Asha, welcome.

Asha
Thank you for having me.

Rebecca
Thank you for coming. Can you talk about the origin of your book, where it came from for you? You really shifted out of your private practice.

Asha
Yeah. I had a private practice for 15 years as a homeopath and a healer. Actually, the first shift was that I wanted to move my work online to have a global reach and just reach more people. Also, that one-to-one work was just feeling… I just had my second child and I was feeling really burnt out, and I had to go back to work when he was two months old. I was like, “I don’t know how I can maintain this type of speed, and seeing all these people, and supporting these people when I’m a mama of this babe.” I knew I had to make a change, so I created a global community. It was a membership that shared indigenous teachings, and it was beautiful. It was a beautiful vision, and then the pandemic hit — and then it was a lot. It was a lot to hold space for. It was a lot with my children at home, as many people know — at the time, my littlest was only two. Again, in that place of, “Oh my goodness, I’m burnt out again already — I just started this new vision.” At the same time around that time, Hay House had this diversity initiative contest, and they were inviting diverse authors to be part of it. So somebody said to me, “You should try. You should enter. You should do an essay.”

So did this essay. I’d just written this letter, ‘Dear White Woman Who Wants to Be Like Me,’ it was the summer of 2019. It went viral. So I put that in my letter to Hay House and in this essay, and then they said, “Oh yeah, sure, you can come to Houston, you can come to the workshop.” There was 160 entries, and then from that there was 15 folks who wrote a proposal. So we went to the workshop, did the proposal — I worked so hard on that proposal because I just felt like, “This is a new entry, I’m meant to do this.” I really felt that, and I really felt like my words were meant to be out in the world — and then I won. This time, I think it was exactly June 1st or June 2nd, that I got the call from Hay House. I was walking and I missed it, and then I was like, “Who’s calling me from California?” I look up and I’m like, “Oh my goodness.” Then they gave me this book deal, and it was like a dream come true at the time because I just thought, “This is a whole… I would never have gotten a deal (I don’t think) from them without that diversity opening.” I really feel really blessed that that was an opportunity for me — but then riding through the pandemic was challenging, and I write about that in the book. It was just a challenging thing to write a book during a pandemic. But it’s here now, and it’s making its waves, and I’m just so grateful it’s here.

Rebecca
But just particularly with your kids at home and having to concentrate with…

Natalie
All those voices, and all the needs. Oh my gosh.

Asha
All the snacks.

Natalie
All the snacks. Oh my gosh, all the snacks.

Rebecca
The constant snacks.

Natalie
That letter was really powerful. And so obviously necessary — and yet here we are, two white women interviewing you on our podcast. I was reading that book late into the night, and I just really felt like: ok, I want to ask Asha herself to tell me (if you don’t mind) how I as a white woman can use what you teach in this book without co-opting, without appropriating what isn’t mine. Because I think that lots of people are going to come to this text, and you’re so generous in your introduction in terms of how people can, but is there a way that you could… not sum it up, because it’s impossible to sum up, but is there a way to make a nugget of that specific question?

Asha
This is my view on things — is that people are going to use their teachings anyways. Why not an indigenous person sharing and teaching them? My audience is primarily white women so my work, my life work over the past five or seven years, has been to educate. So if you’re going to be in my spaces, if you’re going to be in my membership, if you’re coming in and you’re going to receive this indigenous medicine, are you going to stand here and know about our history? Are you going to be an ally or an accomplice to help indigenous people? Are you going to know about all of it, all the layers? I’ll have to say that the majority of people want to, and they join me, and they enter into this space with me. So it’s sort of like a boundary. Even if you’re reading the book, that’s right at the beginning. So if all of a sudden you throw it out the window because you’re angry, you’re not going to receive the rest of the medicine. So intentionally, it was put there as a bit of a boundary to say, “Are you willing to join me and understand the history of these medicines and how to use them with reverence?” So I wish I could give you a check, check, check, but I say this in the book: I am not the smudge police, the cultural appropriation police. I can’t police everybody. That’s exhausting. So I trust in people’s wisdom to do the work, and also I trust in their connection. They can check in with their integrity. I think we always know.

Natalie
I love that.

Rebecca
And I hadn’t known about the specific co-opting of white sage, for example. So that’s a specific herb that gets picked up.

Natalie
In Instagram culture specifically, is that where that’s been really commodified?

Asha
It has, it’s been in so many… if you’re not in the spiritual or wellness community, you probably wouldn’t necessarily be privy to that, or wouldn’t necessarily be. But in our spaces, in the wellness / new age world spaces, that’s what’s used for Instagram ads, that’s what’s used to sell your programs. They’d be waving it around like, “Clear out this! Clear out that!” It would just be not used in that respectful way. Or, you know, people would just burn it. It’s just such a different feeling. But if you’re not in these spaces, you probably would never have seen it.

Rebecca
Right. That was just interesting learning for me. So can you talk a bit about how you structured the book around the moon cycles, and then this idea of a medicine reflection (which I really appreciated).

Asha
So I love asking questions. That is always so important to me, because in my private practice it would be like, “What do you see? What do you feel, if I do a journey?” Because I always felt that that person’s medicine always knew more. I could see and sense things, but that was profound. So I loved landing that question for folks to just be like, “Oh, I don’t know. Nobody really asked me those questions. What do I see or sense?” With the moons, I’d been doing moon ceremonies probably for the last 15 years in my community, and then in my membership, so it seemed like an easy way to structure it with regards to: “These are the teachings that I usually offer monthly, how can I now make it…?” You know, Hay House wanted a structure obviously, and I do too — I like to always read something that has been thought out. So when I wrote the proposal, I thought this would be a beautiful way to share these medicine teachings in a way where people can actually just flip it open if they wanted to, and see, like, “This is what I need right now.” Because not everybody’s going through… it’s Strawberry Moon this month, not everybody’s going through that and those teachings right now. So what if you just said, “What do I need right now?” — flip it open and use it that way. That was my intention.

Rebecca
“What do I need right now?” Yeah. And then Medicine Reflections is really about questions, but also being in tune with what you sense about yourself.

Asha
Yeah, and I think I don’t see a lot of spaces where we give ourselves time or space to actually do that, that reflection. It just seems like, “On to the next thing.” We don’t integrate. So I really love the energy of integration and allowing something to sink in. Folks have told me, “I’m reading your book really slowly,” and it’s not something that I anticipated. You don’t know until you put something out there and see how it’s landing, but that was something that was interesting for me. Like, “I’m reading it slowly. I’m going back and rereading it. There’s so much wisdom here that needs to deepen.” So I think that intentional integration was weaved in there somehow, it just has come to truth. So I love that.

Natalie
I really love the phrase, “I am the medicine,” and trusting ourselves as our own healers. I have a chronic condition. It’s just going to get worse as I get older, and so for me, I got weepy when I read those lines. I could get weepy even just thinking about it right now. So can you talk about that idea a little bit — again, what somebody might gain from accessing this text, and then really owning that line for themselves?

Asha
I think that we’re so conditioned to put that power outside of ourselves from colonisation, from the patriarchy. I think that it’s not that we’re always giving our power intentionally over, but that it seems to happen in a lot of systems, especially in the medical system. So in my experience, I’d have to go and see the gynecologist and it would be like, “Oh, you’re not going to be able to have babies.” So it would be like, that would be their, “We are not giving you permission to do this.” Whereas I know my body was like, “But I want to, and I feel like I can.” Even when I was pregnant it was like, “We need to do an ultrasound on you every week because this heart condition’s happening,” and then I’d be like, “No, he’s ok.” It was just experiences I had in my own body, and feeling like: “I feel like I know. I know my body. I know it’s ok.” Feeling like somehow, sometimes my power would get stripped away in those times. My power would get stripped away when I’d go into those scenarios and feel myself questioning myself. So, “I am the medicine,” to me, is like this incredible vital force that we carry. As a homeopath, I’d see that in every person that sat in front of me. They sit in front of me, and then I’d feel that medicine spark that they carried. I’d see it, I’d give them a remedy, and somehow, it would help them remember who they were. So it was actual lived experience. I had to see folks’s medicines come forward. It was thousands of people that just showed me, “Wow, they are the medicine, and they have that.” It sort of feels like this weird revolutionary thing, because we’ve been so colonized and oppressed in a way to just forget that part of ourselves that’s so wise.

Rebecca
I was in the medical system with my youngest daughter. It’s actually a heart condition, but very much not part of that world. You’re never meant to have any say over your body or your child, really. We come with this, “You know, and we receive, and we don’t feel or know.” It’s really interesting how disconnected we really are.

Natalie
And the lack of agency, yeah.

Rebecca
So you have spoken about your own chronic pain, which has shaped you as a person. I love this phrase in your book: “I have held space for thousands in their suffering, because I deeply know what it feels like to hurt.” Can you expand on that?

Asha
It’s interesting, you know. When I talk about finding your medicine, the thing people would say to me the most is, “Why do I always cry when I’m in front of you? Why do I always cry when I’m here? I never cry any other time in my life.” Or, “I always sweat so much before I’m coming to see you.” So it was like there’s this activation of somehow just sitting in the presence, or sitting in my space and room was a safe space for people to express. I do think if we have gone through something, as human beings, we just want to be seen and understood and validated. So if somebody has gone through suffering or pain in their physical body and they’re coming to you, it’s just an instant vibrational match — somehow you just have this instant compassion to understand that person’s human suffering, and their experience. Words don’t even have to be spoken. That’s something that I’m so clear on, is the energy can just be there, and then you’ll feel it. That’s what I know. I mean, I’ve struggled a lot in my physical body, so I have a lot of compassion for people who do too.

Natalie
The story of Thunderbird, it reminded both Bec and me of a saying by the mystic Teresa of Ávila, who says that comparison is the death of faith — certainly of a spiritual life. Can you talk about that story a little bit, and how you turned the mirror and saw your friend’s success into a future blessing?

Asha
Yes, and I think this is so relevant these days with social media, because we are constantly bombarded by the opportunities to compare ourselves, or to feel not good enough because somebody’s shining really bright, or accomplishing their goals, or whatever those things are. So my friend, at the time I was in homeopathy school and she was in a healing practice she had, and I went to see her healing practice at the time. She had these crystals and books and remedies, just had all the most beautiful things in her healing office, and I thought, “Oh my goodness.” I felt that pang of jealousy — like, “I want that too, and will I ever have that?” And she turned to me and said, “You’ll have this one day, too.” I couldn’t quite see that, or I couldn’t quite understand that. But I just took a breath and thought, “Ok.” Then years later, I sat and I looked around and thought, “Oh, she was right. I did have those things.” It’s a little bit simplifying to say, “Oh, those things that you’re wanting, you can have them too.” I think it doesn’t acknowledge the fact that we’re feeling those jealousy or envy feelings, and it’s minimizing what we’re feeling. But I do think that those people you look up to, those dreams that you feel like, “I wish I had that,” they’re a little spark to open you up to what’s possible for you. I truly do feel that. So if we could just see those Instagram posts that trigger us like, “Oh, maybe it’s something that I’m wanting or desiring, and maybe it’s possible,” I think that could shift a lot.

Rebecca
It’s really challenging, but I really appreciated that idea of seeing it as a spark, seeing as we love to talk about reframing things — so that seems like an excellent reframe. I can see that and go, “Oh, that inspires me,” as opposed to, “That’s going to make me feel like I’m not enough.” Especially when we are so needing to be on social media, often for our businesses and stuff, so it’s not as simple to say, “I just won’t go there.” So you’ve really found a way to be in the social media space and to teach others how to do it.

Asha
Yes, and those things still creep up on me too. Sometimes I still get those little pangs of, “Oh, that would be really nice right now,” but I can see it a little bit more now.

Rebecca
So how do you keep creating new pathways? Or how do we do that so we keep practicing in certain directions? Is that you figured that out with social media, you just practice your thoughts, or…?

Asha
I think so. I use a lot of nervous system work. If I get triggered by something, I do a lot of somatic shaking, soothing, just snapping things out. I really try to get in my body better, because it can get stuck, and that’s something that I’ve experienced over and over again with a chronic illness, but also just sensations. Sometimes I’ve had to bypass because we have children running around, or say I get something that’s really mean on social media that’s hurt my feelings really deeply — I will stop, I’ll name it. “That really hurt. My heart feels like a knife went in it.” I’ll a name that out loud, and then I shake it out of my body, and I find that that’s so important because oftentimes we bypass that and those things just build up, and then we become anxious, or we are depressed, or we’re doubting ourselves, and we don’t know why. But it’s these little tiny paper cuts that we’ve taken up along the way and not processed through. So that’s been my work over the last couple years, for sure.

Rebecca
And literally shaking it out of the body.

Asha
Yup, literally shake.

Rebecca
We did that in theatre school — we would do this, where you hold your hands together and shake your jaw.

Asha
Oh, I love that.

Rebecca
Jaw shaking is like — you go “awawaw,” and it kind of loosens your jaw.

Asha
I’ve never seen that before, no.

Rebecca
I’m glad all their listeners can learn about that.

Asha
I love that.

Rebecca
Oh yes, a little housekeeping. Don’t forget to rate, review, or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you like what we’re doing here on Sister On!, your feedback really supports this reframing project of ours. Also, sign up for our weekly newsletter, which comes with a free recipe from Nat. And we have a new segment for our Patreon subscribers: mini-episodes, which we call Life-Hacks and Enhancers — our five best things in a week. Check us out over on our Patreon, and consider a donation if these reframing conversations have supported you or someone you know. All the links are in our show notes. Love, Sister On!

Natalie
Well, and actually thinking theatre school and the various spaces of learning — I’m a teacher, I teach high schoolers, so I’ve got teaching on the mind and it’s really interesting how you write about your own desire and need for a teacher or a mentor. That is something we’ve talked about a lot on this podcast, only to realize that in the end, the perfect teacher for you was you. So can you expand on that for our listeners?

Asha
Yeah, so this was a really big thing for a long time, and there’s still a little bit of that inside of me — where, especially from indigenous cultures, we have some elders that are — these are the ones I’ve learned from. We name our elders, we name our teachers. For the last 20 years, I’ve been on that search, just searching there, searching there, finding teachers. They’ve been great, and then something blows up. Or they’ve been really wise, and then they’ve been abusive. So it’s just so interesting, because I go these ways and I think, “That’s the person!” I probably put them on a pedestal or give my power away, only to find out, “Oh my goodness. Yes, they might have unlocked something for me. Yes, they might be a catalyst for me. Yes, they do hold incredible wisdom — and my wisdom matters, too.” There’s still some times that part of me from my indigeneity that’s searching for that elder that’s the one I can say, “This is the one who taught me everything,” because that’s more accepted in our society, I think — and that’s just not been my path. I’ve had different teachers from a variety of backgrounds. My children teach me. You know, I don’t think it’s an age thing necessarily. I believe my children are little elders walking around. I just think that top-down approach is not always the most effective or healed. It’s been a big journey. Sometimes as I think about it I’m like, “Oh my goodness, there’s still that part of me that’s searching for that one being to affirm me, and tap me on the head and say, ‘You’ve got this. You’ve made it.’”

Rebecca
And then you said your oldest son is quite wise, or you’ve noticed a lot of particular wisdom in him?

Asha
He is. He’s very sensitive. He just reminds me of myself as a child. He’s very sensitive, very alert to everything going on around him. Is able to just tap into different energies that I don’t see my youngest as much tapping into. So I love to see how that unfolds for him. He just seems to have that gentle spirit, and I’m curious if he’ll be a healer one day.

Rebecca
This quotation from your book really struck me: “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. If you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” That’s from Lilla Watson, aboriginal wisdom keeper. So what is the difference between an ally and an accomplice? Can you just talk about that?

Asha
Yeah. It’s only different because I can see how they show up in my communities, and I’m grateful for both. There’s a lot of allies who will repost different indigenous stories, and do their research, and they’re still trying to help. But accomplices, in my experience, are the ones that are coming in and they’re helping me when I’m doing an event for raising pads for indigenous communities up north. They’re spearheading that. They’re just taking really deeper initiative and action. They just seem to understand the lack of equity too, even in the social media spaces. That’s all I can speak to, because a lot of the social media spaces, they understand that indigenous voices are invisible, so they will actually do the work to start to see around, “What can I do to change this, to change the systems, being a part of it?” — even if they lose something. That’s a big thing: status, platform, money. Are you willing to put that on the line? Many people aren’t, that’s the sad thing, and this is the hard thing for me sometimes, that as an indigenous woman in these spaces, I’ll immediately know, “Well, that person’s not really willing to be an accomplice or even an ally. They just pretend to be. They just want to check the box. It’s going to be performative.” That’s so painful for indigenous people to experience.

Natalie
I have to sit with that one. We’re a growing podcast. We’ve both lived in our own various work worlds for a long time, but in this space we have this opportunity to create through our Sister On! community a space where we can (just because we’ve done it together as sisters) we can create room to amplify other people. We don’t feel like we have much power. We’re not feeling these days like we have much power to do much for anybody else, but actually what you say there really empowers the long-term goal for what we want Sister On! to be about. We want to reframe what it means to self-improve with an outward-facing look. That means actually at times diminishing for the sake of amplification in other spaces that need it more, and in different ways, and just being really good listeners. I mean, in the end, what does it mean to listen? I’m struck by this conversation in that way. Can you talk about the difference between ‘re-indigenize’ versus ‘decolonize’? Because the word ‘decolonize’ has been taken up in so many ways, for good and not. It’s been, in many ways, watered down. So what way have you chosen to go forward with such words?

Asha
I still like the word ‘decolonize,’ and I think people understand it a little bit better than ‘re-indigenize.’ I think because the way that my viewpoint or vision works is like, “How can we have a vision forward?” Anything ‘de-’ just feels like it’s always breaking apart. I think so many systems need to be broken apart, but we also need the visionaries to hold that space and hold that rooted future, or hold that rooted energy for healing. So I think as a healer, ‘re-indigenize’ makes more sense to my heart than ‘decolonize.’ I know my medicine’s not here to tear down. That’s just never been who I am, and I cannot do both. I do feel like decolonization is important for my journey. As an indigenous person, I have to continually decolonize myself every single day because of the assimilation, the colonization that’s been forced upon me. I’m constantly unweaving that from my system and state. But I feel like as I step out of that and into a new space, I want to bless spaces with indigenous wisdom, heart, and medicine. For me, that’s what it is. If I show up in my full presence, then I’m re-indigenizing spaces, and that feels the best for me.

Natalie
Thank you.

Rebecca
That moment in your book when you talk about your son not wanting to go into his kindergarten class, and him saying, “Mommy, don’t let them take me away,” and for you, you were struck by the weight of intergenerational trauma that he even carries. Am I saying that right? In that moment, sensing that this is bringing something up again. But yet you also say there’s wisdom — there’s so much wisdom in our DNA too. I would love to hear more about that.

Asha
Yeah. So he said ‘snatch’ and not ‘take,’ and that’s why it struck me, because ‘snatch’ was just never a word we’ve used in our home. He was in JK, so he was four. So that’s why I was just struck, because I was thinking, “Well, ‘take,’ ok, but ‘snatch’ was just like…” And because his father’s Jewish and because I’m indigenous, and we have really close generational trauma, he was just so resistant. He’d been in daycare his whole life — it wasn’t that. You know, it’s just like, “Oh, it’s because he’s been with him.” No, he hasn’t. He hasn’t actually. So that — it was like his face, and I just got chills, and I thought, “This is deeper.” I hadn’t at the time really worked that deeply on my generational trauma, so it just evoked this, “I need to do something about this. I need to move this through my own system so that whatever I’m vibrating out, he’s going to feel, so there’s safety there in that way.” Even acknowledging, you know? I’ve had people say, “It’s so important to acknowledge the truth.”

I bought books about the Holocaust and residential schools so that they would know the truth they’re feeling in their bones, the truth they’re dreaming about at night — it’s actually true, right? We’re not just going to bypass it and smush it and just not validate it. This stuff is happening. And yes, there’s so much wisdom. I mean, there’s so much wisdom, and the way that I experience that is when folks come into my species, it’s that disconnect that they have to their own lineage’s wisdom. I know that indigenous people as a whole, we carry that effortlessly. So I try to tell my children, “You have this incredible…” I mean, we all have this wisdom. But with the trauma piece, I think that we can get so stuck there. So stuck there, and then directing all of our energy there. I know I’m very committed to my healing path, so that’s something I’m really guilty of — just like, “What needs to be healed next? Where do I go next? What do I have to look at next?” It’s always, “Me me, my stuff, my stuff.” I can get stuck there. So how can I just lean into the wisdom, the ease, the grace, the flow, the abundance. All those pieces are really important, too.

Natalie
So we’re going to wrap up with one last bigger question, and then we have a fun little speed round (well, you’ll tell us if this was fun). But my last question is: what would be something that you would encourage our listeners to take away from this conversation — beyond go out and buy your book, which we want them to do. But what’s something you would just want them to take away from this conversation?

Asha
I think right now we’re at a point on the earth where we need everyone and their medicine. We need everyone connecting to how their presence is impacting this earth and those around you. There’s so much up in the world right now. So much trauma, so much back-and-forth of all of this stuff. If you’re going to buy my book, I hope that it sparks something, a remembering inside of you about your medicine. I’m just here to say, “You have it. It’s there. There’s a spark. You came here, your ancestors dreamed you here, so now take those next steps.”

Natalie
Wonderful.

Rebecca
Ok, our speed round. We make everyone do this, and I feel like the answers are interesting. What’s the last new skill you learned?

Asha
Oh, goodness. Why are these so hard sometimes? The last new skill… you know what it was? It was making a sales page on AWeber.

Natalie
See? Everybody goes to tech. So true. Ok, what’s a common myth or just something that people misunderstand about your profession?

Asha
Oh, goodness. I can talk about that as a homeopath. They always thought I was a naturopath, so they don’t understand homeopathy, and they think that I just prescribe plants and different supplements. But that’s not true.

Rebecca
The funnest thing you did today?

Asha
Oh goodness, I just went to a school and I spoke to three classes of 80 students. It was so joyful, just seeing these children, and seeing their light in their eyes, and seeing the potential of what we have coming up in the next generation.

Natalie
Oh, I love that. How would your siblings or just a close relative or friend describe you in three words?

Asha
Oh, I have two words actually, because my sister calls me ‘Flashy Ashy.’ I love sparkles, boas, short skirts. I am pretty flashy when I get dressed up, so that’s what she’d call me.

Natalie
That’s great.

Rebecca
What do you need to be creative?

Asha
Quiet. Space. That’s really important — quiet, and space, and my children in school.

Natalie
Yes. Ok, and finally, what’s for dinner tonight?

Asha
A burrito bowl, because I’m going to do a healing circle tonight, so I’m on my way going to go get it.

Natalie
That’s super. Asha, thank you. What a wonderful conversation, and we’re just so grateful for your book and that you’ve come into this space with us and shared it with us. We’re just sending you off with so much love.

Asha
Thank you for having me. It’s been such a pleasure.

Rebecca
Yes. Thanks again.

Natalie
Take care.

Asha
Thank you.

Natalie
Bye.