Culture, Consciousness, and Resistance: What You're Missing | Pardis Mahdavi

Welcome to Resilience Redefined. I'm your host, Michael Osterlenk. This show is about building better humans, institutions, and systems. On the show, I'll be interviewing many different experts from across many different fields, including human optimization, health and fitness, team building, mind-body medicine. In the institutional space, we look at different institutions and how we can create new ones, new models and maps, including in medicine, in education, in intelligence community, in law enforcement, in the military, especially in the special operations community. Thanks for being here and enjoy the show. Today's conversation is with someone who lives the intersection of power, culture, and human experience in a way that's both deeply intellectual and profoundly real. I'm joined by Pardis Mahdavi, an anthropologist, author, and global thought leader whose work spans migration, gender, human rights, and the hidden systems shaping our world.

She's held leadership roles across major universities, advised governments and global organizations, and authored multiple books including Passionate Uprising, Gridlock, and Crossing the Gulf, that challenge how we understand identity, power, and the stories we tell about both. What I appreciate about Pardis is that she doesn't just study systems; she's lived them, questioned them, and pushed the conversation forward in a way that's both courageous and necessary. Today, we're going to explore the deeper layers beneath headlines and narratives— identity, resilience, power dynamics, and what it really means to navigate complex, rapidly changing world. Pardis, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me here. It's a pleasure.

Yeah, it's great. Great to have you. Um, really a big fan of your work. And I, I think a place for us to start is the Summer of Cockroaches.

Mm-hmm.

Way to kind of tell your, your originating story.

Yeah. No, that's actually one of my favorite scenes from, uh, my fieldwork in Iran. So, By that point, this is 2004, I was 4 years into anthropological dissertation fieldwork. So I was doing my PhD at Columbia University in medical anthropology and Iran, which is my homeland, had also become my field site. And I was studying what young people termed a sexual revolution or engelabegensi, where they saw the body was the battleground, is the battleground between an entire generation and the regime. And I think it's important to note that Iran's population, at the time, 2004, 70% of Iran's population was under the age of 30, very educated, very disenchanted with the regime. And so they were using their bodies as activism. They were using their bodies and the way that they took up space to speak back to the regime. And I was completely enthralled by this. by this movement. So 2004 is what we've actually called the Summer of the Cockroaches. So up until that point, the morality police in Iran, which are exactly as the name would suggest, they are literally people who police morality. So the Islamic Republic came to power, the Islamic regime came to power during the revolution of '78, '79, and they came to power under a fabric of morality. where they operationalize their power through really policing people's bodies, behaviors, et cetera. There's a very famous quote I remember I saw my first summer there. It was a quote from Ayatollah Khomeini that said, there's no fun to be had in the Islamic Republic. You know, that sort of— So the morality police, you know, if women's hijab was slipping back, they would take you in. You know, if you wore a shade of red lipstick like mine, your lips might be slashed by a razor. So really patrolling the public. There was a movement afoot to push back against the regime again through this sexual revolution. Now, in 2004, by that point, the morality police would arrest women who came out in open-toed shoes with nail polish on their hands and/or toes. And the punishment for if you had red nail polish on your fingers is that your hands would be dipped in buckets of cockroaches. And if you came out with open-toed shoes, and toes painted red or what have you, they would set cockroaches loose on your feet. Now, one of these activists that I've been studying at some point, you know, had a brilliant idea, which was, okay, but if all of us go out at the same time with open-toed shoes and brightly painted toenails, there aren't enough cockroaches in all of Iran to punish all of us. And so that summer, uh, you know, there was an organized campaign. Everybody came out on the same day, you know, with Brightly painted toes. And yeah, the first people who were rounded up, et cetera, but very quickly the morality police realized they were outnumbered. And so they couldn't arrest everybody exactly as the activists had thought. And so thereafter, people could come out in open-toed shoes, which again, sitting here in the United States or North America, we might say, okay, so wearing nail polish or toe polish is resistance. And it's like, Yeah. If it gets you to beat back a regime that we are seeing as one of the most elusive enemies of our time through something like that, that's a movement to be taken seriously.

What, when you're there, what did you learn about yourself in that process and also about the activists working against regime that you didn't know necessarily heading in?

Yeah, I think going in, what I didn't realize is, You know, I had grown up here in the United States and, and so, you know, hearing lots of stories about Iran here, you know, seeing images of American flags being burned in Iran, but then Iran being called the Great Satan and the Axis of Evil by the U.S. So, you know, I'm, my 2 homelands were always at war. So if Iran and America hate each other, what does that mean for those of us who are Iran and America in one body? Right. So there's that constant code switching, a constant desire to be a bridge. And so I think for me to go to Iran, to go back to Iran, to go to Iran and see this youth movement was incredibly inspiring. To see people my age so courageously and fearlessly going out into the streets with red lipstick, with open-toed shoes, and later overt protests. I mean, what we've seen in the last 20 years are increasingly large rounds of protests. protests led by young people, often led by women, right? I think about the Women, Life, Freedom movement from just a couple of years ago, led by young women. So what I learned about them was that they grew up as children of the revolution, we, my generation, but they had grown up under a very oppressive regime and yet had tremendous resilience, tremendous courage. And That gave me courage to start to like ask myself a lot of hard questions about why was I allowing myself to kind of fall victim to this? I don't fit here or there or what have you. It was, it was really inspiring.

And I don't fit here or there. I recall a story like you're Minnesota.

I'm trying to remember where, you know, just share a little bit of your background, like being an Iranian woman of Iranian descent in America, like what it was like to grow up. That way, being in 2 different worlds.

Yeah. So, you know, my parents left during the revolution and we were initially in Minnesota. And, you know, uh, my father's, you know, a doctor and, and my mom was, you know, working in, in hospital administration. And I remember I came home from school one day with my brother and there was a sign posted in front of our door and it said, burn this house, terrorists live here. And this was in the middle of, you know, Iran hostage crisis following Iran-Contra, et cetera. And I just remember thinking, who are they talking about? You know, my dad's a doctor, like he helps people. My mom too. Like, I, as a child, I was like, what does that even mean? And so my parents made the very difficult decision to leave Minnesota that summer and move to California. It was a very large Iranian diasporic community in Los Angeles. People were affectionately referring it to, it still do, as Tehrangellis. My parents actually, though, my father decided, you know, we don't wanna be right in LA. My father, He was from a small town near the Caspian Sea in Iran. And on his first trip to, to, you know, kind of scope out LA, Tehranjelis, he just took a drive down the coast and drove down to San Diego. Now, in 1984, San Diego was more of a sleepy beach town. And, you know, my dad thought, this reminds me of where I grew up.

Nice.

And so, um, we moved there. But, you know, my dad said something to me during that move, which has always stuck with me. And he said, you know, Pardis, people can, They could take everything from you. They can take your belongings, they could take your home, they can even take your country. But the one thing no one can ever take from you is your education. And that stuck with me because it was really this idea that no matter what happened, school was my job. You know, that no matter how disoriented I was, you know, my parents always had one bag packed, you know, in the corner of the house, ready to return to Iran. At the drop of a hat. I mean, imagine growing up that way, that this idea of, well, we're going back, we're going back, we're going back. Don't get too comfortable. We're going back. And then, you know, trying to find your way here in the United States. It was tricky. It was tricky.

It's funny. My mom gave me the same, uh, story, like they can take everything from you except your education.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that was your— we're in San Diego, by the way.

La Jolla.

Okay. I spent a lot of time at NC State. I love San Diego.

I love San Diego too. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. My father was affiliated with medical school at UCSD, you know, and, and, um, and Scripps was just kind of being built at the time. So, um, beautiful place to live.

If I had a choice between that and Minnesota, I'm glad you got there.

I think my dad made a good choice.

I think so too. So growing up in that, that was your context of growing up. Sorry to hear about your experience, the thing on the door in Minnesota, just fucking ignorant people. But you know, it is what it was. Um, tell me about graduate school and your graduate work in anthropology and which eventually led you to go to Iran.

Yeah. So I, um, initially, you know, I'd been studying as an undergrad diplomacy and world affairs. Not surprising, right? Here I was, somebody was— I was trying to constantly be a bridge between 2 worlds hostile to each other. I felt like a living bridge where I felt the weight of, I have to translate one culture to the other no matter what. And that was definitely a difficult burden to carry. So I majored in diplomacy, worked for the United Nations, and then I went to New York City, to Columbia to graduate studies. And I initially went to pursue my master's in international affairs, which I did get. And I was focused on human rights and communication, you know, all the things, right? Kind of an extension of that. But before I began my graduate work, when I graduated from college, my parents asked me what I wanted as a gift. You know, they hadn't— it was like I was turning 21 and graduating from college. It was a big thing. And I said, the only thing I want is to go to Iran. And at that time, I had been interning at the Los Angeles Times Magazine, and I had convinced my editor to let me go write stories about Iran. And so I told my parents, all I want as a gift is to go to Iran. And so my mom said, well, I'm coming with you. And so I remember that was that summer I went to Iran, and I arrive in Iran, this fresh face, 21-year-old, and I'm just blown away by this youth movement, by the energy. It was just palpable. And, you know, 70% being under the age of 30 with, at the time, 50% between 20 and 30. I try to tell people, you know, that's like every other person who passes you on the street is your age. I mean, that's pretty significant, you know? And I was just completely drawn by what was going on, drawn in. And the fact that it was a sexual revolution, that people were like using their bodies to speak back, that the regime said, you know, no sex before marriage. And then there was these sex parties. And I just was like, wow, man, I have been lied to. Because I was told Iranian girls don't date, et cetera. No, but more seriously, how progressive people were was really interesting to me. So I went to write about the Iranian women's movement, became completely enamored with the Iranian sexual revolution, came back, you know, was doing my master's and stumbled into a course called Gender, Sexuality, Health, and Human Rights. And it was taught by a woman who was a medical anthropologist. And I'm like, I have never heard of that area of study. And I started to learn about it and I'm like, oh yeah, no, that's what I wanna do. So I, you know, within my first semester I got, you know, I applied, got into the PhD program, continued my international affairs master's, picked Started working on another master's in anthropology and popped into that PhD and just was fascinated by the field because it's looking at the intersection of the mind, the body, the spirit, the soul, and questions around consciousness and sexuality and the superconscious and psychedelics and all these questions that were really capacious. interesting, meaty questions. And I thought, oh my God, I get to study this. And not only that, I get to choose a field site, which was Iran.

Yeah. Speaking of psychedelics and plant medicine, were you able to study other locations? And I'm curious about Iran. I don't even know about any of the pre-Islamic history of psychedelics.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Can you share with Amy what you learned on the plant medicine side of

Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, you know this, there's an absolute connection between sex, psychedelics, and the superconscious, right? It's all about accessing that other, those, that 5th dimension or those flow states, et cetera. On the psychedelic front, yeah, you know, there is, there, there's quite a lot of evidence that Soma, which is the cousin of, you know, ayahuasca, it, it was in Persia, you know, dating back, right? So some people say, well, did it originate there? Some people say, did it originate in, Peru. But there's a lot of evidence of psychedelics dating way back. Of course, we know in ancient Greece, that's been well documented, and there has been some evidence as well in Persia. When I was doing my research, you did see it was not necessarily just psychedelics, but you did You did see people experimenting with different mind-altering either processes, things like, for instance, the whirling dervish phenomenon, right? Sufism.

Right, right, right.

Different ways of accessing consciousness. For many people, that sexual revolution was about accessing this other state, and people talked about that. But there was also the use of plant medicine as well. with my studies at the time, I was really focused on sexuality because that had such weight. But of course, there, that there is an intersection between, between them.

Why sexuality? What drove you to that as an interest?

I was fascinated by sexual politics. I was fascinated by this notion that sexuality, you know, was this interesting battleground, right? That, that this question of deviance. And let me give you an example. This is a quote from one of my interviewees in Iran, and my interviewee was sort of bemoaning the government and saying, you know, here we are, we have high unemployment. We have, you know, we're one of the most educated countries in the region, which Iran is. And yet, you know, employment for that age group is, was like, you know, 35, unemployment like 35%. I mean, this is Really high and for women even higher. So you had things like unemployment, traffic, all of that. In my interview, he said, you know, with all these things going on, rather than address that, the mullahs sat around and they came up with a law. So there's a law in the books and the law says that if there is an earthquake and a man from an upstairs apartment falls into a woman from a downstairs apartment and she gets pregnant, that, that is an act of God. And so— She shouldn't be punished. And like my interviewee was like, they sat around coming up with this scenario rather than sitting around and being like, how do we solve unemployment? So, you know, I was fascinated by the way in which sexuality, you know, it, it draws in such opposing forces and these questions of submission and dominance, how they both play out and also reflect so many of the geopolitical tensions that we see. So, and having grown up as an Iranian American in the United States being told sexuality is like, we're not talking about that, or even I went to an Episcopal school, they also said that. And then going to Iran and seeing people actually Finding their agency in and through intimate citizenship was, was mind-blowing for me.

Citizenship. I love that.

Yeah.

You were there in, I think you said 2004?

I was there beginning in 2000, from 2000 to 2007. I spent a minimum of 3 months a year there.

So, um, now it's 2026. Obviously a lot's going on in Iran right now. Yeah. US-Israeli war going on there. Prior to the war, even last year, I saw especially a lot of women on social media rising up against the state. What did you notice between like 2007 and 2025 in what was happening just generally in Iran, but specific to the sexual revolution?

Absolutely. So my, my first book, Passionate Uprisings, it came out in 2008 and I, I, you know, finished it in 2007. In the last chapter, I say, listen, One of the things we know about sexual revolutions, when we think about Weimar Germany, when we think about the Czech Republic, the sexual revolution there, when we think about the sexual revolution in the United States, you know, here, which started in Greenwich Village in New York City and spread to San Francisco and Chicago and then everywhere, is that they're often precursors to larger civil rights type movements. That's a global phenomenon. And so one of the things I said at the end of Passionate Uprisings was, This is likely to be a seed that's been planted that's going to grow into a larger movement. And by 2009, we had the Green Movement. So my book came out in 2008. The following year, we had the Green Movement where you had young people out in the streets. You had people, this is not my president, people protesting. You had the Green Movement led by young people talking about things like human rights, women talking about women's rights. That was followed by a series of Iranian feminist-initiated movements, things like White Wednesdays where people would, women would wear white pushing back the veil. There was another movement called My Stealthy Freedom where women would take pictures of themselves without the veil and post that, going to great, taking great risks to really push for embodied freedom. And then the movements kept growing and growing. You'd see people have more and more rounds of protests. And then it, you know, it's, and then it really hit a tipping point in my view in 2022 with the Women, Life, Freedom movement. So, you know, very, very tragic murder of Mahsa Jina Amini, a young woman who was taken in by the morality police and died in a coma shortly thereafter, after abuse, igniting the Women, Life, Freedom movement, which again, you know, these movements built on each other. So the Green Movement, some people called it a precursor to the Arab Spring. You had that, you know, taking the region as a whole. You had White Wednesdays, you had My Stealthy Freedom, a series of other movements in between, and then Women, Life, Freedom in 2022. I think that was a really important catalyzing moment that set the groundwork for what we're seeing today. The protests that began in December of 2025. Which led to the brutality of the regime in January of 2026, followed by the United States intervention.

Yeah. You had mentioned plant medicine before. And as you're talking, I'm thinking, wow, do you know the work of Dr. Stan Grof?

Yes.

Okay. So I was fortunate to study with Dr. Grof and yeah, maybe offline we could talk about those kinds of

things. Yeah.

It's Dr. Slovakia. And I was thinking, wow, cause you mentioned some of the, the up— The, the sexual revolution or uprisings over history of time. And I know here in the States, psychedelics played a major role in that in the '60s and stuff.

Right now, what's going on right now, you're saying? Yeah. You know, most of that is anecdotal. So like I said, I, you know, I went in to study sexuality and of course, as we know, you know, even when we think about the United States, to your point, and Czech Republic, you know, sexual revolutions, there is an interconnection. Um, you know, there's a reason they talk about, you know, sex, drugs, rock and roll kind of thing.

Right, right.

There is an intersection. And anecdotally, I can say that while that wasn't the specific subject of my inquiry, that certainly that was a big part of a lot of these sort of underground gatherings and movements. And I think that people have been trying to explore and uncover what is the history of that in the region. And those have been really interesting questions. I think that there has been an investigation into that, the role of plant medicine in particular. Certainly there is widespread agreement on the role of consciousness and all these different routes into consciousness. Like I said, whirling dervishes, sexuality, deep meditation, entering these different realms of consciousness. And through, you know, medicines, some that are plant medicines, some that are not plant medicines, certainly play a role there too.

Yeah. You know, I know, I mean, you do a lot of different types of work and some of the work you do is more in the coaching space as well. And I'm really curious, like, how is all this, like, at the very cultural super consciousness level that you kind of operate in, how does it flow into your work When you work as a coach?

Yeah, that's a great question. I think a lot of the coaching work that I do stems from my own experiences and as well sutured with my background studying consciousness. And for me, my career was a very interesting kind of winding path, right? So I had that time in Iran, spent some time in Afghanistan and Turkey, Spent time, you know, all over the world really studying questions around consciousness. Got myself in some pretty harrowing situations, got out of those. And as difficult as they were, the most difficult situations I faced were those inner battles. You know, yes, I've ridden through, you know, like all kinds of harrowing. I've been locked in a shipping container with women who are being trafficked and all of that. But the most harrowing battles I've had to fight have been the the inner battles, especially when I began rising the ranks of academia. So I became a professor and then a dean. You know, I was at Pomona College, then I was a dean at the University of Denver. I was a dean at Arizona State, provost, University of Montana, president, University of La Verne. And the higher up I went, the more I found that I was having to fight these demons inside me because I was watching the education system, which is supposed to be there to support a generation, failing students. I was watching students suffer from mental health crises. I was having mental health crisis. It was like it was all happening at the same time. I was so dismayed that the systemic failure that I had been observing in Iran, which came at the level of the government, was in some ways, it's not an exact comparison, but in some ways playing itself out in the education system here in the United States and causing immense suffering. And I was finding myself in a suffering spiral as well. And at a certain point, I just thought, this is not sustainable. I've studied consciousness. I've taught consciousness. Yeah. Maybe it's time for me to dive back into that. And start to, you know, do some excavation and meet my shadows and start to pull them out and dance with them and really figure out, you know, what's my calling. And that process for me, and I was very lucky that I had the expertise that I had, you know, having studied what I had studied, as well as some wonderful coaches, you know, to kind of carry me through, got me out of a very, very deep depression. That process, which also involved work with shamans, then helped me to be a better coach.

Wow. Okay. So it's like, okay, I want to go to the superconscious level and then the very personal level, but let's go to the, because you mentioned depression, kind of talking out of the soul and the shadow stuff. What did you learn about yourself through that process?

I learned that the opposite of Love isn't hate, it's fear. And, um, I learned that I was operating a lot of my life in a suffering state. And anytime I made a decision from a suffering state, it did not turn out well for me. Nice. And it ended up hurting a lot of people around me, most first myself. Um, and so I learned that I needed to, like, the mirror was pressed up so far against my face. I had been outrunning my shadows by achieving. Right? That was like, one of my friends likes to say, my first drug of choice was your approval, right? I was addicted to success, right? That was my, that work, like achieve, achieve, achieve your way out of all of this. And it caught up with me. You know, I began feeling that restlessness, that emptiness, and I felt very out of alignment with what I was doing, even though on the outside it was like, oh my God, you're one of the youngest professors, youngest presidents. I was, You know, one of the youngest tenured professors, one of the youngest deans, first woman, like all those things, right? But at the end of the day, it's like, who cares if you're not able to turn and face your own shadows and ask yourself, like, what is my purpose here? What have I come here to do? And am I making decisions from a suffering state or am I making decisions from a beautiful state? And if I'm living so much of my life in a suffering state, How can I be finding alignment, path, passion, and purpose until and unless I get into a beautiful state?

Wow. How long was that process of the depth work you had to do? I don't necessarily believe anyone's finally there.

I was going to say, I'll let you know. I don't think I'm done.

Where you could comfortably say like you are more in the non-suffering space operating out of the more Or at least aware enough of it, you can take different decisions.

So I'll tell you candidly, Michael, I hit a really low point in 2021. I got divorced, had a pretty big job transition, you know, moved from being dean to provost, but it was a really tough, really, really tough situation for me. A lot of crisis, a lot of student mental health crises around me that were hitting me hard. And 2021 was a really hard year. And at the end of 2021, I was fortunate to reconnect and connect with a whole bunch of shamans that I started working with in 2022. In 2024, I stepped down from the presidency, from academia altogether, and then proceeded to spend the next 12 months like completely diving into my, you know, I had been since 2022, But, you know, I really spent a year after I stepped down from 2024 to 2025, just excavating. It was like time to clean out the cobwebs of, you know, 46 years of this, of trauma. And it was really about a year ago, you know, 2025 is when I finally started to feel lighter. clearer, more in alignment. I don't think we're done. I'm definitely not done.

Yeah. Yeah.

Um, but I just have so many more tools that, that we've really raised the floor. So yeah. Do I still fall into suffering? Absolutely. I'm a single mom. I have 2 teenagers and a 10-year-old. I have 3 kids, like 15, 13, and 10. You better believe I fall into suffering states. Um, and I'm starting a company and I'm writing a book and all the things. But the floor is much higher. So even when I fall into suffering, I have the tools and the community to help find the resilience.

More inner resources and external resources. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

You mentioned a new book and a new company. Are you, are you sure anything about either one?

Sure, absolutely. Well, the, you know, the books is always my greatest joy. Um, people ask me, when did you become a writer? And if you ask my mom, she says, As soon as we gave her a pen. But I've been publishing for 20 years now. So, you know, published 9 books. I've done nonfiction up till now, and I've now made a turn into fiction because I absolutely love it, and I can be more honest in fiction than I could in nonfiction. So I'm writing, I've written a couple of books. One is a young adult series. So I've written parts 1 and 2 of a young adult series called The Awakeners, which is about a group of teenagers. who are inside an elitist boarding school, which is trying to numb out their minds and create all sorts of problems for their classmates, including an epidemic of suicide. These 4 discover a mystery school hidden in the Sedona Desert, and they're taken to the mystery school on horseback. And that's where they learn to tap into their elemental powers— Fire. Fire, earth, and water through these Sages who connect them with consciousness. So it's sort of like Harry Potter meets Yellowstone meets K-pop demon hunters kind of thing. And then I have written a, you know, not a novel about an on-campus murder and secret societies. So you could kind of see the themes. And I'm currently finishing a spy thriller based in the Middle East. So I'm just having a great time with that. The writing is what keeps me in a flow state. I write every single day. Don't miss it. I don't miss a single day of writing. It's the greatest part of my day.

Good on you.

And then, the company is called Myuni. So, we've created an online university where we reverse engineer creating accredited credentials for the modern workforce. So, we do workforce development through stackable credentials and have the technology to support that. So, Kind of like I built the solution to all the things, all the suffering that was going on around me. Um, I realized that I knew how to build a better model, so let's just do it.

That's awesome. Okay. So people are listening to this or viewing this, like, okay, how do I find all her stuff and all her efforts? Where do they find you?

Yep. So the company is just myuni.org. So if you wanna, you know, if you wanna take some classes, We're very, very, I mean, like there's nothing as, there's no existing credentialing program that's accredited that is as low cost as we are. So myuni.org. You can read more about me and my books at my personal website, pardismahdavi.com, or connect with me on LinkedIn.

That's awesome. You know, and I kind of teased out the superconscious thing and we went more personal. I'd love to have you back because I'm very interested in your take on why we're in the space we're in right now, globally, not just here in the States.

Globally.

Why are these movements emerging? Why are some of these institutions failing, systems not working for us if they ever really did? So we wanna come back and kind of have that super consciousness conversation. I'd love that.

I'd love to. I mean, it's absolutely top of mind right now.

Awesome. Great. Well, this has been great. I really appreciate your time, your work, your life. Thank you for coming on.

Thanks for having me. It's been an absolute honor and a pleasure. I'm a big fan, so thank you for having me on the show.

Thanks.