanna make sure I answer the question without going off on rabbit trails and there’s several of them in my book that’ll also help you. But when you actually look at the history, right, and it’s hard to find a starting point in the

cultivation of what becomes our modern society, right? And it is one of those things where it’s like what came first, the chicken or the egg. Because we got to where we are because [00:24:00] of a group of people who saw themselves in one way as better than for many reasons.

A lot of them are rooted in religion. And a lot of the belief then was that because we are Christian and there’s Catholicism and Protestantism, and Puritanism, all that kind of in there. But because we are Christian and because our skin is lighter and because in the Bible it says that.

Light is holy. That must mean we are like, they kind of rationalized like we should be the ones with access and dominion over the earth. And literally believed like, because we are Christian, if anybody else out there is not Christian or other cultures or other religions. And there was kind of seen as like heathenism that we have the authority that God gave us the authority to [00:25:00] take what should rightfully belong to us.

And what should rightfully belong to us is the riches and the money. And the wealth, beginning with way back when would’ve been spices and herbs and, other things that would’ve been seen as valuable. Right? And so when you begin with, i’m trying to see, like I’ll start with, when the Portuguese kind of like, were some of the first to come down into Africa and kind of see like, oh, they’ve got things that I wish we had, we should have that. Like it should belong to us. That’s kind of some of the beginnings of like, hey, this is a heathenistic.

They have gold, they have this, they have that, that should belong to us. They’re less than we are. They’re dark, they’re lots of other names that they would use that are in my book. I’m trying to kind of speak lightly here. So let’s begin this process of capturing these people and starting this whole enslavement in slave trade.

And so [00:26:00] racism was essentially created before race. The idea that they are less than we are. And then let’s come up with a system that ensures that is legal, essentially. And that’s where race came out of that. So capitalism from what we can see historically, really begins to develop in America specifically.

And I’m not saying capitalism never existed before America, but what we know is our modern day capitalism, the capitalism that we still model in our world today, in America specifically, or the western hemisphere, ’cause that includes Canada as well. Like very much began on the, plantation.

And that started the model of the big business and, you know, using humans as property and, as a monetary value and the way that our industry was essentially like modeled on the plantation first. Like the way the actual plantation ran, translated into the what is it called?

The [00:27:00] industrial revolution, like that essentially morphed into the industrial revolution and how the industrial revolution came about and how that model worked. That was essentially the plantation just kind of moving into a new setting, right?

And so it just kind of morphed from there. So when I look at why believe white supremacy is the overarching one is because I see that capitalism in modern day capitalism came from essentially trying to create white supremacy and trying to ensure that there was always that hierarchy that nothing could break that.

And how do you do that? You ensure that the people with the superiority, essentially elite white men, the wealthy white men, they have to hang on to all the wealth. And therefore we have to make sure capitalism makes that happen. Right? And that’s what we see to this day. We see the wealth hierarchy.

So that’s where when I was doing my research, I wrote my book to demonstrate that belief that capitalism fuels white supremacy. The way that I actually say in my book is that it’s [00:28:00] literally the engine that keeps white supremacy running. When you talk about all of the other systems of oppression.

So now we’re getting into gender, we’re getting into ableism, we’re getting into heterosexism, we’re getting into fat phobia. We’re getting into all of these things, right? When you look at what was considered the purest and the holiest of a person, right? You look at that being the elite white man, right?

So there’s like a, like a wheel of identities, right? And in the center of it is the elite white man. And then on the outer end it basically, you can kind of see like where would you kind of fall within the wheel.

And the closer you are to the center is the most privileged. So that would be the elite white man. And then it kind of goes out from there. So, lemme put it this way. Like a black man was still a black man, right?

Somebody who was. Not white. A white woman still not a white man, right? So if [00:29:00] gender had nothing to do with white supremacy, then there would’ve been equality in that arena. But there still had to be a way to keep people in their place. So there’s still a hierarchy there. And even though yes, if you’re a white woman, you sit on a higher level of that privileged ladder or that hierarchy than say a black woman or say, a black trans woman like

you can see how that, plays out. But at the same time, white men cannot keep their power if they have a white woman existing at the same level of power as them. So there still had to be systems that were created to ensure that even a white woman was kept in her place.

And from there all of these other systems are born right? You even see like the way I look at ableism, if the elite white, and then you gotta add Christian too, right? Christian man is the [00:30:00] definition of the standard. And so if you existed in a body that is considered to be disabled, then you might as well have not been white at that point.

There must be something wrong with you. And so therefore you are essentially the, you can’t sit with us type of idea. And I hope that explains it. I feel like I write about it a little bit better in my book, but, that is the way that my research at least supports that white supremacy was the foundation or the umbrella that then allowed these other systems of oppression to form and take place.

But they all continue to uphold white supremacy. They work to make sure that white supremacy is able to stand strong.

Aurora: Absolutely. And I would also say too, that it creates a situation where like poor white folks are, if you’re creating that division, then they’re focused on the division rather than the people who are actually keeping them in that, you know?

So [00:31:00] like it also creates something to distract those people. So even white people who are at a different level, like financially or whatever, who are being taken advantage of or whatever in their situations, especially as the financial gap gets wider and wider, focusing on the race issue, creating the divisions gives them something to focus on, or like immigrants or, you know, gives them something to blame other than the people who are actually keeping them, from that,

Caroline: that was all done on purpose. That tracks all the way back to indentured servitude. Right. It tracks back to okay, well we’ve gotta find a way to create, essentially a majority in whiteness as well. Right? Because we know historically speaking, not every single European immigrant was considered to be white when our country was first being.

Developed, we don’t use the word founded around. It was already founded. Right? Developed. [00:32:00] So, there had to be a way to kind of create a majority. So that was the idea of like, all right, let’s let them kind of like into the Whiteness Club by subjecting them to indentured servitude or other things that are at least not as bad as enslavement or bad as displacement when we’re talking about indigenous people.

So we can still marginalize, we can still oppress, but we can give them some contingencies or we can give them some conditions to make them feel as though, Hey, but you still gotta leg up on those other folks over there. And then make sure that, there’s essentially created division there too, or created tension because then once, like for example, once enslaved people became free, now all of a sudden that became a threat to poor white people in their work, right?

That it wasn’t a real threat. It became like they believe that was a threat. They’re gonna come and take our jobs. We hear that same rhetoric today. It’s not a coincidence. All of it tracks historically. That’s [00:33:00] how our nation was built. So I always say to people, like, literally everything that we witnessed today is not just like a, oh, that’s interesting.

This just happened to be this way. No, our nation was founded upon that. It started from the idea that we have to make sure that America specifically, I know there’s Canadians in here, but America specifically is a nation of whiteness and a nation where whiteness is what holds the power.

And we will utilize whatever it takes to do that. And of course I’m not as well versed in Canadian history, but it trickles to Canada as well.

Aurora: Absolutely. And I wanna open up for discussion, but I did wanna ask one more question, kind of wrap up the podcast part of it.

And that is what has helped you to stay engaged in social justice work without burning out or feeling overwhelmed?

Caroline: As I mentioned before, filling your life with things that bring you joy. Like I’m big on that. I firmly believe that. Joy is a birthright.

It is [00:34:00] oftentimes something that we have to be intentional about seeking and creating for ourselves versus waiting for it to happen to us. But, even just like. Waking up in the morning and putting on an outfit that makes me feel like very confident in my body. Or going out and playing tennis, being intentional about getting on the tennis court or being intentional about reaching out to a friend and saying, Hey, I haven’t seen you in a while. Let’s grab some coffee. Let’s check in.

Being intentional, being around people too. And I can definitely be a hermit. I can definitely be the kind of person that would prefer to take the easy route and stay in, but I know that when I’m connecting with people and prioritizing the human interaction, that always allows me to feel filled.

So what are the things that are going to bring you the most joy and make sure that they are non-negotiables in your life?

Understanding that the reason why we live the way that we live, the reason why the society, is the way that it is because of western colonization we are in our society and [00:35:00] western society. That’s what we’re dealing with when we’re talking about all of this stuff. And when I was mentioning earlier, I said, I know there are cultures in societies and, I was thinking about people of the global majority, people of the global south and non-Western dominant society, cultures, countries, et cetera, that have continued to live the way that humanity was intended to live, which was in community, which was in collectiveness, which was without these hierarchies that exist to amass wealth and power.

Right? So I. The western world has been and continues to be so harmed by, colonization, which has got us to where we are today. So, you know, when you’re thinking about rejecting another way to look at it too is like, and this is just talking about racism.

It’s not just racism, but I’m gonna use it as an example. But like, when you think about rejecting racism or being anti-racist, it’s two very different things, right? So just saying no, like I don’t agree with that. That can still be harmful because it doesn’t necessarily do anything to reverse course for the actual oppression that’s happening, right?

You absolutely [00:36:00] can use your power or use, not your power, your privilege, too many p words, your privilege to help. Work in an anti white supremacy, anti colonization, anti-racism, anti paternalism kind of way. Right. And I definitely think if you begin to, look into like what it looks like to actually deprogram and decondition and you may feel like because you haven’t seen it that way because of your neurodivergence, that you may not have that conditioning, but it’s still in there.

It’s just going to present differently in you. So figuring out the way that it’s presenting in you, figuring out how, you know, the normalization of our colonized society. And why people think the way they think and why this exists the way that exists, and then working to kind of deprogram that.

I think that is gonna be a good start for you in answering what it would look like for you to then use your privilege in a way that helps be anti versus just a rejection. Does that make sense?

Aurora: And I wanted to [00:37:00] add that that Dr. Kimberly Douglas had to leave, but she does a lot of work around Decolonizing Neurodivergence specifically. So she’s a great resource on that. Thank you guys for sticking around. I know we’re a little bit over time it’s the nature of our neurodivergent conversations. We get so into it. But I do wanna have a few moments to let Caroline wrap up. I did wanna say in terms of my own experience, and I’m not speaking as myself as an example, but just what I have consciously done with my community, which is that I try not to speak for anyone.

I try to. Offer my platform to let other people speak for themselves. But I also have made a very deliberate effort to have folks who can speak to different perspectives than I personally can share. So that’s kind of been my approach on that. So, do you have any final thoughts you would like to share in wrapping up our conversation?

Thank you so much again. This was so great.

Caroline: Well first, just wanna thank you all for allowing me into [00:38:00] your space. I can tell this group is just powerful and beautiful and even just seeing the amount of conversation happening in the chat in addition to what we were talking about.

I love how tuned in you all are with each other and just the embracing of who you were born to be, who you’re created to be, the way your mind works, everything. Because that’s something that I struggle with to this day and finding people that embrace the way that my mind works, which is not typical.

It’s, I mean, also neurodivergent has been a struggle for me. So I just love to be in communities that it’s just so embraced and, yeah, I just wanted to actually extend my, like, you know, Aurora, your community’s beautiful and you allowing me here. ‘Cause it’s such a sacred space and I, feel honored that I was allowed to be here to speak with you all today.

So thank you. I hope that you were able to receive something from the conversation. Or that if you choose to pick up the book that you’re able to receive something. You know, my work is, I choose to look at the worthiness [00:39:00] piece and tie worthiness into this because it’s not really something that’s very much talked about.

But I deeply believe that every single one of us is impacted by this. That our self-worth is impacted by these systems and structures and the culture that we live in. And we don’t realize just how much. And I think, you know, once you realize just how much your worth has been impacted by something that was made up for very inhumane reasons.

It really changes the way you’re able to see yourself and your neighbor and your community and the people around you. And that’s really where the power lies. Like how are we seeing ourselves? How are we seeing our neighbors? How are we treating each other? I hope that you’re able to walk away with something that just helps you see yourself in a new light that’s, yeah, I guess that’s my spiel. Of course, you know, if you have any questions for me or you would like to get in contact with me, I will leave my contact information with Aurora.

I’m on Instagram. I also have a website. You can send a contact form, or my email is fine too. I’d love to chat with anybody further if you would like that or you need that support or [00:40:00] something like that. But yeah, just thank you for having me and I appreciate being here.

Aurora: Thank you so much.

I’m so glad that you were able to join us and I highly recommend you go out and read her book if you haven’t already. And follow her Instagram. It’s always very inspirational.

Thank

Caroline: you so much.

Aurora: Looking for ways to embrace your own intensity. Join our embracing intensity community@embracingintensity.com where you’ll meet a growing group of like-minded people who get what it’s like to be gifted and intense and are committed to creating a supportive community as well as access to our courses and tools to help you use your fire without getting burned.

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