132 - Vasavi Kumar: Finding Your Voice & Reclaiming Your Truth
What happens when you stop outsourcing your worth and finally learn to trust your own voice?
In this deeply honest conversation, Sarah sits down with voice trainer, author, and podcast host Vasavi Kumar to explore the transformative power of speaking your truth. Together they unpack the hidden cost of suffering in silence, emotional perfectionism, people-pleasing, conflict avoidance, grief, recovery, and the journey back to self-trust.
Vasavi shares her personal story—from childhood bullying and addiction to recovery, relationships, loss, and ultimately finding the freedom that comes from radical self-honesty. She offers practical tools for moving through rumination, regulating emotions, navigating conflict, and accessing what she calls the "Feeling, Friend, and Sage" voices within.
This conversation is an invitation to stop abandoning yourself, start listening to your inner wisdom, and discover the clarity that emerges when you finally say it out loud.
Episode Transcript:
Sarah Tacy: [00:00:00] Welcome to Threshold Moments. I'm your host, Sarah Tacy, and today I have with me Vasavi Kumar. Welcome.
Vasavi Kumar: Hi, Sarah. I love your voice. It's so soothing. I might fall asleep.
Sarah Tacy: Ooh.
Vasavi Kumar: It's so, it's so soothing. I'm like, yes, I'm here for it. I'm here for it.
Sarah Tacy: So nice to be here. I've told people before, I'm like, if you need to get up and, like, walk around while you listen to me so you don't fall asleep.
Vasavi Kumar: No, it's great. I, I, I love a nice soothing voice.
Sarah Tacy: Amazing. Um, so this is what I was gonna say before we... I was gonna start this recording, and I was like, you know, why don't I say it out loud? Why don't I record it? Is that I got your book maybe two years ago when we first started DM'ing back and forth on Instagram.
Sarah Tacy: Mm-hmm.
Vasavi Kumar: And
Sarah Tacy: sometimes I need, like, a little kick in the butt, like a podcast lined up, to be like, "I'm gonna read the book that I want to read."
Vasavi Kumar: Yes.
Sarah Tacy: And it's [00:01:00] so good.
Vasavi Kumar: Thank you.
Sarah Tacy: And I notice, I'm like, gosh, I really... Like, this feels like a real practice to build over time. We're gonna say more.
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Tacy: Um, and as I was preparing for this podcast, I was just like, I'm not...
Sarah Tacy: I'm, like, four or five pages into my notes, and I'm only halfway through the things I've outlined here.
Vasavi Kumar: Yes.
Sarah Tacy: So I'm gonna just, you know, trust that we cover what is most potent to cover. And- I will, for my listeners, give a little background. This is just your, your bio you have on the back of your book, and then I would love for you to describe, like, who are your people- Mm-hmm
Sarah Tacy: who do you serve, and why do you love serving these people in this way? Yes. So the professional one says, "Vasavi Kumar is a licensed therapist and the outspoken host [00:02:00] of Say It Out Loud with Vasavi. She p- she runs the Say It Out Loud Safe Haven Community for coaches, creatives, entrepreneurs, and is also a trained voiceover artist for audiobook narration and other products.
Sarah Tacy: She lives in Austin, Texas."
Vasavi Kumar: Still does.
Sarah Tacy: Still does. Double-checked on that. So- When you said you just did 10,000 steps, I was like, "That must have been hot."
Vasavi Kumar: It was, it was so hot. I was talking to my older sister the whole time, so it just goes by so quick. But I wanted to say a few things about that bio. Um, the Say It Out Loud Safe Haven is now the Out Loud School.
Vasavi Kumar: And to answer your question about who my people are, that's still very much congruent with what it says in the bio. Uh, online business owners, musicians, artists, creatives. You know, I, I hate being vague and saying anyone with a voice, but it truly is anyone with a voice, a mission, a message, art, a business, a product.
Vasavi Kumar: You [00:03:00] know, you know that your voice is your most profitable asset and currency, and what we do, you know, inside my Out Loud School is really bridging that gap between how you feel on the inside- Mm ... what you're saying on the outside, and making sure that your energy, your delivery is congruent with how you feel- Mm
Vasavi Kumar: about whatever it is that you are offering. So why do I serve these types of people? I, I, I am that, first of all. Mm. I, I am those people, right? The people that I serve are some version of me, past, present, future, right? And, um, I, I enjoy working with people who have something to say. I enjoy working with people who want to create, right?
Vasavi Kumar: I enjoy working with people who are on a mission, who feel so strongly that, you know, uh, their gifts are not just, uh, a mistake. They were given by God to be able to share to the people who need to see, hear, feel, experience them the most. So, um, what else do I wanna say? I am still a trained [00:04:00] voiceover artist and actor, and, um, I don't practice, uh, therapy formally.
Vasavi Kumar: I, you know, I got my master's in social work at Columbia in 2010, and then I became a coach, and that has, um, really morphed over the course of 16 years. I consider myself more of a voice trainer- Mm ... than a coach or a therapist, so that's who I am in a nutshell.
Sarah Tacy: This is a little bit of a side tangent. My brother has had some pretty big jobs as- CFO of relatively very big startups.
Sarah Tacy: Yeah. And in the current position that he's in, he has a voice coach.
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Tacy: Which wasn't really where I was planning on this episode going.
Vasavi Kumar: No,
Sarah Tacy: let's go. But he said, "No matter where I go, if I go somewhere next, I will always take this man with me." Yes. And it's such a hot topic, as you know, like the YAP Challenge is a really big deal right now, right?
Sarah Tacy: And it's like, [00:05:00] what is your cadence?
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Tacy: Are you frazzled in your nervous system?
Vasavi Kumar: Yep.
Sarah Tacy: How do you deliver? And just really speaking to the way that we connect with each other through sound, through voice-
Vasavi Kumar: Yeah ...
Sarah Tacy: more than the words that are being said. Yes. But there's something deeper to your work-
Vasavi Kumar: Yes ...
Sarah Tacy: that y- the intro to your book says, "To all those who suffer..."
Sarah Tacy: It makes me wanna cry. Yeah. "To all those who suffer in silence, may this book bring you relief." And so the work that you do with voice, and everything that I read in the book, is really about, like, putting ourselves back together and taking out the parts that were never ours. And for me, I think the reason why I'm like, "Oh, this book could be so helpful," is because I was on the Peloton the other day, and my husband was downstairs, and [00:06:00] the, the instructor said something like, "Steve, write this in notes for me."
Sarah Tacy: And it says, "Conflict delayed is conflict multiplied." And I am a person who, in the scenario that I grew up in, which was by so many accounts incredible, uh, also really learned how to figure everything out inside so not to c- create any conflict or amplify anything outside. To really, like, settle all the outer conditions, very much of like I'm okay when everything out there is okay.
Sarah Tacy: Mm-hmm. So if I can understand how nothing is personal, which is like one of these spiritual te- tenets, right? Yeah. Nothing is personal, then I'm gonna be okay.
Vasavi Kumar: Yep.
Sarah Tacy: Which you brought up the idea of spirit of, uh, emotional perfectionism. Mm-hmm.
Vasavi Kumar: And I was
Sarah Tacy: like, "Ooh. Ooh, called out." And, um, and so sometimes when [00:07:00] I'm in conflict- But first I probably go into a bit of a freeze of like, "Wait, what is happening?"
Sarah Tacy: Mm-hmm. I don't understand why this person's, like, freaking out or what's, like, what i- like... And then I'll go through a long inner dialogue, and there's such a gap between the time that I say something, and by then I've probably accumulated, like, 40 times that something's gone shitty, and a little thing happens, and now I have this long list.
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm. So
Sarah Tacy: like, the... And I'm like, I wonder if this practice of speaking out loud could also help me to lessen the space between when the thing happens and being able to just speak out loud what I'm experiencing. Not saying like, "You're wrong," or this is, but just like- Mm-hmm ... "
Vasavi Kumar: Oh,
Sarah Tacy: wow, I'm experiencing this."
Sarah Tacy: Can you speak to that a little?
Vasavi Kumar: Yes. Yeah, I do wanna say, first [00:08:00] thing, when we go, when you said you read the, um, the dedication, um, I also wanted to cry because I dedicated to all those who suffer in silence, you know? It was originally gonna be dedicated to my dad's younger brother, Lakshmi Kumar, in India, um, who killed himself when he was, uh, 30-something years old.
Vasavi Kumar: He hung himself from a fan, and I was 10 years old when I fi- found out that happened, and I was like, "This is preposterous," you know? Why would someone take their own life? But my editor said, you know, "Instead of dedicating it to your uncle, put him in the acknowledgments at the end." Mm. "What do you really wanna say?"
Vasavi Kumar: And I said, "I wanna dedicate it to all those who suffer in silence," 'cause that was my uncle. He suffered in silence, and he, you know, he wrote a lot of poetry. He was very ethereal, but he thought that the only way to, uh, free himself from that suffering was to take his own life. So that's really why I, um, I dedicated the book to all those who suffer in silence.
Vasavi Kumar: So I just wanted to honor him in this moment and say that. Mm. Um, so [00:09:00] yes, listen, I live by myself, okay? I used to have a f- you know, golden retriever. I put her down in December. I talk out loud to myself all the time. When instead of Having arguments in my head about the person that I'm upset with, or it could be a sit- any situation, I will be standing in my kitchen and I will say the thing that I wanna say, like, to that person unfiltered, unedited.
Vasavi Kumar: I will respond back to myself and be like, "Well, why do you feel this way, Vasavi? Like, what's going on?" You know, I don't outsource my emotional intelligence and my awareness to other people. It's all within me if I just ask the right questions, if I just hear myself. The body does not lie to you, right?
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm. When you... That's why a lot of people do keep stuff inside, because the minute you say it out loud, it becomes real or you have to address it. You can't hide from it. So to answer your question, I definitely think you could lessen that gap. It will not amplify it. It won't be as amplified within you and [00:10:00] or externally when you have that dialogue with yourself out loud.
Vasavi Kumar: So, you know, con- you know, opposite of you, uh, I love conflict. I mean, I, I don't try to duke it out with people all the time, but I can sit in the discomfort of the tension, right? Like, you're pissed at me, we're misunderstanding each other, it is not harmonious. I can sit with that. I'm like, "Okay, this is uncomfortable.
Vasavi Kumar: It is tense inside my body." Um, I process very, very quickly, probably 'cause I started therapy at the age of 12, so I got really used to speaking out loud from a very young age to a complete stranger. Uh, but I would recommend for people who kind of have a tendency to... Nothing wrong with internally processing.
Vasavi Kumar: I do too, but I am more of an external processor. If not with myself, then with my close friends. I need to say that out loud. I need to hear myself say it. I need to release all the feelings, the anxiety, the anger, the frustration, the rage, the annoyance, the frustration, all of it, um, so I can finally [00:11:00] get to the root, which is usually I feel rejected, I feel worthless, I feel like you're not listening to me, right?
Vasavi Kumar: Everything else is just kind of the, the, the top layer for me. Mm-hmm. Um, my, my default emotions that I usually go to, which has primarily been anger, but what I've noticed throughout my life is that when I allow myself to say it out loud, right, without editing it, trying to make it look perfect, journaling it, you know, I realize underneath all that is just a sad little girl who doesn't feel understood.
Vasavi Kumar: And then when I can give some love and compassion and soothe that sad little girl, I can be so kind and tender to her, and then it's easier for me to approach that person that I may be in conflict with and speak from a place that they can actually receive what I'm saying. No one's gonna respond well with, like, "Well, you, you know, you're, you're this," and, you know, with an attitude.
Vasavi Kumar: No one is going to respond to that well. It's not gonna go over well, right? So we gotta tend to our- ourselves first. Be kind, compassionate, soothing with ourselves first, give ourselves the space first, [00:12:00] and then be able to go to that person to be able to have that conversation, you know? So I hope that answers
Sarah Tacy: that question.
Sarah Tacy: How do you go from- rumination. So the conversations, I think when that conversation stay in the head, what I notice- Mm-hmm ... is it looks a lot like rumination.
Vasavi Kumar: Yeah.
Sarah Tacy: And when, what I often do to try to get it out of that is I will write to the part of my body, the thing, the person, and then have them write back to me.
Sarah Tacy: And then I always hear from a perspective that I could not have made up on my own. I'm like, "Whoa, okay, now I understand." For you, when you're speaking out loud, how do you move from rumination to getting to the core- Mm-hmm ... to the self-care, to the curiosity?
Vasavi Kumar: Yeah, I, it, well, you know, once again, it really boils down to the questions that I ask myself.
Vasavi Kumar: So, you know, if I find myself quietly ruminating, um I will, I notice it, first of all, because you're, [00:13:00] I'm in my head. It does not feel good. I'm spi- I'm spiraling. I can feel it in my body, and I will literally say out loud, "Vasavi, stop. Stop." Mm. "Just, just, just stop." And, you know, we all can have a different tone of voice with ourselves.
Vasavi Kumar: I am not always soft and sweet. I, sometimes I need a good kick in the butt. "Vasavi, stop." I will literally say, "Vasavi, stop it." You know, I, I, I am the daughter of immigrants. My mother is a very direct, harsh woman. I love her to death, but she, y- there was no BS growing up with us. We did not have soft, nurturing mom.
Vasavi Kumar: My dad was very soft and nurturing. So that works for me, and I, I, I know it's coming from a good place. I wanna stop that rumination. I will go, "Vasavi, stop. What are you feeling right now?" And then I'll bl- word vomit everything out, like, "Oh, I can't believe he did this, and then he did this, and I'm feeling really stressed right now because of this, this, this situation."
Vasavi Kumar: I let myself speak uninterrupted, okay? Pause, and then ask myself, "Okay, what's really going on? What is this reminding you [00:14:00] of? How old were you when you first felt this way?" Like, let, take me back to that memory where you first felt rejection. Take me back to that fir- and I, I, I will therapize myself. I'm having a dialogue with myself because we all have so many different parts inside of us.
Vasavi Kumar: So the very first thing is to notice, right? Like, I am in my head right now. It doesn't feel good. I'm operating from the neck up, and it's like having a pattern interrupt, right? So for me, it's, "Stop. Vasavi, stop it. Stop it. What do you need to say out loud? Vasavi, pause." I've been saying pause lately. Stop feels a little harsh for me the, you know, these days.
Vasavi Kumar: I don't know, but I'll just say, "Vasavi, pause." So I, I, I will, I will stop that, but a lot of people spend time ruminating. They don't... It's become a pattern for them. It's become the norm for them, but once you start to actually slow down enough, breathe deeper, notice, like, I don't like this feeling in my chest right now.
Vasavi Kumar: For me, I hold everything in my chest, [00:15:00] so, and then my throat starts to tighten up when I'm ruminating. I will, I have to pause and actually stop, and then I start speaking to myself out loud. Even when I'm with a friend, Sarah. I have a neighbor. She's 25 years old. I love her. She's a Libra. I'm a Taurus. We are like a match made in heaven.
Vasavi Kumar: Um, I'm like, what? 20-something years older than her. Um, so I always say I'm her elder. Um, but, like, we are literally the same, and so we'll, I'll... You know, I just went through a really bad breakup, okay? I was in a relationship for eight years with an alcoholic. Uh, it was awful, and I'm out of it, and I was talking to her.
Vasavi Kumar: I was ruminating out loud, though. Everything that was in here, I was just saying it out loud, and- I said to myself, as I was talking to her, I said, "Wait, let me just stop for a second." Like, I'm, this is, this is, I am going down the rabbit hole right now. So because I have the practice within myself, when I'm with myself, I, I, I, I notice it and I pause.
Vasavi Kumar: I notice it with other people, too, because I'm also very responsible for the energy [00:16:00] that I bring into a room, right? Like, yes, you're my friend, but that does not mean I'm gonna dump all over you. So I notice even when I, if I'm with somebody else, close friends, I'll notice myself if I start going down that road, I'll, I will interrupt myself and I'll be like, "Wait.
Vasavi Kumar: Wait. Let me back up. Let me breathe. Let me drop in. What's really going on underneath all of this," right? Because it's so easy to bounce from thought to thought to fear to fear to this to... And I'm like, wait. What, let's, let's dig a little deeper. I, I literally cue myself to drop in and go deeper. Mm. So you can do this with yourself.
Vasavi Kumar: You can do this with other people. And I highly recommend doing both, because so many people, and I will say this, no shade to anyone who does this, when you do not have that awareness within yourself, you will inevitably trauma dump all over other people, and that's not fair to other people. Uh, it, it's not, right?
Vasavi Kumar: We have to be, we have to manage our own energy. Mm-hmm. We have to be responsible for not just our thoughts, but what we're saying to other people, [00:17:00] right? And, and what the impact on the other person, you know? So it's really about becoming aware with yourself so that when you're in dialogue conversation with other people, you are also mind- you know, very mindful and aware of that as well, when you're communicating with other people.
Sarah Tacy: I have a story that I tell myself, and I notice when I'm getting hooked in it. And so I do a little, like, I make this gesture with my hands when I notice I'm doing it. I'm like, "Oh, unhook." Yes. And it was like, like, I'm just like, oh, I just, uh... You know, in your book you talk about this too, like, what are the stories you're telling?
Sarah Tacy: If you're authoring your own life- Mm-hmm ... is that really the truth that you wanna go on? Is that the whole perspective? And so while I will give myself grace and time to continue to see, like, what are the layers underneath it that hook me, that are like, ooh- Yeah ... I wanna believe that story. Yeah. Um, I will do a physical gesture with it to unhook.
Sarah Tacy: And I was also [00:18:00] with Tell Darden, who, uh, was a practitioner for me, uh, three or four years ago, and I was in a, like, ba-da-ba-ba-da-ba-ba, and then this happened to me, and ba-da-ba-ba-ba-ba. And she was like, "Can we pause?"
Vasavi Kumar: Good for her. Good for her.
Sarah Tacy: And just the skill, because there are times where what people need most are just, like, really to be heard and the things that they are shameful about- Yeah
Sarah Tacy: dumping about. Yeah. And she so skillfully said to me, she's like, "This doesn't sound like you." And if I, like, if I was like, "This isn't..." You know, like, it was this perfect moment where I was in complete agreement, and it felt like such a relief just to like, "Oh yeah, I'm just gonna put that over there." Yes.
Sarah Tacy: Like, I don't know what I am looping on, but that actually isn't me. Yeah. And it was such a [00:19:00] relief, and she did it with such skill. Um, I'll always be grateful for that moment. And speaking of moments- Yeah ... uh, as we... You know, this podcast is called Threshold Moments. Yeah. And people listening may be like, "I wonder how Asfi got into this.
Sarah Tacy: I wonder why this became such a passion of hers. I wonder where this book came from." And at the beginning of chapter two, you outline things that really created a sense within you that's like, "Whose voice is this?" In a sense that brought you to what feels like for me, and I think you described it kind of as a threshold moment too- Mm-hmm
Sarah Tacy: um, that eventually landed in recovery. And some of the things that you listed, do you mind if I list them here?
Vasavi Kumar: Yeah, please go ahead.
Sarah Tacy: So you said, "I thrived in the face of chaos. Parts split off from me. I was a first generation, I am a [00:20:00] first-generation Indian immigrant, predominantly grew up, growing up in a predominantly white town."
Sarah Tacy: That there was emotional and psychological early abuse, that there was sexual trauma in young adult years, that there was a bipolar diagnosis, which later you say was an opportunity to know yourself better. Mm-hmm. That there was a marriage, a divorce, an addiction, and recovery. And you talk about finally coming back to yourself while learning to sit with the discomfort.
Sarah Tacy: And so I'm wondering if you could walk us through the journey of being in these places and having these experiences, and coming back to feeling safe in your own skin, and being able to speak your truth. And right in there, like the being able to speak your truth, I've heard you say, like, being embodied in the truth that you speak.
Vasavi Kumar: Oh, um-
Sarah Tacy: That
Vasavi Kumar: was loaded ... it feels like some- Sorry. No, no, no. It, no, it's okay. I'm, I'm actually taking it in [00:21:00] because I'm, it feels so long ago. I'm 44 now, you know? When I got divorced, I was 31. So let's go back. I was, um, raised on Long Island, New York, and I grew up in a, you know, predominantly white town, a blue-collar neighborhood, and my parents were, you know, doctors and, you know, my dad was a CPA, and they did very well.
Vasavi Kumar: And, uh, I was not treated well in school growing up. It was very difficult. I would, um- I was bullied a lot. I would, I would rehearse before my dad dropped me off what I was gonna say to people if they kind of came at me. So I, I always had a comeback. I always knew, like, okay, if someone says this, this is how I'm gonna react.
Vasavi Kumar: I was always on the defensive pretty much my whole life because I had to be. I had to be. I had to be defensive, right? Because people were always coming at me, right? Growing up, it was like, "Oh, you think you're better than us." Or I w- I, you know, I was, I was a very smart kid growing up. [00:22:00] "Oh, you know, who do you think you are?"
Vasavi Kumar: Or, "Your name is Wasabi," or, "Your dad must ride a camel to work and work at 7-11. Can I get a Slurpee?" I would have to hear all these things, and from a very young age, I was made acutely aware of how different I was, right? And so when you're constantly feeling othered, you do whatever you can to belong, and that's what I did.
Vasavi Kumar: I started hanging out with the wrong crowd or whatever you wanna call it. You know, if you can't beat 'em, you join 'em. I took many, uh, self-destructive paths. I started smoking cigarettes at the age of 12. Um, I don't smoke anymore. You know, started using substances at a very young age. Um, you know, I went off to college and was very promiscuous, very promiscuous, and used a lot of cocaine and weed and alcohol and it, you know...
Vasavi Kumar: Once again, very smart, very intelligent. I graduated sophomore year 'cause I had to transfer back home to Long Island. I [00:23:00] graduated, I, I left Boston University with a 1.3 GPA. Mm. Which, that's not me. I, I'm a 4.0 kind of girl, okay? And, um, so I was, I was, I came back home to Long Island, and at 19, I was given this diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and I remember how relieved I felt in that moment because I was like, oh, this is why I'm acting a fool right now.
Vasavi Kumar: Oh, I have a diagnosis now to confirm my behavior because the truth of me knew I'm not someone who uses drugs. I'm not someone who just sleeps around. Like, this is not me. Like, guy after guy after guy, this is not me. Like, I, I, I, that's not me. That's not me. That's not who I am. Body is sacred. Sex is sacred.
Vasavi Kumar: I'm not... Why am I, uh, imbibing all these drugs and all this stuff? So I was relieved when I was given that diagnosis. But the, but the thing about a diagnosis is it can become your entire identity, right? And it was my identity for a very long time. Oh, something is just wrong with me. I have a mental illness, [00:24:00] right?
Vasavi Kumar: That's, that's what you're told. You're mentally ill. You have a mood disorder. Um, I'm happy to say, you know, um, as of this past December, I'm completely off medication. I am thriving. I, I feel things in a way that I've never felt. I am able to regulate far better than I ever was able to on medication, 'cause medication made me feel so numb and boxed in.
Vasavi Kumar: Um, by the way, I'm not saying get off your medication. I'm just saying that I no longer identify with that label. I have to learn how to, you know, become one with myself. I remember researching, um... I was at Barnes & Noble the day after I got my bipolar d- diagnosis, um, diagnosis. It was on Long Island, and I looked up the spiritual, uh, reasoning for bipolar disorder.
Vasavi Kumar: It was this book called, like, the, The Book of Tao, Tao, or something like that. I actually wrote about it in the book. But it basically said people who are diagnosed with bipolar disorder actually struggle with being one with themselves, [00:25:00] because you have the bipolar. You have the duality, right? And so I made it my mission at 19.
Vasavi Kumar: I stayed on medication. I was on a heavy cocktail of meds. I made it my mission, no matter how hard it was- I'm gonna always try to be at one with myself. That was a very long journey. Took me, took me, it took me however long it took me, right? But I'm here now, uh, to say that it is possible to be at one with yourself.
Vasavi Kumar: It is possible to not be at conflict and be at war with yourself, and it takes a lot of work. You know, so throughout all these journeys, wh- wh- whether it's being, getting married to the wrong guy, knowing that I should not have gotten married to him, the guy after him, which, you know, led me to rehab, not once but twice, my most recent relationship that I was on and off with for eight years with an alcoholic, you know?
Vasavi Kumar: I asked God this the other day. I was like, "Why did it take me so long to get out of this relationship?" And the answer that I heard back was, "Vasavi, there's [00:26:00] no such thing as short or long when it comes to the divine," right? Divine, divine is, there's, uh, everything is timeless. There's no... Time is just a construct, right?
Vasavi Kumar: It takes however long it takes, right? And I'm saying this because so many women especially feel like they are far behind, they have to play catch-up, and it's like, listen, what I know now is until you fully choose yourself ruthlessly, selfishly, relentlessly, you are going to keep repeating the same patterns.
Vasavi Kumar: So it took me, you know, however long it took me, I don't even... I, I've lost count, but it can be done. So that was, that was the journey, Sarah. I mean, there, there's so much more juicy details, right? But I, it's not about the details at the end of the day. It's about the, the, the bigger picture, right? Like, I can talk about the fact that I had to go to rehab not once but twice.
Vasavi Kumar: The second time really stuck for me. Um, the first time I went to rehab, my, [00:27:00] you know, my bank account was drained. I had just had a miscarriage. Um, my parents, my sister, and my aunt flew to Austin. I went back to East Coast to go to rehab, and then seven months later, I relapsed, and then I went back to rehab.
Vasavi Kumar: But the second time I went to rehab, this was the differentiating thing, right? I chose to stop the chaos. I was like, "I'm done with this." I walked into rehab the second time, I write about this in the book, everybody who knew me at rehab was like, "Welcome back, Vasavi," and I'm like, "Hell no." You are not gonna know me by my name at a rehab c- a rehab center.
Vasavi Kumar: This is not why God put me on this earth, to be... I'm not gonna be popular at a rehab center. I am never doing this again. So I just, I humbled myself real quick, and I remember my counselor Carl said to me, like, "You think you know everything. For, for, for a second, I just want you to try this on. You don't know anything, because if you did, you would not be here again."
Vasavi Kumar: So that's where, you know, that's why I am here [00:28:00] where I am. You know, I haven't used cocaine since 2019, March 2019, so seven years this past March. As far as my romantic life is concerned, you know, that's really where I struggled the most. Um, I always say that my first addiction was, was not alcohol. My first addiction was not drugs.
Vasavi Kumar: It was people. It was the addiction, needing love, attention, validation, and approval from other people, and when I didn't get it from them, I needed something harder. Mm-hmm. That's it. And so until I broke that addiction to people, validation, outsourcing my worth, um, I was always in that state of suffering, and now I'm not.
Vasavi Kumar: I'm not anymore. That's why, you know, if you, if you go to my Instagram, mynameisvasy, I will say some shit. I, I say whatever the hell I want. People comment all sorts of stuff. I don't care. I go to sleep very happy at night. That would not have been possible, right, if this was a few years ago. And one last thing I want to say, and then I want to let you continue, is- The, I think the, another threshold moment that I [00:29:00] obviously did not talk about in my book 'cause it had not happened yet, you know, my father, Shanti, uh, died last year in May, and we watched him take his last breath.
Vasavi Kumar: Uh, my father was the most beautiful man in the world. Mm. And, uh, yeah, he was a true girl dad a- through and through. And, um, you know, s- he was the only person in my... You know, I, I'd lost a grandparent here or there. My uncle killed himself. But, you know, y- you know, you know logically your parents are gonna die, right?
Vasavi Kumar: We all know this. But to actually see it, to see him on morphine, to see him emaciated, to hold his hand, see him take his inhale, last inhale, and then not exhale, you know, it does something to you. So, so when he died last May, something in me just died, and it was the part of me that was like, "I'm done emotionally babysitting anybody."
Vasavi Kumar: Mm. "I don't care. I am not responsible for your emotions. I am responsible for how I show up, and how I show up is immaculate. My energy is immaculate. [00:30:00] When I speak, I speak with intention. If you have a problem with me, that's a you problem. I know where my heart is coming from. I know where I'm speaking from.
Vasavi Kumar: I know I am pure on the inside." So grief will do that to you, and it's not just grief of someone who is dead, it is also grieving the version of you. It is also grieving people in your life that are still alive, mourning the loss of multiple past identities that you gotta let go of or integrate s- for you to become the person that you are today.
Vasavi Kumar: So yeah, that's, that's where we're at today. Yeah.
Sarah Tacy: What has that done for you, the clarity of just fully letting go, of needing the validation from the outside, of emotionally babysitting others? What shifts have you felt in your body or your life? Like, what are, like, tangible things that you could share?
Vasavi Kumar: Yeah. I will rattle stuff off, uh, in no particular order. Uh, raised my rates. Mm. Restructured [00:31:00] my whole business. Um, unapologetically raised my rates. W- I don't need to consult with anyone. I don't need to announce it. I just did it. Um, if a client... Uh, this ultimate detachment, right? If I'm on a sales call, we have a great conversation.
Vasavi Kumar: If i- if you wanna work with me, great. If you don't, you don't. The way I show up on a sales call is, like, uh, I'm here if you need me. If not, whatever. Like, that's, that's how I am. Like, you are not the source of my money. I am the source of my money. God is the source of my money, so ultimate detachment.
Vasavi Kumar: Freedom in my voice. Um, I will say this. After my dad died last May, um, starting in August, I, you know, I was... It was awful for the first three months, you know? I smoked a lot of weed. I ate a lot of cookies. I don't do that anymore, but in August, uh, mid-August, I, um, I started relying on scripts, like teleprompter, for a lot of my videos because I, I still needed to put content out there, but something...
Vasavi Kumar: I, I just, I, I couldn't formulate. I just, I... Something in my voice. Like, [00:32:00] I, I had the thought, I just couldn't structure it. I just couldn't do it. I relied so much on scripts, and a lot of those videos went viral. Um, so I used scripts from, like, August through maybe January of this year. Don't use any more scripts.
Vasavi Kumar: Don't need them, right? So you asked what does it feel like in my body. Like, my heart rate is calm- Mm ... steady. Uh, I don't feel tight in my chest. I don't feel like... I don't get frozen. I don't feel paralyzed by what do I wanna say. I'm, I'm a clear channel. Um, my work with my clients has become so much more cl- clear.
Vasavi Kumar: I will call you out. I am not here to coddle you. Mm. I have more res- I have, I have so much respect for my clients, I'm not gonna coddle you. Y- y- I, I, I'm not your mom I'm not your mother, right? Like, I, I don't feel the need to babysit my clients. If you're looking for babysitting, I'm not the right person for you.
Vasavi Kumar: Um, if my delivery offends you, then I'm not the right person. You gotta trust that I'm coming from a good place. [00:33:00] And I always am very mindful and intentional about what I say. I no longer mince my own words. I no longer second-guess every single word out of my mouth. If I say something, I trust this is the truth.
Vasavi Kumar: I don't play, I don't replay, "Oh my God, did I say this okay? Is this okay? What are people..." I don't do that. Um, people leave all sorts of comments. I actually did a very funny video yesterday reading some of my favorite comments, people saying all sorts of stuff. It's funny to me because I can see it, like, right?
Vasavi Kumar: Like, oh, this is a projection. This is not a Vasavi issue. I know who I am. You don't. This is your projection. Something about me irritates you, triggers you. You have no self-control over your thumbs. That is a you problem, not a me problem. I no longer take on this exorbitant amount of responsibility for people and how they perceive me because at the end of the day, Sarah, when I look in the mirror, I am very proud of who I have become and who I'm becoming.
Vasavi Kumar: That is the ultimate li- litmus [00:34:00] test, test for me, not how other people perceive me. So sales have gone up, money have gone up, e- you know, you know, ha- having more clear asks. I don't hesitate, you know, saying my price. I don't give a ton of disclaimers. Like, every- yeah, everything has changed. Like, I'm just, I'm clear.
Vasavi Kumar: I'm clear, and I'm not, I'm not, uh, thirsty, desperate, chasing validation. And I think the biggest thing, the most recent thing is I quietly walked away from this on again, off again, very inconsistent, uh, I don't want to say toxic 'cause it's overused, but, you know, inconsistent relationship with this emotionally unavailable man, um, who we had a lot of, you know, w- we had a beautiful love, but I no longer tolerate being around, in romantic relationships, being around people who cannot express themselves, do not take care of themselves because I'm clear, if you betray yourself, if you don't know how to take care of yourself, you sure as shit is, are not gonna take care of me emotionally or be there for me.
Vasavi Kumar: So, [00:35:00] so much has changed, and I hope that was tangible enough, but that's, that's just to name a few.
Sarah Tacy: Yeah. The big thing I heard was clarity
Sarah Tacy: I'm really, uh, like I, I heard a lot and I'm trying to... I see in visions usually, so-
Vasavi Kumar: Yes. Nice ...
Sarah Tacy: I see, like, this disentanglement. So if you could imagine- Mm ... like a ball of string where there are strings coming in from all over the place, it's just like untying all of- Mm-hmm ... the strings and being able to stand really in your center, which when you wrote your book, at the beginning it starts with whose voice is this?
Sarah Tacy: And as you speak to the different parts of yourself, it feels like the unhooking. At the beginning you say, like, it was your mother's voice, it was your father's voice- Mm-hmm ... to really getting to know your inner self and to [00:36:00] find like- Mm-hmm ... your voice. And what feels like phase three of that is- There's one thing to find your voice and to know yourself, but to, to then, like, really unhook on the external world from everybody's projections is just- Mm-hmm
Sarah Tacy: feels like a different level of freedom and empowerment- Mm-hmm ... that I can imagine creates such a level of inner stability that feels so- You know- Yeah, so much more unshakable. And, and if I could say one more thing is that- Yeah ... I offer a course in the fall called Resourced, and at the beginning it is a process of, like, how do we resource ourselves?
Sarah Tacy: How, like- Mm-hmm ... nervous system tools. How do we do it through the body? And by the end, we get to the relational dynamic. And the hope is that as we move from I'm okay when you're okay, I'm okay when the to-do list is done, I'm okay when it's okay, I'm okay when I get the responses I [00:37:00] want, to just, like, I'm okay when I'm okay.
Sarah Tacy: I am okay when I've cared for my emotional hygiene, and I can still be affected. Like, I noticed something happened with my daughter the other day, and, um... But I could find that part of that was not just mama bear. Part of it was an unhealed part in myself. I was like- Yeah ... "Oh, hello."
Vasavi Kumar: Yeah.
Sarah Tacy: Um, but still, it's tending to myself and not waiting for her to come to the end of her challenge- Mm-hmm
Sarah Tacy: or for the external sit- s- situations before I come to myself.
Vasavi Kumar: Yeah.
Sarah Tacy: Um, it feels like the ultimate, especially for a female nervous system, and what I've come to understand in my years of studying the body-
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm ...
Sarah Tacy: and the mind and the soul, but especially now the female nervous system, is that all the textbooks say that the first motion is to fight or flight, which- Mm-hmm
Sarah Tacy: can still be true no matter how we identify or our gender or [00:38:00] our hormo- hormones. But for many with a f- like, born with a female body that have more estrogen, less testosterone- The safest thing was to figure out how to please and appease. Because if those with more testosterone had the knife, had the fist, had the power in war, how are you gonna be the person that they want to protect?
Sarah Tacy: It's usually like- Right ... how can I serve this community? How can I be helpful? Mm-hmm. How can I... And in a village, I actually think that there can be healthy re- relational dynamics in that. It's possible. Mm-hmm. I just think that how we have it set up, certainly in the Western society where I live in the US, is that we become so isolated that I'm okay when you're okay in a relationship is often draining in one direction- Yes
Sarah Tacy: and seeding a [00:39:00] different system for them to complete- to continue to be in... Like, it's not healthy for either person, right? Um, but I think it's particularly draining for the person who is dependent on somebody else's okayness to feel okay. Uh, and I think it often lands either there in the fawn or down in a freeze.
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Tacy: Which is why, again, I feel like your work of saying it out loud is, it's like these micro steps of getting out of a freeze.
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Tacy: Of getting out of a fawn. Mm-hmm. When we can start to say, "I'm gonna turn that love and attention back onto the part of myself so that I'm not dependent," and I, and I wanna honor that people could be
Sarah Tacy: In very unsafe situations where the okayness of the oth- other person is still a real threat.
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Tacy: And when we can step away from that enough or if that isn't the particular situation, um, I do think it eventually helps us come to a point of making a decision, is this the place where I will stay [00:40:00] or will I take the risk of leaving the relationships that are- Mm-hmm
Sarah Tacy: draining and just taker relationships?
Vasavi Kumar: Yes. Yeah, I mean, I, um, I don't typically fawn. Mm. I'm sure you can tell. I don't typically fawn or freeze. Um, I did when I was a kid with my mother. Um, in romantic relationships and, you know, like female friendships, I'm great. Like, I have such good female friendships. I, uh, I, I'm so grateful for the women in my life.
Vasavi Kumar: I, you know, I feel v- very connected to women, right? Unless you're, you're, you're just off. Like I, I'm, I, I can feel that. I'm like, "Okay, I, I don't, I don't think we're a good match," right? But it's, it's okay. I will still treat you with respect, but I will love you from a distance. My tendency has been to fight or f- flight.
Vasavi Kumar: Um- Fight, um, or just get the hell out of there, right? So what I do now is I can feel that activation, right? What I used to do is [00:41:00] get activated and then get dysregulated, and then say some shit I didn't mean to say. Then I have to apologize. Then I'd regulate. And I, I, you know... My dad always used to say, "Don't be the kind of person that has to keep apologizing," and he would always say that to me, and it's so true, right?
Vasavi Kumar: Like, if, if, if you're always saying sorry, which is a very noble quality, you gotta ask yourself, why do I have to keep apologizing? Oh, 'cause I, I'm not regulated before I speak. I'm saying things that I know I gotta clean up. So, you know, I had it backwards. And so now the minute I notice it, and it's like a fire in my chest, like I can feel everything start to activate, I'm like, "Take a breath, okay.
Vasavi Kumar: We're getting activated." And I always say to myself, "I'm okay. I'm okay. I will w- I will walk away." I'll say, "I gotta go take a walk. I gotta do this." You know, my mom is living with me right now for t- uh, 26 days. You know, she's, she's a widow now, so she, she kind of bounces back and forth between my sister's house and Philly.
Vasavi Kumar: She's been here with me for 26 days. We've [00:42:00] had the best time. Best time. I, I swear, it took my dad dying for me and my mom to get close, you know? Um, we're great. We're, we're, we're, we're both very fiery. Um, but we had, like, a little issue maybe two days ago. I could feel she was getting elevated. All my childhood stuff was coming out.
Vasavi Kumar: It's like, oh, she's being dismissive. It was all the things that I experienced as a child. And I said to her, "Geethamma," I call her Geethamma. Geetha is her name, and Amma means mother. I say, "Geethamma, I'm getting activated right now." She goes, "What do you mean activated?" Like she said it in her Indian accent, "What do you mean activated?"
Vasavi Kumar: And I'm like, "I'm getting fired up." I said, "I'm getting fired up. I need some space, otherwise I'm gonna say something that I regret. I'm gonna go for a walk. Five minutes, I'll be back." I went for a walk, listened to something- probably music, came back and I sat down, and she said, "Are you okay?" I said, "Yes, let's talk."
Vasavi Kumar: It was great.
Sarah Tacy: Wow.
Vasavi Kumar: It was great. Yeah, no, it was- Wow ... yeah, it was great. So people think, you know, healing means you never [00:43:00] fight again, you never get activated. No, my mom and me are like, oh my God, she's an Aries sun, I'm an Aries moon, a Sag rising. I mean, we got a lot of fire. I'm a Taurus. Uh, I, I'm, I'm a Aries...
Vasavi Kumar: She's an Aries sun, I'm Aries moon. I'm a Taurus sun, so I'm earth, fire, fire. Um, yeah, it just, we're, we're very, very, very similar. In the past, that, that shit would've lasted 72 hours. Silent treatment under the same roof, three days. That's what I saw growing up. That's what I saw. That's what I lived with growing up.
Vasavi Kumar: Parents, you know, my dad would freeze, my mother would explode, complete pin-drop silence for three days, and then after three days they'd be fine. Yeah. I never saw, I never saw repair growing up, by the way. Yeah. Never saw them repair. Uh, so that's what I thought relationships were. Like, I did not know. I did not have the skill of rep- repairing.
Vasavi Kumar: I did not have the skill of regulating. So in my romantic relationships, you know, I'm completely single now, I have yet to test this new way of being with a man, but, um, I feel fully confident. You know, God has somebody for me, and I [00:44:00] feel like, okay, when, I will cross that bridge. But, you know, I did not have these skills in my previous relationships.
Vasavi Kumar: I tried, but I feel, u- um- I was always very drawn to men who I felt like I could save. Some part of me always felt like I could save you, you know? And, um, that did not work, so here we are. But yeah, this, all of this to say, I mean, we have the power to change how we respond, but it really does require a level of awareness, pausing, and, and honestly discipline, right?
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm. Like, w- we want to say something. We want to. And, and, like, this is for all your listeners who may be in fight or flight, right? Like, you want to say something, and you're like, "No, I'm gonna regret it," right? Play the tape out. Play the tape out. How is this gonna go? And then for my freeze and fawn folks, you know, maybe you do need to say it out loud, if not the, to that person right away, to yourself, to a friend.
Vasavi Kumar: Don't keep it inside, right? Don't keep that stuff inside. Like, call a trusted friend. Go into the bathroom and [00:45:00] talk to yourself. Use that voice. Don't just, mm, swallow it, you know, become emotionally suppressed. Like, don't, don't just freeze your voice, you know? There's something there inside of you that needs to be said, but you cannot say it for whatever reason.
Vasavi Kumar: Like, like you said, the okayness of that person, and when they're not okay, you freeze. But use that voice in that moment. Do not wait too long for you to use that voice. Um, yeah. Yeah.
Sarah Tacy: My husband and I, I just like, I'm like, "Oh, I wanna celebrate this." Um- Yeah ... my husband is a fiery dude, and he is like, he's big, and he is strong, and his way growing up was to s- like start physical altercations.
Sarah Tacy: He was a bouncer- Mm-hmm ... at one point, and he was like- Wow ... you know, setting records for lifting weights. Like he was just like- Yeah ... and he just feels like, and any time he feels like someone's being bullied, he's like, "I gotta stand up for them." And I sometimes feel like it's starting more, it makes me feel unsafe, actually.
Sarah Tacy: I'm like, "Oh- Yeah ... it's gonna escalate." But when it comes to the two of us- At a certain point, I [00:46:00] noticed that I just, like, freeze and just, like, want, would wanna just, like, leave. Just like, "Ah."
Vasavi Kumar: Ouch. Yeah.
Sarah Tacy: And I, too, growing up, um, I think at some point I said to my mom, like, "You guys are fighting all the time," and she said, "Oh, you know, my parents did a really good job of not fighting in front of us- Mm-hmm
Sarah Tacy: and we're gonna do that for you, too." And so then I never saw my parents fight.
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Tacy: Which seems like a gift, except what I realized, uh, being, you know, an adult in a relationship was like, "Oh, I don't really..." Again, like with my girlfriends, I feel like I know how to do this. I'm like, "I don't really know how to do this."
Sarah Tacy: Mm-hmm. So we were in a very small space. We went on a boat trip up the coast of Maine, and something happened. I was, I was driving the boat. He always drives the boat. He needed to eat, and there was, like, a lot of, um... It just didn't feel good. Like, it- Yeah ... the things that were coming at me did not feel good, [00:47:00] and I...
Sarah Tacy: Like, my little girl felt, like, familiar patterns. Yeah. And I started to shut down, and I started to have the internal dialogue, and eventually... And then, so some, some patterns that I do, some things that I practice to get the fight energy out is, like, sometimes I'll just, like, make a face. Like, you know how- Mm-hmm
Sarah Tacy: it sounds like, but just like when I'm, "Ha."
Vasavi Kumar: Yeah.
Sarah Tacy: And it feels a little bit... I, this is gonna sound so silly. It feels like an inner panther sometimes. It's just like, "Ha."
Vasavi Kumar: Yeah.
Sarah Tacy: And it helps me break out of the freeze. And in, um, my weekly juice class, which is a movement for nervous system stuff, we have a part to just have a fight outlet, which is like pressing against a wall or just, like, shaking it out.
Sarah Tacy: And so I'll try to move some of that energy, and then eventually I could put my hand on my heart and meet the one, like meet the young one, to be like, "What is going on here?" And then meet him.
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Tacy: So it took about a half an hour before I could say, like, "Hey, I noticed that this is how... [00:48:00] Like, th- this, this triggered a r- a part of me from childhood."
Sarah Tacy: And he could go, "Yeah, I could see how the way I was talking and the things I was saying, like, you could, I could have done so much better." Like, we were able to really talk it out and- That's so beautiful ... in front of my daughter. Um- Yes ... and it's just, it's progress, you know? It's baby steps of breaking the patterns that we're both in to try to find a middle ground.
Sarah Tacy: But for me as a freezer fauner, um, who could actually look like I do really well in conflict, where I could just- Yeah ... "Wow, I hear what you're saying," and, like, I can do say backs and I can stay calm, and then once they're gone, then I feel all the feelings.
Vasavi Kumar: Yeah.
Sarah Tacy: That has been a new pattern for me to- Yeah, just to try to unfreeze that and actually, like, really be okay when I'm speaking instead of thinking I'm okay and then realizing once they're gone that I'm not okay.
Vasavi Kumar: That's beautiful that you modeled that in front of your daughter, right? So I mean, it just goes to show we, [00:49:00] we gotta look at what we saw growing up, what we didn't learn growing up, how that is impacting- Mm-hmm ... how we're showing up either in our friendships, in our relationships. You know, I typically, um, attracted men, I was attracted to men who froze.
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm. None of the men that I dated ever fought back. They froze, and I'm like, "Say something." I attracted a man just like my dad. I write about it in my book. My dad would just shut down. And so I'm like, "Oh my God, I am my mom right now." My mom was the fight or flight. She would walk out of the house when they would fight.
Vasavi Kumar: And, um, you know, I vowed never to walk out of the house, so I would stay there, be like, "We've gotta fix this right now. Right now." And now I'm like, "No, we, we, I am not having this conversation right now. That doesn't mean we're never gonna talk about it. I need to get myself right before I can..." 'Cause I don't wanna say something hurtful, 'cause I have a very sharp tongue.
Vasavi Kumar: I know that about myself. I can psychoanalyze you in two minutes, and I can find your deepest insecurity, and I will say that shit out loud if I feel [00:50:00] cornered- Mm-hmm ... and if I feel triggered. I know that about myself, right? I'm never gonna be like, "I'm holier than thou. I don't have a mean bone in my body."
Vasavi Kumar: No, I have plenty of mean bones in my body, and I know that about myself. I don't want to cause harm to another person. So learning to regulate, learning to see like, oh, I didn't learn this growing up. You know, for me, relationships were always like, especially romantic, oh, conflict, you know, duking it out, fighting.
Vasavi Kumar: This is normal, right? And then there was no repair. I was literally repeating patterns that I saw growing up, and now I'm just like, I, I want something different. But it started with me st- stopping the pattern, right? Like, I had to walk away from this relationship rather than trying to make it work and fix it, and really check in with myself like, "Do I want this?
Vasavi Kumar: Like, am I, am, is this, is this, is this the life that I signed up for?" You know? Mm-hmm. And so many women stay in those relationships because- For, for many reasons, right? Financial dependence, they don't wanna be alone, kids can be involved. So many, so many reasons, [00:51:00] right? All very valid reasons, right? But for me, I, you know, I had a different situation and, um, different set of circumstances, and I, and I chose to walk away.
Vasavi Kumar: So, you know, here's, here's to new beginnings and new ways of relating-
Sarah Tacy: Yes ...
Vasavi Kumar: with- in the next relationship, yeah.
Sarah Tacy: Uh, for my final question-
Vasavi Kumar: Yes ... I
Sarah Tacy: have, can you describe the difference between feeling, friend, or sage? Do you remember that? It's like ideal- Yes, I do. I- Okay. I know you read this book a while ago.
Vasavi Kumar: Yeah. So, uh, okay, I gotta make sure 'cause I haven't read my book in a while. When I say feeling, right, you're in the feeling. I'm sad.
Sarah Tacy: I, yeah.
Vasavi Kumar: And you feel all this... And, and every single, every single version matters. I wanna say that. Don't, don't discount anything. I'm sad right now. I'm sad, right? So I'm identifying with that feeling.
Vasavi Kumar: I am sad. In this moment, I am, I am sad. I now say I am feeling sad. Mm-hmm. Right? Because I, the [00:52:00] totality of Assefa, is not sad. I am feeling sad in this moment. It is not forever. It is not absolute. I am feeling sad. And so when I am feeling sad, there is a different tone of voice that I use with myself, which is soothing, which is kind.
Vasavi Kumar: I'm not trying to fix the feeling. All right, what do we need to do to get out of this sadness? Can't stand when people do that. If I'm feeling sad, let me just be sad. Let me just be sad. I will work through it, right? I am feeling sad. Being kind to myself in that moment. E- extra kind, extra tender, which has been very new behavior for me, right?
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm. Being so gentle. And losing my father really brought a whole new level of tenderness to me, um- 'Cause I grieved alone, right? I live alone, so after all the ceremonies, religious ceremonies were done in, on the East Coast for my father's death, 13 days, I came back to Philly and I was with myself. I cried myself to sleep every night, you know?
Vasavi Kumar: I had to be... I was so tender with, with myself. I- I'm so proud of how I treated myself after he died. Uh, didn't try to push through, [00:53:00] do anything like that. I took my sweet-ass time, you know? I still grieve every day. It doesn't go away. Um, second thing is friend. So when I say friend, that refers to how I would speak to a friend, right?
Vasavi Kumar: When I talk, talking to any of my girlfriends, I will empathize with you, but I will say, "What are we doing? What are we doing about this?" Right? My, my friends love that. I, I validate. I will sit in the suck with you, but then what are we doing, right? Mm-hmm. Because I n- I'm speaking to your higher self. I can speak to the pain version of you.
Vasavi Kumar: I can sit with your pain, but I know you don't wanna be there for too long, right? We can sit as long as you need to sit, but what are we doing? Like, what, what are we, what are we doing about this? What needs to be done? And it's not so much, Sarah, about, like, productivity and being busy, but, like, how are we managing this?
Vasavi Kumar: Like, what do you need to do for yourself? Like, what are you gonna do to take care of yourself? It's not necessarily doing. I, I don't know if that, if I'm being clear, right? But it's like I had a girlfriend the other day, [00:54:00] uh, share a story about a colleague of hers, and she was venting and, and I was listening to her and I was like, "Yeah, like, that's BS.
Vasavi Kumar: Like, she should not have treated you that way." And I was like, "All right, so what are we doing about it?" And she's like, "Well, blah, blah, blah." And then we, we worked through it, right? Mm-hmm. Like, end of story. There, therein lies the matter. The friend is like the kind, compassionate, but no bullshit, right? Like, I, all my friends know, please do not co-sign my bullshit.
Vasavi Kumar: If I'm telling you something, like, you know, my neighbor, my Libra neighbor, she did not like my ex at all. She was like, "Vass, he sucks. Like, he is not good enough for you. He is not on your level. Like, there is an emotional intelligence gap. There is a, there is a, there is a swag gap there." She just told me like it is.
Vasavi Kumar: I'm so grateful for her. I don't want you to co-sign my bullshit. Please do not tell me the outfit that I'm wearing looks good when it does not look good. Be honest with me. That's the kind of friend I want, that's the kind of friend that I am. But I'm gonna always say it in a way that it lands, right? I'm not here to make you [00:55:00] feel bad about yourself, but if you're gonna come to me with a question, I'm gonna be honest with you, 'cause that's what a real friend does for me.
Vasavi Kumar: That's what I want in a friendship. Um, and of course, um, delivery does matter, so that goes without saying. And then you have the sage. The sage is the God within all of us, right? It is the, it is the, it is the detangled version, it is the detached version, it is the everything is gonna be okay 'cause it's always been okay.
Vasavi Kumar: It is the whatever is meant for you will not pass you by. It is the no need to worry, I have always taken care of you. You are gonna be okay. You will get through this. It is that higher level, uh, voice that is, like, governing everything, right? It is, it's a no need to worry. This is not about spiritually bypassing, by the way.
Vasavi Kumar: I, this is not toxic positivity. But, you know, whatever your relationship is to spirit, universe, God, you know, that's, that's what I say. It is the, the, the wisdom in us. We all have the wisdom, but s- a lot of times, Sarah, that wisdom [00:56:00] really cannot be accessed if you have not healed through and found the lesson or found the wisdom in what you've gone through.
Vasavi Kumar: If you're continuing to repeat the same patterns over and over, it's gonna be that much harder for you to access that wisdom because it is so chaotic, right? That's why we need to pause. That's why we need to get quiet. And I will say, I actually told this to my literary agent, I go, "I swear the next title of my book should be Shut the Hell Up.
Vasavi Kumar: It should not be Say It Out Loud." But, and, and obviously I was kidding, but it's like, yes, say it out loud, but I think what that is, you also need to establish and have a discipline and routine of silence within yourself so that you can access that sage voice. I spend a lot of time in quiet. I'm very silent.
Vasavi Kumar: You know, I, I don't talk all the time. A lot of my, uh, biggest obstacles, challenges- things that I'm navigating, I come to terms by just, I s- literally sit on my couch and I just, uh, I'm like, I just get really quiet and I'm like, [00:57:00] "God, tell me what to do," and then I just stop talking. Mm-hmm. Because the answer is always there, but people don't slow down enough to actually hear it.
Vasavi Kumar: You know? I have clients saying like, "I prayed to God about it." And I'm like, "Well, what did God say to you?" It's like, "Oh, I couldn't hear." Okay, because you're still talking, right? Yeah. Like, let God talk to you. Let the sage within you speak to you. It's there, but we don't slow down enough, right, to actually access that and hear that.
Vasavi Kumar: So that's the feeling, friend, and sage.
Sarah Tacy: Okay. On the sage note, um, I just love... I, I don't... This wouldn't really be a metaphor, but I love when things overlap enough- In the human body- Mm-hmm ... when you have tension in any part of your body, you... Like a chronic pain, it means that the- Mm-hmm ... muscle is generally on, like a 40% tonus, meaning that it's like- Mm-hmm
Sarah Tacy: holding on. So back in the 1950s, um, [00:58:00] Thomas Hanna wrote a book called Somatics where he'd say that we have sensorimotor amnesia, which means that something happened, we came up with a protective mechanism, and that protective mechanism never let go. Mm-hmm. And we can't just say, "Okay, relax my shoulders." He said what we do instead is we voluntarily override the involuntary.
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Tacy: Meaning, like, we actually turn it up a little bit.
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Tacy: And once we have control enough to turn it up, then we can let it go.
Vasavi Kumar: Yes.
Sarah Tacy: So as I'm thinking about you walking around your apartment, talking out loud to yourself, that it's like the volunt- it's taking what's in here and it's voluntarily turning the volume up-
Vasavi Kumar: Yes
Sarah Tacy: for clarity, and then we can let it go to be able to hear the voice of God.
Vasavi Kumar: Yes. That
Sarah Tacy: it's like the on and off. So a muscle is supposed to go on and off, but the chronic stress or the chronic protective mechanisms would leave it [00:59:00] on a percentage all the time. Mm-hmm. As opposed to like, "Okay, I'm fully engaged in this.
Sarah Tacy: Ah. And now I can let it go- Mm-hmm ... and let in." And there was one other part which was- You said that the more that we come back to ourselves, the more we can hear the voice of God. And I wanna highlight that somewhere in your book I think it was while, when you were talking about cocaine use, you mentioned, like, the whisper of this is not who I am.
Sarah Tacy: And what I see over and over and over again with clients, that even when they're in their darkest night of the soul and they feel confused and lost and like, "Will this ever end? Is this it forever?" There's always some whisper that is pointing. My friend Tracy, who did come on the podcast at the beginning and told her story, it's like she knew to go visit her friends in Connecticut.
Sarah Tacy: Like, it's like [01:00:00] the little nudge that even though it seems like no clarity is available, like these little whispers that lead us just enough in the right direction, even when we feel like we are not in as easy of a relationship with God or the divine or the next right step, but the whispers tend to be there.
Sarah Tacy: And Michael Beckwith back in- Mm-hmm ... I think it was like 2008, I, I asked him some question and he was like The way you can tell the difference between the ego and the divine is that the ego is often yelling. Right. And the divine is whispering. Whispering.
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Tacy: And the last thing, so this is to the piece that you just offered, was that I will often tell people I'm really into pacing, which means that there's healthy fast- Yep
Sarah Tacy: and that there's healthy medium and healthy slow.
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Tacy: That someone could tell me something that was very traumatic to them and say it fast enough that they don't have to feel the whole thing, and there can be great health to that. Mm-hmm. [01:01:00] So now I'm oriented to their life without them feeling like they need to feel it all.
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Tacy: As we slow down, we tend to feel what's true So we can have, like, or we can have the anger and the heat- Mm-hmm ... and the movement, and once we feel it's true, we can move that into a faster activation of, now I'm going to act with clarity. And so just that, like, tidal nature of the speed and the heat, and then, like, the letting, like, coming back down, and the slowing down, and the listening.
Sarah Tacy: And I love what you asked of, like, "So what did God say to you?" Because I asked somebody that on the podcast too, and she's like, "I don't know, I just always talk to God." And like- Mm ... "How does God respond to you? How do you feel it?" And she's like, "Oh, I don't know." Which is, like, great, you know, to each their own.
Sarah Tacy: But I do love the, like, yeah, just the invitation to-
Vasavi Kumar: Mm-hmm ...
Sarah Tacy: pause enough to feel any direction from something greater than [01:02:00] us.
Vasavi Kumar: I will say this to you. The, the, the re- reoccurring message that I, the reoccurring whisper that I've heard from probably the age of, like, 12 or 13 has always been, so I've always dreamed very big, always wanted all the things.
Vasavi Kumar: Never s- you know, let my... I, I never capped my imagination. Always just, I just have this, like, wild vision. And I remember God saying to me, "I will give you everything you want, but only when you respect yourself." Mm. It was always the word respect, by the way. It was not love. It was respect. It was always respect.
Vasavi Kumar: Love I feel is so overused. I'm just, I'm just gonna say that. I, but respect for me really like, oh, do I respect myself? So that's really, I've heard that message since I was a kid. And so everything I do, everything I say, whether it is what I wear, whether it is a [01:03:00] conversation, whether it is how I take care of myself, whether it is a piece of content that I record, it's always will I respect myself?
Vasavi Kumar: Do I respect myself what I'm saying? Can I watch this back and still say I respect myself for saying that? If that, if it is a resounding yes, yes, it is. Now it's, it's so habitual, I don't overthink it. Like, oh, what... It's just, it's a moment-to-moment choice to respect myself from my habits, 100% number one my habits.
Vasavi Kumar: You know, what I, what I tell myself, how I speak to other people. You know, it's internal first, so, right? Like, if, if we want the respect from other people, we want other people to respect us, it starts with us respecting ourself. How do you show up for yourself when nobody's watching? Mm-hmm. Nobody's watching, cameras aren't on.
Vasavi Kumar: No one's, you know, checking you off. This is not an exam you have to pass. If my audience, if my clients, if the world could see me when the cameras weren't on, would I be okay [01:04:00] with that? And if I'm okay with that, then I know I'm on the right path. Because that's really like, you know, living this life out loud, you know?
Vasavi Kumar: I'm sure many of your members, whether they run businesses or online, whatever, right? Like, it's like I work with so many of my clients, and maybe you do, too, where it's like they struggle with showing up on camera, they struggle with selling, and I'm, you know, I'm always like, "Identity first, strategy second, baby."
Vasavi Kumar: Mm. I am not gonna just give you a strategy. I, I could t-tell you exactly what to do. I can see what you're doing wrong. I can see where the gaps are, but who is the person that is holding that identity? Who is... Uh, that, that strategy. Who is the person that is, you know, moving that strategy forward? Because that's what I really care about.
Vasavi Kumar: And the conversation inevitably always goes to the personal life, right? Who are you when nobody's watching? Do you take care of yourself? How do you speak to yourself? What are the relationships that you're in? What are you still engaging with that it just doesn't feel good? So you do that when nobody's watching.
Vasavi Kumar: Getting on camera is easy. Mm-hmm. It's a skill that can be learned, yes, but [01:05:00] it is that much easier to show up in any situation, stage, podcast, camera, hard conversations, whatever, sales calls, when you fully respect yourself behind closed doors. So yeah.
Sarah Tacy: Thank you so much.