Rupi Kaur: “I Struggled With Self-Worth” - How To HEAL Your Mind & Open Your Heart To Love

32:38The stage just had this power and has this power to sort of transform me. I feel like I see the stage as a sort of like living, breathing organism that sort of can take a person and make them larger than life. And so being on that world tour after COVID, reconnecting with people from around the world really allowed me to exhale and realize, okay the hard moments are worth it because what I love and what my purpose is is not necessarily to sell millions of books and be a number one New York Times bestseller that clearly didn't work stick with me you know my purpose has always been I feel like to connect and share with people it's why I started to do what I do and so being on stage on that tour connecting and sharing and And, you know, during my shows, a lot of people don't realize there is like so much feedback back and forth.

33:32There's constant banter. The audience is yelling and shouting things out. And so that really helped me realize, OK. I am saying something that is worth listening to. How do you make your world your stage? That's what I'm trying to do now. So it's not just when you're on stage, but it's day to day. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, what advice would you give to women then who maybe feel like they're a two, three, four in confidence or deserving of their value of self-love? And maybe they're trying to people please. Maybe they're trying to be a workaholic to prove something. Yes. And they're trying to create more results, but it's not fulfilling the desire of I'm valued, I'm loved, I'm worthy.

34:17Exactly. What advice would you give to women struggling with that? Yeah. And how can they shift to start to feel that they are loved and deserving to be very worthy? I remember when I was writing my third book, Homebody, I was beating myself up so much. And then at a certain point, I got annoyed of myself beating myself up. And I just sat there and I was like, okay, so like, what am I getting out of hating myself? I'm hating myself as if I hate hard enough, something's going to change. and everything's just going to get better. And it clearly isn't. So I can keep on doing it, or I can find another way to live my life.

34:59And for me, it was just like, I just was one day that blunt with myself. And I was like, enough of this now, I need to find another way. And then I think what it went back to was just like, connecting and writing about the things that felt most honest to me, and writing the things that made me feel alive. Like, when I'm creating is when I'm most connected to myself. When I'm not creating is when my confidence starts to go down to like a, you know, two, three, four, five, six. But in those moments of creating and when I'm in complete flow and I'm in my purpose, naturally I feel like the confidence is just sort of like, it sort of bubbles up.

35:41And so maybe like finding the thing that brings you to that flow state. But you were doing that for years in your early twenties, right? You were creating and you're making stuff happen but you were like i'm still not valued or deserving of love before milk and honey i felt like the confidence was definitely there like i would say that i was just so connected with myself because the creating felt so magical um it was actually when the when i did self-publish and all of the pressure came is when i sort of lost that because I would wake up and be like, maybe like that's all I have in me. Maybe I'm never going to write anything worth reading again.

36:23And, you know, I remember speaking to other women, other authors and people, and I realized everybody goes through that. And it's just a matter of not giving up and just getting through and learning also to not personalize every emotion I felt. That was a big one because, you know, I would feel like everybody feels waves of anxiety or self-doubt or, you know, any type of emotion. I would personalize it so much. And so I had to, like, really learn to be like, okay, this is an emotion that's moving through me. It is not the truth. I'm just going to sit here. I'm not going to react. I'm going to let it pass.

37:00And that was, like, also really helpful. And so the journey has kind of been, like, all over the place. And, you know, I always say that I feel like I'm the woman of my dreams when I'm on stage. and I've really separated these two women, the woman I'm on stage and the other woman who's like kind of sitting in front of you right now who's not on stage. And I always say this woman, the woman on stage, she's just so confident and she just believes in herself and the things that she says. But when I'm off stage is when like the doubt comes in and la, la, la, la, la. And so the goal for me or what I've been working on in this past year is bringing these two women together because there's no reason that this woman on stage can't be the everyday.

37:44That's poetry right there. That's what I'm trying to do. I like it. I'm interacting with your poetry right now. I like this. No, because I think, I mean, and most people don't even have a stage where they can like step into being like an alter ego confident person almost also. They don't have that, right? And they're just always anxious. Yeah. And they're never feeling enough. Do you have an alter ego when you're on stage? I don't think it's my alter ego. What is it? I think it's just my biggest, brightest self. Let's go. I like that. I just feel like me. I feel like when I'm offstage, if anything, I'm feeding into the version of me that as a young girl, people told me that I was.

38:26Not enough, not smart enough, not this or not that. And because as a young girl, that's what I heard and that's then what I sort of practiced being, it's hard to change those habits. But the stage gave me this ability to always be the girl I felt I was inside, the one that I felt like the people around me weren't ready to receive when I was younger. But the stage gave me so much room for that. It was my world. Nobody was on the stage with me. Those people who said that I, you know, wasn't enough and didn't deserve to, you know, have a voice and use my voice. Those people were not on stage with me.

39:07The stage was mine and I was going to use it however way I'd like. or whichever way I'd liked. And so I feel like that's like the beautiful thing about the stage and why performing, which was my first sort of love when it comes to poetry. I mean, that performing is where my work starts and it ends, which a lot of people don't know. But like, that's why I always say anytime I'm touring, people come watch me perform because it's like, it's a totally different frequency compared to just being at home and reading the book on your own. Yeah, yeah. so owning your voice or having a lack of voice seems like it was a theme throughout your childhood if you um could speak to parents who have young kids and they're watching or listening right now what advice would you have for parents you're not a parent yet but if you could speak to parents from a a child perspective of you being whether it was culturally or your parents or i don't know who it was, but if he was like, what is the environment that parents can create to instill their kids owning their voice without being like chaotic all day long, but owning their voice and growing up to believe that they matter?

40:23I feel, I mean, I don't know if I have the right answer here because - But what did you need to hear growing up? I feel like what I needed was when I was using my voice, not being chastised constantly for it. Can you give an example? Like, hard for me to come up with one, but it's, my family is my life. Like, they're like my greatest support system. And I think that, you know, my parents are so loving and they've given me so many gifts. but every child is different you know I'm one of four siblings and each each of us has needed something different maybe a different style of parenting and I think I you know maybe needed a little bit more affection than I received and so I think um giving children the space to experiment and use their voice and like make that environment safe for them and trusting that they'll be okay and that only when we are given an environment or put in an environment where we are allowed to use our voice and we practice using our voice and we're not you know told to like be quiet or we're not chastised for it we can then grow into the confidence of using our voice as like grown-ups and adults yeah wow um something we were talking about off camera is the process of a lot of your work is kind of based on like sadness and pain.

41:54It's like creating from a place of sadness and pain. I've had many musicians and artists on the show who've also created from that place and they've gotten, I guess, either famous or had success with their work from kind of sadness or darkness or pain. Do you think it's possible to create art from a place of love and joy and be as successful as creating art from a place of pain and sadness? I believe that it is possible to create from a place of love and joy. Can it be as successful? I don't know, but I don't care because I'd rather be happy and joyful than be sad. That's kind of where I'm at.

42:38You're right. Milk and Honey was me processing some very tough situations. You know, I wrote to heal like their writing was my therapy. But the joy that I'm feeling today and the happiness and the peace that I feel, I would not give it up for the world. And I'm happy to share also that I'm feeling joy and I'm feeling happiness. And I'm also in a state of flow with my writing. It's flowing through me the way that milk and honey flow for this next book that hopefully will come out soon. But I feel like, you know, with every project, it's different, but I'm in a place where I'm truly so happy. And I can feel that that joy is helping birth the project, a book of poetry that I am so excited about in ways that I was about milk and honey.

43:35Wow. How did you create an environment of peace, joy, and love within you to be able to allow this to flow out of you? I just began to tell myself the truth. Which is what? Which is, I feel like, for a long time over the past 10 years, I consistently did things that didn't necessarily bring me joy. A lot of that was just like, if somebody was like, Like, oh, this opportunity is really good or go do this or go do that. I would put aside something that I really enjoyed doing to go chase that opportunity because it was good for my career. And that was not really feeding my soul. And I was moving at such a quick pace that I wasn't really able to take life in.

44:18And so I think the thing that's brought me joy is presence. And I really didn't have a lot of that post Milk and Honey. I mean, life changed so quickly that I sort of like lost it for a moment. but being present has allowed me to now get back to a place where I'm finally writing again without judgment and without focus on the end result or the outcome. So when I am writing, I get up in the morning, I go to a cafe, I start writing. And in the past few years, if I was writing and as I was writing, I was judging the work. In the middle of the sentence. In the middle, I was like, this is shit. Really?

44:57Like, this is not going to be, this is not going to make it to the book. Like, just, okay, move on, flip. And then now, and that made writing difficult because then when you're doing that, that inner child, that inner voice is like, well, you're really mean, so I'm just going to hide. And I'm not going to come out. And then you experience like writer's block. And then you're just like, oh, my God, like, why isn't this working? And there was just so much resistance. But I would say that presence and focusing on the things that bring me joy and like living life is where the poetry comes from. And so now I when I'm writing, you know, I I let it flow out of me without any judgment.

45:36And the moment that it starts to not feel good and I get to a place where I'm like, oh, there's some friction. I stop. I'm not like, you know, forcing myself to sit there for five to eight hours a day. and write the way I forced myself to do that with the sun and her flowers. I'm like, listen, if I can get an hour in, if I can get two hours in, it's good enough for me. And then, you know, I go after I leave the cafe, I go home and I might spend like a few hours editing if the flow is sort of coming and it's happening. Because for me, poetry is a form of spirituality. It was never a job or a career.

46:14And I think when all the big metrics came, it was like, oh my God, this is my job. This is my career. And I did began to stop treating it like a form of spirituality. And now I've sort of, after 10 years, like come full circle to that moment where I'm like, okay, no, this is a form of spirituality. It's where I'm most connected to myself. So why would I ever bring judgment into that space? What does spirituality mean to you? connection with the self. When I'm connected to myself, I'm deeply connected to nature and the universe. And it's just presence, it's breath, it's slowing down, it's laughter, it's conversations, it's love.

46:54It's these things that I have learned to just value and prioritize so much more in my life. Do you have a relationship with God or the universe or Or do you have a creator? I definitely have like a relationship with the universe. It's kind of like as a sick person, God is like a universal energy. And so it's a universal energy that's in me. It's in you. It's in nature. It's in all of us. And so I definitely have a relationship with that. And also my community has served, has given me so much resilience and strength in my, in moments that I've wanted to give up. You know, my community has survived multiple genocides.

47:46There's, our history is full of examples of people rising to fight the oppressor and, you know, do really hard things. And so in my life, when I'm having a difficult time and I want to give up, I can just look at my community and find endless examples of courage and resilience. And that's, I've like constantly tapped into that for the last 10 years to give me strength and keep going. Because I'm like, oh my God, if we could survive that, this is easy. I can do it. I can write a poem. Yeah, exactly. I can write a book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you ever hear a voice that's not yours speaking to you?

48:28What do you mean? Do you ever hear a voice inside of you that's a higher power, a higher self, a higher version of you, God, the universe, spiritual? I would say... Angel. Do you hear anything guiding you? I wouldn't say a voice isn't mine, but I would say that there is a voice sometimes I hear in my belly that is kind of like that woman on stage who is guiding me. And it's like a gut instinct type of thing, and it doesn't happen a lot. But I feel like that inner voice is always speaking. it's a matter of like are we tuned into listening to it or not and I write a lot about that in the third book Homebody I was really working on listening to my inner voice and you know have a lot of pieces about inner voice and going inward and blocking out the noise because I feel like we always sort of know what we need it's a matter of are we listening to it or not yeah that's kind of how I...

49:38But I also heard you say that you had, you know, the inner voice was very like judgmental of your period times. So are there two different inner voices? Oh my God. I feel like there's so many inner voices. They're like confusing my whole life all the time. But how do we tap into the higher power of our greater self, our spiritual self, our all-knowing self, our non-judgmental self versus tapping into the power of our critic? I think it's a practice. Like if you get so how many reps of that listening to that non-judgmental voice can you get in? I just got for a while there, there was just so many moments where I chose to believe the voice of self-doubt.

50:22And I let that voice have so much airtime that the more airtime it had, the more that it became my reality. And this other higher power, I was just sort of shutting out, not giving it, you know, the spare time it deserved. And so what's made the difference now is just like getting those reps in and believing that and choosing to believe that that is the truth. That's kind of been, and now when the inner critic comes in, I've used this, like, I've gotten enough reps in of using this like amazing voice that believes in myself that this one can be a lot louder than the inner critic and the inner critic eventually just gives up and just decides to like, All right, call it.

51:03How do we teach that? Or how would you teach a friend that? If you've got a girlfriend who's like, you know, they're so smart and talented and beautiful and you see something inside of them that they're unable to see. Every time they look in the mirror, they're just like, I'm ugly. I'm not good enough. No one loves me. I get heartbroken all the time. I suck. You know, how can we teach that? Or how could you share that with someone else on how they can start to listen to their spirit self over their critic self more? I'm not sure, but because people sometimes ask me that question and I'm like, I don't know, but.

51:42Like I'm still figuring it out. Yeah. And also like, I'm also, I've gone through enough things to realize like I'm an 8, 9, 10 confident right now, but life might happen and knock me off my feet. And like, I might go through an experience that suddenly that voice of self-doubt is back and suddenly I'm back at a 2, 4, 5. But the next time that happens, one thing I'm going to know for sure is that it's possible to work back to a 10. And that, I think, will make all the difference. But also, I think what my readers tell me at the end of shows or when I meet them on the streets is they say that when they found my work or they read my work, it's when they feel most connected to themselves and they feel like they found a voice and they've started writing.

52:31And I think that's a way to like silence that inner critic and like learn to love yourself and believe yourself. And that's why creativity is such a beautiful thing. I use creativity to fall in love with myself and believe in myself. And I think that a lot of my readers are doing the same thing. Wow, that's beautiful. We're, you know, Milk and Honey is 10 years old. And again, if you guys don't have the new edition, make sure you guys pick up a copy of this. It's really inspiring stuff. It's got a lot of annotations from other inspirational celebrities and talented individuals who've kind of shared their thoughts.

53:10And you reflect on everything at the end as well, which seems like you're starting to kind of celebrate it at the end, which is good because you're doing that more of all the stuff you've done. But we went back and thought about, like, okay, right before you started this, if you could speak to that younger version of yourself. but if you can go in the future 10 years and think of you know 40 41 year old you 10 years in the future um and if we could imagine if we can go through a creative expression for a moment if you could just imagine the next 10 years from this moment this conversation and then 10 years we do another conversation right it's 10 year 20 year anniversary of this you can imagine your life of everything that's about to happen relationships, whether you have a family or not, the work you do, the community you're part of, you know, everything you do to create and things that happen in your life.

54:08And if you could go, hypothetically, if you go 10 years in the future, imagine you are that person and you are sitting in front of yourself and you're going to give advice to your current you. 10 years in the future, what do you think is the wisdom that you would need to hear now? from everything you're about to experience in the next decade that future you needs to tell you. Create work you believe in and don't rush it for anybody or anything. That's one for sure.

54:45And my best work comes from being connected to a life source, which is like love and laughter and family and friends, center that and value that and the rest will figure itself out. That's kind of the advice that I'd want to give to myself. Any relationship advice you think your future self would give you? Because again, your readers and your followers have seen you go through challenges in relationships from childhood to now, right? Based on your work. Is there anything that your higher conscious tenure, you know, self would tell you? My next book is all about that. It is about, I think like Milk and Honey was, it's like, it's raw, it's intense, you know, the experiences that you go through and the emotions you feel as like a young teenager.

55:54And this next book, book five that I'm working on, is the difficulties that come up with relationships, more serious relationships as like in adulthood. And that's kind of the book I'm writing right now. And I am being very intentional with being honest. And I'm really hoping that in 10 years I can look back at book five the one that'll come out hopefully in the next few years and I can there'll be a lot of lessons there for myself um so that's kind of like what I'm sort of processing right now is like what kind of relationship is right for me how to tell when a relationship isn't right when it's time to leave how to leave how to process the guilt of leaving.

56:46Of hurting someone. Exactly. So there's like a whole world that I feel like I'm like diving into that I'm excited to share with people of my generation. I think a lot of us are, you know, I'm not married, but I have lots of friends who are married and maybe not in the best marriages or people who are in long-term relationships and they're like, Like, well, leaving seems hard, so I might as well just stay to make this work. And, like, I feel like these are topics that, like, we should, you know, that I'm excited to sort of, like, dig into in, like, a poetic way and, like, yeah, explore. So that's kind of my next thing.

57:29And is this, I'm just curious, is this your writing here? It is. Okay. On this poem on page 99, there's an annotation that you share kind of reflecting on. You say, who else is addicted to that feeling of falling in love? You get at the start of relationships. I live for it. I swear the number of times I've almost ruined a good thing just so I could get back out there and experience that thrill again is problematic. Where do you think that comes from? That feeling of like that rush, the addictive feeling of like this newness to this kind of experience. And then it's kind of either gets boring or old or it's just not the same feeling.

58:06Yeah. where do you think that comes from and where are you now yeah i think that i mean yeah i always talk about it with my friends i like initial falling in love stage is so much fun and i think it's because i haven't found the right person i think i believe that when i do find that person i won't really be focused on trying to get back out there and experiencing that falling in love um and also what i'm searching for or what i hope exists is freedom within a relationship and we sort of talked a little about that offline is i have this like limiting belief that i'm working on which is that oh long-term relationships are suffocating and so i probably can't serve yes you're trapped they're suffocating so i probably will never like be able to like survive one and And now what I'm working on bringing in to sort of my state of mind is like, no, in the right relationship, I can be with someone and still be free.

59:13Amen to that. I mean, my whole upbringing was around feeling trapped because my parents had a model of they were both trapped. Yes. And they were both miserable. And it was chaotic in my childhood, in my home. And I begged my parents to send me away at 13 because I just couldn't be around the energy. I knew they each loved me, but they didn't love each other. Yeah. And it was traumatic in many ways. Just the screaming, the fighting, the slamming, the uncertainty of it all, the chaos of it all daily. I didn't know what was going to happen. As a child, you feel very unsafe if your home is unsafe.

59:50And so for me, I would get into relationships and feel trapped and felt like I had to people please constantly. I had to change who I was to make the other person happy. And then I was just unhappy and trapped. And I didn't have the courage or the tools to exit the relationship because I was afraid to be alone. It was like whatever it was, you know, it's just like I was afraid to hurt someone. That was really what it was. But then when I was alone, I was like, I'm free. You know, it's like peace. I'm free. It's amazing. I can be myself again. Yes. And the thing that I've learned through, you know, just the healing journey is I was telling you about with Martha offline.

1:00:25I was just like, when we started dating, I told her up front, I was like, I'm going to tell you the truth about everything, but you're probably going to run away because you're not going to like it. Because every other person I would tell the truth about, they would get pissed off or angry, upset. And so I would start kind of pulling back the truth because I didn't want people to be upset with me, which is kind of limited a little bit. Right. And I was like, I'm going to tell you everything, the truth, and you're probably not going to like it. And she was like, I've always been with guys who never told me the truth.

1:00:51So she was the stuff that most women didn't want to hear from my past, she was like, okay, I accept that. That's your truth. Okay, cool. And I was like, really? You're not going to get mad or scream at me? And the more I just said, this is 100 % who I am, you can take it or leave it. The more she accepted me, the more safe I felt. And it took time. Because some women can be, I'm sure guys can be tricky too and say, yeah, I accept that about you, then change later. But I think the more you step and do, I'm 100 % going to be who I am. And I'm also going to take responsibility for my actions and things like that, but I'm going to step into who I am in this relationship.

1:01:32And if you can feel the other person accepts you, then you're setting yourself up for, I think, a harmonious relationship, if things align and everything else. And that's the one thing I said to Martha. I said, there's only one thing that will make me upset in this relationship before we got committed. She'll say the same thing. I said, the only thing that will make me upset, you can do anything and I will accept you. I won't get upset at you. I won't get mad at you. I'll never yell at you. Nothing. You could ask her today. I've never been upset at her for anything. Because I chose to accept who she was, her life path, her decisions, her career.

1:02:08She's an actress. She kisses guys on screen. I chose to accept that and not change her. right but i said the only thing that i will not accept is if you get angry at me for no reason if you like get upset at me for telling you the truth if you like are against something of me being who i am and you try to change me i was like that's not going to work you can have a conversation with me about something you don't like you can be disappointed or upset but you can't get angry at me without having a conversation right right without you can't react at me first You have to calmly have a conversation with me.

1:02:44Because then it triggers that unsafe space. Exactly. And I was like, I'm going to run away. Yeah. It's not going to work. Yeah. So you can be upset. You can be angry. But you have to communicate it calmly. Exactly. Can't scream at me. None of this stuff. Yeah. That's beautiful. And she does that. She's calm when she's upset. And she talks to me. And we work it out. It feels like you found once you stepped into who you are, you also attracted the person who also stepped into who they are. Yes. and just yeah you met somebody at your where you're at yeah which is so beautiful but it took years you know took years of making painful decisions that were painful in relationships and uh sadness and all these different things and then me doing the healing journey which is all gonna be a journey forever right so um but it sounds like you're doing the same thing for you yeah it's so amazing to hear you say all these things so i feel like i'm like right behind you in doing the thing?

1:03:40I was 10 years ago. I was doing what you're doing. You know, it's like, it took me a long time to figure this out. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. I'm so happy for you and it's so happy to hear also. It's possible. Yes. It's what I meant to say because you're like, I feel trapped and it's suffocating. I'm telling you, it is possible if you keep doing the healing journey. If you look at your heart and you like really take care of it, I'll tell you one more quick story because I know we got to wrap up here soon. I was in like intensive therapy for, I don't know, six or seven months. And I was going almost every weekend because I was feeling this pain in my heart.

1:04:12I don't know if you've ever had pain, physical pain in your chest, like a sharp pain. It's kind of a numbing pain consistently in relationships at different times. When I felt like trapped, I'd feel this pain. Yes, I felt that. You did? Yeah. And I remember I was like, I will do whatever it takes to let go of this pain, but I don't know how to do it. Yeah. I don't know how to do it. I'm trying all these things. And so I met a coach and therapist where I was like, I will be here every weekend if I need to be. And I was doing four, five, six-hour sessions on Saturdays sometimes. Wow. Because I wanted freedom.

1:04:47I wanted peace and freedom. And I didn't have it in the relationship. And I didn't have the tools on how to, like, communicate and how to get out and create boundaries and all these different things. And there was one day, three and a half years ago, that I was having this conversation. and all the healing, like the journey and the integration, it all integrated. And I was able to literally heal my heart where it kind of makes, it felt this pain explode and like a rush throughout my body. It's really hard to explain. And it was like complete freedom and peace that I'd never felt in my life. And I've had that peace in my heart for the last three and a half years.

1:05:27It hasn't come back. And I'm so grateful for that because I didn't think it was possible, but consistently showing up for self and healing the inner child inside of me and creating weird ceremonies where I'm like hugging myself as a child and like integrating that childlike self and saying, I have you as an adult, you're safe, you're home now. And being that parent to my younger self was one of the greatest gifts I ever gave to my younger self. Wow. And it set me free. Yes. And so whatever journey you're on right now, which sounds like you've been doing similar stuff, keep doing it. Okay. Keep doing it.

1:06:05Even when you're like, ah, I don't want to go to this session or do this work or I'm like tired of this. Yeah. Why can't I just feel it and can it be easy? Yeah. Keep going. Yeah. I'm trying to remember that I feel good right now. I always keep referencing the 8, 9, 10 confidence because I've been doing the work because I'm doing the therapy and I'm being consistent with it. So to not stop it when I'm at 8, 9, 10, in fact, to make it like a continuous practice at that point. It doesn't even need to be every day or every week, but like be consistent with it. I'm so happy for you. We met, what, seven years ago?

1:06:40Yeah. Seven years ago. I feel like a different person and in the best of ways. You're doing amazing things. I want people to get the book, Milk and Honey. I've got two final questions for you and then we'll wrap it up. I want you guys to get the 10th anniversary collector's edition. It's really inspiring. It's 200-ish poems, correct? 200 plus. No, it's more now. Now? So I added, I wanted it to feel like a director's cut of the original with like my thoughts in it. And I didn't want to just change the cover. You know, of course I did. That was also one of the most funnest parts with one of the biggest challenges was trying to figure out how to take a cover that sort of solidified in people's minds.

1:07:19for the last 10 years and change it in a way that doesn't sort of disrespect the reader who like loves that original cover so much. And, you know, that original is black and white. And for me, when I thought about the last 10 years and being at where I'm at now, this place of celebration, this place of joy, it was only natural to infuse the 10-year edition with these colors that represent joy for me. because I realized all the challenges that I was experiencing when writing Milk and Honey, I've overcome them, as have the readers who fell in love with Milk and Honey. They have survived so much over the past 10 years, and that's something to celebrate.

1:07:59And so I wrote an introduction. I did the annotations. I've included diary entries. And one of my favorite things is a new chapter I added, The Remembering, which is full of, I think it's about 40 new poems. Okay, cool. Yeah, it's beautiful. I love all of it. It's amazing. Thank you. I'm going to ask you to read one poem. Okay. And I don't know if you know exactly where it will be, but my intention before you open it up is to read the poem when you're at your lowest moment and to read the poem that you think will give your younger self the most peace and freedom that she really needed to have.

1:08:42Okay. I know which one to read. It's actually one of the new ones. Okay. There are seasons we shine. We glow certain months. Then there are seasons a cold knocks us to our knees and we wonder why life hurts so much. It takes wisdom to stay down. It takes guts to decompose, to wither, to cry out all our color. And then, when we've reached the end of our end, once everything past is shed, the dirt will raise us little by little. The earth will feed us until our spines thicken. And like the spring before, we will rise, faces full of color, hearts full of joy. We will stand, soaking in the heat of summer in no time, forgetting that the winter ever came.

1:09:39that's a one too it's like a reminder that it will get better yeah yeah is there one more too yeah let me see and for those that maybe are new to you maybe this is their first time hearing about you i don't know if that's possible but you also do all the drawings yes too which is so cool yeah i love doing visual arts was my sort of like first form of expression i started as a young kid And then when I found poetry, I sort of stopped drawing and painting altogether. But then including these little drawings in the poetry was a way for me to bring my love for drawing back. That's cool. This is one that I think is one that a lot of my readers love.

1:10:22It's on page 197. I want to apologize to all the women I've called pretty before I've called them intelligent or brave. I'm sorry I made it sound as though something as simple as what you're born with is the most you have to be proud of when your spirit has crushed mountains. From now on, I'll say things like you are resilient or you are extraordinary. Not because I don't think you're pretty, but because I know that you are so much more than that. Amen. Let's go now. I like that. That's great. Thank you. I want to acknowledge you, Rupi, for your resiliency and for your journey of showing up, being vulnerable with yourself, with your community, your intimate community, but also your community of the world.

1:11:13I want to acknowledge you for going on the healing journey and starting to love yourself the way you deserve to be loved and starting to believe that you're worthy and that your voice matters. Thank you. So I hope you're feeling that for yourself. And I just want to acknowledge you for the journey you're on. Thank you. That means so much, especially coming from you. I feel like you put so much love and joy out into the world. And it's such an honor to be in conversation with you and to feel inspired. It's not all the time that I get to sit down and a conversation like this just feels so easy and feels like I'm being fed.

1:11:50So thank you for creating a space for so many of us. Of course, of course. To like talk about healing and talk about the hard things. So I appreciate it. Yeah, of course. Before I ask the final question, where can we get the book? Can we see you on tour soon? How can we support you with what you're up to right now? You can get the book anywhere books are sold. And I am on tour for the next two months. I'll be going across America, the UK. And usually when I'm on tour, I'm performing. but this is the first time I'm exclusively doing like a book signing tour. So come get your book signed. You're not performing?

1:12:27I'm not performing this time. Just a book signing, photos and stuff like that. Exactly, exactly. That's cool. Yeah. We'll do a tour, like a performance tour again with the next book. Are you going to be active on social media? I see you doing less consistently. Like you take like a month off sometimes. I know. I'm so bad. You went hard for 10 years. I'm tired. I don't know. I mean, I love to even speak to you offline about it. Sure, sure, sure. I feel like I've been doing it for so long. Like I've been, you know, on Tumblr since 2011, on Instagram since 2012. Like how much longer can I keep doing it?

1:13:04But I know that it's important, you know, what tour forces me to like put myself out there. And a lot of people don't also realize that I'm still kind of camera shy, even though I stand up in front of people and I'm like, you know, performing and doing all the things. Talking to a camera is still a little bit odd to me. But you know what? I'm getting better at it. And once I hit the road, I start tour on Sunday. I'm going to get back out there and just be like talking to all my people. That's good. That's good. That's good. Okay, perfect. Well, we can follow you on social media and the website.

1:13:34Where can I get the link for the tour? What is that? It is on my website, rupeecore.com. You can go on my TikTok or my Instagram and it'll be the link in bio. First link there. Okay, cool. Final question for you, Rupi. What is your definition of greatness?

1:13:53my definition of greatness at this moment is finding the strength to do the things that make you feel alive because those things are not always easy to do but i believe that when we do those things that make us feel alive we can be great ruby thanks for being here appreciate you thank you amazing i hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

1:14:38Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.