Insisting We All Belong and CHAI with Rahul Sharma — EP66

Candice Wu 0:00

Well, we have a very special guest today, Dr. Rahul Sharma, who is the founder of Funkadesi sharing a special improvisational live musical piece on the sitar, as well as asking the question: How do we insist that we all belong, sharing his double migration story in his family lineage, and here he talks about being an artist, a self-absorbed and selfless endeavor and shares his CHAI recipe which is not a tea recipe but a concoction for how to be in life.

Candice Wu 0:35

Hello, and welcome. You’re listening to the Embody Podcast, a show about remembering and embodying your true nature, inner wisdom, Embodied Healing, and self-love.

Candice Wu 0:49

My name is Candice Wu and I’m a holistic healing facilitator, intuitive coach, and artist sharing my personal journey of vulnerability, offering meditations and guided healing support, and having co-creative conversations with healers and wellness practitioners from all over the world.

Candice Wu 1:10

This episode is sponsored by the Embodied Healing group that happens once a month. This is a special group for two, four people online that wants to have soul and body support through the month whether you’re yearning to get in touch with your deeper inner wisdom or have some healing with the pieces that are challenging in your life, or to strengthen your vision and what you’re going towards in your life. This group might be for you, so feel free to check it out at CandiceWu.com/patreon. You can also find the links in the show notes that are connected to this episode at CandiceWu.com/rahul.

Candice Wu 1:54

It’s a real pleasure to have Dr. Rahul Sharma on the show today. Dr. Sharma is one of my previous professors at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology, where I studied clinical psychology. When I was in school, I really admired the way he was able to talk about the difficult things, talk about power and equality, what was happening in the room with each of us in terms of how we felt, what aspects of us in our identity were coming into the storyline of who we were in that room or how we felt in life. And he created a very safe space with music, with drumming, with bringing in other ways of connecting that support a universal connecting on the soul level, on the heart level that I really admired.

Candice Wu 2:46

Rahul is an accomplished and passionate consultant, artist, experiential learning innovator, psychologist and expert in the areas of diversity, equity, inclusion, leadership, and growth. His biggest focus is the recognition of the need to create space, unique spaces for people to grow, produce, and flourish and to find their own creative voice as well.

Candice Wu 3:13

I have always felt supported in his presence and his invitation for all of the parts of us to show up, for all of us to belong in the space together, and for our inner parts of us to come forward to the table as a valuable part of us is so healing.

Candice Wu 3:32

So grab a tea, or coffee or something lovely to drink, a CHAI perhaps as you tune into this episode on his sharing of his recipe for CHAI, and enjoy this music and this lovely experience that can bring you in touch with your beauty, your artistry, your sense of belonging, or your heart’s aching for belonging, and the insistence of life that we are all belonging, the insistence that we are all human and have a place.

Candice Wu 4:07

So I hope this episode inspires you just as it did for me and gives you a connection with more of yourself.

Candice Wu 4:17

Well, this episode is coming at a very poignant time for me because I’m stepping into more enjoyment of beauty and feeling the wholeness of beauty, not just the pleasure, not just the good things as we might label them. The things that are pleasurable to experience but the wholeness of life, finding the beauty in all of the experience all of the challenging, sad, upsetting, angering, as well as pleasurable and delightful, joyful, blissful feelings. Holding that all with the sense of amusement and play and treasuring the moment is the beauty that I’m after. And this episode with Rahul is truly inspiring to me right now because I’m also stepping into more of my own artistry to allow my inner artist to capture and receive inspiration and let that flow through me, let that have its own life. And it’s just so inspiring to hear Rahul’s story as well as his music and to hear the roots and the intentions behind his music. It’s very exciting.

Candice Wu 5:40

Hey, Rahul.

Rahul Sharma 5:42

Hey there.

Candice Wu 5:43

Welcome to the show. This is really an honor. I don’t know how this conversation is going to go.

Rahul Sharma 5:55

I hope it goes well.

Candice Wu 5:56

I can’t imagine it not, I just am so curious about what’s going to open up and, you have your sitar there with you?

Rahul Sharma 6:05

Yes, I do.

Candice Wu 6:07

I guess we’ll just start by introducing you a little bit. And right now I’ll just say that you are my previous professor and now a colleague, and you are an artist, a consultant, a speaker, psychologist, and what I have loved about our interactions is the feeling of inclusiveness that I have around you and the recognition of just all these different parts of ourselves in one space together. And many interactions of you bringing your artistry to the healing work and the therapy work that you were teaching me and other students, like bringing in drum circles and just opening up these parts of who you are. So welcome. I just wanted to start with a piece of how I know you.

Rahul Sharma 7:00

Oh, that’s very sweet. And I’m really glad to get that feedback, that was coming across, of how much my identity and just what I bring in terms of the art comes through even when I’m teaching clinical psychology because, for me, those are very integrated.

Candice Wu 7:21

Yeah. Well, I guess I’d like to start with something that really caught me when I was reading a little bit into your bio, is that your story? Sounds like your family ancestry and lineage story of double migration really informs how you show up in the world and your work. And I’d love to hear that story as much or as little as you want to share here.

Rahul Sharma 7:49

Oh, you know, thank you for asking. So yeah, my ethnic heritage is Punjabi, so both my ancestry on both sides, my father’s side, my mother’s side originally comes from Punjab, Jammu, Kashmir in Northern India. And my father’s father wrote down His life story, the year I was born. And when, you know, for me, as somebody who identifies as Indian American, you know, a lot of Indian Americans go back to India, if they have the means, every year, every two years, every three years. And for me, it was going back to Kenya, sometimes three to six months at a time growing up, the best part being missing loads of school.

Rahul Sharma 8:42

So yeah, that was — those quite enjoyable. But, you know, it wasn’t till 1992, I graduated college, and I went to India for the first time. And I also got a hold of my grandfather’s life story that he had written in the year I was born, the stories just blew me away. And so if I may, I can, I’d like to share the story of my grandfather.

Candice Wu 9:14

I would love to hear it. Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 9:17

So you know, growing up in rural Punjab with the British having colonized India and Kenya, he didn’t see any economic prospects for him. In fact, you know, growing up in the village, he didn’t even have a primary education. So one day, he’s visiting a classroom, and he must be maybe 10 years old and the schoolmaster sees my father and sees that he’s standing in this classroom, with these younger boys in class, so he assumed, you know, my grandfather must be from a later grade and ask the boys to ask him a question. My grandfather didn’t know the answer and the boy started laughing. And my grandfather came home and he was incredibly humiliated. And his parents, my great grandparents were so hurt to see him like that they pleaded with the school, can we find a way to give him a basic education. So he started going to school.

Rahul Sharma 10:21

Fast forward a few years, he hears about a distant relative that had found some economic prospect working as an indentured servant for the British on the railway in East Africa. So he was set, this is what I’m going to do and his parents were against it, they were against it, and he just was determined to go, so the day he was leaving, my great grandparents took him to a remote part of the village where they had kept their ancestral savings, and it must have been like $1.50, like, very little money, but they gave it all to him and said: Go! You know, you have our blessing, you know, wishing you the best.

Candice Wu 11:03

Wow.

Rahul Sharma 11:04

So, he ends up working for a Sikh fuel contractor, and Bishen Singh is the guy’s name. And one day my grandfather and some other laborers are walking across the railway and they’re stopped by a British military officer, Captain Macstead. And my understanding is Captain, and this is my recollection from reading this story, is that Captain Macstead said: Hey, you know, I want you all to work for the military, we’ll pay you better. And my grandfather said: Well, we can’t. We’re under contract to work for Bishen Singh.

Rahul Sharma 11:46

And for three years, and this military officer gut was infuriated. And he said: I demand to see this Bishen Singh and, of course, Bishen Singh hadn’t done anything wrong, he just had this contract. But I think that this British military officer, just, you know, like, who is this guy to sort of get in my way? So in the public square, he grabbed Bishen Singh by the beard and shook him violently, and just abused him in public, and Bishen Singh was so freaked out that he just didn’t want to be seen in public after that.

Rahul Sharma 12:24

So soon afterward, the Germans blow up a portion of the railway and this Captain Macstead, blames Bishen Singh, my grandfather, and all the laborers of harboring with the enemy, and they round up all of them. Three of my grandfather’s friends are shot, they’re executed without a trial. And my grandfather was lucky where he got, there was a change in the chief magistrate, the judge, and so my grandfather got a trial. And these military officers stopped my grandfather and said: Look, some of your friends are already dead, why don’t you just say that you guys did it, if you say anything else we’ll kill you.

Rahul Sharma 13:14

So my grandfather gets into the courtroom and he says, these people want me to put innocent Indian names to shame and I’ll never do it. You can do whatever you want with me but I’ll never do it. And then a doctor stood up and testified, saying, I don’t think we can kill him. He doesn’t even look like he’s 18 years old, and so what they did was they sentenced my grandfather to 10 years hard labor and he ended up serving three and got out after three years.

Candice Wu 13:47

Wow.

Rahul Sharma 13:48

That was obviously just reading that and realizing what my grandfather had gone through, and then eventually made his way from the coast of Kenya to Nairobi to work, you know, open up his grocery store, and was able to send my father and a couple of his siblings to England for schooling, and that’s where my father got his Ph.D., you know, had met my mother, my mother was pursuing science and they were living in Nairobi, my father was lecturing at the University of Nairobi, and my sisters were born there.

Rahul Sharma 14:24

And a guy comes up to my father says, you know, how would you like a job at Western Michigan University? And my father was, like, let’s go, let’s do this. So my brother and I were born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. And as I sometimes tell my students, you know, my sisters were born in Nairobi, and I was born in Kalamazoo, and I’ll never forgive my sisters for that. Not to knock the Midwest, but my personal opinion is it’s a little bit cooler to be born in Nairobi. But seriously, just that legacy and that history, that’s a part of, and then, of course, you know, me growing up in a different era in the Midwest, but also realizing that I come from this family background, where this is our ethnic history, but also this is where we relocated to and just interacting with different people, through these different experiences helped to form my interest. And the way I, as you say, show up in the world.

Candice Wu 15:28

Wow, that’s a really incredible story. How did you feel when you read it, your grandpa’s story? That just sounds like such a really interesting experience. You know, not everyone has a piece of writing from their ancestor.

Rahul Sharma 15:43

Yeah. Well, it was an incredible feeling. And by the way, I don’t know if you can hear the dog barking at the mailman.

Candice Wu 15:50

I can, a little.

Rahul Sharma 15:52

Yeah. It’s not you. It’s not your question. I just want to assure you that.

Rahul Sharma 15:57

But well, one of the things that — well obviously that had a huge impact on me just that story, and just, you know, thinking about that, like, what if those kids hadn’t laughed at my grandfather and my grandfather didn’t get that education? Would I be born in India? Would I not have existed because the stars didn’t align that way, you know, what happened? Obviously, you know, we know what would happen if my grandfather had been executed.

Rahul Sharma 16:26

But that palpable awareness about, you know, issues of oppression, in my relatively recent and family history, I think that had a big impact on me. But also, I was reading this at a time, Candice, when I was going through my own identity crisis. Because being born and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan, I think our family has always had a strong identity of being proud of who we are, and proud of our uniqueness and what we bring to the table. But at the same time, I think I grew up in an era and in a way where I didn’t embrace thinking of myself as a person of color. Or, I didn’t think consciously about how issues of race were impacting me and the way I thought about myself.

Rahul Sharma 17:19

So, this story meant so much in terms of, Oh, yeah, I’m not from the United States. My history, my people’s history is really rich and there’s a lot of, you know, really intense, tragic stories, there’s some amazing stories.

Rahul Sharma 17:40

And the thing is my grandfather visited Haridwar, which is where they have, for generations, the most elaborate bookkeeping of genealogy. You just name the village you’re from, and they would bring out books and they would, you know, list your ancestry. And of course, you know, it’s patriarchal so it was a lot of male names. But because of the year my grandfather wrote this down, you know, our actual family clan name is Punj, not Sharma. So, they’re listing —

Candice Wu 18:10

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 18:10

My ancestors, like, Asa Punj, Diyala Punj, Isher Punj, Jawaharlal Punj, you know, Lalchand Punj, and the last name in that list of nine generations was my name. And so that you can imagine just staring at that manuscript. I was like, whoa, you know, the ninth generation of this incredible list. So that just rocked me to my core.

Candice Wu 18:44

That feels so powerful, and I don’t know, opening.

Rahul Sharma 18:52

Yeah, it definitely created spaces in me that and really, I think fueled my sense of purpose, you know, and solidified what direction I was going in, from college to beyond college.

Candice Wu 19:08

Wow, what a huge transformation because that’s, it’s so a part of you, now, your heritage, who you are, your ethnicity, the culture.

Rahul Sharma 19:18

Absolutely.

Candice Wu 19:19

At least from where I’m standing.

Rahul Sharma 19:21

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think you’re absolutely right. And one of the ways in which I, because I had that moment, where I was like, Oh, my gosh, I’m not from the United States and I realized that nobody would really fuss if I just kind of forgot my, where I came from. Like, you know, my nightmare scenario was having great-great-grandchildren that would one day say, “Oh, yeah, one of my ancestors was Indian, not the feathered kind, the dot kind”, you know.

Candice Wu 19:58

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 19:58

That sort of snapshot terrified me. So I said, I need to take it upon myself to know where I come from.

Rahul Sharma 20:08

And you know, I played music in high school and in college, so bass guitar, and mainly blues funk, starting to get into reggae a little bit and then I thought what better way to reconnect with my culture than with music. So I picked up first the tableau when I visited India, for the first time was studying tableau, which is the Indian percussion instrument. And then I gravitated towards sitar, which is a North Indian stringed instrument, which I am holding right now.

Candice Wu 20:46

Yeah. Would you like to play a little something?

Rahul Sharma 20:50

Oh my gosh, I thought you’d never ask. OK, now I’m just kidding!

Rahul Sharma 20:53

Yeah. I would love to play.

Candice Wu 20:56

I’m just waiting for it. I just can’t wait.

Rahul Sharma 20:56

All right. So just to set it up. You know, like, I love playing bass guitar. I love playing guitar and you know, I think bass guitar brings out the funk in me, the acoustic guitar brings the country-western playing in me, I sort of like another aspect of my identity because I did grow up here. And, but the sitar sort of, you know, allows me to express myself in a different way. So if it’s all right, I’m just gonna do a little improv. I don’t know what I’m going to play yet, you know, because part of the whole thing about the sitar is in improvisatory musical form. The only thing is you kind of need to stick within the set of notes that you’re, you know, deciding upon playing. So the improvisation works best when it stays within the rog, the structure. And I almost think of it as a spirit or as the great Amjad Ali Khan said in a radio interview, a rag is like a personality. And he says, I wish I could live more than one lifetime because it would take more than one lifetime to truly express the depth of just one rag, which I thought was like, that was mind-blowing.

Rahul Sharma 22:15

So in my humble way, I’m going to, I don’t know what I’m going to share. But this is for your Embody Podcast inspired by what we’re talking about right now.

Candice Wu 25:14

Beautiful. Thank you.

Rahul Sharma 25:15

You’re welcome.

Candice Wu 25:18

I loved it. It was just delightful. I feel so at peace right now.

Rahul Sharma 25:24

Naptime.

Candice Wu 25:26

Right. My eyes were closing, I was swinging my body. I know, as you mentioned, the rag, I remember you talking about that in grad school, the personality of it, and how do you tune into what’s the right rag or sense into that when you begin?

Rahul Sharma 25:48

You know that’s such a great question because, from an Indian classical perspective, they say that these rags correspond to different times of the day, different seasons, you know, this rag should only be played between this time and this time of the day. And they say it’s scientifically based, you know, that the frequencies for determined to this way, but then I asked myself, well, if I’m living in Chicago, and I asked this of Indian classical musician at a question and answer, you know, and these rags were formed in India, did they translate across the world? You know, so I play the rag that was supposed to be played early morning in India, when it’s early morning here? Or, am I supposed to do it at the time zone in India?

Rahul Sharma 26:45

So all of that to say, I think there is something to it. But I also think, studying other forms of music like blues and jazz, and reggae and everything, there’s an authentic frequency. Like, for example, jazz musicians have a different set of guidelines. So when you have a jazz musician jamming with an Indian musician, one of them is really sticking within this melodic structure. And then the jazz musician, that the Indian musician, the jazz musician is kind of breaking some of those rules, but sticking to other guidelines, right? And both of these art forms are valid. So, and to me, that’s the band that I started over 22 years ago, that’s been sort of our dialogue between each other, our dialectic is, how do we create something that feels authentic if we’re crossing genres, and not all of the rules lineup? Is there a deeper type of authenticity that can be maintained? And so anyway, this long, you know, and look, this is what happens when you have a psychologist for a musician, I pontificate.

Rahul Sharma 27:57

Why use five words when I can use five hundred?

Candice Wu 28:00

Right.

Rahul Sharma 28:01

This is why Carlos, our beloved congo player always reminds me less talk more rag. So —

Candice Wu 28:07

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 28:08

I try to live by that sometimes. But most of the time, I fail.

Candice Wu 28:14

Well, I’m failing with you. Excuse me. I’m failing with you, because my mind just went into like, Ayurveda, and you know, when you were saying, like, the timezones.

Rahul Sharma 28:24

Oh yeah.

Candice Wu 28:24

And then I was like, in my mind trying to sync up with like, the different meridians of the body and the energy channels, and timing of the day and the doshas, is that something that’s in your, in that in alignment?

Rahul Sharma 28:42

Well, yeah, absolutely. To give you a different answer to the question, I think, and this is where I do think, you know, my interest in psychology comes into play. And like, to me, improvising as an artist, it’s this balance between what am I feeling so very personal, and in a way self-absorbed kind of, what’s going to do it for me? What do I want to express? Combined with a sensitivity and the sensibility about what is needed in the moment? What’s the tone that needs to be struck? Which to me, requires attention to the environment, attention to not only what’s happening inside yourself, but if you’re playing with other musicians, what is their vibe, and how can you complement each other? Or, if you’re sitting in front of an audience, we played at City Winery last night, and we did the same thing where we did some improvisation, we didn’t know what we were going to be playing until we played it. Part of it was, what’s my sense of what the room needs right now? So I’ve always been struck by that, that that combination of like, being an artist, in some ways, is simultaneously a very self-absorbed and very selfless endeavor.

Candice Wu 29:59

Yeah, that really makes sense to me. And with both this and the other piece of what you’re saying, how do you blend the different sounds and this, perhaps rules of that sound genre, or artistry, so that there’s some common or some sort of amalgamation of it? And this just lines up with the whole theme of Funkadesi, insisting we all belong? One family.

Rahul Sharma 30:30

Oh, yeah. Wow.

Candice Wu 30:31

Well, it was right on your website and I was like, that’s beautiful.

Rahul Sharma 30:33

Yeah.

Candice Wu 30:34

Like, that is absolutely, what I see and feel when I haven’t been to your concert yet. But I’ve seen you guys on YouTube, and it just feels like that.

Rahul Sharma 30:46

Yeah, so I would say this. That piece kind of ties in with what I’ve been calling like CHIA recipe. You know, I always tell people, look, you know, I’m Indian, I got to represent. So I’m going to share with you my CHIA recipe. And then I thoroughly disappoint people when I let them know that CHIA is actually just an acronym. So it’s CHAI. And to me, it’s compassion, humility, accountability, and insistence.

Rahul Sharma 31:20

So and I, you know, I’ve been reflecting on this, is things that can be helpful for us as healers in psychology, but also, especially when we’re thinking about issues of diversity and social justice, obviously, compassion, you know, guided by that phrase by Wendy Mass: Be kind for everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Right? And I think when, we never fully understand another person’s context, but there’s a lot that happens when we lead with compassion. And the age is humility. Humility to me is sorely missing in a lot of spaces in my humble opinion.

Rahul Sharma 32:05

You know, I think people get defensive when they feel like they’re being taken down a notch. Well, who are you to say x about me? Who are you to call me out on this? And I think there’s some validity to that. We’re living in an era, well, not even just now, but, you know, I was at the University of Michigan in the era of identity politics, when it was in its heyday. And even then, you know, and now there’s this sense of, well, this is what’s wrong with you, this is what you need to be doing. You know, social media really exacerbates it, and I participate in that sometimes, and it’s, you know, and then I don’t like myself, after working towards like, man, how much of this was me really just needing to take this person down a notch? You know?

Rahul Sharma 32:56

So to me, the humility is, are you as willing to hold yourself accountable to the same degree that you’re expecting someone else to be accountable to you? To me, that’s the humility. And of course, that jumps right into the next one, A is accountability. You know, that phrase that we talked about a lot: intent versus impact. You know, when interacting with somebody, are you more focused on your intentions and trying to defend your intentions? Or, are you able to clear yourself out and hold yourself accountable to the impact you had on other people? So I think that’s another piece of it. And then that last part, which, once again, it was my long-winded way of responding to your thing about like insisting, so that to me, the I is the insistence. Yeah. Wait, what was that question? Oh, yeah.

Candice Wu 33:50

Yeah, I thought I was going to get a cup of tea here, like, a little recipe for a cup of tea.

Rahul Sharma 33:57

Yeah. Where’s that? By the way? I do, I make a kick-ass cup of CHAI as well. So there’s always that option.

Candice Wu 34:06

There’s always that for next time.

Rahul Sharma 34:08

Yeah, there’s a next time.

Candice Wu 34:09

I have a cup of water here. It’s not quite the same.

Rahul Sharma 34:12

That’s so funny.

Rahul Sharma 34:14

But so the insistence is like, it’s nice to be compassionate. It’s nice to be humble. But we are living in a world with unjust systems are always in operation. And you know, that whole thing is like, it’s not possible to be a non-racist, you need to be anti-racist. Because to recognize that racism is operating at every level, it’s so important that you are active in saying that, like, you know, if you’re silent, and you’re like, “Oh, well, you know, I’m just going to keep my head down”, or “I’m going to make sure I don’t say or do bad things”, that’s not enough.

Rahul Sharma 34:52

So insistence can mean a few things. But one thing is insisting on speaking to things that need to be spoken to. Sometimes, you know, nobody brings up that might be sexist, that might be homophobic, that might be whatever and it’s that silence, that sort of ends up colluding with this unequal power system and keep things the way they are.

Rahul Sharma 35:18

So to me, the insistence is like you give sometimes you got to make sure you put things on the table, or you make sure that you keep things on the table when they need to be addressed. So insisting on each other’s full humanity. I mean, I can go off on this whole thing, but like, you know, I think about one of the insidious ways, and I will apparently: one of the insidious ways in which oppression operates in my observation is that some people get the default benefit of full humanity. Right?

Rahul Sharma 35:56

Whiteness, maleness, heterosexuality, all of these things where you’re in the center of that power structure. Right? And again, I’m not talking about particular individuals, I’m talking about systems of privilege. And I think it’s invisible to many of us. Right? That this sense of —

Candice Wu 36:14

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 36:14

Well, of course, so and so gets the benefit of complexity and full humanity. So to me, the insistence is insisting on that full humanity for everybody.

Candice Wu 36:29

I think that’s so important. And, you know, we hear about compassion a lot. Not to, like, I love this combination of CHAI here. Humility, a little less so but —

Rahul Sharma 36:41

It’s delicious.

Candice Wu 36:43

Right, it’s delicious. Accountability, we hear of that a lot. But insistence I don’t, it’s not something that’s just quite present to me. But actually, it has been lately. And now that you bring it up, it reminds me of my time in Ireland recently, last January, where, or this January, where I was working with horses very closely, and not writing but working with horsemanship and leadership with horses and interaction with them, and insistence came up a lot. And I bring this up now because it was such a challenging thing if I maybe got a little activated or something wasn’t on the inside was happening for me to insist on something in the interaction with the horse, but also be responsive to what the horse was bringing, and how they were and not lose sight of what I was insisting on. And then also adjusting if the insistence was too much, like a, five steps ahead of where we were, but insisting on something to be learned.

Rahul Sharma 37:54

Absolutely. It sounds like yeah, mutual accountability. I mean, there, you know, saying what it is that you need to say or indicating what you need to indicate, but also leaving space for what you’re getting back.

Candice Wu 38:10

Right. Yeah. And I think it’s a really challenging thing. This is just what I’m seeing, especially on social media, where we might be holding each other accountable. But doing it in a way that’s just repeating the cycle of the hurt, may be coming with an attack, or it may be perceived as an attack. It’s so challenging.

Rahul Sharma 38:33

It’s challenging. You know, when I hear you say that, it makes me think, which is a whole other conversation, but a model that I find very helpful in both just general psychology work, but also in thinking about the complexities of diversity, social justice issues, is the internal family systems model.

Candice Wu 38:55

Yes. I wanted to talk to you about that.

Rahul Sharma 38:57

Yeah. So, you know, but hearing you say that Candice, you know, there is a language or I should say, a process we can follow where you acknowledge that you have different parts of yourself and each of us do, and how do you take responsibility for those parts without having to feel like that one part of you is the sum total of you, you know? So how do you communicate that a part of you is feeling hurt, a part of you is feeling angry, a part of you feeling attacked by another person. And I find this helpful, just this morning was doing couples work where that was a part of what we were doing, was being able to acknowledge that we have different parts of ourselves, and how do you communicate through that? And again, according to the model, compassion is one of the key ingredients.

Candice Wu 39:58

Isn’t it such a relief to be able to communicate that way? Because when we say, I don’t know, I’m feeling X, Y, or Z. It’s just much more complex than that and to feel like we have to be all in one basket like that is just so reducing. Because we have all these different parts of us that are such a relief to say, Oh, this one part is feeling this, but this one is not, or this one is feeling something else. And it just opens up the whole thing.

Rahul Sharma 40:27

Absolutely.

Candice Wu 40:28

Yeah. So I want to go back to belonging, because I think it’s such a beautiful thing that you’re bringing forward and your band is bringing forward, you have the question that you carry, how do we increase the sense of belonging to each other? And what have you found? What in your experience has been supportive to that?

Candice Wu 40:48

I know it’s a big question? It’s like —

Rahul Sharma 40:50

Yeah, no, well, hey, look, the bands have been together over 22 years.

Candice Wu 40:55

What have you felt in 22 years?

Rahul Sharma 40:59

So yes, I can tell you. I’ll tell you this. I had nothing yet. Candice, I’m waiting till year twenty-three. No, I’m just kidding.

Candice Wu 41:08

Okay, no problem. Compassion, humility.

Rahul Sharma 41:12

Yeah, so — Exactly. But I would say, I think there’s been this shared vibe amongst members of the band, you know, and, of course, a part of me over there. So there we go with our parts, a part of me would love to take all the credit for this. And, I will say, I feel like, yeah, there are definitely some things that I saw as priorities in the atone that I wanted to set. But to be honest, you know, I got so much more, something so much bigger from each band member, which was amazing. But I think this shared sense of, we’re going to accept. If I come from my Indian context, someone else comes from African American, you know, Jamaican, Latino, whatever, you know, cultural context, this recognition that you know what, I am not going to second guess the wisdom of your cultural context. I’m going, in fact, not only am I going to tolerate it, not only am I going to accept it, but I am going to cherish it. I’m going to embrace it as something that, you know, I don’t want to co-opt it, I don’t want to, you know, appropriate it. But I want to affirm you, and what you’re bringing, and your artistic self is bringing to the table. And we do that through music. And I think its allowed a band of 10 people to stay together 22 plus years, is whoever wants to stop something that feels so affirming, I think there’s something about what happens when you don’t feel like you have to leave a part of yourself at the door when you come to the table, to get a seat at the table, you need to leave a part of your identity behind.

Candice Wu 43:06

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 43:07

To me, Funkadesi is a musical embodiment of, you know, and I was talking about this, you know, if we’re on stage, and all sudden, the two, you know, Maninder and Inder in the band start singing the Punjabi song and it wasn’t part of what we were doing before, to see the rest of the band’s natural inclination to just like, drop what they’re doing and support that. It’s just, it’s a beautiful thing.

Candice Wu 43:32

That is beautiful.

Rahul Sharma 43:33

So I think there’s this space. Yeah, there’s a space where we just, you know, we affirm each other. We affirm each other’s cultural context, we accept each other as kin. You know, that’s why that phrase: One family, many children, is there.

Candice Wu 43:50

Beautiful.

Rahul Sharma 43:51

So I would say that’s one thing that we learned.

Candice Wu 43:53

I love it.

Rahul Sharma 43:54

I came across an article recently, I think, on LinkedIn, that was, had a really compelling, you know, model which was saying, instead of a circle, when we create a community, how about a U-shape, because a U-shape leaves room for more people to come in, whereas a circle might be intimidating to some people. And I just immediately thought of the band, you know?

Candice Wu 44:21

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 44:22

And so I was thinking about it and we’re talking with band members last night and came up with this notion, like, enroll in Funkadesi, U, it’s shaped like the U because YOU are welcome. I know, it’s a little cheesy. I try to sneak that in there.

Candice Wu 44:38

That’s great. But it fits.

Rahul Sharma 44:42

Oh, yeah, I was going to say last night, we were sound checking for our show and there’s an Indian woman that’s, I think she was friends or she either worked at City winery, or she was friends with one of the people that was working there. And she’s just like, in a daze, just walking to the stage, and just like I think her spirit just leaped out and she just said, You don’t know how much I need this. This sounds like home to me. You know, and the fact that we’re able to do that for people of many different backgrounds.

Rahul Sharma 45:14

You know, our first college show was January 1997, University of Chicago, co-sponsored by the South Asian Student Association, the organization of black students, the Latin American cultural student groups, and the Persian cultural society. And the fact that first of all, we could, you know, they’re doing an event that these four groups wanted to co-sponsor together. And then for everybody to walk away saying, that reflected me. You know, it’s just, you know, it’s just a beautiful thing. It’s a privilege.

Candice Wu 45:52

The resonance, like, to be for both you and your group and everyone involved in experiencing it to be seen, in a way or to be felt like you were seeing and belong.

Rahul Sharma 46:06

Yes. To be seen, to, yes, to be heard, to be affirmed. Absolutely.

Candice Wu 46:14

Yeah. Beautiful. It’s such a healing space.

Rahul Sharma 46:19

Yeah. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we have many healers in the band, you know, nurses, physical therapists, ophthalmologist, energy healers, you know, it feels every time we play show, it feels like, yeah, and again, I don’t want to sound overblown, what we’re doing or anything, but I’m just saying what it feels like, it feels like a cleansing when we play, and the kind of connection that happens within audiences, it feels pretty special.

Candice Wu 46:51

It’s amazing. I can’t wait to come out to a show.

Rahul Sharma 46:55

Yeah, you got to.

Candice Wu 46:57

Yeah, I know. I don’t know, even though why I haven’t been yet. But thank you for sharing all that. You know, I’m curious, Rahul, where are you now in your journey of yourself and of life, you know, aside from these pieces of artistry?

Rahul Sharma 47:19

Well, the first thing comes to mind is I turned 50 this May. So I’m thinking a lot about where I’ve been and where I’m heading. So, I am married, I have two children, a 10th-grade daughter, and an eighth-grade son, we moved to Evanston three years ago, and really enjoying being a part of the community here, in particular, seeing my children find their place. So there’s a lot of meaning for me in seeing my children follow their passion. And, you know, and my life partner and I, staying close to what we are passionate about, what gives us meaning.

Rahul Sharma 48:10

So, life is really good, you know. And I think it’s become more and more clear to me, we haven’t really talked about this, but last few years, really, the integration of healing and the work that needs to be done around diversity and social justice, inclusion, equity, and music have been coming together in a very meaningful way for me.

Candice Wu 48:46

Merging.

Rahul Sharma 48:47

Yeah, so it started with the band playing, well, I insisted that the band played the multicultural summit, which is you know, APA is the, all the bigwigs in the field of multicultural psychology that, you know, put together this conference every other January, and I went to one in Seattle, my colleague, Charles Davis, Dr. Davis told me about this conference that I should be going to, and the first one I went to, I was just blown away by it. And so I was like, you know, they have this part of it called the elders’ ceremony, where, instead of calling it a Lifetime Achievement Award, you know, I have to felt like, it was, this is so much more of a culturally meaningful way of honoring people’s achievements. So it’s called the elder ceremony and I was just blown away by that ceremony. So much so that when I found out the conference was in New Orleans, two years later, I just lobbied the heck out of the conference organizers saying, we need the band to come down there. And we would love to, we’d be honored to play multicultural drums for the elders’ ceremony.

Rahul Sharma 49:57

So I ended up doing something I never do, which is to take a lot of my own money and fly the band out there. Because it’s hard with the budget that they had, you know, we did a cultural recovery concert at the House of Blues. But still, you know, it was a lot of money in the hole. So I was like —

Candice Wu 50:19

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 50:20

There was a gamble, but —

Candice Wu 50:22

But it was that meaningful.

Rahul Sharma 50:22

It was meaningful and they were honoring that year, Derald Wing Sue, Charles Silverstein, Bonnie Strickland, AJ Franklin, Janet Helms, Florence Denmark, and I knew what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted the band to march with our multicultural drums, announced the elders and bring them all into the main hall of like, five, six hundred people, and then we’re going to line up on the side and do a cultural rhythm every time one of them was being honored.

Rahul Sharma 50:56

So of course, you know, I, it was clear to me what we’re doing. But these folks were like, wait, what’s going on? What’s happening? So, all sudden, they’re being shuffled into a boiler room closet, and you know, and these are people that like, I use in the classes I teach up, like, you know, so that we and a couple of them are looking kind of annoyed, like, why are we standing here with these drummers and what are we waiting for? Because, you know, I was like, No, they can’t be seen until they get announced. And then finally, Derald Wing Sue literally the godfather of the work on microaggressions, like, first I’m whispering to the musicians like, that guy, that’s week three of my class. That’s what I teach in week three. And then —

Candice Wu 51:49

Yeah. I was just thinking that. I was like, I think I know that from one of your classes or something.

Rahul Sharma 51:55

And Derald Wing Sue finally kind of says, what are we doing here anyway? I just whisper sideways, he’s week seven.

Rahul Sharma 52:08

So that explains everything and then the whole thing was such a hit that the President of the American Psych Association, James Bray, comes up to me, so like, we got to have breakfast tomorrow. And over breakfast the next day, he says, I need your band to set the tone for the APA convention next year. So he flew, APA flew us out to do the opening ceremonies in Toronto. And then two years later, Dr. Melba Vasquez invited us to do the opening ceremonies in D.C.

Rahul Sharma 52:44

So my head exploded officially by you know, those two worlds coming together and ever since then, Candice, it’s been really, how do we use experiential multicultural drumming and other arts modalities as vehicles for having much needed difficult dialogues and various topics.

Rahul Sharma 53:11

So just over a year ago, for example, there was a domestic violence conference, it was actually for practitioners that work with male batterers and agencies that work with batterers in Michigan. One hundred eighty people at the conference, it was in Detroit and we end up doing this workshop, an experiential plenary, where I’m addressing one hundred eighty people and the similar question you asked me like, what have you guys learned?

Rahul Sharma 53:40

You know, it’s me, talking about what the band has learned over our decades together, and how it translates to the learning objectives of the conference. And what I said though, is, like, I said, telling you what we learned, we want you to experience it, the only catch is it took us 21 years, and we’re only giving you an hour. But what we did was we had the four drummers of the band, the four rhythm ambassadors, take each group of 35 people. In fact, I took a fifth group with tambourines and cowbells because you can never have enough cowbell. And —

Candice Wu 54:21

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 54:22

So you — thirty-five people are going to go out with Carlos and he’s going to teach you the Latin Clave rhythm, you thirty-five people are going to learn the Brazilian Samba rhythm, you thirty-five people are going to learn the West African Lamba rhythm and you thirty-five people are going to learn the North Indian Bhangra rhythm. And what we’re going to do is after fifteen minutes, we’re going to collect all the groups into the big room, and we’re going to try to create the Indo-Afro Caribbean rhythmic connection.

Rahul Sharma 54:51

And it was amazing. It was, you know, people came together, I have a video of it on YouTube, and it was just an incredible experience and the best part was me standing there in a room full of exhilarated folks asking the question, what did you experience? And I wasn’t asking for one-word responses. But the crowd just started giving one-word answers like joy, diversity, hope, empowerment, you know, all of these words that they were just, you know, feeling from the moment and then I got back to the podium and put up a few slides and was able to connect what they were saying and what the experience was to some of the ingredients, you know, like the CHAI recipe and the different things that we have reflected down over the decades.

Candice Wu 55:47

I can see how that’s a huge cleansing.

Rahul Sharma 55:49

Yeah.

Candice Wu 55:50

It’s like the group cleanse within the experience, and that just opens up.

Rahul Sharma 55:56

Absolutely, and then in the afternoon, we did smaller group sessions, still, maybe thirty people and this is where I integrate what I do with the band in our own style of doing things with a protocol that I got trained on, which is called HealthRHYTHMS by Remo drums, where they really sort of brought together the best of practices in facilitated drum circle, movement, work, as well as what music therapists have been doing for decades.

Rahul Sharma 56:27

So imagine being in a circle, everyone has a drum, and you say, can you share your name and do you mind showing us what your name sounds like on the drum? And then as a facilitator, you’ve asked after they drum their name, do you mind if the group drums your name with you? So right from the get-go, just that exercise and as a facilitator, I just, and a musician, I just loved learning this protocol, because what a beautiful way of a sonic affirmation of every person’s identity.

Candice Wu 56:59

Yes.

Rahul Sharma 57:00

And then there’s the whole element of like, the neuropsychological processing that goes beyond just using your intellect, drumming together —

Candice Wu 57:10

The mirroring, the resonance. Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 57:13

Yes, so much, so much happening.

Candice Wu 57:15

And when someone’s drumming to what you created.

Rahul Sharma 57:18

Exactly.

Candice Wu 57:19

What you shared of yourself. Wow.

Candice Wu 57:22

It reminds me of something that’s been very healing for me is tuning into either my own or a piece of my ancestor, that I perceive what their soul song is, or what my soul song is, and however that sounds or what my soul dances like, with the movement that might come through, that really speaks to me, and I love this exercise with the drums, with your name. It’s beautiful.

Rahul Sharma 57:51

Whoa, that’s so cool, Candice, I’m gonna have to steal it.

Candice Wu 57:55

Go for it. I might steal yours as well.

Rahul Sharma 58:00

Right, of course. Hey, man, there’s that phrase in the blues if you like it, steal it.

Candice Wu 58:04

Exactly. And you know what, I was thinking you might, I know, it kind of sounds stupid but you might be starting to call your drum circles, Drum U’s.

Rahul Sharma 58:14

Drum U’s. Oh.

Candice Wu 58:16

Drum U’s. Like the U shape? But then it sounds a little awkward, right?

Rahul Sharma 58:22

No. I’m already planning. No, I like it.

Candice Wu 58:26

Trying to figure it out.

Rahul Sharma 58:28

Yeah, I’m trying to figure that one out. But no, that sounds great. After reading that article, it made me think of instead of Drum circles, absolutely the Drum U’s, which leaves an open space. And also I, last multicultural summit, I went to in January, there was an indigenous woman that was talking about indigenous practices in Canada and she was, and healing work and she was talking about how important it is to not just be face to face with somebody to sort of be adjacent to somebody for a couple of reasons. One is to allow yourself to not necessarily absorb entirely another person’s energy, but always to remind yourself that there’s you, the other person, but there’s the earth, that’s holding the two of you. And so that you, kind of almost goes along with that, that notion of like, you know, we’re not just enclosed in this circle. But we’re, there’s that sort of acknowledgment of that, that fourth side or whatever, however, you want to describe that.

Candice Wu 59:35

Yeah, I love that, especially the earth that’s holding you as that resource that’s always there, the connection.

Rahul Sharma 59:44

Absolutely.

Candice Wu 59:45

Beautiful.

Rahul Sharma 59:46

So I told you that one exercise just real quick the — I have, I was able to do a workshop with some colleagues and artists, friends of mine, for YWCA, where it was, the theme was reimagining racial justice. And we did a drum circle format and I incorporated some of this work, you know, some of the remote health reasons protocol, some of what the band members do, and what they bring to the table.

Rahul Sharma 1:00:17

And being in a space where you’re playing music together and also being insistent, you know, in terms of the facilitation questions about our own growing edge, around issues of oppression, about parts of ourselves that, you know, are still hung up on aspects of this work that are under work, and that we really need to work on, to me, it’s so powerful. That phrase, breaking bread together. So you know, different analogies, like you know, when you make music together, and then you’re more open, and then you have these conversations. I, it’s been my experience that we can go a lot further when we have opened things up in this way and we’ve played together musically.

Rahul Sharma 1:01:09

It still requires, I think, some heavy-duty facilitating because, you know, somebody still might not say, they still might say something or do something that’s really ignorant or like have a part of them that’s really dealing with some hateful, ignorant stuff. But creating a space where we can address that, I think is really important. And I appreciate what the drums do in that setting, when we do it with a lot of care.

Candice Wu 1:01:39

I really appreciate that you’re highlighting this, and how you’re bringing that experience to so many places, it makes so much sense to bring a coming together experience that anyone can access, a language we can all feel into and then going into the harder thing gives so much more grounding and resource to the thing you want to perhaps tackle together, that might be more uncomfortable.

Rahul Sharma 1:02:11

Exactly. But again, Candice, it goes back to the humility and the accountability and the mutual accountability where, if I truly am living by that notion of like, you know, it could be you calling me out on another issue. You know, it’s not coming with this holier than now, like, yeah, I mean, I often find myself that I’ve thought about certain things a lot longer and harder than other people have. But when I think of all the jackass things I’ve said and done, and still, you know, and painful reminders that it’s an ongoing process for me. It’s hard for me to feel genuine in saying, well, here I am the expert and you need a tune-up.

Candice Wu 1:02:55

Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 1:02:56

And that’s the end of the story. You know, is there a way we can —

Candice Wu 1:03:02

Right.

Rahul Sharma 1:03:02

Be insistent with — and you know, if somebody’s going to put up their walls of defensiveness, hostility, shame, other forms of resistance, that’s on them, but I’m going to let them know that I’m coming at them with a great deal of respect. But again, insistence at the same time.

Candice Wu 1:03:21

Well, it just makes me think about the idea that if we disconnect from parts of ourselves, like a past self, that has been a jackass or whatever, or maybe has been ignorant, or even parts of ourselves now, and just go from one part of ourselves, we can be really arrogant.

Rahul Sharma 1:03:42

Absolutely.

Candice Wu 1:03:43

Or, holier that’s what you said, you know, but if we are embracing of all, if we can, you know, many parts as we can, it’s like, how can you possibly come with disrespect or feeling better than someone else? Because we’re all human, we’ve all been there in some way, in some format.

Rahul Sharma 1:04:07

Exactly.

Candice Wu 1:04:09

Thank you so much for sharing today. I love hearing that you’re from Michigan. I’m from Michigan too. I don’t know if you knew that. Yeah.

Rahul Sharma 1:04:18

Where in Michigan?

Candice Wu 1:04:19

I grew up in Rochester.

Rahul Sharma 1:04:22

Oh, cool.

Candice Wu 1:04:23

Yeah. So in some ways, we’ve had a similar crossover of immigration to Michigan and the feeling of it would have been cooler to be born somewhere else. I can resonate with that, too. But now that you’re, I know you’re from Michigan, it’s even better to be from Michigan. But yeah. Well, is there anything else you want to share today? Is there anything else that’s bringing you alive right now?

Rahul Sharma 1:04:51

I think this is it and maybe if you don’t mind while you’re rolling the credits, haha, with this audio podcast, I’ll maybe just play another short something.

Candice Wu 1:05:02

I’d love that.

Candice Wu 1:05:03

Yeah, I’m just going to sit and listen and then credits can roll later if we want it to cross over.

Rahul Sharma 1:05:09

That sounds great.

Candice Wu 1:05:10

Or there — silence might be great with it.

Rahul Sharma 1:05:12

Right. Listen, thank you so much, Candice. It was really, it was so much fun talking to you.

Candice Wu 1:05:19

It was so much fun talking to you, too and thank you for all the wisdom you shared and just your energy. And I appreciate you. Thanks.

Rahul Sharma 1:05:28

Thanks.

Candice Wu 1:06:53

I love these questions that Rahul’s asking, how can we insist on belonging? How can we create more spaces where we can bring more of ourselves? And what do we do to have the difficult conversations? How can we play with it and connect on different levels?

Candice Wu 1:07:11

Thank you so much for joining us today and I want to thank Rahul for bringing his life and his sitar and his music, and the beauty in him in sharing that with us today. It’s truly a special thing to be able to invite my teachers on the show because they have influenced me just being in their presence gives me an energetic download of new information of love, of new ideas and ways of being that I’ve taken in along the way.

Candice Wu 1:07:41

So I thank Rahul for that and for being part of my own journey.

Candice Wu 1:07:45

I appreciate you joining us to connect in on this beauty and to enjoy this with me. It’s such a treat to have this music on the show and I hope you enjoy this tail end of the show where we just spotlight Rahul’s music in this improvisational, creative, lively moment.

Candice Wu 1:08:05

Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today and if you’d like to know more about the podcast or receive self-love notes and newsletters and information from me, feel free to connect up with me on my website at CandiceWu.com/embody. See you next time on the Embody Podcast.