Making space for the question: who am I in my community? with Samar Jade

Join us in an honest conversation with Samar Jade (they/them) exploring how we can be in relationship with the entirety of ourselves, and what can happen when we have brave space to show up fully. 

Samar Jade is an ensoulment doula  - one who walks alongside you as you do the work to birth yourself. They provide support during the darkened areas of that journey to claiming your power, and help you discover how to nurture that which is ready to be witnessed. Samar is here as an oracle, as a mirror, to help you process your expansion.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• What an ensoulment doula is
• How to be in the depths of our lives
• Why it matters we have brave spaces to show up as ourselves
• What it means to make more room for our questions
• How our voice is connected to our relationship to Self

Connect with Samar:

• @ensoulment.doula
• www.ensoulmentdoula.com
• www.samarjadecreative.substack.com

Connect with BWB

• wearebwb.com
• @we.are.bwb
• Casey LinkedIN
• Cait LinkedIN
• BWB Linkedin

Be sure to subscribe on Apple or Spotify, and leave us a 5-star rating + review!

Podcast Song: Holding you by Prigida
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/prigida/holding-you
License code: CELWR55ONTDIFRSS

Transcript

Casey: Welcome to the Questions to Hold podcast. I'm your host and BWB founder, Casey Carroll. In a world that often praises answers over questions, the act of holding a question is an act of resistance, presence, and devotion. In this podcast, I hold space for discussion at the intersection of life's biggest questions and our personal and professional worlds.

These are honest conversations with progressive leaders dedicated to questioning our institutions, igniting change, and provoking new possibilities. Join me for my next discussion. 

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Casey: Hello everyone and welcome to the Questions to Hold podcast. Today is the day y'all it's a special day. We have Samar Jade here with us today. And I won't go into it too much because Samar, I'm going to let you introduce yourself in the way that feels true for you. But I am feeling real giddy, really ready for this episode. And also anytime I'm in your presence, whether it's virtual or hopefully one time in, in real life and even if it's just through the ethers of email, there's this feeling of like stability depth and warmth I feel just knowing that we're about to enter into this conversation. And so I'm sending that out so that hopefully everybody in the Questions to Hold community. can start to sink into that energy as we embark on the conversation today. So Samar, you want to introduce yourself for the listeners?

Samar: Yes. By the way, Casey, you make me feel so good. You just make me feel so good. So I am a black, queer, disabled, gender expansive human. I am a mom. I am also a magical being and an insolement doula and also maybe possibly a recovering academic. Possibly. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, I think that that's basically the checklist of identity checklist.

Casey: And so much more. And I'm excited to be in the conversation of what an insolement doula is. Because as soon as we started working together, and I learned more about your work, I think being an insolement doula in so many ways is about being with the questions. And in the mystery of so many things, so you're a pro at this work already, and obviously it's that and many more things which you can help walk us through a little bit, so I'm excited, I'm excited about that. And I want to start with the question, as I said, that we always start with, because I find that it's so juicy just to really think about what your relationship is to questions. And that can go all the way back to the younger years, it could go back to yesterday, if you're feeling it, you know, really, really, wherever you want to start that trajectory, but thinking about what questions are and have been in your life and how that brings us into the now.

Samar: You know, I definitely was a child that asked too many questions. Too many, quote unquote. I think that for my family, that was probably very overwhelming. I know that for me coming from a very small town in northern Alabama, that was very uncomfortable. And for people around me, because my whole idea and my whole way of living was Experiencing life through questions.

Why is this this way? What does this do? How does this impact? You know, it was that that seems very natural to me and natural in the way I experience things. And it wasn't until I got to college and started my torrid relationship with academia that this idea that things had to have answers and they had to have concrete answers that made me very, feel very stressed and very, very sad, you know, because for me and my limited experience, but my understanding of life is that answers don't exist necessarily, you know, that one, one answer for one human being is not going to be the same for another. And so the, my twenties were full of a lot of sadness because I was looking for the answers, these answers outside of myself. And trying to mold myself in a way that I became an answer for the world around me. And that was miserable. It was just a miserable existence. And it wasn't until my 30s and having my first child at 30 that I started asking more questions. I'll never forget him when I met my son Samuel for the first time and they put him on my belly and his deep, I mean almost like black eyes looked at me and it was a question. It was a question. And I said, Oh, that's what we're doing here. That's what we're doing here. And so he, his desire to ask questions and want to know fed my curiosity and desire, and so now living the question is what I do. In fact, I'm probably, I probably annoy him sometimes because sometimes he'll ask me a question and I will ask him a question to help him to answer, you know, I said, well, I think you probably already know. So really just trying to infuse that trust of his intuition, which is sacred. So.. 

Casey: Yeah, I love that. I'll say, and I believe it was on a podcast episode with Laura Matteson that we did, but Laura and me are also live in the same area. So I have many conversations that could be in a walk, but we talk about how our kiddos are like the best question to holders. They are, they are the questioners of all time. And actually being in the practice of holding questions with our kids is such a rich experience. And I think really a new way of modeling in leadership, non hierarchical leadership ways to be in relationship with one another on a peer to peer level with our kids, embracing curiosity as you say. All the things that we just, you know, I, I have a very similar experience when Magdalena looked at me for the first time and it was just like, Oh, these beings are just, they're just a mystery. This is all just a big old question. The whole thing we're in, she's asking me a question. Like Samuel was asking you a question and we're just gonna ride that question all the way this lifetime kind of thing, you know, so I can really relate to that. And also just to speak to some of the big. pieces you're naming about academia, but I think can be true of so many of the larger institutions, especially in the West, that are inundated by white supremacy and capitalism and all the other models that are asking for the value to come from the answer, not the question. You know, oftentimes also being a recovering academic myself, you know, there's this notion of like, ask questions, no question's a bad question, but so long as it gets to an answer. And it, you know, that's like the thing that is the undertone that's not said, which I think has had certain outcomes that, um, yes, I often get really curious about, like, wow, like the questions to hold practice or what you're doing in your work within solo dual of, like, if that got elevated into like an academic space, how could like academia transform, you know, in a way that's encouraging learning in a whole nother environment. So interesting to think about.

Samar: It is. And, you know, unfortunately, these larger systems, they need us to not ask questions because that's how they thrive. That's how they are fueled. I, I think sometimes about my own background and ancestral lineage and how I know my ancestors part of asking questions. It was a, a way of life and a right of passage, you know, going through certain rites of passage in order to become different parts of their communities required sitting with the questions that you don't necessarily need the answer to. It's more of the journey and how that journey connects you to yourself, but also the world around you.

Casey: Yeah. So I'm so interested now to follow the, like the line to, you're talking about your lineage and that piece as well, but so you're a question asker in Alabama and all those pieces, right? Then you go into academia, and then now you're coming to us as an insolement doula. So how did like reinvigorating and Samuel coming into your life and reinvigorating and reengaging the questioner inside of you, like Lee, I'm curious if it led to you leaving academia, and now being on the new kind of path and trajectory. And if so, maybe like, why? Really, what, what did that inspire you to go towards? 

Samar: This is such a juicy question. Wow. So I would say my journey in asking questions alongside my ancestors, the whole healing process of, you know, healing outside of a traditional sort of psychology based experience and doing what I think a lot of people call, and I, it's for me, it's a little overused shadow work, but that sort of healing. Becoming acquainted with the things that we are afraid to touch about ourselves. That experience for me started in 20, gosh, probably 2021 is when I started to take that journey really seriously. The more I became in tune with myself and where I felt my calling was, in my community, the less my questions felt like they were able to be homed in academia. You know, I think that there are spaces where it's safe to ask questions and safe to add certain types of questions. And the more I came with questions, the less I felt supported by my academic community, because the questions I was asking were not surface level. They were high. Okay, so I see, and we're reading these things in our seminars. But what are we going to do outside of our seminars? How are we going to take that? And how is this going to mold our life? And how is this going to connect us to each other and our world outside of this classroom? And that was very much like an eww, ugh, Samar, I don't want to talk about that. Gross. I know, I, I know I annoyed my, my sweet professors. I know I did. And so, insolement doula came after, so I, I signed up for Britton LaRue's The Magician's Table, which is a container of 12 people, Britton, and, uh, what she calls the 13th reader, who helps her to hold space for the 12 readers. And in that three month container, we were learning and naming ourselves as magical beings. And that sounds really corny and very woo woo. But I will say in that container, I, Britton is also a, she loves asking questions and I spent that three months holding and making space and making space and making space and for who am I in my community. So I was speaking to a friend and I told them, you know, I said, I feel like. I know that I want to help people and I know that I want, I know it doesn't exist in academia, but I don't, I don't know what it is. And my friend said, well, you're, you're a doula. And I said, a doula? Because I've only heard of a death doula or birth doula. I was like, I'm not a doula, and they said, no, you're an insolement doula. And I was like, what? And he said, well, your entire life and the way that you even teach your classes, the way you interact with people, even your friends, your family, you invite people to bring their souls back into their bodies and to sit and be at home with the entirety of themselves, as opposed to, oh, we can be in communication together, we can be in community together, but only if you act like this. And I don't want to make space for that other stuff that either you haven't healed from or that you struggle with. I want to invite all of that in. 

Casey: Yeah, really like you named it before and I just want to amplify it, but I think, and I think it's something really important that we don't talk about as often on the podcast, but about how when you're holding or asking some of these questions, like what's my why, what am I here to do? Why, what am I, who am I in my community? I think that's the question that you framed. There is this importance of like letting that question occupy more space over time, like you said, like holding it, then like letting it take up more space and like make up more room, right? Because maybe the first time we ask some of these bigger questions of ourselves, like, what's my why? Or who am I in my community? Or what am I trying to do? Whatever they are, you might kind of ask that and the echo back might be a smaller, shallower reflection, right? Then you like ask it and the void, it goes bigger into the void and into the vastness and then something else kind of bounces back at you. And then it's like, it's like this ebb and flow into the into the vastness of that question really into the terrain of whatever wants to come back to us. I love like-. I just want to really amplify that because it's so critical to that this isn't just a one and done of like asking the question and getting the answer, but it's like this, Oh, am I, and probably ongoing for the rest of your time as a insolement doula, you know, or whatever else you become in your community, that's a, an important, like, what else is going to come back when you keep asking that question?

Samar: Yes. And say that again, Casey, it's the question is not asked one time. It is a continuous. Re- marrying, you know, a re- engagement, yes, absolutely. 

Casey: Yeah, so if you were to say, and I heard you because I was like, Ooh, I must take that as a quote down. I love that you said, I invite people to bring their souls back to their body and be in relationship with the entirety of themselves. I'm like, that's such a beautiful way to talk about being an insolement doula. But like, what? What is that? Like, what is that process? And obviously it's different, I'm sure, for every person and everything, but like, what is it? And really, how are you seeing now that you're stepping into this work? Why does it matter? What's the, what's at stake in doing that kind of work? 

Samar: You know, the people that, that come to me for guidance, are, first of all, afraid of their intuition, they're afraid of their capacity to hold questions, and they're usually in fear of how big they are. So, in my work, that's, it's, there's a combination of things that I've been in the process of designing. One of them is, of course, my guidance readings, which are really just to help maybe sit in a container with maybe one or two questions that, that have come up with someone, really giving them the space to sit with that, because honestly, something that has amazed me, Casey, is that most humans don't even have the time to sit with questions. You know? And then I think that when you have a question or you're going through some sort of transition, there's this fear of so it's more of like me sitting like a doula would sitting in the space while they sit with the question while they play with the question, you know, giving them tools that might help them in their development and becoming more comfortable. But, um, I tell people all the time. I don't have the answers. My work is really here to sit with you during these transitions while you ask the questions and to help support you through that. That is, that is a really big, beautiful, lovely thing that I, I just, I love that. I love that. And then I'm also, I've designed a voice workshop that helps people to get comfortable with the magnitude of their voice and the ways in which they can use their voice and hearing themselves and it's called Letting Chiron Sing, which I love, I love so much as you, I don't know if you know anything about astrology, but Chiron was the wounded healer who could heal everyone but himself. And one of the questions that I was sitting with what with Chiron, because my Chiron is in Gemini, which means my ability to express myself outward is my sort of wound, if you could say. But my question that I was sitting with was what would happen if we, if Chiron had space to feel his voice in his body, in every part of his body? What would it be like for his, his voice to resonate within himself? And so that workshop will hold space for that question. My last is a piece called Shadowholders, and I don't know if I've spoken to you about this before, maybe like briefly, but a shadowholder is, it's beyond the empaths, it's the, it's, uh, people who are often misunderstood are often unheard and don't know how to connect with other people because of the depth at which they feel and that right, the depth at which they feel and how difficult it is to even it's, it's the people who can sit with the depth of the shadow that exists In humankind, you know, and not to judge.

It's just like-

Casey: because it sounds like even, you know, to go into, it's a similar visual that comes to mind. Like we were saying, where the question like bounces out into the vastness and it keeps going further and then it comes back and then the shadow, it's like looking into the shadow and realizing that it's not just flat on the surface, that it like goes all the way down as deep as you can get. So yeah, it seems to me, and this is just me, not your words, my words, but when I hear that, or when I visualize what you're talking about, really a lot of this insolement doula work is around like being in the depths of our beingness, right? And then having the safety and the container to integrate that so we can move forward with that in our life, rather than having these like closed door moments where we might experience the depth. And then we like leave it over there. Then we go back to the day like, right. It's like that whole kind of full, full circle, like, Permission safety to go there and permission safety to like bring it with you. 

Samar: Yes, because what would happen if we all showed up as ourselves in every capacity, every single place, what would happen? I got like, I got a little goose pimples.

Casey: Same. Yeah, I got them too. I got them when you were talking about even, um, the question of like with Chiron, like what would happen if he had had the space to feel his voice and his body, right? Like I was going to say, cause I want to come back to that, but these are, these are subtle, subtle and massively profound questions that like, if we give them the room, like you're saying to really let that questions like, I don't know, we never will answer that. But I mean, I think there's like, then this also what would happen if we all showed up as ourselves, like really think about that, because I often notice, and I think this is just the pacing of our culture and of our conditioning and our systems. But it's like you ask a question, like, what would happen if we all showed up as ourself? And we think about it for a moment, we're like, Oh, I don't even know, can't even imagine that or, oh, that would be cool. But like, then we like really project and like dream into it is like, Oh, well, what would that like, what would happen? So these are big invitations you're seeding in the this conversation, of course, that'll be in the show notes. But I keep coming back to like, wow, I hope everybody listening, like, takes one of these questions, or even a part of one of these questions, and really let's get expansive for them in the next month, year, whatever it is. 

Samar: Yes. Absolutely. 

Casey: Or does it with you! Um, and goes into that question even further because it is true. I just, I also want to emphasize the importance of like creating safety to be in this because it's exploration and a lot of times it undoes us. It untangles us, it challenges us, parts of ourself we might not have known about or that we're not quite welcoming yet, like a lot of that's going to come in. So even when I host workshops, in person workshops with Questions to Hold, that's what I say, like we really need to be in a practice of creating safer opportunities to be in questions and thinking about them. Not like seriously, if you will, but taking them for real, um, and not just like, oh, as this kind of like passive thing that can happen because yeah, I think when we really engage in this, there's a lot of transformation opportunity, which is both beautiful, but also uncomfortable.

Samar: Yes. And one, there's just one little tiny piece I want to say about, you know, you expressing needing safe spaces. I tend to invite brave spaces instead of safety, because I think that or I have found it to be true that when I am in like safe spaces, I don't always show up completely as myself. I have found to found it to be true for myself at least and seeing others work with me when it is a brave space. It's almost like you're fighting for yourself. Not to say that you gotta be, maybe fight is the wrong word, but I think that there is a, the charge behind a brave space versus a safe space is different. 

Casey: Yeah, yeah, for me, when I hear you say that it's a calling forward, right? So it's like a calling forward into that, like, what would happen if I showed up as myself? Or it's like, what happens if I play it safe in this space, you know? And Tristan Katz often talks about this also, been on the podcast and somebody we've done a lot of work with in the realms of like, trans and queer inclusion, but about like, you know, also the like fallacy of a safe space, it's not possible, right? So we can talk about safer spaces and like creating more opportunity where, you know, like you're holding an actual container for them in that way that provides, but like ensuring safety or having a safe space is not true, can't be real. So I think that's a really important distinction too. Plus I love this notion of the brave, like for me, it just feels like when I'm invited into a brave questions. Like I'm, I'm kind of like asked to show up in a way that is different. 

Samar: Yeah. Because I, I feel like people are like, Oh, it's a safe space. So I can like maybe cry or it's a safe space, so like I'm not going to be called out if I say some trash, you know, a brave space is listen, you, I want you to show up as yourself, but understand that by showing up as yourself, these other people around you are going to do the same thing. And we all have to make space for each other. 

Casey: Yeah. And I feel like on a whole other episode, I want to talk to you more about the voice piece, because I know that that's like a current into your work as well, and we're lucky enough to be doing a collaboration and a workshop with you on some of the voice elements. And I believe you have a voice workshop coming up soon. Is that right? For folks who are interested in diving in? 

Samar: Yes, it is. I have not picked the date, but it is going to be late November. And I will be announcing it on my podcast. Okay. Um, I'll be announcing it on my podcast later. Um, yikes, on bikes, but yes. Doing brave things. Showing up.

Casey: Doing brave things and we will have those things, um, linked in the show notes as well. So that when you do have the date, people can access it, but otherwise it'll link to all of your channels. If you're looking to follow Samar, be sure to go there. And I highly recommend you look to follow Samar in every way possible. And I'll be seeing you likely in those workshops because, um, I really know personally firsthand in what we work with, with clients and BWB around their voice and their visibility and their storytelling. But also my own journey around, um, how voice has unlocked my spirituality in so many ways and like connected me deeper into those depths. So there's so much in there too, that you're naming, which I think is really beautiful. So what would you want to, as I said, you've kind of dropped some really rich seeds in here so far already. But I'm curious, like if you were to think about something you would like the listeners to a question, you might have them be holding or after this conversation today, what you're really sitting with, um, to kind of bring our conversation to a close? 

Samar: How would it feel if you decided to expand into yourself?

Casey: And what tools, like if you had a tool, one or two tools that you could tell folks to use who are interested in sitting with that question like, what are some things that you found have? Like, is it time to just put yourself in a room with that question? Is it a journal? Is it a candle? Like, what are some of the tools that you found to help you with some of that? 

Samar: Well, one thing I just, uh, started doing not too long ago was I designed a grief altar for myself. It is a place where I sit and meet with grief and allow it to be outside of myself so that I can make more space for myself as opposed to grief. Um, I feel I have found it to be true that my grief, at least my grief and, you know, it's best friend trauma. They just want to talk to me sometimes. And so, um, making that altar is a way of honoring them, honoring, you know, what has happened or not happened, all of those things. But the other is, yes, journaling. One of my favorite things to journal with is either with a tarot or oracle card. or even a piece of art that you've gravitated towards. But this whole idea of meditating and allowing your creative intuition to speak for us is surprisingly wonderful and delicious.

Casey: Yeah. I love that. And I think too, like for anybody out there who's listening, who's like, oh man, meditating, don't know. Don't have time. How could I do it? All the different things. Like that's yeah. Samar is pointing to themself and I feel the same way sometimes with those things. And I think sometimes the bravest thing is even just being willing to ask the question or listen to what the question is like where nothing else needs to happen at first. And starting there. 

Samar: Yes. Yes. Like and my biggest hang up with, with meditation was that I felt like I had to do it some type of some way and the thing about meditating is it's not about not thinking. It's pretty, it's actually the opposite like meditation is definitely very much engaged and thinking I found that. Writing is a form of meditation, and then also reminding yourself five minutes or two minutes or every other day or every week, you know, finding that thing that works exactly for you, because it's not going to be the same for everyone. 

Casey: Yeah, it's, yeah. And again, because we've been in a society where questions have, you know, been supported, but maybe only if they provide answers or in certain ways, just like asking an open ended question that you're just curious about. Or if somebody's like, how are you? And you're like, wow, that's a good question and not answering it and just saying that, you know, it's like all these little ways, these subversive ways that make a big, big difference in like starting into the practice with all of it that I think about. So I think that's just all, everything you said is a really good tool to get started. I wish we could talk for so much longer. And as I said, I know we will, as it relates to voice and so many other things, but Samar, thank you for providing your wisdom, sharing some of your, your story with us. And yeah, thanks for just being you and being in the big questions together.

Samar: Thank you so much for having me, Casey.

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Casey: Thank you for listening to the Questions to Hold podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode and are leaving the conversation with way more questions than answers. I invite you to build a more meaningful relationship with yourself and the world around you through this simple yet profound act of holding questions. Visit questionstohold.com and wearebwb.com to learn more about this practice, our questions to hold card deck and explore more conversations. See you there.