Radical Love and Life with Speaker and Mentor Santana Inniss

Reese Brown (01:17.024)

Santana, thank you so much for joining me here this morning and being in this shared space with me and being open to having a conversation. I am so excited to be here with you.

Santana Inniss (01:21.298)

I'm ready. Let's go. Let's do it.

Santana Inniss (01:37.032)

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be in community with you once more.

Reese Brown (01:41.74)

Yes, me too. Well, to kick our conversation off, I am going to start with oldie but goodie. What is one thing you're grateful for?

Santana Inniss (01:51.846)

Ooh, beautiful, beautiful question. I love starting with gratitude. So I'm so glad you asked this right up front. I mean, right now, I think there's so much to be grateful for in the world. Thich Nhat Hanh says there are always enough conditions for joy. And, you know, yesterday, I woke up to, you know, the news about I don't know if you saw this on the news about the Taliban banning women from

making sounds with their voice in public. And you know, that just hit me in my spirit in a way that I, you know, it just, it hit, it hit, you know, hit a little different. And, you know, so I'm feeling gratitude that, you know, it hit a little different, right? Even though that's not fun. Emotionally, it's certainly not.

Reese Brown (02:44.14)

Mm.

Santana Inniss (02:47.237)

I mean, that sounds like a simplification, but, you know, it's certainly quite a catastrophic outcome for the women of Afghanistan, but feeling gratitude for the capacity to recognize our shared humanity.

Reese Brown (03:03.104)

Mmm.

Santana Inniss (03:06.068)

and the tools to be gentle with my heart and the tools to send loving kindness to women that are suffering there and anywhere and incredibly grateful for just a sense of reconnection to my own personal mission and sort of reason for for being my own purpose. A lot to be grateful for.

Reese Brown (03:27.747)

Mm.

Reese Brown (03:32.546)

Yeah.

Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. do think gratitude is often oversimplified and I appreciate your nod to the nuance and complexity of gratitude, right? That often in times of struggle, hardship, or just reminders of struggle that exists in the world is when we are reminded to be the most grateful for what we have and

Gratitude is often the most powerful in moments of downtroddenness, right? Just as that reminder. So I really appreciate that. Second question to hopefully really break this conversation open is what is your story? Big question. Whatever you feel called to speak to in this moment is beautiful and perfect.

Santana Inniss (04:32.552)

Wonderful. Thank you. And thank you for the space to tell story. I think storytelling and indeed in light of what we just talked about, the ability to use your voice to tell that story is something that we really cannot take for granted. So where does my story begin? think, you know, in my bio I write, my story begins with two parents doing their best.

Reese Brown (04:46.764)

Yes.

Reese Brown (05:01.068)

Mmm. Mmm.

Santana Inniss (05:02.458)

My father immigrated to the United States from Latin America and my mother on her side, her family immigrated in the 1600s. So, you know, I am a product of America on the one hand, simultaneously a first generation American and on the other hand, a daughter of the revolution.

yeah, my story began with incredible poverty, with violence inside and outside of my home. With a lot of food insecurity. So that's sort of where my story began. And it's taken several turns since then, right? So as my

As I got older and developed the capacity to provide, you know, for myself to start working in those things that took me out of my own community where I didn't see that many examples of what I could be or what I could dream of. Of course, we all had TV, you know, was an 80s baby growing up in the 90s. We saw Friends, we saw Seinfeld, we saw all the things. And also,

those examples felt like fiction, and they are to some extent, but they did not feel accessible or aspirational. There weren't a lot of positive examples of what it could look like to escape generational poverty or generational inherited harms and trauma.

Reese Brown (06:38.253)

Mm.

Santana Inniss (06:45.296)

And so as I moved out of my community of origin, started my career, I didn't go straight from high school to college. I started working. I actually became an insurance agent and I loved it. It was like a geeky little, just like little paradise for me with all the rules and the nuances and the laws and the that and the that.

Reese Brown (07:04.396)

Ha ha ha!

Santana Inniss (07:09.236)

So I loved being an insurance agent, but I started getting really frustrated because like dudes coming in after me, not as good as me, were making 10K more right off the bat. And I just thought, hey boss, why the inequity? And they said, it's because you don't have a college degree. You get a 10K bump if you have a degree. And I said, so if I go and get a degree today, like you'll give me $10 ,000. And he was like, yeah.

And I said, hold my beer. I mean, that just hired, if he can do it, I can do it. mean, like, you don't seem that smart. So like, let's go. I started at community college, which felt like the most accessible pathway. I thought I'd do two years there, transfer to a state school, do two years there, get my degree, you know, and get my 10 grand. But what actually ended up happening is that I absolutely fell in love.

Reese Brown (07:42.53)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (07:48.428)

Yeah!

Santana Inniss (08:09.5)

with learning and that wasn't something that I saw modeled for me at home or in my community. I didn't think I would ever go to college. None of my parents did, none of my siblings had. I don't really know about my extended family, but in terms of my immediate family, that was not part of our story. And so I remember doing two things. Number one,

Reese Brown (08:10.594)

Mm.

Santana Inniss (08:36.67)

picking the thing that sounded the least like science to satisfy the science requirement. And that thing was called physical anthropology. And I remember the second thing was in this textbook, there was a tiny little like concept in action, like blurb on the side. And it was a picture of a dude holding a fossil skull. And it was talking about how this dude

Reese Brown (08:42.104)

Fair.

Santana Inniss (09:04.232)

figured out how to pour goo inside the fossils and then pull out the goo to see how the brain evolved over time. And I thought, that is the most heavy metal shit I've ever heard in my life. I'm gonna find this man and I'm gonna go to him and I will study with him and this will be my life's work. And that man's name was Ralph Holloway.

And he was now professor emeritus at Columbia University of Human Evolutionary Biology. And so I thought again, hold my goddamn beer. Like it was such an L Woods, like what, like it's hard. There was so much naivete, but there was also so much just like, you know what, why not? Like let's just be like, let's just keep moving forward and seeing what's the first step. Okay, knockout grades. I worked my ass off that.

Reese Brown (09:37.731)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (09:48.621)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (09:57.31)

first year in community college. Okay, what's the next step? Apply for transfer, get my transcripts, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know what the big leagues they called me up Columbia accepted me and I transferred and today I hold a degree in human evolutionary biology. Ralph Holloway, a state of mentor state a personal friend.

for many, many years after my studies. I see him whenever I go to New York. And so that really starts this like second part of my story, which was like realizing my own power to create opportunity and to create different ways of being in my life that I had power inside.

Reese Brown (10:32.515)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (10:46.252)

and that the stories that I had inherited were not everyone's story and therefore did not have to be my story. Yeah, from there I think act three, finishing university I found myself out on the mean streets of New York, not making any money in that first economic recession like downturn part one.

Reese Brown (10:55.512)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (11:14.388)

And, you know, necessity became the mother of invention. So I started my career consulting. Nobody knew what Facebook ads were at that time. Nobody knew what email and content marketing was. It was like the revolution of those things. And so I just started trying and anyone that would pay me to do it, I'd say, yes, ma 'am. Yes, sir. I know how to do that thing and then figure it out along the way. And I was able to be on that solo hustle for six years.

Reese Brown (11:38.883)

Yep.

Santana Inniss (11:43.046)

At my early career, from there I went into working in for other people in in marketing agencies, big agencies, the corporate space, this type of thing. And that started this arc of like Santana climbs the corporate ladder. And it also starts the arc of my journey where I started to lose myself. So I started to lose the connection to

Reese Brown (12:05.73)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (12:09.82)

the sense of that internal spark, that internal essence that makes us who we are, I started to lose access to like my core values, my core attributes to square peg round hole it through this career, right? Because how sexy for a person that grew up in intergenerational poverty to make six figures.

Reese Brown (12:26.211)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (12:36.252)

Yeah, okay, stability, we love this. We'll do whatever it takes to keep this stability, to keep this train moving along the tracks. And that led me to burnout. That led me to fighting systems of systemic sexism, systemic racism in organizations, etc. And that ultimately led me to burnout.

Reese Brown (12:39.02)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (13:05.68)

And so act four, which is the act that I'm in now is the act of radical self acceptance, radical self intimacy, radical self advocacy, and radical alignment with the impact that I want to have with the world that I want to create around me.

Reese Brown (13:16.642)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (13:35.412)

I'm also flirting with 40. So it's like, ooh, the fucks. Few and far between. They're tied up in my 401k. I can't take them out early. There's a prepayment penalty. So it's really just this like time of, wow, just radically feeling like myself and feeling in love and empowered and invigorated.

Reese Brown (13:56.172)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (14:05.927)

by me.

Reese Brown (14:07.533)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (14:08.82)

Yeah, that's the abridged version of my story.

Reese Brown (14:12.256)

Of course, absolutely. Thank you so much. And any story has to be abridged, right? Because I feel like if we truly dive into the extent of everything, I would love to be here for the next few days, but it certainly would take all that time. So many beautiful things to talk about here. So thank you for offering this up and that vulnerability. And I want to start with, I suppose, where you started.

to parents doing their best. I think a lot of us can relate to that. Any parent, even in all of their love and wisdom, is going to make mistakes along the way that will inevitably impact us as who we are as adults and all of the ripple effects that that can have. What does doing your best look like?

as we are individuals trying to do our best, how do you reconcile this concept both with your parents in the sense of, I can hold appreciation and gratitude, but also acknowledge the ways in which I might've been harmed along the way too. How do we hold both of these things and then also continue trying to do our best?

Santana Inniss (15:37.97)

Yeah, that's a beautiful question because it's part of the paradox of the human experience. Like we are simultaneously perfect and we simultaneously all need improvement. So I mean, in the context of my parents and their story, there's more nuance there, right? Because, you know, I think all human beings, they're going to leave a mark on their children for better and for worse.

Reese Brown (15:47.927)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (16:08.656)

And some parents leave more of that mark in the for better category. And some parents leave more of a mark in the for worse category. Right? And so I think for me, what it's looked like to come to terms with what my parents had the capacity to offer is to not do part of that has looked like not doing any sort of revisionist history.

any sort of

Santana Inniss (16:43.762)

washing of the reality, developing a radical capacity to sit with the fact that my parents really harmed me.

Reese Brown (16:47.085)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (16:56.439)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (16:58.482)

Although I believe that was probably never their explicit intent.

Reese Brown (17:02.796)

Right.

Santana Inniss (17:04.862)

So a lot of what it looks like to do our best is to hold space for intent while holding equal, if not more space for impact.

Santana Inniss (17:18.256)

because we have to have truth in order to have reconciliation, which means I had to learn to look at square in the eye. This is what happened to me. This is what I experienced. This is the legacy of that. This is the impact it's having in my life.

bringing in intent was the honey that allowed me to start to access a sense of shared humanity with my parents.

Reese Brown (17:52.406)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (17:55.358)

Wow, what would I have done given if I had if I was placed in their exact circumstances, given all the limitations and all of the things that I know that happened to them? What would I have done? Could I have done better? I don't know. And tenderly holding the reality that shit went down, you know, and I was harmed.

Reese Brown (18:01.517)

Right.

Reese Brown (18:20.963)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (18:23.954)

And so I think there's a lot of compassion that I've had to learn in two parents doing their best. And that compassion is for my parents, is for my siblings who had their own unique experiences and challenges. It's also compassion for me. And learning to be able to offer

Reese Brown (18:46.892)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (18:51.86)

the healing to myself, the responsibility to myself, the accountability for myself as a flirting with 40 year old woman, right? And I think through that endeavor came a lot of healing and it came with that healing, a lot of an expanded capacity to hold myself.

Reese Brown (19:09.474)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (19:24.088)

no matter what. And what I mean by that is there are parts of me that the love doesn't come so easy.

Reese Brown (19:25.847)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (19:35.075)

Mm -hmm.

Santana Inniss (19:37.512)

I shoot shots and miss them. I don't always show up in the most embodied, chill, zen version, the most clear of a communicator as I wish I could be. Sometimes I'm on my period, I need chocolate and I snap, right? It's real. So sometimes I don't live up to my own aspirations for myself.

Reese Brown (20:01.72)

real.

Santana Inniss (20:08.7)

and I can hold myself in my messiness and I can hold myself in my aspiration for more. And I can hold myself when I am the brightest vibration that I can possibly achieve. That I could not do until relatively recently. And so what I think it looks like to do our best is to expand our capacity to be with the parts of ourselves that are not so easy to love.

Reese Brown (20:24.877)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (20:39.034)

and to recognize that those parts that aren't easy are the ones that are crying out for love the most. To be able to pour that love into the parts of ourself that are calling out for it. And to give ourselves a sense of compassion when we fuck up, because we will.

Reese Brown (20:46.157)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (21:03.842)

Yeah, we will. How, so you mentioned that this kind of strategy, or strategy is not the right word, but ability to start holding more compassion, especially for the parts of ourselves that are perhaps the most difficult to love has come recently. What do you think the shift was when you really started feeling that difference to be able to hold compassion for these pieces?

of yourself? Was there a technique or something you did consciously to address this and work on this? Or is it something that's happened with time and nuance and a continual journey or a mix of both or something else? I would love to hear about what you think that tipping point was.

Santana Inniss (21:51.986)

Yeah, yes and yes and. Some people describe it as hitting a Saturn return, which happened for me about nine years ago. And it was just this realization of like, life's hard and it hurts and it looks easier for other people. And like, I don't

Reese Brown (22:00.663)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (22:08.137)

Yeah!

Santana Inniss (22:11.764)

What's happening to me? It was at a time where I was in a pretty unhealthy relationship. And it kind of ended in this super catastrophic way just a few months after my biological father died. And so there was this boom. I turned 28. My biological father died.

Reese Brown (22:31.63)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (22:41.268)

This unhealthy relationship blew up in my face. And I had to move back in with my mom. And I was like, who even am I? Who even am I? I started my journey there. I started with therapy. I started with a 12 -step program for adult children of alcoholics. I started meditation.

Reese Brown (23:10.05)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (23:10.62)

I started reading any book I could get my hands on. So there's that arc of the journey. And I don't want anyone listening to think there's a magic pill. They can wake up and take this pill and they can just arrive.

Reese Brown (23:22.69)

Right.

Santana Inniss (23:29.434)

Lord, would it? Could it? I wish I wish that, you know, and also, I mean, there was very much a tipping point. And that tipping point came a couple of years ago. And that tipping point was psychedelic assisted therapy. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I described it as the sensation of like, you know, I've done so much work, I've been in the work for

seven years. You know, I've been continuously doing my damn best to grow and heal and change and learn and

It felt like having, I described it as the sensation of having like some spiritual popcorn stuck in my teeth. There were still things that were just like, this still feels way too hard. this is still more messy than anything else. Like, there's still, whoa, what's going on here? Like we need to, we need to go deeper here in this sensation that there were no more books to read.

Reese Brown (24:18.622)

Hmmmm

Reese Brown (24:24.888)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (24:38.924)

there were no, you know, there was no more meditation to do there was no and there's just a sensation like, you know, I brushed my teeth, I flossed and there's a popcorn kernel husk stuck up in their cosmic space of my gum. And so I decided to, to pursue psychedelics. For me, it was very important given, you know, my history with my family of origin, you know, my father having addiction and

I didn't want to dabble in any sort of recreational, I was very, very, very specific. And, you know, I think everyone's journey with that is exactly that, their journey, but I'm just naming what my journey was like. So for me, I found an organization that was really at the forefront of, you know, pushing into this space where there's a blend of

Reese Brown (25:12.718)

Sure.

Reese Brown (25:22.478)

Absolutely.

Santana Inniss (25:34.484)

trained therapeutic capacity with the addition of psychedelics. And so I did one session with a therapist who had been in practice for 25 years and had started integrating psychedelics, breath work, movement, tantric practice, just really any sort of alternative exploration into

Reese Brown (25:41.112)

Mm -hmm.

Santana Inniss (26:02.996)

and in collaboration with traditional methods of psychotherapy. So I thought, sign me up, love that journey. I was high out of my fucking brain for nine or 10 hours. And the therapist just sat there at my bedside, making notes, engaging with me if things became too intense, doing a little therapy -ing if, you know.

Reese Brown (26:07.362)

Mmm.

Reese Brown (26:19.692)

Wow.

Reese Brown (26:23.938)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (26:33.184)

I initiated contact, otherwise it was a very individual experience. But I went into that experience and I set the intention, I said, why is it still so hard for me to connect with people?

Reese Brown (26:38.062)

Mmm.

Reese Brown (26:47.32)

Wow.

Santana Inniss (26:48.626)

and just allowed.

the experience to unfold and coming out of that experience was like phantom trauma syndrome. I made this term up. It's sort of a play on phantom limb syndrome, which is where folks can feel a limb after it's been amputated. But it's like, you know, I would be in situations that would normally be very triggering for me.

Reese Brown (27:03.181)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (27:10.625)

Right.

Santana Inniss (27:20.892)

And there would be this like phantom sensation of like, I remember that. Purely as information, I could not make myself feel it. It just wasn't there. It's like my brain was like firing a like a little synapse. And then it was like dead end does not compute. You turn, go back.

Reese Brown (27:44.078)

How remarkable. am like the, I so relate to this, like I have been in the work, right? Like, and I think a lot of people listening probably do relate to that as well, because that tends to be the audience that this podcast attracts, because it's very much in the work and a part of it. And the active,

Intention behind like okay. I see these neural pathways now. I know why they're there I understand it but in the moment where I know that we're firing and it's like I can actively feel myself going there and getting for lack of a better term triggered or emotionally reactive because of the habitual thinking that Your person has right that the human body has to protect itself

which is remarkable in so many ways, to have this moment of, yeah, I have that as information which can inform me, but also...

that other pathway be so apparent, like neurologically for your brain to go down is fascinating and magical, right? I'm like, truly, what a beautiful experience. Yeah.

Santana Inniss (29:08.058)

Otherworldly, otherworldly, absolutely otherworldly. I don't have another way to describe it. For a lot of people, I don't know how it affects them. For me, they weren't like vivid hallucinations. Every so often, there would be like a very clear like visual sort of component. But mostly, it just felt like deep knowing was being transmitted to me from another plane. And that is the best way that I can explain it.

Reese Brown (29:21.23)

sure.

Reese Brown (29:31.031)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (29:37.46)

And, you know, I'm so glad that I was in the work for as long as I was because I already had some tools in my toolkit, right? So that I could say, okay, I can be held here. I can surrender to this experience because I already know I have some capacity to be with myself and to process this.

Reese Brown (29:44.525)

Mm.

Reese Brown (29:51.373)

Yes.

Reese Brown (30:01.006)

right.

Santana Inniss (30:07.42)

and where to go if I need support in doing that and how to support myself. you know, so I had some idea of what that can be. I know for many people that go into the experience and maybe that's not so true for them. you know, many have shared with me. I didn't have that experience when I did the psychedelic journey because I was so like blocking the experience. was so like gripping tight. was afraid and

Reese Brown (30:10.423)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (30:33.559)

Mmm.

Reese Brown (30:37.794)

Right.

Santana Inniss (30:38.098)

So for me, being in the work for so long, I don't regret. I don't think you can bypass the work. There's no, and I don't think we're supposed to, right? Like in that experience, and before then to some extent, and after, wow, incredibly, I feel such a tangible connection to my ancestors.

Reese Brown (30:45.026)

Yeah, no.

Reese Brown (30:52.536)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (31:07.757)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (31:11.104)

I know. Beyond the shadow of a

Santana Inniss (31:18.952)

that I am here to do this alchemy. I need to, for these ancestors, change this lead into gold.

Reese Brown (31:23.758)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (31:32.749)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (31:34.59)

so that our family line can continue beautifully into the future.

Reese Brown (31:42.339)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (31:46.238)

And I'm grateful for all of the work.

Reese Brown (31:50.188)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (31:52.072)

because that work leads me to where I am now.

Reese Brown (31:56.362)

Absolutely.

Santana Inniss (31:59.388)

I can only imagine where it leads me in the future.

Reese Brown (32:05.004)

I love that. And I think you're so right. There is no magic pill, Psychedelics are not a magic pill that can flip the switch. even I've talked to some other people who've had experiences as psychedelics that it's just not, that have a beautiful experience, but it doesn't feel grounded in the same place, right? It doesn't feel for them, they're like,

Yeah, but I don't feel like a different person. It was really cool. I saw cool things. I did all of this, but to go into it, mean, going back to your intention about, want to know this piece of information. Why is connecting with others so hard? I want to learn about myself, my role generationally, my role in this lifetime.

Opening up these pathways to connect in a way that perhaps hadn't previously been available But to even know that that's the information that you want to know, right? Like we don't know what we don't know We don't even know what questions to ask if we haven't been in the work for so long And I just think that that's such a beautiful example of why it does take the time and effort and intentionality behind this

Santana Inniss (33:16.381)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (33:28.627)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (33:29.26)

to be able to experience these new things and not that there's any shame and trying it and kind of ping ponging around through the work and different things. think that's a path just like any other, but to kind of have this day in, David Foster Wallace calls it the day in day out experience of like human choice of are we choosing present awareness or not?

Santana Inniss (33:44.519)

Absolutely.

Reese Brown (33:58.754)

Are we choosing the work or not? That is the perpetual evergreen question of the human experience. And without being tuned into that, I suppose all this to say I concur. I think that your experience as psychedelics makes a lot of sense that you would have this very specific and intentional journey through that, which I think is so beautiful.

Santana Inniss (34:15.7)

you

Reese Brown (34:28.992)

One thing that's also coming up for me, during your story, you were talking a little bit about naivete and how there is a certain sense of like the L woods, what, like it's hard? Which I think in some ways, of course we can see that as naive, but in other ways I see that as like radical self love, right? But it's like, even if I fall or make a mistake, like I'll figure it out and it'll be fine.

And I can do this. I think thinking about psychedelics in the same way of like, I've always thought about it in this certain sense of as someone who has never experienced mushrooms or psychedelics at this point in my life. So please correct me if I'm wrong, but naivete before, and then this kind of other side of awareness after, right? Talk to me more about your experience with naivete.

and how that can be a superpower as much as a pathway to more awareness.

Santana Inniss (35:27.508)

So.

Santana Inniss (35:36.668)

Yeah, I mean, let's like, let's kick it like at the root, like the connotation of the word is really negative in our culture. And this may be true in other cultures around the world that value experience or age. But we we kind of like, look down on

Reese Brown (35:44.29)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (35:54.019)

Right.

Santana Inniss (36:02.58)

people that are inexperienced or the youth or children even, know, this old adage like children should be seen and not heard and blah, blah, blah, like all of this stuff is, you know, so the weight of that word in its connotation as it exists today is really heavy and it's really negative. But if we can allow it to be light,

Reese Brown (36:05.613)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (36:10.124)

Yeah.

Not heard.

Santana Inniss (36:29.852)

I think it also has a quality of effervescence, a bubbly freshness. I was born, for better or for worse, with a hold my beer bone. If someone tells me I cannot do something, I'm just waiting for the day someone tells me I can't cure cancer because it's going to go down.

Reese Brown (36:33.582)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (36:53.517)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (36:58.232)

about.

Santana Inniss (36:58.908)

Someone was like, know, my college counselor my senior year told me to my face in words, you should join the military because you will never get into college.

Santana Inniss (37:18.312)

This was circa no child left behind, blah, blah, blah. I said, okay.

maybe you're a graduated cum laude from Columbia, ma 'am. You know, so I think there is something incredibly magical about the child's mind, as the Buddhists call it.

Reese Brown (37:41.411)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (37:44.602)

We get so tied up in self judgment, criticism, the fear of judgment of others, the fear of looking stupid, the fear of falling flat on our faces, embarrassment, etc. All ailments that are completely survivable. But those things stop us from trying new things.

Reese Brown (38:09.805)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (38:12.932)

as a recovering person who formerly would not do things that I was not good at.

I now really enjoy the feeling of being bad at something and doing it anyway.

Reese Brown (38:26.55)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (38:28.936)

the world's greatest singer, but I love to sing.

Reese Brown (38:33.378)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (38:35.42)

I sing every day. If I'm not singing, I'm sick. Something's wrong. I'm not feeling well. I am.

Reese Brown (38:39.052)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (38:47.272)

pickleball tennis, but I try those things and I'm like, I I look silly. This is fun. Right. So if we can allow not knowing to be light and effervescent the way it is when we're children.

Reese Brown (38:51.692)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (39:05.198)

Mmm.

Santana Inniss (39:09.352)

That unlocks a lot of joy. One thing. Another thing, it unlocks a lot of possibility.

Reese Brown (39:16.844)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (39:18.874)

It unlocks a lot of possibility. It has for me. So, you know, I'm grateful. I was born with a hold my beer bone and I'm grateful for not pushing away.

Santana Inniss (39:37.192)

being in my, you know what? I don't know what I don't know. But let's fucking see. Let's see. Let's see what we can make out of this. Let's see what's possible. I think some growth mindset comes in there to aid as well to support, to uplift, because there's also this like, I don't know about this today, but there's a possible parallel universe in which I know a lot about this.

Reese Brown (39:41.859)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (39:55.938)

Totally.

Reese Brown (40:06.156)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (40:06.972)

And that only happens if I start learning about it. It's guaranteed to not happen if I never start.

So I think it can absolutely be a strong ally in our tool chest when we can allow.

when we can allow ourselves to not be the expert, to not have mastery and still do things. Every person alive that has mastery started as a bumbling fool in whatever thing they have mastery in.

Reese Brown (40:38.829)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (40:45.901)

Yeah.

One of my favorite parts about tarot actually is the idea of the Fool card. And it is the first card of the deck, it's card zero. And when it is dealt, it does not represent foolishness, it represents opportunity, a journey to be started. And

I just love that image of it is zero, which is nothingness, but the possibility of everything, right? When there is a vacuum, what is going to fill that space? And so I do really love this, the archetype of the fool. And it's like, let's let ourselves be foolish because also people who believe

everything we've been told are the ones who will never change the world. Like, I don't know if that sounds maybe a little judgmental, but I hope it sounds empowering to say you get to choose, right? We absolutely get to choose. So I love that. And it's true. We do all start the bumbling full and there should be no shame in returning to that because

there is a lot of joy. Like when you trip and fall down, it's like laughing at yourself and the silliness of what just happened is talk about alchemy, taking this thing and being able to turn it into opportunity, right? Like the energetic alchemy of that is so stunning. So I just love your languaging around it. I think it's so useful. And I guess let's continue talking about this alchemy because I think

Reese Brown (42:44.61)

Your connection to your ancestors is so beautiful and something we've talked about briefly in the past, but generational trauma is also real, right? And when we feel such a connection to lineage and this kind of genetic, but also energetic gifts that we've been given in so many ways, I do think that there is this cycle -breakers

mantle that many of us feel called to, to alchemize that experience into something gold. To use your words around it. Talk to me more about that and that experience and how it feels to be an alchemist.

Santana Inniss (43:35.4)

Beautiful question. How does it feel to be an alchemist? It's not all puppies and rainbows. can assure you dear, dear listener. And I think listeners would probably know that given, you know, everything that that we know about the listeners. Yeah, what does it feel like to be an alchemist? mean, so thank God we're alive in a in a time where we we have some awareness of genetics and epiget

Reese Brown (43:40.662)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (44:04.668)

epigenetics and how things are heritable across generations. Very interesting research happening in mouse models about what happens when mice are exposed to electric shocks, for example, and then seven generations later that did not get exposed to electric shocks have reactivity at the sound of electricity, right? So

Reese Brown (44:16.312)

Thank you.

Santana Inniss (44:32.496)

We're alive in a time where a lot of the experience of inherited generational trauma and harms is validated by science. I mean, I'm grateful to be to to know that right, because it's it's crazy making to, you know, especially if you've just woken to the awareness that you may be called to be a cycle breaker.

Reese Brown (44:45.56)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (45:02.584)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (45:03.356)

Right? And you're the lone wolf, so to say, out in the wilderness, all by your lonesome. So how beautiful to have this expanded awareness around science and validating how those things are happening. So that's something that came to mind as you asked that question, because I'm a science girlie. I love human evolution. I love thinking about things in that, you know,

capacity. so walking it back from science though, and bringing it like fully into the body. I think one thing that the psychedelic experience taught me was the was to just not push away, send physical sensations or like mental, you know, things that come in, like, your brain brings thoughts to your mind, sometimes for no reason, and sometimes for reasons.

Reese Brown (45:53.304)

you

Santana Inniss (46:01.488)

And so, you know, what it feels like to be connected in an embodied sense for me, you know, there's there's a lot of sadness that comes with it. There's a lot of heaviness that comes with it. There's also a lot of beauty. There's a there's a story of triumph. Right.

on my father's side.

My grandfather was born in 1898.

Most people's grandparents were not born at that time. And so like tracing that lineage back, there's just a few generations separating me from the British abolition of slavery in the West Indies.

Santana Inniss (47:05.764)

Knowing that there were only two generations that separated my own father.

Santana Inniss (47:15.048)

There's heaviness, but there's also compassion. And there's also some amount of appreciation.

Reese Brown (47:18.274)

Mm.

Santana Inniss (47:25.564)

I say some amount because appreciation might not be the right word in the immediate use of that word, like the most common use of appreciation, like, we appreciate you, like, I really value you. I'm using it in the sense of understanding, like something grave landing and being received and understood, which is that for me to exist,

Reese Brown (47:48.299)

Mmm.

Santana Inniss (47:54.544)

I know just a tip of the iceberg of what my father had to endure. I can only imagine what his father had to endure and his father's father. So the fact that any of those people survived.

Reese Brown (48:13.944)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (48:16.753)

close my

Santana Inniss (48:20.604)

It blows my mind. So there's also some like really magnetic. And when I say magnetic, the physical sensation is like when I think about it, it's like parts of me feel like they're rising to the surface of my skin in understanding that I'm a survivor too.

Reese Brown (48:43.895)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (48:48.732)

And that in this legacy of survival and what I've been able to transmute.

Santana Inniss (48:59.238)

in this lifetime, what I've been able to achieve, where I've been able to go, what I've been able to do.

Santana Inniss (49:09.732)

I am beyond the wildest dream of my ancestors, beyond perhaps even their capacity to imagine where their great great great grandchild might go.

Reese Brown (49:22.968)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (49:26.566)

And so there's also this sensation of being held by and being cheered on by.

because the struggles I'm facing are not the struggles they were facing.

Reese Brown (49:43.832)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (49:46.056)

So there's also this sense of my connection to them feels like a sense of them wanting the absolute best for me.

Santana Inniss (50:03.486)

So when I am tired, I rest because they could not.

Santana Inniss (50:11.58)

when I need medical care I seek it because they could not.

when I need mental health, I seek it because they could not.

Santana Inniss (50:30.004)

So there's also this sense of...

revolution or

Reese Brown (50:38.092)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (50:41.375)

It feels quite radical.

to invoke their name.

When I rest.

Santana Inniss (50:57.136)

I have goosebumps to say it because I think a lot of us don't think about that. And even if slavery isn't in your family's history.

Reese Brown (50:58.53)

Mm -hmm.

Santana Inniss (51:11.476)

For most people, you are inheriting some intergenerational shenanigans. You are. There's something there, especially as women. The things that women have had to choose to not do that have been done to us over the millennia.

Reese Brown (51:25.442)

Yeah. yeah.

Santana Inniss (51:40.092)

Wow. Right. So.

Reese Brown (51:40.546)

Yeah, yeah. I do think there's something so radical in that and I just love the word radical because it just feels so empowering to me. But yes as women, but also as like I'm very aware also of like the generational. I don't like the word baggage, but kind of bag that we're picking up. It's like also as a white person. What

baggage am I holding that is also harm that has been done to others, not just harm that has been done to myself, right? As a woman and all of these other things and how...

does that impact this epigenetic consideration, right? For me in this space, like very much considering all of these things, but I also think there is something so stunning to look at in terms of like pairing rest and self -care with this conversation because...

I think it is so hard for so many of us to rest, to pause, especially in the United States, because that is not extremely valued and oftentimes judged and so much of our worth is placed in productivity and output. And I think there's a lot of work being done right now to kind of counteract that, which is beautiful. But to look at rest as a celebration of the way you are alchemizing.

Your inheritance is...

Reese Brown (53:24.974)

profound.

deeply, deeply profound that is like even thinking of just one generation for me in terms of my parents came from very, very, very little and sacrificed so much to give me and my brother a life that they could not have imagined. And because of that, there is often this guilt switch that flips on when I take a nap in the middle of the day and it's like, fuck, my mom and dad like,

hustled their asses off for years so that you can sit here and nap? Like, come on. But it's like, yes, yes, exactly. And it is, what a beautiful act, physically embodying of gratitude in that moment, right? That is like, I am doing this joyously, gratefully.

Santana Inniss (54:02.544)

Yes, literally yes. The answer to that question is yes.

Reese Brown (54:27.574)

honoringly of all that has been gifted in that way, right? very profound paradigm shift for me and like my work with self care and worth, but I do kind of want to go back a little bit to this conversation of what we inherit in a lot of different ways, both like

We all have generational stuff that we're inheriting, right? But considering me as a white person, like the violence that is also being inherited, something you said earlier when you were talking about your story was that truth is needed for reconciliation. And I love that.

because how can you apologize for something that you don't understand, right? Like we've all experienced what that feels like when someone's like, I'm sorry. And it's like, okay, but you don't get it. So it doesn't like, even if it's this little thing, like a friend says something hurts your feelings, right? But we all can relate to that. Pulling that up to a broader scale of, okay, but you don't understand like how we need

space for truth in this reconciliation.

Reese Brown (55:53.262)

Talk to me. I'm like, don't even, I don't know if there's a good question in there, but I feel like you probably have thoughts. Yeah.

Santana Inniss (55:58.708)

on those things. Let's just riff. Let's just float through the themes. mean, yeah. We've all gotten that kind of apology that's like, so sorry if your feelings were hurt. So sorry for you. And that doesn't feel good, right? I think something that I tell people a lot,

Reese Brown (56:03.712)

Yeah

Reese Brown (56:16.973)

Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Santana Inniss (56:27.936)

and my own vantage around conflict is that conflict is usually a bid for connection, right? When I am in conflict with you, when I say to you, Reese, you hurt my feelings.

Reese Brown (56:40.983)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (56:51.656)

That is a bid for me to be able to continue to be in connection with you. Because if you keep hurting my feelings, our relationship will erode. And then we will lose each other. So when I say, hey, yo, baby girl, I don't like how you said that. Can we talk about that? Let's unpack. This is me.

Reese Brown (57:07.512)

Mm -hmm.

Santana Inniss (57:19.564)

vulnerably saying, dear one, you hurt me and I need your help to stay in connection with you because that's what I want. Right. And so I think as we think about any type of harm that's ever been done.

Reese Brown (57:32.877)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (57:44.058)

in order for that harm not to do irrevocable harm

Santana Inniss (57:54.632)

connection has to be reestablished.

Reese Brown (57:56.984)

Mm.

Santana Inniss (58:00.222)

Someone has to be able to say, is the specific way that you harmed me. This is what I need to be well going forward. And the person on the listening end of that message needs to

Santana Inniss (58:19.352)

dance in the impact of their actions.

Reese Brown (58:26.712)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (58:27.95)

more than the intent, right? Because we've all also had the apology that says, hey, I'm so sorry that I hurt your feelings, which is already better than sorry that your feelings were hurt, which is passive voice, who hurt the feelings, who did it, who done it, the mystery, right? Who had the rope in the study? Like, okay, so it's already better than that, but it...

Reese Brown (58:41.911)

Right?

Reese Brown (58:48.118)

Right? Who had the knife in the library? Yeah, right? Yeah.

Santana Inniss (58:57.608)

doesn't show that you understand me, that you understand the harm, right? Rushing to, I'm so sorry that I hurt you, but here are this list of mitigating circumstances. That's for you and how you feel. That's not for me and how I feel, right? So we have to be able to engage with the impact.

Yes, we can hold space in our human hearts to know that, shit, I really hurt that person. And that wasn't what I tried to do. And look what happened anyway. OK, baby girl, like, you're human. It sucks. Yes. And you hurt someone, right? And so I think that's true.

Reese Brown (59:39.096)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (59:52.0)

of interpersonal, like one -on -one relationships, but I also think you can extrapolate those things to larger harms, right? And, you know, just thinking back to the context in which I express that, you know, talking about my own story and like my parents doing their best, part of that work has been

Reese Brown (01:00:03.605)

Absolutely.

Santana Inniss (01:00:18.654)

having really difficult conversations with my mother today. Now that I have tools in my tool chest to invite her into conversation to share, hey, I recognize that it was not your intent to have this impact, but this is the impact that that thing had on me. And this is how that impact is present for me in my life today.

Reese Brown (01:00:22.36)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:00:37.836)

Right.

Reese Brown (01:00:41.4)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:00:48.336)

and bless her to the moon and back, even though she hasn't had access to therapy and psychedelics and meditation and hasn't become a practicing Buddhist and all of these things, she'll take it and she'll sit with it and she'll apologize for her impact.

Reese Brown (01:01:09.539)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:01:16.568)

Mmm.

Santana Inniss (01:01:19.7)

To be able to offer that is one of the most beautiful gifts that any human being can give to another, especially parents, to be able to sit with the discomfort that's coming up inside of you knowing that maybe you didn't intend that and maybe there's a mile long laundry list of reasons that you did what you did.

and to not center that.

Reese Brown (01:01:52.354)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (01:01:53.894)

and to hold that while holding the impact of what you did and how it harmed someone and to say, I see you and I see the impact and I'm sorry. And it's not an excuse and it wasn't my intent and still I see it and I'm sorry.

Reese Brown (01:02:04.226)

Yes.

Reese Brown (01:02:08.194)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:02:13.954)

Yeah, I do think that this desire to be seen is so, I mean, I struggle to say anything is universal because it's like, I can only speak to my experience, but I do think if there is one thing that for humans, it is this desire to connect and true connection is grounded in seeing and being seen.

Santana Inniss (01:02:38.259)

Okay.

Reese Brown (01:02:41.442)

And the safety that that creates too, once you have allowed someone to see you, because it's also deeply vulnerable, especially to tell this person that has given you so much, you hurt me in this way. That is what a hard conversation to have. And for the listening party to see how hard it is for you to have that.

but also see how hard it is to receive that and to sit in that discomfort together. The bountiful connection that can come from that discomfort together is.

Santana Inniss (01:03:14.206)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:03:29.64)

wondrous and produces safety truly it is as we move forward it feels like it clears out this energy of not being seen of potential distrust of anything that could have come before right because it's we see each other we see the experience and moving forward we've done the hard thing together and we can continue to do hard things together because we're putting

our relationship and our connection above our pride, above our ego, which is just so difficult and

Santana Inniss (01:04:03.006)

Yeah. Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:04:08.724)

It's difficult. It's difficult. It is really difficult. And I mean, you you were exploring such a complex theme of like, I'm white. Like, I mean, things went down in my family too, but like, I like that. And like, you know, I've done a lot of work, a fair amount of work in the DEI space and, you know, advocating for...

Reese Brown (01:04:11.374)

It's hard.

Reese Brown (01:04:20.066)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:04:25.076)

Yeah, right.

Santana Inniss (01:04:39.317)

underrepresented groups and so you know being a half white person, white people will often bring this to me like I'm feeling you know it could be white guild it could be all of these things and it's heavy and I can acknowledge that as a person of color I can see that whether you pick up the work

Or you don't pick up the work. There's maybe some blissful ignorance going on of people that are just like, la la la, love my privilege, fuck you. But there's a group of people that are like, I understand what they're saying, but, and then there's a group of people that are like, I understand what they're saying and I'm gonna pick up the work.

I think only the people that are completely living in blissful ignorance are escaping the gravity of it because it is quite grave. It is quite grave for any group of people that descend from those who have committed atrocities.

Reese Brown (01:05:36.14)

Thank you.

Santana Inniss (01:05:49.008)

There is a special little mind fuck of its own to know that you descend from people that have committed atrocities to wonder if that capacity is dormant in you. That's heavy. That's heavy to bear the weight of knowing that you're going to fuck it up and you're not going to get it right. And you're going to continue to benefit from a system even while trying to actively help others reap benefits as well.

Reese Brown (01:06:11.267)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:06:18.418)

You're always going to benefit more. Like, my God, like I can, I can acknowledge that. I can see that that is heavy. It is heavy.

Reese Brown (01:06:20.664)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:06:29.958)

I see my mom go through this, even having a child of color. So I can acknowledge that it is incredibly heavy. We're called to this work because our shared humanity is present whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we engage with it or not. We cannot separate ourselves.

Reese Brown (01:06:32.984)

Yeah.

Right.

Reese Brown (01:06:53.88)

Yeah. No.

Santana Inniss (01:06:59.784)

being. We inter -are.

Reese Brown (01:07:03.638)

Yes, well, in to the work is heavy to not pick it up and build the muscles to be at least effortful in trying to pick it up, right? To me is

irresponsible in some ways, but also in other ways. Kind of going back to what we were saying a few minutes ago about how we can extrapolate this work, right? Like there is this one -on -one interpersonal, interrelational work and hearing you say conflict is a bid for connection. That bid for connection is really, I don't know if this is where you pulled this from, but the Gottman Institute does a lot of work around

bids for connection and for listeners who may not be familiar with the Gottman's work, one of their most famous research projects was around the four horsemen of the apocalypse that predict divorce and married couples. And there's several including like stonewalling and not all four are gonna come to mind, but the most strong predictor of couples that will end their marriage.

is when bids of connection are ignored. And that includes conflict. And to go back to this idea of extrapolating out, how many bids for connection have I ignored? Have my ancestors ignored? Have been stamped down? It's like no wonder we are in such a crisis of connection, of polarization, of...

harm and hurt because in the marriage of humans to each other, we have not been listening to those bits for connection. We have been ignoring them. And I think also there's another marriage counselor that I really admire a lot of his work is Stan Tatkin, who is the founder of PACT.

Santana Inniss (01:09:04.723)

Mmm.

Reese Brown (01:09:20.522)

And he, one of his recent things that he's published is fuck your intentions. Like, fuck them, right? Yes, because it's like, is it important for us to acknowledge it? Like you said, it's the honey to be able to enter into these conversations with some understanding, right? However, fuck your intention.

Santana Inniss (01:09:28.702)

Wanted on a t -shirt.

Reese Brown (01:09:45.129)

You hurt someone and even if you didn't hurt someone, you are actively benefiting from this. And I'm also speaking you, of course, to the self, but also to the general you. And at the same time, this idea of we are inter person, not only how much harm has been done to other, but have we done to ourself? What bids of connection?

Santana Inniss (01:09:45.629)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:10:12.238)

that we are asking for for ourselves are we ignoring?

Santana Inniss (01:10:17.81)

I mean, so much came to mind hearing you riff on this theme. mean, first off, go off, queen. Second of all, I mean, we are in a crisis of connection globally. And it's like, I can feel the planet, the mother of us all, crying tears of blood, begging us.

Reese Brown (01:10:19.404)

Hahaha!

Santana Inniss (01:10:47.218)

to move in different ways. We have to. We have to pick up the work. We have to pick up ourselves. We have to move in different ways. We are called to this work now more than ever because of what we're seeing going on. mean, like literally every continent is in a war.

Reese Brown (01:10:59.523)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:11:15.444)

There is so much human suffering. We're seeing entire swaths of populations, and I'm talking about women, being systematically disenfranchised, abused. I was just reading again today the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, which if folks aren't familiar with that, the United Nations has a set of goals to like,

Reese Brown (01:11:38.595)

Mm.

Santana Inniss (01:11:45.012)

bring the world forward by 2030. It's been going on since 2015. Yeah, yeah, beautiful. And so one of those sustainable development goals, SDG 5, is gender equality. And so I was reading their like 2023 update and it's like literally zero country, no countries have made progress at reducing intimate partner violence against women.

Reese Brown (01:11:48.418)

We'll link down below if anyone wants to go access. Apologies, please continue.

Santana Inniss (01:12:18.192)

Maternal health has stagnated and in some countries it's declined. Access to power and economy, like no. So, wow. And then we look in the United States and respectfully, I don't care what your politics are. I mean, I care about you as a person, but I don't care about your politics because if your politics say,

that I'm more equal than you or I deserve more things than you or I'm going to take things from you, right?

Santana Inniss (01:12:58.888)

Fuck your intent and fuck your politics because you cannot take away access to autonomy, the right to vote, like rights, fundamental human rights.

Reese Brown (01:12:59.981)

Yeah

Santana Inniss (01:13:13.734)

and claim that, you know, my intent is the most important thing, your intent's not important. And whatever your religious system, when you meet your maker, I don't think they're gonna vibe with you like you think they are. I don't think so. Mm -mm. I don't think that's how that's gonna work, right? And so the world is being torn apart.

Reese Brown (01:13:17.955)

Mm -mm.

Reese Brown (01:13:31.437)

No.

Santana Inniss (01:13:39.144)

Back in my day, people from different political parties in the US, they would date, they'd get married, they'd be like, he's a fiscal conservative and I believe in welfare and la la. And they'd be married and they'd be happy. And nowadays, what we see is that people can't even talk to each other that are from entrenched political stances. And I think a lot of that comes from

this crisis of connection that we can't see one another, that we can't hold space for one another, that we can't hold space for the impact of how our actions or our privileges or our preferences or our legislation is harming others, right? And we can't see that.

Reese Brown (01:14:10.147)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:14:29.411)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:14:34.01)

our preference doesn't entitle us to harm. And so, wow, people are suffering. where my work is now is really thinking through ways that in my tiny little corner of this rock spinning through space, that I can have any semblance of a positive impact on the lives of women.

Reese Brown (01:14:38.966)

Yes. Yes.

Reese Brown (01:15:00.696)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:15:04.013)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:15:05.372)

Because the struggle in these streets is very real. For all women everywhere, everywhere.

Reese Brown (01:15:09.154)

Yes, for, yeah. Well, and just, this thing that just keeps coming up for me too is this extrapolated out, right? Like we all know playground rules. Like keep your hands to yourself. If you hurt someone, apologize, share, like, and then even maybe going up a little bit to what we were talking about. If, you know, if this is a,

Santana Inniss (01:15:27.87)

Share.

Reese Brown (01:15:36.622)

connection you wanna have with someone. If this is a relationship that's important to you, when you hurt that person, you apologize. You repair and you learn so you can do better next time. Like, if we boil down, of course this is a gross oversimplification, but a war to two people who are arguing with each other. it's like a married couple who's like, well 10 years ago you did this and this and this and that made me feel bad and then the other partner is,

Well, you've done this and this and this. Where are we going to go from there? Right? Like we have to repair and make right to move forward. And these are skills that of course, some of us have been more fortunate than others to have been gifted the language and tools to be able to have these kinds of conversations. But even then it's like, I think there is also, well, I do not want to oversimplify extreme hurt.

violence and complex nuanced issues, I also think we need to stop over -complicating them a little bit and look at...

Reese Brown (01:16:47.282)

What is the impact? If this was your sister, if this was your best friend, would you treat them like that? Do we share? Yeah. Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:16:58.845)

you, right? I'm really picking up what you're putting down here. And I think you're you're you're flowing through themes that Thich Nhat Hanh's work body of work talked about. So Thich Nhat Hanh passed away just a couple of years ago was a Zen Buddhist monk. He was himself exiled from his native Vietnam for his work in in non violence and engaged Buddhism.

during the Vietnam War, he lived in exile like his whole life. He went back just before his deathbed. But in a lot of that work, right, a conflict like the Vietnam War, a lot of his thinking around war.

is really to kick it at the basics, right? We have to be able to have conversations about the impact of people's actions.

Right? We have to be able to connect to shared humanity.

because it exists whether we acknowledge it or not. And so much of intense catastrophic harm in that we can include war, we can include genocide, we can include slavery, right? In that.

Santana Inniss (01:18:34.74)

parties, the belligerents as it's called in a war, lose sight of shared humanity. And you see this in language. And this is why language is so important. the language that we see in the media, in the news, in this election cycle, in previous election cycles all over the world.

When you start to see people dehumanizing other people, some shit is about to go down because you need psychologically to be able to separate your humanity from another person in order to catastrophically harm that person. You cannot wrap your mind around it otherwise.

That's why when we look at systems of slavery, right, in the United States, we see so much writing, pseudo -intellectual pursuits, pontifications to justify why this thing that would be absolutely unacceptable if done to white people, would be absolutely barbaric if done to white people, why it's acceptable to be done to Africans, to Black people.

You see these mental acrobatics to distance my humanity from yours, their humanity from theirs, right? So in order to heal, interpersonally, one -on -one or at a large scale,

All of those involved have to rally the capacity to be with shared humanity. The capacity to recognize that although I am not exactly like you, right, maybe I want to live my life a little different than you. At the end of the day, you need to eat, you need to shit.

Reese Brown (01:20:27.406)

cool.

Santana Inniss (01:20:46.642)

You probably desire love. You probably desire safety. Right?

Santana Inniss (01:20:57.176)

We need to become quite radical in our refusal to dehumanize any person for any reason, even those that harm.

Santana Inniss (01:21:14.592)

And that's a really tough pill to swallow because it's convenient for one person to be at fault and another person to not be at fault. And now I want to disclaim that statement because sometimes it's very clearly one party. Right? But when we see complex geopolitical centuries long flare ups of animosities between groups,

Reese Brown (01:21:22.243)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:21:30.848)

Alright, sure.

Santana Inniss (01:21:46.561)

The plot is thick. The plot is very thick. There are harms on both sides. There are stories that we tell ourselves on both sides, et cetera. There are justifications on both sides. There are things, right? So we have to recognize that any language, even if it's a flip comment, you hear someone around the water cooler say,

if you unfortunately had to go back to the office and that's relevant for you. But in the Zoom Slack channel, I don't know. If you hear a flip comment that separates another human being from their humanity, this is a 10 on the Richter scale. This is earth shattering and it seems like a micro thing.

But it's a macro thing because it's telling you that that person has the capacity to separate a human being from their humanity. And when that happens, shit's about to go down. I don't care who you are and what the scale is. That is one of the things that is universal in all legacies of catastrophic harm.

Reese Brown (01:22:38.424)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:22:46.69)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:22:56.557)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:22:57.446)

It starts with dehumanization.

So we have to refuse. We have to challenge ourselves. You know, because it can be really easy to be those people are like this because they're just like that. And I don't like those people. Can we allow quote air quoting here, those people to be individuals, take them out of the group? Can you allow it to be a messy, messy human being?

Reese Brown (01:23:05.666)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:23:32.606)

that cut you off because that individual is a bad driver and they pissed you off. Can you allow it to be one person? Right? Can you challenge yourself to recognize the kernel?

of the possibility within you to separate people from their humanity.

Reese Brown (01:24:01.56)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (01:24:02.27)

Can you be gentle with yourself when you recognize it? Because it's in all of us.

And can you hold yourself when you show up messily to do the work to refuse?

Santana Inniss (01:24:20.7)

Honestly, this one thing alone, even if we don't ever develop the capacity to understand the impact of our actions, if we simply refuse to separate a single human being from their humanity.

the world would be a very, very different place. Because it's very difficult for me to harm someone in a way that I don't want to be harmed. In a way that I think would be immoral or unethical if it were done to me. It's difficult for me to do that to you.

I am riffing on a theme here. So I'm going to take a sip of this tea. It's girl gray if you're curious. And just invite what's coming up for you.

Reese Brown (01:25:07.092)

Yeah, no, I love it. I love it, I love it. Well, I hate it, but I love it, right?

I think in there is this shared humanity piece is like the common thread, right? That keeps coming up and to look at someone else who's done catastrophic harm within the cocoon of they are a messy human is really hard. And I think even going back to what we talked about at the very beginning of the episode.

What are the pieces in ourselves that are so hard for us to love? We know what it is like to try and love someone even when it is hard to love.

And the same principle applies here, right? Is when can we hold ourselves to this messy, nuanced, complex, loving standard and hold others to that standard and not make excuses.

there's a thumbs up there. Interesting. That was odd. Not make excuses, but also.

Reese Brown (01:26:33.098)

not walk away. I think it is so easy for me, especially I'll I like, I want to own this like in my interpersonal friendships, there are sometimes where a line is crossed and I'm like, okay, I'm done. I'm done. I'm out. I don't even want to have a conversation about it because this is irreversible. This is irrevocable damage and I'm done. And so this person is now at arm's length and that won't change.

Santana Inniss (01:26:35.23)

OOOOH

Reese Brown (01:27:06.23)

We cannot do that when we are on the same planet with these people, right? Like our, right? Please, please, please, please, please.

Santana Inniss (01:27:18.322)

I'm gonna challenge you a little bit there. I'm gonna challenge you a tiny bit, but I'm also deeply moved by what you're sharing. And the only challenge is maybe just a caveat, right? Because if someone does, and when I'm saying some big ass harm, if someone does rape, murder,

Reese Brown (01:27:31.725)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:27:45.156)

embezzlement.

it's okay, right? To not be in connection with that person. If someone repeatedly violates your boundaries, physical or otherwise, it's okay, you know? So there are times where

Reese Brown (01:28:00.43)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:28:06.596)

removing someone is logical, sane, warranted, and the most caring thing you can do for yourself. So that's the caveat that I want to give, but I love what you're sharing. I love what you're sharing.

Reese Brown (01:28:18.86)

Yes.

Reese Brown (01:28:22.796)

No, and I on that caveat to keep pushing that forward, holding that boundary strong is one of the most caring things we can do for ourselves. I also think how is that continuing the work of caring that other person too? What am I also, like in our interaction with one another,

Santana Inniss (01:28:35.806)

for some.

Santana Inniss (01:28:44.798)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:28:51.03)

I'm removing your access to me, right? And how is that potentially? See, and now I struggle to not get all high and mighty and on my high horse, like, and won't you be hurt by not having access to me? But also it's to extrapolate out on this global scale as well that we remove your ability for impact, right? Like, how is that going to care for a vast majority of people

But where does the healing begin for that person? And I do think sometimes it is in.

consequences, both positive and negative, letting the consequences ride.

Santana Inniss (01:29:38.986)

I love, I'm feeling passionate and spicy on this topic. It's something that I've been exploring a lot and reading a lot about is connection and the way that intimate relationships or friendships, platonic relationships have been evolving and how that evolution is partially contributing to this epidemic of disconnection. But.

Reese Brown (01:29:43.852)

I love it.

Reese Brown (01:29:49.197)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:30:04.338)

you know, what you're sharing I think is really interesting. I'm thinking of an example that I don't want to bring in here, but I'll bring in the nuggets and it's that sometimes someone does something that's so awful.

for them to not face a consequence is enablement. It's to say that your feelings are more important than the awful shit you just did.

Reese Brown (01:30:25.474)

Yes, yes.

Santana Inniss (01:30:36.348)

And so keep doing it. Keep doing awful things because your experience is the only experience that's, that's kind of what that says when people say, you can't, you you can't cut out your parents. Yes, you can. You absolutely can. If they continue to show up and do harm.

Reese Brown (01:30:38.423)

right.

Reese Brown (01:30:49.603)

Yeah, you can.

Santana Inniss (01:30:55.966)

Set your boundaries, live your life. You don't have to consent to repeated harm. And...

I mean, this kind of brings in this idea of cancel culture. And so many people, you know, I see celebrities, comedians, I won't name in case they're listening to this podcast, or probably not, but anyway, but like...

Reese Brown (01:31:10.84)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:31:24.236)

People that generally don't face consequences for their actions have a lot of opinions about cancel culture.

Santana Inniss (01:31:38.77)

because it's a type of consequence for their action. So where do I think there's a difference between cancel culture and accountability culture? Like cancel culture, I don't think it should apply to private citizens because I don't have a massive.

Reese Brown (01:31:49.439)

Yes, yes.

Santana Inniss (01:32:01.716)

power conglomerate platform that my existence is also impacting and informing the evolution of culture. That's not what I have. You I think about the woman who flipped off Trump back in the day. I don't know if you remember her. She was bicycling and his motorcade went by and she flipped off the motorcade. A journalist popped a photo. It ended up on the internet, even though it was from behind. Someone sleuthed her on the internet.

Reese Brown (01:32:10.67)

Sure.

Santana Inniss (01:32:28.392)

They called her company, complained, she got fired, like all of this stuff for protected speech, right?

Reese Brown (01:32:35.906)

Right, right.

Santana Inniss (01:32:38.716)

That's like a little wild to me.

Reese Brown (01:32:42.978)

Well, in deeply problematic to in some ways, right? Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:32:47.806)

super wild, right? That's where I would say, we need to explore that and what that urge is. When we see someone like, I don't know, let's bring in JK Rowling or let's bring in Dave Chappelle, right? These are two people who, they have some ideas about trans people.

And lots of people don't like those opinions.

And in a culture that is incredibly consumerist, consumeristic, consumerist may not be a word, I am allowed a choice in where I spend my money. And if I say, well, I prefer to spend my money with people that don't hold those particular views, it's my prerogative. I can do what I want to do. Right? So.

Reese Brown (01:33:31.896)

Mm -hmm.

Santana Inniss (01:33:47.15)

in a capitalist society, if I exercise that choice and I don't know, maybe there was a book deal in the works and that publisher realizes that there may not be enough demand because consumers are expressing other preference, so I may not renew this book deal. I don't know that that happened to J .K. Rowling per se, but you know, I think that...

Santana Inniss (01:34:11.046)

There is some element of...

Santana Inniss (01:34:16.865)

You know, like the chickens coming home to roost and popping off on a massive scale, especially in a way that could harm others.

Reese Brown (01:34:19.64)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:34:30.614)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (01:34:31.984)

If we think about trans black women, this is probably one of the most marginal at risk populations of human beings on the planet, maybe not on the planet, but certainly in the United States. The last time I looked at the statistics, they are one of the most under and unemployed groups. Their average life expectancy is significantly...

below the average for the United States. The average for the United States is like 76. And the last time I looked at this data, which was around 2017, they were in the 40s, right? Housing insecurity is higher among this group.

So you can have your personal opinions all day long, but when you have a platform and that opinion is not something you're casually expressing because someone specifically asked you in an interview, but you show up on Twitter, which I refuse to call X.

and you pop off every third Tuesday or every time something about trans women or women generally enters the news cycle.

Santana Inniss (01:35:51.342)

You are very engaged in the perpetuation of harm against one of the most vulnerable populations of human beings in this country. Does that make you feel good? Do you feel like, wow, I expressed myself? And again, this shared humanity thing.

Reese Brown (01:35:57.964)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (01:36:15.907)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:36:17.076)

So when we go back to our interpersonal relationships though.

I think that we have lost the ability to build things that stick.

Reese Brown (01:36:30.723)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (01:36:34.681)

Maybe it's a legacy of Tinder culture.

Santana Inniss (01:36:41.768)

but when it feels really easy to form new connections.

when someone does something we don't like.

it's really easy to just walk away.

And not every offense is walk away -able.

Reese Brown (01:37:06.238)

I completely agree. And I do want to return back to this caveat now reflecting on what I was speaking to earlier that it is important to honor when those things are walk away able, right? And the self protection, but also this brings up something that I've been really grappling with, which is the weaponization of therapeutic language. Like,

Santana Inniss (01:37:33.566)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:37:35.786)

I'm setting a boundary. It's like, no, you cut that person off without talking to them about it. That's not a boundary. A boundary is something you set with yourself. And well, they're a narcissist. And it's like, that is actually a wild claim to pop psychology armchair diagnose. Do we all have narcissistic behaviors? Yes.

Are we all self -centered and do selfish things? Yes. Are they personality disordered or like truly struggling with this and need, like we need to be very careful with that language. In just walking away, it made me think about the specific boundaries piece that's...

I think it's deeply harmful to use these words flippantly because I think language is one of the biggest culture creators and the way we use language will change our culture but the way we engage culture is also changing our language and vice versa. And there's been so much research on

the way language is used contributing to like thought patterns and behaviors in societies. And to go back to what you're saying about kind of cancel culture, but also having this nuance of when is the right time to walk away and when accountability is actually deeply loving because you want someone to be their best and accountability is necessary when you love someone the same way like kids

brave knowing where the line is, right? Because that creates safety. They know when my parent tells me something, I can believe it because when they said this is wrong and I broke that boundary, there was a consequence in place and they followed through on that. And I do think

Santana Inniss (01:39:34.132)

Now...

Reese Brown (01:39:56.658)

In all of these ways, yes, we're voting with our dollar in this capitalist, consumerist society. We're also voting with our eyeballs. We're also voting with our attention and time on Twitter, our clicks, on Twitter, on Instagram, on YouTube, and like even seeing the way algorithms are changing. And the longer you can keep someone's eyeballs, the more money you can make.

Santana Inniss (01:40:08.594)

or clicks.

Reese Brown (01:40:24.268)

because attention is our time. It's our most precious non -renewable resource.

Santana Inniss (01:40:31.964)

reason, Reese, that I don't have a tremendous amount of symphony for the world's tiniest violin being played by, you know, prominent, know, celebrities, prominent people in society that do these harms and then people are like, hey, you know, maybe I don't want to watch that.

Reese Brown (01:40:56.664)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:40:57.5)

Maybe I want to unfollow, maybe I want to not listen, right? Because every action that we take online, it's not as if we're taking some benign action, right? Back in the day, you'd go and you'd buy a CD or a cassette tape.

And that was a one -time purchase. So it didn't matter if then, know, some things, unsavory things hit the media about that person that you didn't agree with and you had a moral prohibition against. Because the money was given once and you now own something that does not continue to pay. Everything we do online now.

Santana Inniss (01:41:45.396)

is tied to currency. If I engage with a piece of content on social media, if I even hover over it for more than 0 .3 seconds,

It's tied to currency. If I stream something, it's tied to currency. Right? If I read a book on my Audible subscription, it's tied to currency, although it's included in the price. Like everything that we're doing on the internet.

is somehow directly or indirectly tied to currency. And so for someone to say, hey, I don't want little girls to grow up fearing that some guy might slip a quale -ude.

into their drink, but because he's an incredibly popular sitcom TV dad, that that specific man should never face consequences. I don't want to raise children. I don't have children, but one day I may be blessed with them. I would not want to raise them in a world that says, generally it's wrong to drug and violate women.

But sometimes when specific people do it, it's OK. And there won't be consequences. Wrap your mind around that. So when is accountability?

Santana Inniss (01:43:25.136)

I love how you said that. It's loving. It can very well be for either the party that has caused harm or even for self to say, I don't want to participate in the harm.

right? There's some some some new guy on it's got a special said a bunch of crazy stuff about women and trans people and blah blah he's a comedian funny guy on netflix i'm not gonna watch that shit just just out of morbid curiosity because of the news cycle hell no

Reese Brown (01:43:49.507)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:44:00.952)

No.

Reese Brown (01:44:05.058)

Right.

Well, in seeing the increase in rage baiting and hate watching and one of my morbid curiosity kind of phenomenons right now that I try to watch creators that I want to support reviewing this content so as not to contribute to it, but it's like even in that way, aren't you still a little bit? And so there is this kind of ethical scale there, but

creators who used to be very focused on one type of content and are slowly and surely leaning into right -wing rage content because the grift is real, because people will hate watch, they will search your name, and if you are talking about

Santana Inniss (01:45:00.222)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:45:06.734)

how women belong in the kitchen or how trans people don't deserve rights. You are guaranteed to get eyeballs because people are angry at it. And there's something in the currency of...

the vote doesn't have to be positive anymore either, right? It can also be a negative vote that still benefits and profits, which I don't know how we even begin to unravel that tangledness.

Santana Inniss (01:45:26.034)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:45:40.208)

I think some of it is personal accountability. So I recently wrote a piece for an organization called the Center for Spiritual and Ethical Educators. It's a nonprofit out of Washington, DC, but it was exploring the idea of like online discourse and what does it mean to be a digital citizen in society, right? Like where...

Reese Brown (01:45:43.084)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (01:45:52.526)

Hmm.

Santana Inniss (01:46:06.276)

what are our moral and social compacts when it comes to existing in online spaces? And in it, you know, I explored this article and like, I just want to name this because part of the way that we...

our good digital citizens is that we're not hate watching, right? We're not spending the time, we're not engaging, we're not sharing, we're not commenting, we're not liking. Because to do that is to spread that content. And I wanna give a little bit of the context around what some of the impact of simply hate watching something could be. Part of the impact of that, there's a really interesting study out of the UK,

Reese Brown (01:46:31.693)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:46:57.36)

which I'll send to you so you can link in the episode, about researchers looking at how long it took for at -risk boys to become radicalized with ultra -violent misogynistic content on TikTok. And the answer was four days.

Reese Brown (01:47:00.302)

Please.

Santana Inniss (01:47:20.446)

Four days.

Reese Brown (01:47:24.846)

That makes me want to cry.

Santana Inniss (01:47:26.278)

And then they tied that to observational data that those ideas about violence against women were finding their way onto the playgrounds at school.

Reese Brown (01:47:49.376)

immediate impact. Immediate impact.

Santana Inniss (01:47:51.444)

immediate impact. Immediate impact. There is a moral imperative that we all become better digital citizens. Because although you think you're just hate watching this fucking idiot in wherever who teaches men how to nag women into sleeping with them. Wow, what an idiot. Look what I'm watching. Somewhere, there's an 11 year old boy.

Reese Brown (01:47:59.971)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:48:03.542)

No.

Santana Inniss (01:48:22.206)

who is struggling.

Reese Brown (01:48:24.984)

Yeah.

Santana Inniss (01:48:27.176)

who is seeing that content and believing that the missing piece is this.

Santana Inniss (01:48:38.45)

and he's going to go do harm and that's backed by data. So what does it mean to be in connection when our modern tools for connection.

Santana Inniss (01:48:54.654)

guarantee our disconnection.

Reese Brown (01:49:02.018)

I think that that is truly the, mean, I'll use the exact phrase that you just said, the moral imperative, right? Like this is another heavy, heavy weight that I think we are all obligated to pick up and interrogate the way that we are engaging with it. And even in having this conversation, I'm beginning to think more about my behaviors and my patterns and.

I mean, I'll remind listeners again that this is one of those times that how are you going to be gentle and graceful with yourself as you interrogate your own behaviors and patterns with this? How are you going to be gentle with those around you? But also how are you going to do the work intentionally? And it's hard, but I think that it's important. Santana, I could talk to you literally.

for the rest of my life and I think I would feel so fulfilled and like beautifully excited and motivated and all of the things, but I wanna be extremely mindful of your time. You've been so gracious to share with me. So I'm gonna lead us into wrapping our episode firstly with space for if there's anything that you would like to add to the end, is the button or bow.

but also if there's anything you want to clarify or return to or emphasize or that we didn't talk about that you're like, I need to throw this in there. Or if there's anything you would like to plug, time and space for you to say, mention anything and everything.

Santana Inniss (01:50:36.596)

Beautiful, thank you for the space. Yeah, what's coming to mind for me is anyhow gratitude for the space and the shared connection today. I could talk to you for another 12 hours and I'm sure it would be very interesting and really engaging. you know, acknowledging that that's a shared experience for me as well and bringing in gratitude for this time that we've spent together.

Reese Brown (01:50:53.816)

No, I would love it. I would love it.

Santana Inniss (01:51:06.036)

Life has been a journey and the thing that I would impress upon everyone is that your journey matters and simply setting out upon that journey is yes, it's scary and it's beautiful and you have no idea where it's gonna leave you and that's the joy and that's the possibility and that's the potential that's in setting out on that journey.

Yeah, I mean, just sharing a little bit about my work in the space. I have a four, eight week workshop series coming up for women on radical and fierce self -compassion. So using and learning self -compassion practices as a tool.

Reese Brown (01:51:38.094)

Please.

Santana Inniss (01:51:58.024)

to show up in that deep embodied care for self, but also as a tool when someone's crossing those boundaries or we need to show up and get shit done or we need to be fierce or we need to stand in our power. So how self -compassion can be used as a tool for both of those things. So that is kicking off on October 6th. There's still time to register for that. So I'll share a link to that for listeners.

Reese Brown (01:52:25.003)

Absolutely.

Santana Inniss (01:52:26.534)

Yeah, thank you so much for the conversation. It's been wonderful.

Reese Brown (01:52:30.52)

Thank you. My final question for truly, even though it's difficult to do this, my language nerd brain. What is one word that describes how you are feeling right now?

Santana Inniss (01:52:47.422)

Mmm.

Santana Inniss (01:52:50.705)

embodied.

Reese Brown (01:52:54.524)

I love that. I love it. love it. Santana, I cannot thank you enough for your generosity of time and energy and fierce self -love and spirit. And it has just been such a joy to be able to connect truly.

Santana Inniss (01:53:14.12)

Likewise, thank you so much.

Reese Brown (01:53:16.248)

Thank you.