098 - Amina AlTai: Cultivating Regenerative Ambition
In a world that praises endless achievement and self-sacrifice, Amina AlTai has emerged as a voice of profound clarity, showing us that ambition can be regenerative instead of extractive, rooted in community rather than supremacy culture.
Her work calls us to remember that our nervous systems, relationships, and self-worth are often tangled in how we pursue success. She teaches us to recognize the traps of toxic ambition as well as how to build something more sustainable, dignified, and truly life-giving.
Today we welcome Amina AlTai back to the podcast to discuss her new book The Ambition Trap. Tune in her to hear us discuss:
How supremacy culture upholds hustle culture
Global High Intensity Activation and syndromal physiology
The power of speaking slowly
Ways to build momentum and choose urgency intentionally
Healthy ambition vs Painful ambition
Learning to speak out with layers of support
Codependency, boundaries, and reclaiming agency
Connect with Sarah
Connect with Amina
Buy Amina’s book The Ambition Trap
Visit Amina’s Website
Listen to Amina’s Podcast Amina Change Your Life
Follow Amina on Instagram
Episode Transcript
Sarah Tacy [00:00:06]:
Hello, welcome. I’m Sarah Tacy and this is Threshold Moments, a podcast where guests and I share stories about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves. The path is unknown and the pull feels real. Together we share our grief, laughter, love and life saving tools. Join us hello and welcome to Threshold Moments. Today I have with me Amina AlTai, who is an amazing business coach who supports largely underrepresented humans who have big goals and often big ambition and have often found themselves at the top of corporations or at the top of what they thought their dream was, only to find that things aren’t feeling so great either in their bodies or in the way that they’re experiencing life. And so Amina has written an incredible book called the Ambition Trap which helps us to navigate this world in which we have often been told that there is urgency, that we must be faster, that we must be better, that we start competing against people thinking that there’s only one spot for this certain talent and starts to open up the possibility that ambition can be healthy, that it can be a natural desire for growth and evolution, that ambition can have win win scenarios, that ambition can start with a clear knowing of who we are in the systems that we’re operating inside of and making choices that better align with our values and what we want to stand for in this world. I would say this book is a must read for any entrepreneur.
Sarah Tacy [00:02:13]:
I said to her, and maybe I’ll just say again here, that I felt that it was just this incredible weaving of social justice awareness with individual and collective tools and recognition for patterns of ambition that can either be regenerative to our systems or begin to deteriorate us. And there’s also just so much nuance and allowance to even pendulate between the two. As we find our way through this journey of life. Amina has had a front row seat to some of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time. And again, if you were to read her book, you would get to hear of some of those specific journeys. But in this conversation we speak more about general ideas and you may walk away with a better feeling of where you feel aligned with healthy ambition and ambitions that have been draining your energy. So please enjoy. Without further ado, I’m going to Altai on Threshold Moments.
Sarah Tacy [00:03:38]:
Welcome to Threshold Moments. I’m Sarah Tacy and today I have with me Aminah Altai, the author of the Ambition Trap. Last time I did quite a bit of digging to find different aspects of Amina that I wanted to bring forward into the intro and this time when I read her book, I was like, oh, it’s all in one place. What shall I say this time? So here’s what I have for a little intro this time. In a world that praises endless achievement and self sacrifice, Aminah Altay has emerged as a voice of profound clarity, showing us that ambition can be regenerative instead of extractive, rooted in community rather than supremacy culture. Her work calls us to remember that our nervous systems, our relationships and our self worth are often tangled in how we pursue success. But today we’ll explore how to recognize the traps of toxic ambition as well as looking at ways to build something more sustainable, dignified and truly life giving. And then I’m gonna.
Sarah Tacy [00:04:48]:
I’ll just also say that a few times in the book you define ambition as a desire for more life. And I just really loved that. And it made me think about a seed and how the question could be like, well, what kind of life do we really want and where are we starting from when we start putting the water and the nutrients of ambition on top of that seed? And as I read your book and as I looked at all the examples of all the clients, which I love all your clients stories by the way, the way that I feel like you are able to in each scenario, pull back and pull back and pull back, almost like we talked about before the interview. The times where you have to take apart the house and come back to your why before you start to build so that you get to have that desire inside of you to have ambition. But what are you building and where are you building from?
Amina AlTai [00:05:55]:
Yeah, so beautifully said. Also, I love that bio. I feel like I need to borrow it.
Sarah Tacy [00:06:00]:
I’ll send it your way. And the very beginning of the book, there’s a preface and then an intro. And sometimes people, sometimes I do too, but generally not, we’ll skip the preface in the intro and I would just say like, don’t skip anything. Everything is so good. And the part of me that likes to succeed was bummed that prefaces and intros don’t count towards the total number of pages you run. Anyway, it was so good. So that preface starts out with Rachel Rogers, who is a friend and a mentor of yours. And she said stopping was my greatest fear.
Sarah Tacy [00:06:40]:
She goes on to say that she never wanted any ball to drop on her watch until they all dropped. And I’m wondering if you could say more about that and how you’ve seen that in your clients. And then I’ll have a follow up question from there. Okay, great.
Amina Altai [00:06:56]:
Well, part of the reason that I wrote the book was my own relationship to ambition, my own relationship to stopping and dropping balls and. And then having a front row seat to all of these really high achieving people that I noticed were struggling and wrestling in the same way that I was. And you know, what I realized and how I framed the book was there’s parts that are on our side of the street, right? Our own psychology, our own stories, our own beliefs. And then we’re also operating in a system that wants to keep us in momentum, that benefits from us being depleted. And so I talk about how as a culture, we think that ambition means more for more sake all the time. More money, more power. There’s more, more, more. But I actually think ambition goes in cycles, like a perennial flower.
Amina Altai [00:07:35]:
Like you’re talking about with the seed, right? You have this seedling of desire that you drop in the ground of I want to grow. And then you nurture that inner and outer environment. And then you have this beautiful momentary peak in the sun where the petals come out and it’s gorgeous. And then the seasons change and the petals fall off and you wind down, you go back underground. And maybe that ground is fallow, right? Maybe nothing’s happening there until it’s nurtured enough that you’re ready to take aim again. But we don’t live in a world that lets us pace, rest and recover, right? It’s a novel concept. It’s why you have so many clients. It’s why people are clamoring to learn your material.
Amina Altai [00:08:07]:
Because we live in a world that is just like go, go, go. But it breaks our bodies, it breaks our relationships, and it upholds oppressive systems.
Sarah Tacy [00:08:17]:
So in the work that I do, there’s a nervous system chart. And in the middle is where we’re in a range of regulation and our range of resonance. And above it is our hyper, which is where fight and fl. Where hypersocial lives. And even above that, where we have the global high intensity activation and syndromal. So global high intensity activation is when it’s considered like boss, babe land and hustle culture, which you talk a lot about the hustle culture in your book. And that is a place where we could live for years until we collapse. Or in syndromal, it’s like every day you’re going between, like you wake up, the alarm goes off and it’s like all in, all in, get home, collapse.
Sarah Tacy [00:09:01]:
I’ve got nothing left. And I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit about how our culture, I shouldn’t say our culture, but perhaps like Supremacy culture upholds hustle culture.
Amina Altai [00:09:15]:
Yeah, I love what you’re saying, too. It’s like you just every time I sit with you, you add this layer of dimension and depth, and then I understand something in a new way. Like the syndromal piece, too. When I was in my girl boss era and living the hustle lifestyle, I remember just working so hard. I’d get home at the end of the day, and I would be so tired that I couldn’t even empty my gym bag. And then that was the only thing I needed to do, right? So then I could get up, go to the gym at 5, 6, 35, 5, 30, 6 o’ clock every day, right? But I was just so tired, I couldn’t even empty my gym bag. I remember that so clearly. But a tenet of white supremacy culture is urgency, right? Moving at this unsustainable pace.
Amina Altai [00:09:53]:
And that unsustainable pace breaks our bodies. And one of the things that I wanted to talk about in the book is that we see so many organizations and like, sort of the girl boss movement, the tech bro movement, sort of weaponizing this idea of hustle culture, right? Of like, hustle harder. I remember I used to work out of a wework, and those signs were emblazoned on every wall, like, hustle harder. And at the time I was like, yeah, yeah, hustle harder. But when you kind of do the digging, you understand that hustle was a necessary tool for survival for marginalized communities. That’s where it emerged, right? And so you would see, like, black communities, for example, because of racism, segregation, redlining, all those things. A lot of them would have to work two or three jobs to make ends meet. So this idea of hustle was a necessary tool for survival, but organizations weaponized it and then used it against people most marginalized.
Amina Altai [00:10:41]:
Right? And I use the example in the book of Uber, because the former CEO Travis Kalanick, they basically had these three tenants. I can’t remember what they are exactly, but it was basically like, work harder, work longer, hustle harder. Like, not. Not one of the. All of the three kind of ideas. But then who that impacts the most? I mean, of course it impacts people in corporate, but it impacted a lot of their drivers who were immigrants, who were people of color. And so this linguistic appropriation is what it is. It’s like taking this language from these marginalized communities that needed to do that to survive, but then weaponizing it in this broader context, and then everybody suffers.
Sarah Tacy [00:11:17]:
I’ve noticed with a lot of my clients, or even more so, like, when I’m working within bigger communities that just have me come in for monthly calls. I speak slowly on purpose, and when I do these calls, I speak even more slowly. And it really is quite triggering for a lot of people. And they’ll tell me a year later into the program that it was very hard for them at first, but it’s what changed their lives the most because then they would go home and they’d say, oh, wow. When I’m with my family, we speak so fast, nobody’s hearing me. Each other. As we speak slower, we tend to feel more. So another thing about hustle and momentum is that then you also can’t feel, so you don’t notice that you have unmet needs.
Sarah Tacy [00:12:06]:
You don’t even really have time to go, like, oh, I have this desire. Oh, I have this inner burning or dream. Like, when you go fast, you don’t feel it. When you slow down, the discomfort of it is you start to feel the things that you’ve suppressed for so long.
Amina Altai [00:12:21]:
Yeah, okay. I mean, I feel called in with this conversation because I speak very quickly, and part of it is I actually, I think very quickly. Right. So the download from, like, head to mouth happens very. It’s in my human design chart. Yeah, it happens very fast. And I grew up as one of five kids in a house with, like, a very loquacious and eloquent older sister. And I was like, okay, if I want to get my words in, I gotta do it fast.
Amina Altai [00:12:46]:
And I remember having this one boss in corporate America who was like, you speak really quickly so nobody could argue with you. And I was like, actually, it’s the opposite. I speak really quickly because I feel like it’s the only space I’m allowed. And so I feel called in in a great way by what you just said.
Sarah Tacy [00:13:00]:
Well, so there’s something I want to talk about, like, the health of momentum, too, because I might go more into a freeze response if people are speaking really quickly. So when I’ve gone to dinner with my husband, who’s from Long island, and he’s there, and there are, like, a few other people, and I just see them, like, cutting each other off and talking really fast. And I kind of just sit back and if I start to say something and someone cuts in right away I’m like, it’s not that I’m not interested in being the conversation, but I might pull back more. And so I do think that there is some health to be able to speak quickly and to be able to put your words in, especially if you found Yourself in places where it’s like, well, people aren’t going to make the space for you. And so there’s health in there. And I’ll also say there was a conversation once where you shared with me something personal and you shared it so somewhat quickly. But in that moment I saw the health in it. I was like, oh, Amina is giving me a piece of information to orient to her past and her history.
Sarah Tacy [00:14:00]:
But it doesn’t mean that just because you’re giving me that orientation point that you want to go into the depths of the feeling and processing for it. So literally, as you said that it changed my whole orientation to the health of getting to choose momentum. So a lot of this nervous system stuff is like, do we have choice in it? Like, I’m going to choose to speak fast because I want to be heard here, because I want and. Or like, I’m going to choose in this moment to play with slow and how do I feel with slow? And so I think some choice there is. Great. And again, in that moment I was like, wow, that was so beautiful. Now I understand more about Amina. And it wasn’t forceful and like, oh, you have to feel all the feelings around that really hard moment.
Sarah Tacy [00:14:44]:
And so I learned about health in speed from that moment with you.
Amina Altai [00:14:49]:
Oh, I love that so much. And thank you for sharing this because like I said, every time I sit with you, I learn something new and I understand something in a different way. And like, I’m aware of my speech, right? Like there’s a cultural piece. And also I’m a recovering avoidant and that is there too. And so I just love this invitation of sometimes it’s helpful, sometimes it’s not supportive. But can you choose? Can you take back your agency in it?
Sarah Tacy [00:15:14]:
Right? Like in small moments, if you have a friend who you’re like, hey, I want to practice this thing. You could practice like, and see how it feels, but you can still choose to, like, have all your. All your intelligence and speed and ability to speak up. And for me, I could probably practice learning how to speak faster. And. And I’m like, would my brain allow me to do that? I could try, I could see. But for me, actually, if I speak too fast, sometimes I can’t feel what is real to me in the moment, which might not be true for you, but for me, when people ask me questions, a lot of times I have to stop. I have to feel into my heart.
Sarah Tacy [00:15:52]:
I have to see what really feels real and relevant. And so it may just be a unique processing system that I have.
Amina Altai [00:16:00]:
That’s super interesting for me, It’s. I have to, like, kind of, like, talk and write my way into clarity. Just like, even when I was writing the book, I had over 50 drafts of this book. Because I speak and write my way into clarity. The pause doesn’t always help me. Sometimes it does. Absolutely. But it happens in motion for me, actually.
Sarah Tacy [00:16:18]:
I love that. And I want to say, with your book, I could really. I am a weaver of nuance. And what I loved in your book was how you were able to bring in the social aspects, the nervous system, financial, ancestral, spiritual. But it felt so perfectly woven. It was never confusing to me. It was never like, wait, which path is she taking? It all made sense together. And for me, I know how much work it would take to weave various things together in a way that is comprehensive to others.
Sarah Tacy [00:16:56]:
And in a way that is almost like, oh, obviously these things go together and they don’t need to be separated the way that we do in society. So I really appreciate the way that, you know how to process for yourself. Which sounds like an external processor getting it out there and processing it in motion. That makes a lot of sense to me.
Amina Altai [00:17:16]:
Thank you so much. And I can’t take all the credit, too. Like, one of the things that was important for me with the book was a chorus of voices. Because for me, it’s like, I’m not inspired by, like, pedestal culture, right? And we have these teachers on pedestals, and they’re telling us the thing because we’re outsourcing our knowing. And so I wanted to kind of sit shoulder to shoulder with the reader and, like, bring in all different perspectives and voices. And so there’s a lot of beautiful voices, including yours, in the book. And I also had a really wonderful editor that was so great at streamlining things. And I will never forget the magic of that.
Amina Altai [00:17:49]:
Like, I feel really blessed to have had the right people guide me. To be able to weave these things together in a way that made sense.
Sarah Tacy [00:17:56]:
When I studied the body more deeply on the physiological levels, I was really into fascia, which is the connective tissue in our systems. And there’s this idea of tensegrity, tension, integrity. And Buckminster Fuller was, I believe he was an architect. And so essentially, it’s like, how could he make these heavier units almost float in space? And it was through, like, the tension of the wires between them. And in fascia or in one of those systems, it is actually quite movable. And so when you move from being like, I am the author, it’s all of my ideas, then it’s like the structure of. As if the bones would stay in place all on their own verse. I am part of a collective, and I may be guiding and moving, but the way that you lean this is just something I’m very interested in.
Sarah Tacy [00:18:48]:
Like, the layers of support and how it can be so healthy. And so I noticed that in your book. I noticed the people that you drew from. And again, it was like you drew from all these places and your voice was so clear.
Amina Altai [00:19:02]:
Thank you.
Sarah Tacy [00:19:03]:
So I think even just in reading your book, for anyone listening, it’s almost like we get to learn through you living and being in that way of being part of a collective while still saying what you’re here to say, which can be somewhat unique, dependent on your constellation. And there’s a part of me as I’m reading this, it’s like, oh, my gosh. Only Amina could have put this work out the way that you did because of your unique lived experiences.
Amina Altai [00:19:27]:
Thank you for saying that. And I think that that’s such an important thing for us to remember and for listeners too, right? Because it was so interesting when I started writing a book on ambition. Then I would see all these other fellow authors pop up and, like, they have a book on ambition or they’re talking about success in a similar way. And I remember literally the week that I sold my book, I sold it to Penguin, and I got a really beautiful offer, and I felt so blessed and lucky. And then literally, I got the offer and I have, like, not quite a panic attack, but like a moment of, I do not deserve this and somebody else should go first. And I. I do EMDR therapy, which I love. It’s so helpful for me.
Amina Altai [00:20:06]:
And I remember calling the EMDR therapist, being like, I think I need to reprocess something. There’s some trauma coming up here. And I had this idea that my teacher should go first. Like, she hadn’t done a book on this, and so she should go first. And it was so interesting. And then actually fast forward turns out that a year later, so it took me three years to write my book. A year later, she started working on a book on the same subject. And then, like, a little bit of residue came up for me, and I was sitting with it, and then I was like, you know what? It’s like, we’re all gonna write these books in such different ways because of our lived experience.
Amina Altai [00:20:36]:
And one of my dear friends always says that there’s a chair for every ass or a lid for every pot. Right? It’s like, I’m gonna be the teacher for some people, she’s gonna be the teacher for some other people, but. And together we get to lift this topic. Right? But we each have our own perspectives. We each probably resonate with different community. And so there’s no competition. And I think that’s such an important thing to remember.
Sarah Tacy [00:20:56]:
You mentioned that in your book about the way that competition can pin us against each other. And when I was reading this book next to my husband, he was, I was like, I think you’d really love this book. And he’s like, I don’t want to get rid of my ambition. And I was like, that’s not what this book is about. Yeah, all for ambition. And would you be able to name some of the qualities of what you see in healthy ambition versus a toxic ambition?
Amina Altai [00:21:22]:
Yes. And I love that you brought this up because even as I was socializing the work, people would fall into two camps. They’d be people like me that are like, I’m highly ambitious, I identify that way. But my ambition’s been expensive and maybe it’s costing my house or my relationships or, or anything. And then there’d be people that fall into this other camp that were like, I’m not ambitious at all. Because what they’d seen of ambition was so dysfunctional that they rejected it altogether. And so my invitation with this work is actually, it could be something in between. And so I talk about two types of ambition.
Amina Altai [00:21:52]:
There is painful ambition that’s driven by our core wounds, and we each have core wounds. And then there’s purposeful ambition that is connected to our wholeness, that comes from a place of truth. So for example, in Painful ambition, we move at unsustainable paces. We move at self imposed urgency. And in purposeful ambition, we move at the speed of trust. We honor the people and processes it takes to create great work. We really are working in harmony with our minds and bodies. That’s one example.
Amina Altai [00:22:20]:
In Painful Ambition, we live in the black and white either or narrow mindset framework, right? Of like it’s this binary. And then in Purposeful Ambition, it’s much more expansive. We see the sacred third. To use your beautiful language, in Painful Ambition, it’s very much about a desire to win no matter the cost. And there’s nothing wrong with winning, right? Like you’re an athlete, you coach athletes, right? Like I love to win, but then no matter the cost piece is the tricky part, right? Because we become sacrificial. We sacrifice people we love, we sacrifice the planet, right? So instead of the desire to win, no matter the cost. We’re in collaboration with people, the planet to get to the goal. So those are just some examples I.
Sarah Tacy [00:23:05]:
Loved as I was reading these things. I love that you and I, I think our work overlaps. And as I read these, I was like, whoa, painful ambition. Everything you listed falls into what is often categorized as dysregulation. And the healthy moves more towards regulation. And I often say that the reason why I’ve changed my language to resonance over regulation is due to Tel Darden, who when I was like, well, why are you changing it? She said, because I think so many of us have had enough of a feeling of trying to be regulated. So regulated can sometimes be coupled with the idea of being controlled. Yeah, control yourself, calm yourself.
Sarah Tacy [00:23:47]:
Which then falls back into supremacy culture. So it’s like, how do we keep even, like regulation healthy versus even that falling into supremacy culture? And so it was really great reading your book and seeing all of these nuances, which also falls into resonance and healthy ambition. There’s another element at the end that you talked about, the evil eye. I think a variety of people have this same fear through different lenses. So some same lens as you, others through different lenses, and I might name a few after, if you’re willing to tell your story and being able to hold like the both and of where that possibly comes from and how possibly that was a protective mechanism for thousands of years and like where it hurts us, where it helps us. But could you say a little bit about superstition but in particular your experience with the evil eye?
Amina Altai [00:24:43]:
Yes. Okay, so I have a section in the book where I talk about superstition and sort of its role in mindset in our lives and things like that. So I’m half Arab and I grew up in a family where the idea of the evil eye was really alive. And there’s a lot of cultures that have a similar language, right. And then when you look at Arab cultures, it’s 98% of Arab countries believe that the evil eye has some sort of hold over them. And so even though I grew up with parents who were basically scientists, right? Like my dad’s doctor, my mom’s a nurse, like very much a stem family and like believe in evidence based things. We lived in a household that was like, oh, that’s the evil eye. And so my older sister, when she was 8, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
Amina Altai [00:25:24]:
And my dad was like, oh, the evil eye. And then we all had like really nice hair. So he would be like, you have to wear Your hair in a ponytail because otherwise, you know, everyone’s gonna cast their evil eye upon you. And then this had such a hold over me.
Sarah Tacy [00:25:35]:
I’m not sure if the listeners know, and I didn’t know until I read your book that the evil eye. If people are jealous of you, then it will. So that people would be jealous of perhaps like your father’s station and career and therefore your sister would get diabetes or they would be jealous of the beauty of your hair and therefore something bad could happen.
Amina Altai [00:25:59]:
Right?
Sarah Tacy [00:25:59]:
It’s a jealousy component, right?
Amina Altai [00:26:01]:
Yes. And like a mal intent component. Right. Of like my eyes don’t wish you well. And so. And then something happens as a result of that. So yeah. So I lived in a household that was like very much, that was sort of the center of things.
Amina Altai [00:26:15]:
And I didn’t realize how much it shaped my experience until I was working with a mindset coach in my late 20s and I remember telling her like, oh, I had this car accident and that was the evil eye. And like, oh, my hair fell out and that was the evil eye. And then when we went back and we looked for like plausible explanations, it was like, Amana, you have Hashimoto’s like classic symptom of Hashimoto’s is hair loss. Right? Oh, you had a car accident because you weren’t like paying attention to the road. You were, you know, shuffling Mariah Carey CDs. Like there’s some fact based reasons why these things happened and it’s not to disparage my culture. Right. Like you said, there’s like evolutionary responses and reasons why we hold on to these ideas and then there’s a point that they don’t serve you.
Amina Altai [00:26:56]:
And I think it’s an invitation to look at things a little differently.
Sarah Tacy [00:27:00]:
Yeah, I loved that. The reason why I think reasoning is helpful and possibly even why superstition thinks that it’s giving a reason to be helpful. It’s because when we think we know why it’s happening, then we can make changes so that it doesn’t happen if we don’t like it.
Amina Altai [00:27:14]:
Control. Yeah.
Sarah Tacy [00:27:15]:
Yeah. And so what I see in other people when they’re coming to nervous system sessions or wanting to rewire things is some people might feel, you know, they’re like, I feel like in a past life and I just want to say if anyone’s listening to this, they’re like, wait, I said that to Sarah. I just want to say so many people have said this to me in a past life. I was burned at the stake and this may not seem similar, but there are these underlying themes or feelings, whether it’s like direct that you knew it was the evil eye or not, where there’s this thing of like, if I, I think what I was coming to me was like the jealousy thing of like, if I show myself, if I say the thing, then people will wish harm against me and if I become big, people will wish harm against me. And I’m wondering if you’d speak a little bit to the place where. How do we hold the truth of. Yes, sometimes when people are hurting and they see people thriving, that there may be mal intent and there may be people who don’t want to see you do well, and being able to find our place of power and not give our power away to either superstition or to the realities of people who might actually want to see you. Not too well.
Amina Altai [00:28:27]:
Right. You know, as you were speaking and asking these questions, the thought popped in my head of like, well, what if the evil eye is actually a tool of oppression, right? Like this idea of like actually keep yourself small for other reasons. We’re pretending it’s this thing, but it’s just a way to keep you small to keep you silent. But the thing that I came back to and I wrote about this in the book is that you could literally take up no space and be in a corner and demure with your hair up and your mouth shut and someone still may not like you and have mal intent for you. Right? And so might as well take up the space because we can’t control that someone may decide. I say this to my clients all the time. Like, someone may decide that they don’t like you because like, you have the face of their ex partner, you know what I mean? Like for things that we can’t control. So like, we can’t water ourselves down and shapeshift to cater to everybody else because we lose ourselves in that process.
Amina Altai [00:29:15]:
And I also, like, if we’re just going to get even more spiritual here is like, I don’t really believe that. Listen, sure, people can wish us harm, but I don’t think that people are that powerful, right? I think, yeah, maybe some people, and it’s an extreme edge case, will go out of their way to set a booby trap. Right? But that’s not what we’re talking about here. I don’t think people are that powerful. And I think we take our power back by not hiding in the shadow and making ourselves small by living into our truth and taking up the space.
Sarah Tacy [00:29:42]:
So if you stay small and demure and some people don’t like you. Those voices probably aren’t going to be as loud if you’re not, like, on a social platform. Or you say, like, you might not get attacked by as many people. And so you talk in your book a bit about psychological safety. And I’m wondering how you’ve worked with various clients who have had real experiences in the past, whether it’s through being canceled or whether it’s through an actual experience of being out in public and being attacked in some way, whether it’s, you know, verbally or other ways, or they’ve had it in their lineage of speaking out is dangerous. And I know that you mentioned that in your own lineage of like, speaking out led to imprisonment, right? So there are, like, real things, and I’ve seen real examples of women, like, living into their wildness. Because sometimes we talk about how it’s not real, like, we’re no longer living in that time, like, be your wild self. Be your wild woman.
Sarah Tacy [00:30:45]:
But then, like, families might fall apart and people might be left. And I’m wondering how you help people both with the psychological safety and the resourcing of self, to really be with their authentic self, even though things might fall away, an attack might come.
Amina Altai [00:31:03]:
So there’s a couple pieces here, right? If there has been trauma, then I had, like, there’s a hard line for me, right? Like, I am a coach, I am not a therapist. I’m trauma informed, but it’s a hard line. So if there’s been trauma there and I feel like I need to pull in another provider to work in parallel path, I’ll do that. So I’ll say, you know, actually this. This goes much deeper than I think is safe for us to tap into here. Let’s pull in an EMDR therapist or let’s pull in a nervous system coach for us to. For you to have a place for that, right? And so can we move it out of the body? Like, wherever it is in the body, can we work with it so that it isn’t so loud, so that it isn’t so painful, so that it isn’t stuck and suspended in space? But then also our social location and our intersectionality really matters, right? So we know that when women speak out, they’re more likely to experience backlash. When women of color speak out, they experience even more backlash if you’re a trans person, right? So our identities and our intersectionality really matters.
Amina Altai [00:31:58]:
And so I think blanketed statements of like, just use your voice and like, turn the volume up can be harmful, right? Because we have to really understand people’s trauma and what their intersectionality is. But community is such an important piece of this, right? Because so if you’ve done. If you’ve moved, if you’ve worked on the trauma, right? And then you’re like, okay, I no longer feel dysregulated, or I no longer lack the resonance around sharing in a. In a bigger way, right? It feels safer. But then who are the people that you can surround yourself with that will support you and take care of you if people do come for you, right? Because inevitably somebody probably will. And then you need to have that community that is going to be there to rally and support you. I actually had two women on my podcast. They are two white women, One is queer, and they have a PR agency, and they work almost exclusively with women of color.
Amina Altai [00:32:47]:
And I was asking them, I was like, you know, like, women of color experience more backlash online. Like, what do you do to protect them? And they’re like, well, we use our privilege like we are two white women. And so we can. We can get in there, we can stand in front of them. We can absorb some of this for them. I was like, that’s a really beautiful way to do that. Also, I talk about this in the book, too, I’m pretty sure. But Brittany Packnett Cunningham, who’s an author and activist and educator, she talks about how with confidence, and I think that using our voice, taking up more space requires confidence that community is the safest place, place to try it on.
Amina Altai [00:33:18]:
And so where can you practice in these little pockets of community that feel psychologically safe before you take it externally, before you take it to the world stage, so that you are kind of raising that tolerance or creating more psychological safety every step that you go.
Sarah Tacy [00:33:33]:
I am thinking about Ray Castellino, and he talks about layers of support, and he says. So he’s pre and perinatal. He was. He passed away two years ago. So he was a pre and perinatal specialist. And he said that if. When a mother gives birth, if the physician or the midwife has two layers of support and the partner has two layers of support, and each person in that structure has two layers of support, that the baby’s nervous system will immediately feel resonance. It will immediately feel safety.
Sarah Tacy [00:34:09]:
And so what I’m hearing here is not like, whether it’s real or not, that attack will come. There is the importance of using our voice. Like that is the thing that suppression would want us to do. So there’s the importance of using our voice. But how then do we Create layers of support so that if or when it comes that we have people that we love, that we have people who are standing up with us, that we have people who have our backs and that we really engage in community and know that it’s not just on us. And then for those who have any level of spiritual, I’d say like spiritual access or belief that it might also be like having your ancestors at your back or people who access nature as a resource, like leaning on a tree, using your breath, texting a friend, like all the ways that we can say, okay, this is important. It matters to me, it matters to the culture that, that I use my voice and I have these sets of tools and these people and these multidimensional layers of support that I’m going to call upon.
Amina Altai [00:35:16]:
Yeah, so beautifully said. Like even like, you know, if we put something out, like on Instagram, for example, that with. It feels edgy, you know, calling our crew and being like, hey, like, will you support me in the comments? Like, will you love me up? Will you, you know, help me if something happens? Right. I feel like then it’s just that layer of support that. So we’re not out there flailing by ourselves.
Sarah Tacy [00:35:37]:
Again, I’m going to quote Tel Darden as I was learning a lot of nervous system work through her and she showed hypersocial and she used the phrase I’m okay when you’re okay. And I had this whole like full stop moment of like, wait, you’re saying that’s hypersocial? Which would be another way of possibly saying codependent. And so then the inquiry began for me of like, how can I. I’m okay when I’m okay. And then I attune to and how are you? So can you talk a little bit about how you see this in ambition, the codependence and then moving towards interdependence or perhaps like healthy relational dynamics.
Amina Altai [00:36:23]:
Yes, I love this question and you know, happy to share here. I’m recovering codependent and it’s interesting because I think there’s also cultural components too, because I grew up into collectivist cultures and collectivism sits very close to codependency. Right. Like they’re really side by side. Like they’re multi generational families that live in the same home. The idea of setting boundaries can be a major rupture. Right. So you have to, I think, also take into consideration the, the cultural context.
Amina Altai [00:36:51]:
So I was, I was a recovering codependent and what I was seeing too was what Terry Cole and her book too Much talks about. And she calls high functioning codependency. Right. So. Because a lot of people hear that phrase codependency, and they’re like, no, I. I do not subscribe to that. Right. That’s almost specifically in the addiction context, but that’s a very old definition.
Amina Altai [00:37:11]:
And Terry Cole talks about how high functioning codependency is this idea that, like, I’m okay when you’re okay, and I will spend so much time taking care of everybody else because that’s how I feel. Okay. To my own experience. Expense. Right. And it shows up as over giving. It shows up as perfectionism. It shows up as overworking because we are so.
Amina Altai [00:37:30]:
In this dance, I’ll only be okay when all these other people are okay to use your language, which is so beautiful and so interdependence. I think under looks at understanding.
Sarah Tacy [00:37:40]:
It’s.
Amina Altai [00:37:40]:
It’s what we started the conversation with of just consciousness and awareness of, like, why am I actually doing this? And what does it look like for me to be okay in this? And if somebody’s not okay when I’m okay in this, can I be with that too? Right. And that’s the relational piece, and that’s the part that’s uncomfortable for so many of us, the sitting on ants piece, because we’re so quick to rescue because of our own discomfort about somebody else’s discomfort. I’m speaking from experience here.
Sarah Tacy [00:38:06]:
I Same.
Amina Altai [00:38:07]:
Yeah.
Sarah Tacy [00:38:08]:
Did you say sitting on ants?
Amina Altai [00:38:10]:
Yeah, my friend Leah says that all the time. She’s like, you know, like, it’s like they’re moving under you and you’re so uncomfortable and you just want to get up and move, but you have to sit there because that’s where the work is.
Sarah Tacy [00:38:19]:
Yes. This is part of the opting out of urgency thing that I’m really excited about is like, how do we build the capacity to be in the space between what was familiar and what is optimal? And that space in between can feel often like abandonment. It’s abandoning old ways. But it often feels like relational dissonance. It can feel like that all the way to the cellular level where we’re used to getting a cellular connect between an emotional peptide and a our receptor cells that are no longer meeting. So it can literally, like, at a cellular level be like, I don’t know if I’m going to survive this. And so, like, how do we resource ourselves enough as we’re moving from I’m okay when you’re okay, to being in this place of like, wow, that person’s really not okay. With the boundary I just set.
Sarah Tacy [00:39:03]:
Can I hold this? Because it’s not always that we immediately feel better with the boundary, right? We have to like, be with the discomfort first. Often.
Amina Altai [00:39:12]:
It’s funny that you use the word abandonment. Cause I was like, oh, I don’t know if that word resonates. What comes up for me is shame. But then the shame actually is connected to the abandonment, right? Like I have shame that I didn’t get it right, that I didn’t figure it out. That. But and the part that the reason that I have shame about not getting it right is because I’m afraid of being abandoned. Wow. And we are done and seen.
Sarah Tacy [00:39:34]:
Is there anything that I haven’t asked or anything that you’d love to say about this work that feels important, that hasn’t been present yet?
Amina Altai [00:39:45]:
I think the only thing that I would say is just to underline this piece, which you already really did talk about, which is ambition isn’t right or wrong. And I was very careful not to use that language of like, healthy versus unhealthy. Right, wrong. Because I didn’t want it to be righteous. Because it’s not an all or nothing proposition. And there will be moments where we find ourselves in one versus the other. And it’s not because we’re naughty and we got something wrong, right? It’s because we’re human and it’s. That is the dance.
Amina Altai [00:40:10]:
And so the invitation in this book is simply to become aware, right? To get conscious, which is exactly what we’ve been talking about through this whole conversation. And then to give ourselves agency and take our power back by choosing the way we want to be in relationship with it.
Sarah Tacy [00:40:23]:
Beautiful. And one of the things in the nervous system world that I like, in the world that I’ve learned from thus far, is how recognition is a condition that helps us get to completion with something. So there’s ways that we can soothe and distract, which are so great they can be life saving. And one of the conditions that we can create is recognition. So I think even through your book, where we can recognize, I told you at the beginning, I was like, oh, I saw myself in both categories. Like I read the one that was more generative, and I was like, oh, yeah, I do that and I see that. And then I’d go over to the one that feels a little bit more extractive or, you know, built on a system that I would say isn’t for our individual good or collective. And I go, oh, actually, I’m sure there are things I’m still not seeing.
Sarah Tacy [00:41:13]:
Here. And. Oh, no, I definitely fall into this sometimes. And, oh, I definitely feel this fear sometimes. And so it’s really great just to have that recognition. A quick story on that is that I was doing my resource training last year and this, I think the sixth module was called Unstuck. And it was about the double binds and the sacred thirds. And I realized that I really wanted everyone to come out with a clear answer.
Sarah Tacy [00:41:40]:
Like, I wanted them to come out with their sacred third. And the day before, I was in my own double bind of like, I must. I can’t. Like, I must do it. I must figure out an embodied way for them to have an answer. Or like, and I was in. And I was in an ambition trap because I was making it about me.
Amina Altai [00:42:00]:
Yes.
Sarah Tacy [00:42:00]:
Because it was like, really, like, if they don’t get an answer, then nobody’s ever going to sign up for my program again. And then I’ll have no meaning in life because I’ll have nowhere to work the work and have my purpose. And it was so great to be like, oh, this is all about, like, I must prove that this work works. Or, you know, the nothing was like, or I will fall into the abyss of darkness.
Amina Altai [00:42:27]:
Right? And everybody must have their sacred third. Right. Versus us, allowing, like, some people will sit in the in between space. And.
Sarah Tacy [00:42:34]:
And that was like the big. Actually, this was like the big learning for me was I. I pulled some cards and in the cards I had this like, oh, I ended up calling a friend. I called Jenny Nutter. And I was actually afraid to like, read. Not afraid, but I was like, oh, it’s so last minute. And my daughter opened up a book that morning that said surprise presenter or surprise guest. I was like, okay, because she does breath work.
Sarah Tacy [00:42:57]:
And what felt really apparent to me is that when we are in our beta waves of our brains, and especially if we have any level which I would have been holding the resonance or the energy of all or nothing, then the only way we can see. You actually talked about this in your book. The only way we can see is the ways we’ve always seen before and how the next big growth edge is often something we’ve never experienced before. And so by moving into this breath work and having her guide it, we move out of the brain into the body and like, something from the unconscious can come up. And what I recognized in that session was how beautiful it can be to move into being able to stay in the unknown that ants in the pants place.
Amina Altai [00:43:41]:
Yes. Yes.
Sarah Tacy [00:43:43]:
Did you say ants in the pants?
Amina Altai [00:43:44]:
Sitting on ants sitting on ants. Yeah, But Ants in the Pants is fabulous. What I love so much about this is like I fell into the ambition trap when writing the book, right? It’s like we are being the work and I think that that’s so magical because then we can sit shoulder to shoulder with the people that we serve and say like, I’ve been right where you are and it isn’t this like magical wand that’s going to change your whole life, right? To be human is to be bouncing between these two things. To be constantly in a cha cha of our growth.
Sarah Tacy [00:44:09]:
Cha cha of our growth. I love that there’s a part in the book and it was such a good quote. Fewer things in life are more confusing than working so hard to get where you want to go, only to arrive there and feel like it’s an even deeper rock bottom. This is actually something I have lived into more than once and it’s really scary.
Amina Altai [00:44:33]:
Yeah, me too. I think that that feeling is such a universal one for people that are putting themselves out there that are like trying to do their souls work, right? And I think that oftentimes we’re like taught these specific tools and it’s like use these tools and if you do these tools and you’re a good girl and you use them correctly, you’re going to arrive and it’s going to be the dream and there will be no friction there. And then you follow the path and you follow like sort of what we’re taught, right? The more for more sake. And then you get there and you’re like, this ain’t it, this ain’t it. And I have an entire coaching practice filled with those people, right? What it looks like in their lives is that oftentimes they were following a corporate ladder, right? And they get to the top of the mountain and they look around and they’re like, there is no joy, there is no freedom, there is nothing here that I want. But they were following somebody else’s shoulds and must haves and then that’s their moment of awakening where they say, okay, well that well trodden path wasn’t for me and now I’m going to do something that is more connected to my truth. But it, I think nothing feels more devastating because I feel like it starts in the school system, right? We’re taught like dot your I’s, cross your T’s, get your A’s, get your awards, everything will be great. I, I never had such a big come to Jesus as when I exited school and like started entrepreneurship and I was like, one plus one does not equal two here.
Amina Altai [00:45:51]:
And it’s so devastating. And you have to just be in that abyss until you get your answers.
Sarah Tacy [00:45:57]:
And in your book, you tell the story of sitting on your meditation cushion again and again and again. And so I feel like along that path, when I read your story, it was like you were in wellness marketing. And so to me, it was almost like you weren’t completely on the wrong path, but it wasn’t it. And it almost took, like, getting it fully being in the full success of it to go like, oh, shoot, this isn’t the whole thing. And then having to sit in that unknown and wait for your grandfather to whisper words into your ears. And then I’m sure there were many steps, like, unknown steps after that.
Amina Altai [00:46:33]:
For sure, for sure.
Sarah Tacy [00:46:35]:
Do you feel like usually your clients are getting pieces of the puzzle when they follow that path, or is it sometimes just not it at all?
Amina Altai [00:46:43]:
I think that there’s almost always pieces and through lines, I’ve seen it also where it’s not it at all. Right. Where we’re just like, so conditioned and we’re living into somebody else’s dream. But for the most part, I do feel like there’s things that are transferable. Right. It’s like you said, like, I worked in wellness marketing and I was working with emerging female entrepreneurs. It was like there were these glimmer, and that was so magical, but it wasn’t the whole picture. And I live a trial and error life.
Amina Altai [00:47:06]:
Like, I kind of feel like I’ve had to get it wrong so I could get it right. But that’s very painful.
Sarah Tacy [00:47:11]:
Yeah. I had a client in New York and he had a license plate that was learned by living.
Amina Altai [00:47:16]:
Yeah.
Sarah Tacy [00:47:17]:
And there are so many times where I’m like, oh, there it is again. Like, the things that we can only do by being brave enough to, you know, throw our hats in or step into the arena and get it wrong and then try again. And I would almost imagine that it’s a bit scarier to throw your hat into the arena. Really try to follow your dreams. And so it really feels like your life, your choices, and get there and be like, oh, shit, still not it. But I guess it’s just you continue to follow the breadcrumbs.
Amina Altai [00:47:50]:
Exactly. And I think it’s like the idea that, like, this is. It is also a little bit problematic. Right. That there’s a top of the mountain. One of the things that I talk about in the book is that, like, there’s no mountain, that we’re all on together, we’re all in our own personal karmic mountains, right? And we’re always becoming. So the idea of like, this is it. It’s like, sure, I’ll have clients write the dream, but the dream is like, for now, the dream is not the five year dream.
Amina Altai [00:48:10]:
Because we live directionally. And I think sometimes we get so anchored in this particular idea that we miss the moment. And so I think we have to just perpetually let ourselves become.
Sarah Tacy [00:48:20]:
I’m hearing you say perpetually let ourselves become. And I’m feeling like that’s an even better ending point there.
Amina Altai [00:48:28]:
Thank you so much. I feel complete and I’m just beyond grateful that you had me here today and really grateful for everybody that decides to listen to this. And if you feel interested in checking out the book, you can get it everywhere you buy books. There’s a Kindle version, there’s an audible version. I read the audible version, which was so amazing. It was such a special moment. So, yeah, if you feel called and you want to check it out, please do.
Sarah Tacy [00:48:50]:
Yeah, I will also just put another, like, do it, Buy it. I was reading it and I was just like, I don’t know who this wouldn’t be helpful for. And also in the way of learning about systems, I’ve never read a book that felt so clear and loving where I could understand more about things that I didn’t fully understand. I never went into a shame spiral. I just felt like I got it more and I felt welcomed and again, just more like, oh, I think I get this deeper. I think I get this deeper. I think I get this deeper. And the way that you wove so many things together with such coherence.
Sarah Tacy [00:49:37]:
When we first got on before the recording started, I was like, this is a masterpiece. You have done such a beautiful job of taking what could be impossible to bring forward from a variety of lenses and made it so simple to understand without losing the nuance. So thank you for taking three years to really bring your heart forward and do it in a way that I could feel the community around you and the various influence as well.
Amina Altai [00:50:06]:
I don’t even have words that just. I felt that right in my heart center and I’m. I feel very, very seen. Thank you so much.
Sarah Tacy [00:50:19]:
Thank you for tuning in. It’s been such a pleasure. If you’re looking for added support, I’m offering a program that’s totally free called 21 Days of Untapped Support. It’s pretty awesome. It’s very easy. It’s very helpful. You can find it@SarahTacey.com and if you love this episode, please subscribe. And like a Apparently it’s wildly useful, so we could just explore what happens when you scroll down to the bottom.
Sarah Tacy [00:50:50]:
Subscribe rate, maybe say a thing or two. If you’re not feeling it, don’t do it. It’s totally fine. I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you.