* Rough Transcript *

Caroline Sumlin

Caroline: In this climate too, you have so many people having their opinion. Everyone has a thought. Everyone has their opinion. This is the best way to do this. This is the best way to advocate. If you’re not advocating like this, you’re doing it wrong, which in and of itself is perpetuating the system and structure that we’re talking about right now that makes you feel like you ain’t never doing nothing well enough because you have to be perfect or you have to do it a certain way. And all that is noise. It’s just creating noise and it makes anyone who wants to make a change or wants to be a catalyst for change feel like how can I ever be a catalyst for change when I think I’m doing this and then I’m doing this wrong and this person said this and this person said that and it’s just loud and it’s a firestorm and it’s too much.

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 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! This episode is an extra special one because I’d been meaning to reach out to her for over a year, and I kept getting the pull to ask her to speak on collective liberation with the community this year. As it turned out, she was just starting to dive into research on twice exceptionality, so it all fell in line with divine timing.

And speaking of speakers, I have our 2025 virtual event scheduled in the Embracing Intensity community calendar at community. embracingintensity. com.

On March 8th, we have Sheldon Gay of the I Must Be Buggin podcast talking about mirroring. Then May 3rd, Carolyn J. Sumlin will be talking about collective liberation. September 9th, Caitlin Smith will be talking about tasting the gifted rainbow. And on November 1st, Fizza Zaidi will be talking about executive functioning.

We’ll also be having my Ignite Your Power calls on the third Saturdays at 10 a. m. Pacific. Our next one will be on self empathy.

You can access all the past calls in the Embracing Intensity membership.

I’m also super excited to share that I’ll be hosting two in person panels on community care and healing in times of burnout in the Portland, Oregon area at the Milieu Gallery. Dates and details are coming soon.

And finally, on the note of community, I’ve opened up my Embracing Intensity Mastermind with weekly group coaching and accountability, and I’m extending the coupon code for 25 percent off through the end of the day tomorrow.

That’s Tuesday, the 18th of February.

I meant to promote it more this week, but I was so excited about scheduling the community events, I was focused on that. Plus, I kind of hate false urgency of coupons, but I also know that it can be a good incentive to move on something for those of us who need a little urgency or incentive. I’m super excited about the group we have started and I’m sure it’s going to be a transformative experience. So come join us if you’d like, or find out more at: learn. embracingintensity. com slash embracing dash intensity dash mastermind. And I’ll be sure to put a link in the show notes. Enjoy.

Welcome to Embracing Intensity. Today, I am super thrilled to have Caroline J. Sumlin, author of we’ll all be free. And I’m super thrilled to have you here because you’ve been on my list for a while to interview and I finally reached out and the timing just aligned.

So super excited to have you. Welcome.

Caroline: Yeah. Thank you so much. I’m really honored that you asked me to be on your show. And like I was mentioning in the email to you, it is just crazy. Like how I resonated with. Everything on your website. I was like, wait a minute. Is this divine timing? Are these all the things that I’ve been having on my mind lately?

And now here are all the resources. So when I tell you I am binge listening to your podcast and Going to be learning so much. And I’m just grateful to have found your work as well. So thank you for having me.

Aurora: Awesome. Yeah, it’s so funny because when I look at speakers for each year, I kind of go with my gut on, I had a variety of people that I’ve had communication with that we’re kind of thinking about, but it just kept coming back to me, like.

Your name just kept coming back to me as someone that I really feel like I wanted to highlight your message because I think it’s really important.

Caroline: Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate that.

Aurora: So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you are intensely passionate about.

Caroline: Yeah. Oh my goodness.

The word intense is so interesting because when I first. Looked at your work. I just, I was flooded back with all of the times that I’ve been called intense, especially in college, man. That was the word that everyone used to describe me. Oh, Caroline. Oh, she that girl intense. She’s intense. I always get that all the time.

My girl intense. Right. And I just. Immediately felt like that was a negative thing that I shouldn’t be intense. Like what’s wrong with me. But I also didn’t realize that I was like, wait, what do you mean? I’m intense. Like this is normal. So I guess my normal is everybody else’s intense.

But that said, what am I intensely passionate about? There are so many things that I didn’t realize I was intensely, passionate about. I’m randomly intensely passionate about public transportation. I don’t know why, but I am. I’m intensely passionate about city design, like the way streets are designed and things like that, how it looks or whether it feels accessible, whether it makes sense.

And these are things that I’ve been passionate about my whole life. But those are random things that I could go on and on about random things. Tennis, I’m intensely passionate about tennis. I’ve been playing tennis all my life. It’s the sport that if I could drop everything and just Rewind and go pro.

I would do that. But as far as my work is concerned, I’m also very intensely passionate about this message that I have to communicate to the world. Like, Hey, all the reasons why you think that you’re not enough. And you think that you have to constantly pursue this ideal version of yourself is because we live in a society that communicates that message to you for a reason.

And I’m passionate about that because I don’t like to say the word victim, but I believed that for so long, I believed for so long that if I could just. become what society was telling me to become especially as a woman of color, especially as a black woman, then I would feel better. I would feel worthy.

I would feel like I finally made it or got somewhere in receiving constant messages from every corner of society about how no matter where you are, you should be higher, no matter even if you are quote unquote, high level. It’s still not enough. Right. And you receive that message from every which way.

And you think to yourself, I have to constantly do more. I have to be more. And that really drove my life for a very long time. It really is one of the reasons why I struggled so much with a lot of self loathing as a child. And I see this message still perpetuating everywhere. It is embedded into the fabric of our society, the fabric of our culture.

And every time I see people. If I’m essentially buying into that message, I intensely want to tell them my message. And tell them, listen, it doesn’t have to be this way. This is all a farce and we can choose to divest from said farce. So I could go on and on, but those are some of my intense passions.

Aurora: And it’s so true. And it doesn’t benefit anyone, the systems that we’re in. Yeah. And it benefits some more than others, but.

Caroline: Exactly. And that’s the other part of that message too, right? The systems that we’re in that fabricate the culture that we’re in, they’re designed to benefit and to uphold certain people.

And

so there are many people in our society who receive those benefits and those benefits, and I would argue, not everyone would argue this, but I would argue that the list of cons, for example, the list of ways that the same system is harming these, imagine the people that are receiving all those benefits, right?

The list of harm that can be done could be greater, but because those benefits. Hold so much more power and weight to them. It makes you decide that you still want that, right? I mean, it’s kind of like when you ask one of those questions of, you know, would you do something risky and dangerous for a million dollars?

Right. A lot of people are going to say, yes, I would risk my life because if it meant that I had a chance. To have a sum of money that gives me freedom or so called freedom put that in big quotes so called freedom and Power, I’m going to risk that even if it meant that I could potentially Do something that could cause me harm for the rest of my life, but I have this thing that gives me all of this power so I think That’s exactly what happens in this society.

The certain people, there are certain people that actually do receive benefits and those benefits weigh so heavily and have so much hold, so much power that even though the list of toxicities is double that for those same people and then triple and quadruple that for the other people that are more marginalized and don’t receive those benefits and privileges.

The system continues to work because that benefit is just so much more powerful. And it’s addicting, really. It’s addicting. You want that. Right?

Aurora: Yeah. Yeah. And you definitely see that more and more in the way things are playing out these days on a national scale, really. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, we’ll circle back to that a little bit later, but tell me a little bit about your own personal brand of intensity. What does intensity look like for you personally, mentally, emotionally, physically?

Caroline: Okay. Hmm. I love these questions. Cause I feel like I’m kind of having a little personal therapy session.

Like, Oh, let me think about myself in ways that I’ve never thought about myself before. So let me start with physically. I feel like physically, like my brand of intensity is like never sitting still. What is that? I don’t know her. I don’t know what that looks like. What is, what is, what does it mean to sit?

I don’t know. Not sitting still my brain. moving 10, 000 miles an hour. A clenched jaw, hunched up shoulders. I feel very like I can, and I won’t notice it. Right. Until like, I’m too far gone. And then it’s like, I can’t undo it. I can’t get it back. I’ll have to be telling myself like, unclench jaw.

And I’m like doing these exercises to try to calm myself down. And that’s like my normal state sometimes, like just being in that really. intense mode. And I’ll think it’s normal until I have like a splitting headache or my jaws hurt really badly. Or I realized that I’m like, even right now I’m very sleepy.

Like I have like a fatigue and my eyes are heavy and that, that can, that sometimes I’ll feel like that for a while. And then I won’t realize it right away. So a lot of these things are happening physically. What was the other part of that question? Mentally?

Emotionally? Did you ask that? Oh yeah, just in general. Mentally, emotionally. So emotionally, I feel like my brain, I feel disconnected actually. Like, emotionally. Like, I don’t really feel or pay attention to what I’m feeling emotionally. It’s more in my head. It’s all in my brain.

And it’s just this constant, like, My, my mind is just spinning, turning. I’m constantly trying to get to the next thing. You know, maybe like internally obsessing about something, but I appear very calm on the outside. So I think I can kind of, I don’t think it’s very noticeable all the time, unless you really know me or something like that.

So yeah, I think that answers the question.

Aurora: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I’m the same way in terms of that, like, surface. I’m pretty calm, but my mind’s, like, super active. When you’re talking about being up in your head.

That’s a common theme that I’ve heard, especially in like gifted spaces and stuff like people that get up in their head. And do I remember correctly that you have ADHD?

Caroline: I don’t know. So my now former therapist, she did a screening. ADHD screening and I passed with like a light, highly likely that I do have ADHD.

 But not necessarily the type where it’s like, I’m super forgetful or or really easily distracted, but more so to the type where I just can’t sit still. I need to be busy. I need to be doing something and my mind is not shut off.

But I don’t necessarily like, I’m very organized. I’m not like, you know, I know a lot of people with ADHD, like they struggle with organization and, or disorganization. Like that’s not really where I struggle more. So it’s all up here. And just the feeling like I can’t waste my life.

I have to constantly be busy. I could be doing something right now. So let me go do it. That kind of thing.

Aurora: Oh, yeah, absolutely. That idea of being stuck up in your head and not down your body. That’s a recurring theme for sure for the last like 10 plus years I’ve been doing this work.

Caroline: Wow. Well, that’s that’s good to know.

And I know you mentioned gifted. I mean, I don’t know anything about whether or not I could be. But I know that we want to explore that with my daughter. So, and one of her, they go to a homeschool academy once a week. And one of the teachers there that brought that up to me, cause I had them do an ADH, ADHD screening for her.

And they said, we’re looking at potentially a two E kid here. I would definitely want you to get, and I had never heard of that before. I was like, what is this? What do you need to eat? So, seeing that you do a lot of work in that space I would be interested.

I feel like that’s her too. She’s very in her head. She always has like these stories that she’s always a character. She’s always thinking about what’s the next scene that she’s in, or what’s the next story that she’s going to create. And very rarely is she. Fully present in anything that she’s doing because she’s in some sort of other world.

So that’s interesting to hear.

Aurora: Yeah. Yeah. You had mentioned that. And I would say from my personal experience, just because I’ve worked I guess it’s been like 12 years with mostly gifted populations. And I just listening to your work and your book, I immediately. Clocked you as being gifted, but that’s just my Traditional

Caroline: I That’s that is wild But I told my daughter that we would both be evaluated this year And so I said if you’re gonna go through it I’m gonna go through it too, and we’ll find out how our brains work together.

Aurora: Awesome. Well, one of the things that I did during my creative burst in the pandemic was I took some of the stories from the podcast about twice exceptional experiences and made little doodle animations of them. So you can actually hear like little short stories of people’s experiences growing up.

That’s twice exceptional. So I have those playlists on my YouTube and as it turned out, a large percentage of them were black. So I did a separate playlist for those stories specifically.

I don’t know if you know, Renee Brooks of Black Girl Lost Keys.

Caroline: No, I don’t.

Aurora: She’s not been as active lately, but she’s amazing blogger.

And she shared her story, which is kind of the one that kicks it off.

Caroline: Oh, wow. Okay. So you’re giving me an assignment and I accept, I’m going to go binge all of that. What do you mean? That’s amazing.

Aurora: Yeah. And they’re all like five minutes or less, most of them. So yeah, worth checking out. I always forget.

That’s one of my things is like, I just create, and then I forget to circle back, like, Hey, there’s this stuff I’m working on with a friend of mine. Who’s helping me with mapping out what it is that is already there because it’s lots of years of Stuff.

So on that note, how do you think your intensity affected you growing up?

Caroline: You know, I don’t know. I feel like there’s different angles I could take. I wasn’t super intense on the outside. So I was a very like chill child, I was able to play independently. The relationship that I have with my mother was very up and down, but I think that was more other things and not like something that was because of me being super intense.

Because Internally, I feel like I kind of just kept my world to myself. I kept a lot of my, all of those thoughts and things to myself. But in terms, so as far as like, you know, I didn’t really struggle in school too much. I definitely struggled to make friends though.

That was a big one for me and I never thought about it as like, being my intensity, but I always wondered like I would think to myself. I know there’s something wrong with me But I don’t know what because everywhere I go, and no matter what group setting when I say group setting like classrooms, I was in a program called Jack and Jill all black folks, a lot of black folks who know what that is.

It’s a program that black mothers, like, not a program excuse me like a club like an organization for black mothers to be involved in. And the purpose of the program is to curate. activities for the children. And so we had like meetings and they had monthly activities for the children.

So you were always with like the same group of kids right? A lot of relationships and friendships formed there. And I was never in those friendships. Like I just never quite, there were always kids that were just kind of like, Yeah, we know Caroline’s there, but we don’t really like include her.

There’s something about, you know, and I always would wonder like, what is it about me? Like, why do all the other kids get along so well and can click off and become, good friends and this, that, and the other. And, and I’m just here, the same thing happened. with tennis, the same thing happened in school.

 I feel like the first time I ever actually found like socialization and belonging was when I did speech in theater because those kids are just as intense as me. Okay. So we were all intense together and I could finally just be my very quirky. Loud self and be around a bunch of people that were just as quirky and loud.

So I definitely think that was one of the ways like friendships, socialization, a lot of feeling like. What’s wrong with me? Like, why don’t people like me? But other than that, well, and then of course, a lot of what my book is about which is about worth, you know, I didn’t feel good enough ever.

I felt like something was wrong with me. I felt like I was not enough. I think a lot of that had to do with my adoption. And a lot of that also had to do with the messages that society, gives us. And then of course, You know, my mother had very high expectations for me as well. So I had a lot of these messages swarming and I felt like I couldn’t live up to them.

But I don’t know if that is like, Because of intensity or just because, you know what I’m saying, I’d have to do a little bit more deep thinking and reflecting about my childhood to know whether intensity is a part of that. And then I also kind of circles back to where intensity is just such a part of me that I don’t even realize is there all the time, you know, like, I don’t realize it.

And so it takes a lot of time for me to realize, oh, this is me being intense.

Aurora: Well, and that actually ties to the next question about if there are any cultural factors that affected how you could express yourself.

Caroline: Yeah, for sure. A lot. So, I mean, I’m definitely, you know, I don’t know exactly your audience, but I’m just going to go for it.

You know, a lot of the ways that I wanted to express myself. And when I think about expressing myself, I’m thinking more middle and high school. Cause to be honest, as a little kid, I couldn’t tell you how I wanted to express myself as a little kid. I, I mean, I played with my dolls and I played tennis and I went to school.

I really don’t know much else about, about myself during those times, besides like my internal thoughts, well, okay, actually, no, let me go back. So culturally speaking, internal thoughts, you don’t have them in the black, like you don’t in black households. You have a thought. You have an opinion. You have an emotion.

Oh, immediately, you’re ungrateful. Immediately, you don’t know how good you have it. You know, what do you mean you don’t like this and so do you paying the bills in this house, and sometimes I even as a mother I sometimes find myself saying those things and I have to watch myself because it’s just so ingrained in my culture.

So, you knew from a young age, like you don’t really share what you’re thinking and feeling. If you’re told to junk, you say, how high, ma’am? Or sir. Right. And then you do it. So I definitely think, whatever the little girl in me could have been thinking and feeling like those thoughts and feelings were never shared.

So as I get to middle and high school, where of course you have the teenage years, you’re developing your hormones, et cetera. Those thoughts and feelings that I had about myself, especially began to intensify. I began to have a lot of self deprecating thoughts. I felt like I would question a lot of times why I was on this planet and I also began to participate in self harm.

So that started in like 7th grade I think it was, 6th or 7th grade, I can’t remember exactly because I just felt so out of place. I felt like I would never measure up. I felt, especially the social thing, like I never really had friends. I felt ugly and I didn’t feel like I had a healthy way to express those feelings because that was just so discouraged.

And even when There were times where I would attempt to express those feelings. It was not met with the supportive words that they could have been met with. And again, that’s very cultural on the other hand. Culturally speaking, a lot of my, I would say more positive parts of my intensity, like how quirky and extra and just odd that I can be. When I was in middle and high school, I would, be told that I was trying to act like a white girl if I wanted to listen to alternative music and I wanted to wear some Chuck Taylors, which I did, and if I didn’t speak a certain way, the fact that I was intensely passionate about tennis, even I would receive a lot of messaging about, Oh, you’re trying to be a white girl.

So, those are the two I’m sure I could come up with a lot more, but those are two that really stick out to me.

Aurora: That makes a lot of sense. And did you feel like you had to tone yourself down or tune yourself out?

Caroline: Oh, for sure. Absolutely. And I think that’s why I said at the beginning, like I was such a chill child.

So when you really think about it, like. It’s masking, right? It’s just masking. It’s trying not to showcase your inner world outwardly. So I think a lot of it was emotions and to this day I struggle with that. That’s why I think I’m so in my head and I don’t really feel the emotions because I think I had a lot of intense emotions as a child that I just, I never allowed that to surface.

As a young child, I really struggled with why am I here? Why doesn’t anybody love me? I was a mistake. And like I mentioned, I was adopted. So a lot of that’s rooted in adoption, right? And then those feelings being rooted in adoption were intensified and amplified.

With multiple societal, cultural, and familial factors kind of going in there. So you have those intense feelings. I remember, I definitely remember being, the age of my daughters now and thinking to myself, maybe my mom’s going to send me back. Maybe she doesn’t want me anymore. Maybe if I do something else wrong, she’ll just want to send me back to where I came from.

But those were never emotions or anything that I shared. I definitely was just. Very on the outside. Like I was just very obedient. I was very chill, very calm. Never really had like a tantrum, never had a meltdown, never any of that, you know? So I definitely think for sure. Like I, I toned myself down quite a bit.

I do think when I got to like high school and college, I didn’t tone myself down quite as much because especially in college, I think I was able to kind of reinvent myself a little bit. And not feel like I had to mask as much as because it was just, I was in a new environment, you know, I’m on my own for the first time I went to an HBCU, I went to Howard university.

So I was around a whole bunch of black folks and I met a whole bunch of black folks that look like me. And I think that helped a lot too, because I met other intense black folks like, Oh, they intense Again, I didn’t know that I was, I wouldn’t have described myself as such. And so other people started telling me, Oh, you’re intense.

Just like that person. I was like, okay, well, this is not the only one, but I could start to see myself and other people when I went to school and that helped a lot, but there was still an internal world, like there is to this day that rages inside of me, I would say 75 percent of my internal world, like my husband knows nothing about.

You know, and that’s my husband. So I’m still to this day, I keep a lot of that inside and try to tone down what I’m really thinking and feeling for the comfort of others.

Aurora: Absolutely. That’s something I recently heard that recently, but at one point I heard this quote that was something about the opposite of dysregulation isn’t calm it’s self expression.

And that’s something that really, really struck me for sure. We try to self regulate by like holding it in, but then, you know, the self expression piece is definitely yeah, it’s interesting. I’ve had a lot of conversations about that recently.

Also knowing who to express what to as well. And there was this concept of a fire hose, like if you’re a fire hose that only a few people can get, take that whole fire hose. Self, but some people can get like a drop or two.

Caroline: Hmm. So, yeah, no, that makes sense in the, and that’s, oh my gosh, just bring up so many things for me.

So I’ve been, you know, just you think about your past, right? Like boyfriends that I’ve had, every single one of my boyfriends broke up with me because I said I was too intense. Like, I didn’t realize that until this conversation, but I’m like, Oh, it’s all coming back now. They all broke up with me because I was too intense.

And I would get that so much like, Oh, you’re too much. You’re too much. You’re too much. Get constantly being told you’re doing too much. You are too much. And so even though, and I’m not saying anything like to, like my husband is wonderful and he can definitely take. The fire hose, but I still preserve and still try to have less fire hose.

Like, you know, how, when you have a hose, but you put your finger, so kind of it’s still shooting out, but you put your finger right there. So it’s kind of slower a little bit, you know, I feel like I still do that because I’m still afraid of being told you’re too much because that is something that caused me to lose.

Romantic relationships. I’ve maybe even a couple of platonic ones that if I really wanted to like do some digging yeah, because a lot of people, they don’t want, they don’t want that fire hose or like, if you don’t give me the drip drip, you’re too much for me. I’m out of here. But just so unfortunate because it makes people like us feel like we’re, again, there’s that not enough.

There’s that not good enough message and theme that keeps coming back up.

Aurora: Yeah, absolutely. Can you think of a time when it felt like your intensity got out of control?

Caroline: Oh yeah. Yes, I can. Well first and foremost, I’ll say every single time that I self harmed. Period. Other times, I mean, I distinctly remember, like, having this argument with one of those aforementioned former boyfriends, at one time I just like threw myself on the floor, I was just so, I felt so many things and I didn’t know what to do with them.

And so I just started finding ways to harm myself. That wasn’t by using something sharp, but something else it’s like, Oh, how can I hurt myself right now? Thankfully, I am not like that. I don’t, I have not done that in quite some time. It’s gotta been about 15 years now, but back in the day, I definitely would try to harm myself in some way.

In fact, when I was a little girl, like I bit myself. I would just bite every time it felt like too much, or I felt like I was doing something wrong and I was getting yelled at or whatever, I would just bite my arm. So yeah, those are some that come to mind.

Aurora: Switching up a little bit to the positive side of your intensity. How do you use your fire for good?

Caroline: Well, I hope that in some of the work that I’m doing is part of that, you know, I love to write. Even though I don’t think I’m the best writer, I do like to write. And I’ve always felt my most expressive when I’m writing.

And so I just hope that the thing I’m very what’s the word? I don’t really hold back when I’m writing. I’m trying to think of the correct word for that for some reason. I’m losing it. But I told you I’m tired. I’m tired today. So my brain is not on. I’m supposed to write an article after this and I don’t know how I’m going to do it because my brain is off.

But I definitely don’t hold back. I’ve definitely laid out out there. And I just always hope that through my articles, my book and my content that I share that it’s having a positive impact. That’s really the only goal to impact somebody. Who’s reading those words, whoever needs to hear them that they’re heard, and sometimes it’s inspirational, sometimes it’s educational.

I try to do a combination of all of it because I definitely feel like one of the keys to our liberation is through education. And so I lay it all out there when I write, and I hope that’s the impact that I’m having.

Aurora: Absolutely. Well, I’ve definitely appreciated it.

Caroline: Thank you.

Aurora: What do you think has helped you the most with harnessing the power of your intensity? Channeling it.

Caroline: Let’s see. I’m a work in progress. I feel like I need a lot of work in that area. I feel like being a mother shows me that every day and I have to be with my kids every day. It’s at homeschool every day. So while that could be another way that I try to use my intensity for good, cause I am intense about education.

Okay. Like I can’t stand to teach, but like, we going to learn today. We going to learn these ABCs. Okay. Like we do this math. Like I’m a little intense. When it comes to that, because I feel so strongly about it and I just, I get so worked up about it. Also I get really worked up about the structure of the day, like, ah, we’re losing time.

It’s nine 30 like, Ooh, I’m intense. And because of that, it consumes me and I’m, realizing that I need to work on harnessing that better. And like you were mentioning before, it is about expression, right? When are you able to express and really have an outlet for that?

Because it’s the fires in there. It’s gotta come out. But how is it coming out? And how often are you able to let it out? I think that’s where I struggle the most. I really don’t have a lot of outlets. I will say that I think that’s one of the reasons why tennis is a big part of my life. I think that is, and I’ve really never reflected on this before until like this very moment.

But here I am reflecting , tennis has been my sport since I was about five years old, six years old. And when I picked up that racket, I knew that was my sport. Okay. There was no ifs, ands, or buts about it. And it’s been my sport. I played all my life. Competitively at a high level. And I think one of the reasons why, or maybe the main reason why, is because it’s an intense sport.

It is intense. You’re out there by yourself. You are hitting a ball really hard and it’s really aggressive. And whenever I play that sport, I feel the most free no matter what, even with writing and everything. The only thing that I do that makes me feel the most free is play tennis. And I’ve never, to this day,

well, let me take that back.

There are two other things that I have done that make me feel that free, but I haven’t in a long time. And that is act in a band. Play an instrument and do speech. So acting speech is like the same thing, and tennis. So those things, if I’m doing one of those things, I feel free and it’s like the biggest exhale.

And the way that I feel after having done those things is a type of euphoria that I cannot explain. And my approach to life is so different when I’ve been able to do that. Right now, currently at my big age of 34, I’m only playing tennis. I have not acted in many years. I haven’t played my instrument in many years.

But at least I do play tennis to try to give myself that ability to get that intensity out. It’s not enough. I should be really playing every day. I don’t.

Aurora: Absolutely. Yeah. I used to be very involved in theater and I know having kids, definitely.

Caroline: Yeah, I want to get back into it so badly.

One of these days, I’m going to be doing all the things that I love again. And I’ve always said that to myself, like, you know, one of these days, my kids aren’t going to be so young and hopefully when they’re more independent, I can be going to evening rehearsal somewhere and doing community theater and getting back into those things because I think that’s one of the reasons why I do struggle with the things I struggle with now is because I have far less outlets and I think that’s why things got so much better for me in high school because I had all those outlets.

I was playing tennis. I was doing theater. I was doing band. I was doing everything I love. I was doing speech constantly. And so, because I was constantly relieving myself of all of that intensity in a positive way, I was so much better, not perfect. I still struggle with a lot of the worthiness piece of things.

And I still struggle with self harm from time to time, but I felt that that was probably one of the, that and being in college, again, very involved with things I wasn’t in theater, but I was in band in college. I played at Howard university concert band the entire time I was there.

And it was some of the best I’d ever felt. I played tennis at Howard until I injured, but I was doing something, you know, to relieve that at all ways. And then you become an adult and you have Children and then it just goes away.

Aurora: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s definitely hard to maintain that stuff for sure. Yeah. So tell me a little bit more about how you help others use their own fire. Tell me a little bit about your book, about your work.

Caroline: I hope that my work helps people feel not only empowered, but like truly fired up to do something about the society and culture that we live in. It is my hope that through the education and the awareness of the systems and structures of our society, how they’ve been structured intentionally to our detriment will help people understand, Hey, If I don’t have to feel this way, you don’t have to feel this way, we actually have the power within us without relying on people in leadership, without relying on somebody else to do something.

I have the power to not only reimagine my own life and live in a way that is liberated from the whole society and culture has on me, but to help others do the same. I really do hope that my work does that. That’s the purpose of it essentially in a nutshell. I always say, I hope for it to be like a ripple effect sometimes when we want things to be like a big crashing wave, even though that’s how we feel, right?

We feel so intensely. We feel like we want this thing to happen right now. But sometimes that big crashing wave can do more harm than good, right? It can injure, it can be too overpowering and overwhelming, but when you actually have more of that ripple effect, like. My one ripple, maybe that one article I wrote or someone reading my book or whatever causes somebody else to do a little bit of their internal work and causes that person to then maybe take a little bit of that work to their church or to their book club or to their PTA meeting or their office.

And they start to spread that around. They start to change the way they see things. They start to treat somebody that they maybe hadn’t treated before with a little bit more humanity. Maybe they relax some of their policies. Maybe they realize that they weren’t as culturally competent as they could have been.

And they find other ways that they’ve been upholding patriarchy, capitalism, racism, sexism, ableism, et cetera. And they start to change a little bit of that. And then that change of the people, their impact, they interact with impacts the way that that person feels. And then they’re like, wait a minute.

This actually feels good. This feels different. I like coming up in here. I like being at this office. Oh, okay. I feel good because they actually saw me as a human. Now that I’m being valued and seen as a human, I want to go see somebody else as a human, it’s a ripple effect. And it’s my hope that my work will just make ripples that will last beyond generations.

Aurora: Absolutely, and I think a couple of the things that I appreciate about your work is one, I know, especially lately, well, I mean, for quite a while now, but there’s been so much awful things that we know are happening, have been happening, and when you’re just getting that message without, like, an actual concrete, like here’s something you can do, I feel like what you were saying, the ripple effect, first of all, is like, you have small bits here and there that are digestible and also actionable things. So that it feels a little bit more empowering,

Caroline: for sure. And tangible.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Cause it, it really does. And then in this climate too, you have so many people having their opinion. Everyone has a thought. Everyone has their opinion. This is the best way to do this. This is the best way to advocate. If you’re not advocating like this, you’re doing it wrong, which in and of itself is perpetuating.

The system and structure that we’re talking about right now that makes you feel like you ain’t never doing nothing well enough because you have to be perfect or you have to do it a certain way. And all that is noise. It’s just creating noise and it makes anyone who wants to make a change or wants to be a catalyst for change feel like how can I ever be a catalyst for change when I think I’m doing this and then I’m doing this wrong and this person said this and this person said that and it’s just loud and it’s a firestorm and it’s too much.

It’s that big old tidal wave is too much. I’m done. And then they check out. So I hope that when somebody picks up my book, they can see, first of all, like I always, that my, for the first eight chapters of my book, you work on yourself first. And that is what so many of us are missing is that self work of, okay, how have I been impacted by this society and culture?

Like in, in any way, like how has it impacted me? Because the way it’s impacted you is going to also reflect and show you how you can be upholding those same systems of oppression that you may not realize you’re upholding, but if you don’t do the work in yourself and realize, Oh, I didn’t realize that I thought.

X, Y, and Z because society told me this, I didn’t realize where this came from. I just thought this societal or this cultural characteristic or trait or standard was just that a standard. It’s normal, right? Everybody thinks that everybody does it. So shouldn’t I, when you don’t actually take the time to realize where this comes from and how it’s impacted you, your thoughts, your beliefs.

Your approach, your point of view, your worldview, then how in the world are you going to actually be able to make an impact in society? Because you haven’t actually taken the time to realize how it’s impacted you and how you could be perpetuating that. And also not just realize, but take, do the work to then divest from that because that in and of itself is, it’s going to be a lifelong thing.

Every single day, you’re going to be working to like. Reframe your mind, redo, redo redo a behavior that you did and you, Oh, wait a minute. That’s the old beat. Let me try that again. It’s, that’s a lifelong process.

Aurora: Right? Yeah, absolutely. And it got me thinking about you know, a few years back I think there was a period of time when I feel like there was a market for white women who wanted to self flagellate.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That makes sense. There were certain things that were popular at the time and I even went through a workshop once that was of this approach where it was like basically the whole goal was to like self flagellate, right? And all of these women were just like sucking it up and as I was watching it, first of all, it wasn’t good education, like, this is not how we learn. Because, I don’t know, it’s just not how we learn. But also, I feel like they beat themselves up, and then they’re done. This isn’t something they’re, like, embedding into their life.

some Of the things that she was saying I can see the truth in but also the way that it was approached. There was this whole movement.

It’s just like they want to absolve their guilt, but they’re not actually Internalizing it, like all these people who want to beat themselves up about it, but you’re actually using the same tools to beat yourself up, but you’re actually not internalizing it and shifting how you’re approaching things in a way that’s effective, if that makes sense.

And that’s what I appreciate about your work is that it’s really looking at the whole picture and how it affects everyone. And like you said, people benefit from it. So they, End up taking the harm because of the benefit, but there’s still harm. And so that’s why I appreciate your work is because after viewing a lot of different approaches to that and seeing a lot of people want the easy, the quick fix, right?

They want, “okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna get this workbook that’s gonna have all these prompts, and I’m gonna examine myself, and then I’m gonna forget it existed, and put it on a shelf, and never do anything with it again. Right. But I’m gonna feel better about it, because I just beat myself up for the things I’ve done wrong.

Caroline: Exactly. Yeah. And that the self seeking feel better about myself is very much the culture just re perpetuating. And as I like to say, finding ways to re identify itself,

like that’s what it does. It’s like, Oh let me see. Okay. Let me try this. Let me wear this lipstick today. And see if you’ll recognize me.

Oh, you’re not going to recognize me so I can get in there and do it this way. You know? So I feel like that’s what the culture does. It tries to find different ways to mask itself or disguise itself so that you can’t see what it’s doing and you think you’re actually beating it. But it’s really just right there, like on your shoulder and that we see that a lot in kind of like the white guilt, the white tears because it’s that self seeking it’s that individualism.

I tell my children all the time, self deprecating behavior is actually just selfish. Because the reason why you’re doing, especially if you feel caught most of the time when people self deprecate is because they feel caught out. They feel embarrassed. Oh, snap. I done did something wrong.

Even people that do things wrong on purpose. I feel like they want to pretend like they want to, well, let me bring that back. Most people want to feel like they’re doing good because most of us want to feel like we are what worthy. And so all the ways we want to feel worthy is by I’m doing the good things.

I’m doing the right things. I’m doing the things I’m supposed to do. I’m following the rules. And when you get caught. Not following a rule or not doing something right. You feel embarrassed, you feel shame. And so what you do is a lot of times the response, especially if you don’t have a healthy response, if you don’t have healthy emotional response, if you haven’t done the work on yourself, you self deprecate.

And, you know, woe is me. I did this wrong. Why? Because you’re seeking somebody to say, no, no, no, no, no, it’s okay. You didn’t know better there, there, there. And so therefore you want to bring a type of attention back to yourself in the name of these, because we can’t help but to chase these traits of perfectionism, these traits of individualism, people pleasing, et cetera.

These are all traits that we’ve been told that if we uphold these traits, then we will be worthy. And so the moment we feel like we’re off track in our shame and embarrassment, we want to get back on track. We want to do that in that negative kind of self, that negative attention seeking way, that one that children like to do when they act out because they want your attention.

This is, that’s the adult version of that. That’s just the grown folk version of that, right? And that’s what a lot of people just don’t realize that that’s really what’s going on. So, you know, when you actually do the work and it’s, when I say do the work, I mean, you, you examine first of all, what is the history here?

Where did this come from? Why do we value certain traits and characteristics in our society? And what is the historical root there? Oh, the historical root is in this type of oppression, this type of racism, this type of sexism, this type of ageism, this type of ableism. Oh, wow. I didn’t realize that those oppressions were those roots there.

Okay. Now you’re starting to uncover that. What are the ways in which I actually embody those characteristics and traits in my personal life, in my work life, in my relationships? Oh, I see that. And it is. I would say even a more gentle approach , to being called.

This is work that you can do in your private, you know, self lifetime, right? You don’t have to feel embarrassed. You can, you can sit through that discomfort, but you can do it in more of a personal private way should you want to so that therefore when you go out there in the world to do the work, you’re not bringing your guilt and your tears and your woe is me and your look at me, you’re there to go to work.

You’re there to get down to business. So we can get some oppression freed in this society.

Aurora: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

We’re Wrapping things up. Is there anything else that you would like to share with the embracing intensity audience?

Caroline: Hmm.

I feel like what’s coming up actually right now is just that, you know, your intensity is not too much. It’s not a bad thing. It was given to us for a reason, those of us that are more intense, you know, perhaps we’re the lucky ones, the ones that are going to be or already are the change makers.

that this world needs. So keep it on with your intensity and just know that you are so worthy. You’re so good enough. And everything that society tries to tell you that you aren’t doing, that you’re doing too much of, you’re not doing not enough of, like, don’t listen to it.

That’s, it’s all a farce. It’s all propaganda. It all exists to perpetuate systems of hierarchy and oppression and you keep doing you and you keep using your intensity for good.

Aurora: And how can they find out more about you?

Caroline: Yeah. So, I’m on social media at Caroline J. Sumlin. I’m on all, I mean, I’m on TikTok, but like, I’m there, but I’m not, I need to do better.

Instagram is my main platform but also threads. If you’re on that my website is carolinejsumlin. com. And I also have a sub stack as well for articles and things, but all of my sub stack articles are also published on my blog. So if you’re not a sub stack person, you can read those articles on my blog as well.

My book is we’ll all be free. How a culture of white supremacy devalues us and how we can reclaim our true worth. That is available everywhere. Books were sold is if you’re an audio book person, I narrated the audio book as well. So, if you’re a Kindle, it’s on Kindle, it’s everywhere. But if you can buy a physical copy buy a physical copy from an independent Black owned bookstore, please, even if you want to read the, or listen to the audiobook, please just support our Black owned bookstores right now, our independent bookstores.

If you want to go Indigenous owned bookstore, that’s fine too, or LGBTQ owned bookstore, whatever you want to do, but we need support for these indie bookstores, so please don’t buy it on Amazon. Please. Buy the physical book and then listen to it on Kindle, fine, or listen to it on audio books, but please support our independent bookstores as well.

Aurora: Awesome. Yeah. I think I pre ordered two copies when it first came out, but I can’t remember it was through whatever link you had on your Instagram at the time.

Caroline: Okay. So a lot of you are pre ordered directly from my publisher because they do like a pre order discount.

And that’s only when you pre order directly through the publisher, which was Baker books.

Go to an indie bookstores out of bookshop book. All the indie bookstores use bookshop online, like bookshop. org. So it’s on there and you can connect that to any bookstore that you want to order it from so they can get the sale.

Aurora: Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I’m so glad I got to talk with you and I look forward to having you talk with the community as well. Thank you so

Caroline: much.

I as well. This is great. I appreciate everything.

Aurora: Awesome.

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