Curito Connects | EP 101: Courage to Cross the Bridges We Build with Pardis Mahdavi

Welcome to Currado Connects. I'm your host, Jen, and I've been conversing with friends around the world about life challenges and impactful moments. Conversations on this platform look at answering the questions, how we overcome challenges and how our experiences shape who we are and the work we do today. I hope this work can inspire you on your own personal and individual journey. Let's dive right in.

Hello. My guest today is former president of the University of La Verne and current professor of medical anthropology. And as I know her as the author of Book of Queens: The True Story of the Middle Eastern Horsewomen Who Fought the War on Terror, Pardis Mahdavi. Hi, Pardis. Welcome to Currito Connects.

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

So fun fact, I serendipitously bought Book of Queens at the Hong Kong airport earlier this year on my way to Thailand, and I just couldn't put the book down. Not to give too much away about this book, it's a biography, history, war, domestic violence, human rights, all written on the pages. And to bring it closer to home, part of Pardis's own family history. So my big takeaway, and I didn't know any of this before, the importance of Caspian horses and the horsewomen who helped the US Green Berets fight the war. And I couldn't stop talking about the book and recommending it to family and friends afterwards, that when I shared her book on Instagram, Pardis reached out. And a few months later, here we are conversing online for the first time. So I am so honored and so excited to have Pardis on Kirito Connects to talk about the courage to cross the bridges, bridges we build. And I will stop here so that she can introduce herself to our audience. Thank you, Kirito. And share her journey with us.

Well, thank you again so much for having me on the show. It is such a pleasure, and I'm so grateful when I learned that the book resonated with you. Um, I think it's so fantastic that you picked it up in an airport. I, I love that. I didn't even know that it was, um, being sold in Hong Kong, so I think that's awesome. Um, as somebody who is a big fan of traveling to and through Hong Kong, um, that just Makes my heart very happy. You know, what to say by way of introduction? I am a medical anthropologist by training. That's what I got my PhD in many years ago at Columbia University. And, you know, back then, if you wanted to study questions about how culture impacts how we view and make decisions about our bodies, medical anthropology was your route. And I was very interested in questions around sexual subcultures, sexuality, but also in alternative approaches to healing. Um, to— I was very interested in shamanism and plant medicines. And so, you know, delving deep into that world was incredibly, um, inspiring for me. Uh, so, you know, I, I had studied diplomacy and world affairs as an undergraduate I've always seen myself as a bridge, as a bridge person. I'm Iranian American. You know, my, my parents left during the revolution and I grew up here in the United States. But I always felt this sense of betwixt and between, like I was too Iranian in America and then I was too American when I went back to Iran. And so that feeling of kind of being neither here nor there. At a certain point, I realized, well, I'm actually a bit of both, and I can live in that space between. So my— the book that I wrote before Book of Queens is a book called Hyphen, and it's about the journey of hyphenated Americans, um, and how the journey of hyphenated individuals mirrors the journey of the hyphen itself as a grammatical mark, uh, because that was part of my journey to embracing myself as somebody who lives in this space So, you know, fast forward, I went to college, studied diplomacy, thinking that was kind of my way of using my bridge superpower. And then went to work for the United Nations and went to grad school initially to study human rights and international affairs, but fell in love with anthropology. I love the approach. I love the method. I love the, you know, ground up studying the people and the culture. and became very interested in medical anthropology in particular. So just absolutely fell in love with that discipline. So people say to me, you know, how did you become an anthropologist and an academic? I always talk about myself as the accidental anthropologist. So here I am many, many, many years later, and I've been a professor, I've been a dean at— 3 different universities. I've been a provost, and then I've been a university president. But I stepped down about a month and a half ago to pursue my true passion around being a medical anthropologist, around bringing that kind of knowledge system to the rest of the world.

Wow. So many different chapters. I think down the line, you might have to— your next, next book might have to be about yourself. In that way. So if we can rewind to your early days, which you had mentioned growing up, you know, immigrant family, American-Iranian, can you illustrate for us back then growing up in the environment you grew up in, what elements for you really stuck to you, you know, in terms of identity and understanding the— Mm-hmm. you know, what was going on for your parents, also for yourself growing up where you grew up, and how that really shaped kind of what you said when you went into college to study diplomacy and as that first bridge. Or maybe you can remember earlier when you were younger how you played a role to bridge maybe between, you know, your parents and the community that you grew up in.

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Well, so, you know, I was born in Minnesota, and at the time, you know, Minnesota was not particularly diverse. So, you know, being an Iranian family, that was tricky. It was also complicated because, you know, the time period when I was, you know, quite young in those formative years was also, you know, during the Iran hostage crisis and Iran-Contra. And so, you know, I would come home from school and on the TV there'd be all these like images of Iranians chanting death to America and then Americans responding by calling Iran this absolute enemy. And of course, later on it was labeled as the Axis of Evil. So for me, it was always really confusing to think about, I'm Iranian American, my 2 countries are at absolute war. Right. So what, what does that mean for those of us who are those 2 countries in one body? And I remember coming home from school one day. I was about 6 years old. My brother and I were coming home from school and we got home and there was a sign posted in front of our house and it said, burn this house, terrorists live here. And I remember that being such a chilling moment for us. That all I wanted to do was explain to people that's not who we are. You know, Iranian culture and people is this vibrant culture, and I wanted to be this bridge, and I wanted to go out there, you know, and and and explain, you know, our people to everybody else. And you know, my father came home from work, and you know, we showed him that sign, and and my parents made a very difficult decision that day, which was. For us to leave Minnesota and move to California, to Southern California, because a lot more Iranians were in LA. People used to call LA Tehranjolis. You know, there's so many Iranians there. And we ended up moving actually a little bit south to San Diego. But, you know, my father said something to me in that move. And he said, you know, you know, Pardis, people can take everything from you. You know, they can take your belongings. They can take your house. They can even take your country. But the one thing no one can ever take from you is your mind and your education. And so that really resonated with me. Then school became my job. Education became my focus and how we could seek to solve a lot of problems in and through education and really You know, what kind of became more and more clear to me though was that we could solve a lot of problems through educating each other about different cultures, which is then kind of what really inspired me to study diplomacy. Because I thought if I can just, you know, educate different cult— like, people could just start to see the amazing richness and also start to see how much we all have in common in some ways, how much we can learn from each other. that can be that sort of soothing balm of building a bridge rather than constantly being in conflict. So that was really why I went into diplomacy, was because I wanted to bring peace, right, to all of these kind of warring, you know, to my 2 warring homelands, if you will.

And when you started doing the diplomacy work, Did you, at a certain point, feel kind of defeated in some way sometimes with the work you were— I shouldn't— I guess that's kind of negative. But, you know, sometimes, I mean, with anything we do, right, you'll hit this point where you're just like, why am I still doing this? And I don't see a resolution. Why am I doing this? Yeah. And, you know, you're constantly kind of going back and forth. And to continue to have that light, to have that fire to want to continue to make that bridge, but neither side is listening or there's no conflict resolution here. What would keep you going during those years of working in the field?

Yeah, I remember I started— I was very fortunate. One of my earliest internships was with the United Nations. And so I was working at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. And it was incredibly rewarding in many ways because we were able to reunite families. You know, I did some fieldwork in— well, I ended up interning at the New York office and then the Switzerland office, and then I did some fieldwork in Morocco. And I think, you know, what was so rewarding was being a part of that reunification process. Like, oh my gosh, look, we can get families together. We can help people. We can help people start a new life. which is really what my parents were doing, right? They had to start a new life. They always had one bag packed in the corner of the house with this idea that maybe we'll go back to Iran someday. Of course, you know, we never moved back. But, you know, that notion of losing your home and starting again, working at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, that was very rewarding. However, like you just said, it was also frustrating at times, right? Because from a systemic perspective, the more you work with on-the-ground people and cultures, the more you realize how much connective tissue we have. But the more you go up to the government level, the more frustrating it becomes, right? So when I went to graduate school at Columbia, like I said, I initially went in to study international affairs to continue the diplomacy work. And I was really focused on human rights. But, you know, very quickly, I, I remember— I actually remember I was in a class, uh, the class was on, on the Middle East, it was on Middle East politics, and the professor was a self-described Iran expert. And so after the first day of class, I went up to him and I started speaking to him, um, in Farsi, in my native tongue, right? And he was like, I don't, I don't speak Farsi. And I was like, but you're an Iran ex, you know? And, and I said, well, when was the last time you were there? And he's like, I've never been there. And I was like, what? Because at this point I had actually just— I had gone back. I went back to Iran, um, just before I started graduate school. I'd been working as a stringer for the Los Angeles Times Magazine, so I was writing stories about the Iranian women's movement. I was like so inspired by the great work that was happening with the youth movement. I mean, it was just— I was so fired up about it. And so, and I got to Columbia and I remember I was in this class and he was like, I've never been to Iran. I'm like, uh, and yet, you know, the, the next 12 weeks of the class, you know, it was like, well, Iran is this and Saudi Arabia is this. And I'm like, but, but these are countries with millions of people. I mean, we can't reduce them down to like 4 leaders in each place. You can't say that Iran is X. There's a lot of complexity there, and there's a lot of interconnectedness. So that was why you know I was growing increasingly uncomfortable, and I was growing frustrated with the work I was doing at the United Nations. At this point, I was in the Department for Peacekeeping and DPKO Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and it was similarly like we were just sort of spinning and turning. So when I took a, um, an anthropology class by, you know, medical anthropology class, the title of the class was Gender, Sexuality, Health, and Human Rights. And I was like, great title, this is right up my alley. And I, I was about halfway through that class and I'm like, this is what I want to do. Like, this is what I want to do with my life. I want to be a part of a solution that is grassroots based. I want to be a part of building bridges between cultures where we can learn from the richness of each other and we can engage in meaningful dialogue and be part of a grassroots-type social movement. Because at the government level, we're not necessarily getting it right.

Wow, that's very cool. I wanted to then ask you if we could just quickly kind of talk a little bit about Book of Queens here, because that's, you know, the connection where you and I connected. Because that's about the re— I can only imagine the amount of research you put into it to get all the different stories and then to, you know, dig back into your family's history as well. So was that kind of in the transition between— your professorship work? Like, in terms of what— where is the timeline where you were like, I want to write this book?

That's a great question. So, and I guess we'll give it away, right? We'll give the, the plot twist away, which is that it's my family's history. Um, because when you— as you pointed out, when you start reading it, you think it's just a story about these women, but it turns out that the main character is actually my, my grandmother from my father's side. So It's actually, as I reflect on it, it's a great question because I made the decision that I wanted to write more accessible books. I wanted to write much more for a public audience so we could be bridge builders. One of the things that happened kind of over my career, so we've talked a little bit about undergrad and grad school and my move into medical anthropology. When I became a professor, I, you know, I graduated and then I came back to California and I became a professor. And one of the things that happened, sort of the further up I went in academia, in the ivory tower, the, the further up, the higher up I went, the less accessible the writing was to anybody. And so you'd have these professors doing these really rich and important research projects, but then writing journal articles that people couldn't access either they couldn't understand them, they were filled with jargon or theory or whatever, or they were behind paywalls, or they were in journals, or they were very, very academic. And, you know, and so I was writing those kinds of books too. And then at a certain point, it dawned on me, like, I, you know, I was writing books on human trafficking, I was writing books on Iran's sexual revolution, I was writing books on these huge social movements, and I wanted the books to be part of a social movement. And it occurred to me that people couldn't actually read. The people that I interviewed, the people who the books were about, couldn't actually access, read the books, right? They just— or they would read them and they were, you know, I would ask my friends in Iran, like, what did you think of Passionate Uprisings, my first book? And they're like, yeah, you know, I got kind of into chapter 2 and then I kind of stopped reading. And I was like, you know, that's totally fair, right? I mean, these are very, you know, and You know, I wrote a number of books on human trafficking, also very heavy, very academic. And, you know, I would give copies of my books to survivors that I had interviewed, right, over the years, survivors I had worked with in Cambodia or Thailand or Indonesia. And I would say, like, what did you think? And they're like, honestly, like, I'm really glad that you did this, and thank you for telling me the part that I'm in, but, like, I can't, you know, I can't access this. It's not really moving the needle. I don't know how many people are really reading it. And I remember thinking, then what are we doing? What are we doing by just speaking to ourselves? That's the definition of being locked in an ivory tower. And so my crossover book was Hyphen. So I was a dean at Arizona State University at that point, and I wrote that book, Hyphen, which was kind of academic but much more geared at a public audience. And that book, uh, series, it, it is actually published by Bloomsbury, which they're the ones who do, you know, Harry Potter, right? J.K. Rowling. But they have this series called Object Lessons, and it's a fantastic series. There are these gorgeous, elegant books. Don't read mine. Go out and read— go read High Heel or read Hotel or Remote Control. Or they're books about an object, but all the, like, the animate lives of inanimate objects. So, so mine was Hyphen, um, you know, somebody did Earth, you know, or somebody— another book that, that, you know, was out right around the time mine was out was called Blackface. It was fantastic. So, you know, a great series and a great opportunity as a scholar to start to write something that's a little more accessible. And I loved it, and it was so freeing to have that, you know, opportunity to write the stories that I wanted to write for a larger public audience and not feel bound by the constraints of academia, right? Mm-hmm. And then, you know, for Book of Queens, Book of Queens was a story that had kind of been sort of unraveling inside me for a long time. So I'm an avid horse girl, as you might have guessed from reading the book. Um, I love horses. I've loved horses since I was a little girl. Um, but I didn't learn to ride horses until I was in my early 20s, until I started doing fieldwork in Iran. And so I went to Iran initially in 2000 to do fieldwork, to write stories about the Iranian women's movement, fell in love with the Iranian youth movement around sexual politics, which became my dissertation topic in my first book. But while I was there, I was learning to ride horses, which was this great love of mine. And I, you know, I never knew the family connection. I never knew why I loved horses so much. I never knew. Wow. Um, and so, you know, I was riding horses and I was meeting amazing horsewomen. Um, and, you know, in between I would come back to the States and I actually, my, I have a book coming out on January 1st. It's already finished. It's in publication. It's called Riding. And it's about how my writing impacts my riding and how my riding impacts my writing and mostly how I learned most of my life lessons from falling. And so, I talk in that book about how I would come back from Iran to the United States and I would try to go horseback riding here in California. And the approach was so different. They just wanted us to ride in these tight little circles in this controlled arena. And it was the opposite of the kind of riding I'd been doing in Iran, which was very liberating. I mean, all these women, you know, galloping through the Iranian countryside, you know, hair flowing. I mean, I felt like I was flying, you know. Um, and so that distinction was really interesting to me, that like, hmm, what's that about? I have since learned that there are a lot— there's a lot more of that kind of riding here in places like Montana, which is where I was living when I actually wrote Book of But, you know, just to go back to your question, it was a book that was inside of me because I had learned to ride in Iran. I'd fallen in love with horses. And, you know, after 2007, when I was exiled from Iran, I had kind of locked Iran away in my memory. But, you know, at a certain point, I went through a lot of very significant personal challenges, including a a divorce. Um, well, actually 2 divorces, unfortunately, but it was really that second divorce. The, the, the, you know, the time period leading up to that second divorce is what really led me to write Book of Queens. So I wrote it during the pandemic. I was at that time spending a lot of time with my, my mom and dad, um, and I was actually unearthing boxes from their storage unit because they were moving house. And I unearthed this box of field notebooks from my time in Iran in 2004. And as I was opening the boxes, I noticed this journal that I had never opened before, never written in. And it had been a gift from a horsewoman that I had met in Iran, an American horsewoman by the name of Louise Firouz, who I had met in Iran. And she had gifted that to me in '04, and I had just sort of thrown it in because I You know, I, I had that— by that point, I had a very complicated relationship to Iran. After 2007, I was kicked out, and I, I had this real tense, like, how can I be a bridge when my home country doesn't want me? So, you know, I was unearthing these boxes, this journal fell out, and out of the journal fell out a note from Louise. And in it, you know, she talks about the Caspian horses, which I had been riding in Iran, and I had fallen in love with these horses. They're just these gentle, beautiful horses. I later learned that these are the oldest living breed of horses on the planet today, but, you know, at the time I didn't know that. So anyways, I, you know, I got the note from Louise, and then I thought, gosh, I, I should, I should probably get back in touch with her. But it turned out, you know, she had passed away, um, shortly after I'd gotten kicked out of Iran, and I was just like heartbroken. And but there was something in one of those notes that she said, you know, the story of the Caspian horse is your legacy, it's your story. And suddenly, you know, I was talking to my dad and I was looking at this and I was looking at these pictures of these Caspian horses, and it suddenly all came into focus that my family had a part in the story of the Caspian horse. So I immediately got on FaceTime with my aunts, both of whom were in their 90s and had COVID, and one of whom has since passed. Um, just after the book came out, she passed away. Um, and I got on FaceTime with them and I started— I was like, have you ever heard of somebody named Louise Firouz? And they were like, uh, of course. And so they like go run to their room and they're pulling out pictures of themselves. My grandmother, who was my father's mother, who had only— I had only ever met once in my life when I was 6 years old, and she'd given me this little wooden horse that I just always kept, but I, I never knew her connection with horses. And then suddenly it's this like aha moment of, oh my gosh, this woman who I learned about Caspian horses from had actually known my grandmother and had been riding and helping, you know, breed Caspian horses out of extinction with my grandmother. And then it just like was just like a flood, like a download, almost like a waterfall of information. I started delving into Louise's story. I started delving into my grandmother's story. I started going back to my own field notes from my time in Iran, riding on horses, you know, across the border into Turkey, across the border into Afghanistan. And that's when it all kind of came into focus.

Wow, goosebumps.

A crazy story. Yeah, it's a crazy story. Yeah, I mean You know, to, to spoil the plot, like, I learned my grandmother smuggled women out of domestic violence situations from Iran into Afghanistan on horseback. And she did it by getting the horses drunk on homemade whiskey so that they would be calm at the border crossings into Afghanistan. And then once they crossed, these women formed and helped form an all-female army on horseback. who then fought many, many years later, fought alongside U.S. Special Forces, um, in the War on Terror against the Taliban. So there's a very famous movie, blockbuster hit by Jerry Bruckheimer, called 12 Strong, and it's based on a book, the true story of the American male horse soldiers. And if you watch that movie, you see all the American men and they're on all these horses, but you don't see any of the women. So This book is kind of like a herstory. It's sort of like a, let's correct the record here. Um, and, uh, yeah, so that's, that's— I, I felt like it was a story that was too good to not be told. Yeah. Um, and, and for me, it was like, oh my gosh, I get to delve into my family's past, and I get to, um, I get to write a story that I would want to read.

So yeah, yeah, I hope it gets translated to more languages so that I can give it to my mom to read, because I just said, this lady's so amazing, and she wrote about her family history. You should get the director to make your book into a film to do the her story part.

Yes, if I had any access to any of these directors, I would love to.

Because I really think—

I don't know, women's stories.

Yeah, it would make such a good film. It would make such a good film.

Yeah. Thank

you. So you were saying that actually, when you were sharing the Book of Queens process, and you had mentioned how you were kind of in this, like, kind of your world collapsed basically, because it was like one thing after the other. And it was You know, you had being exiled, and then you had your divorces, and then diving into this very, very deep family history, which I can't imagine all the emotions you were going through at that time and during that period. And, you know, unveiling all this history and reconnecting with your aunts and, you know, chatting with your parents more than you probably had Previously, and learning about, you know, their story as well, to then craft this beautiful book that you did. What do you think was your big— you know, now when you reflect back, what was your big takeaway from that period that you, you know, in a way, healing, if I could use that word?

Yeah, that's the word that came to my mind. Yeah.

Yeah. that going through that process in a way healed you, if you can share.

You know, I, I guess like, I guess I would say that going through that process made me realize that I needed to heal. So, and I will say that it wasn't until probably in this last year that I've actually started to heal, um, because I think I still think that writing that book was still me kind of in the thick of everything, as opposed to me being still. I needed to get to a place where I could be still and really take in the full weight of everything that had happened, everything that I had lost. Right. So You know, I had lost my my homeland, right? That exile. I had lost not one but two marriages, right? I had you know I was on a professional trajectory that was completely out of alignment with what I wanted to do in the world, right? It was just I was just sort of taking the next step, taking the next step, taking the next step, and not. Stopping long enough to realize how much I was hurting, and how much unprocessed pain I had. And I think that writing that book was the beginning of realizing, oh my gosh, I have a lot of unprocessed pain. Now, the good part of that is, I realized that I was carrying a lot of intergenerational trauma, Right. I mean, this is— intergenerational trauma is real, and I was carrying it. But I was also fortunate to be blessed with the intergenerational strength. I had the same blood coursing through my veins as thousands of years of horsewomen warriors from the Persian Empire, right? So, you know, in the book, the book actually stretches back to the Persian Empire, and it The reason it's called Book of Queens is because I grew up on this Persian epic tale, the Shahnameh, which translates to Book of Kings. And it is a Persian epic written by Ferdowsi. It's, you know, every household, it's part of your bedtime stories. I always loved the female characters. So, you know, it's the story of the Persian Empire and all these great, you know, warriors and soldiers who built the Persian Empire and the horses. But I was like, the horses are a big character, right? They built these empires. But the women are also incredibly interesting, and so I always as a kid I always thought should be called Book of Queens, you know. And so so it was really exciting for me to finally write a book called Book of Queens. But you know, I think I realized that I carried intergenerational trauma and that I had intergenerational strength. So one of the reasons I had pushed away all of the trauma that had been roiling inside me. You know, for a decade or more was, I think subconsciously I felt like I didn't have the tools to handle them. I didn't have the tools. I didn't have it inside. I didn't have what I needed inside me. And I think writing that book was the beginning of cracking open, hey, you have more tools than you think, and you're in a lot more pain than you, than you realize. And so you need to heal. So it wasn't really until after that book, and, and, you know, and, and even that, The Book of Queens, I have a complicated relationship to that book. I think, I think most authors have complicated relationships to their books. I mean, I think anytime you write a book, there's a million things you would have done differently. I would have done a lot of things differently with that book, but the process of it certainly opened my eyes to how much of my pain I was stuffing down How much of it I was running from by sort of chasing the next hit, if you will, on the success ladder, rather than stopping and actually turning to face myself, right? To face my own demons and what it was that was pushing me, that was driving me to seek a manufactured self-image, and that was driving me to— Yeah. Become somebody that was so out of alignment with my authentic self. And so writing that book was, I think it sort of was like the beginning of like you start to turn a faucet on and then it suddenly is like, then it's on and then it starts coming and then more and more and more starts coming. And so here I am like exactly a year since that book came out and my life is in a vastly different place.

Oh, wow. Everything you just said there, I was, like, jotting down all these notes because I had all these other questions for you. Because they're like— so first I wanted to ask, you know, when you were putting this book together, how long did that take you?

Oh gosh, it took years. I think I started writing this book I started doing the work for it 2017, 2018, and 2019. And then I was really writing it, I would say, yeah, 2020 I started outlining it, but I really wrote it in '21 and '22.

And when we talked about intergenerational trauma, do you think you always knew you had that? You know, or was it kind of like when you were at, you know, working with this book and, you know, and all the things that happened, you know, kind of pushing off the cliff that you realized that you had all this? Right. And, you know, and this maybe this angst of anger and pain, you know, all these different emotions that, like you said, you didn't realize that was so deep within you. But what helped you kind of keep you grounded during that process? and the big shift that occurred. Because it sounded like when you were referring that the book finished and launched a year ago, that where you were last year and where you are today is very different. And I can only imagine the amount of shifts around you, you know, whether it's your friends or career or your family and yourself and how, like you were referring to earlier, how you present yourself to the world now. versus the, I guess, the resume version that you had prior. You know, when you look at the finely polished, you know, all the accomplishments you've had, where you were before, et cetera, et cetera. But you're kind of like, yeah, okay, but that doesn't really speak to me. Like, this is me now and this is me, right? My true self here. Right. And if you could kind of share with us that transition or realization, so to speak, and We don't have to dive too deeply into, let's say, like the marriage and divorces. But I think that also plays an illustration as well to like what you want it to be. You know, I guess sometimes people make these choices. It's like, well, I'm at this age, everyone's getting married, having kids, like, check that off. Or maybe from a more traditional perspective, from your parents, you know, they have— they would love that their daughter is married off. And, you know, so all these different— Society, uh, societal pressures or this construct that made you think, okay, well, I need to do that too because that's what everyone else is doing. But perhaps that's not what you want, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, it's such a good point. It's such a great question. I think, you know, I think that we learn— like, the gift lies closest to the wound. We learn more from failure Yeah. Failure is such a gift. Failure is such a gift. And I think societally or culturally, many of us are taught to hide failure, to feel shame in failure, to run from failure rather than to embrace it and ask ourselves, okay, what is the information that lies within this? And so, we're taught to constantly be like, No, no, no. I am a success. And those definitions of success, those goalposts are always moving, which is what feeds imposter syndrome. You're like, I still am not getting it. And so, for me, the pain of being kicked out of Iran in 2007 felt like a huge failure. But it was one that I was determined to run from. Instead of stopping and being like, What's in this? What's in this? Sit in the fire of the pain. Sit in that fire for a minute and take some lessons and ask yourself, am I on the right path? And who am I living my life for? Because I think I was, in a sense, on the right path. And had I stayed kind of more in that meta-anthro, okay. But I was like, no, no, everything's fine. Nothing to see here. And so, You know, I that had happened, and I you know very much wanted to live up to the cultural expectations of my Iranian American diasporic community here in California. And you know, I had the opportunity to marry somebody who was Iranian American, and you know, it was very quick. The relationship was very quick. We got married. We got divorced a year later. I was pregnant with my daughter. But that that was definitely a failure, right? That divorce was a failure, and I. Was once again so determined that nobody see me fail, right? Because, you know, one of the realizations I have had is that I have always feared shame more than death. Like, I'm less afraid to die than I am to be embarrassed. And that's something I've had to confront and now work through, right? And so, you know, at the time I was so ashamed. Here I am Pregnant, single mom, like 8 months pregnant. Like, oh no, no, no, no. I— no way I'm gonna let this— anybody see me as a failure. But again, I should have sat in it, took the information. But instead, you know, I had my daughter and then I pounded out a second book. So I had 2 books, got tenure. I got tenure, you know, by the time my daughter was born. Became a department chair, very young age, you know. It was probably the youngest department chair. I was like the youngest 10— you know, I had to be the youngest, the best, the first, all those Those nonsensical things, because that was my way of overcompensating, you know, I think, for failure. And, and then I, you know, rushed into a second marriage, um, very quickly thereafter, uh, and, you know, had 2 more children, published another, you know, 3 books, and then was just rising that ladder without asking myself, wait a second, Pardis, who are you living your life for? And, and who is it that you are trying to impress? Because if you're trying to impress yourself, that's not working. This is like you're totally out of alignment. And, and if you're trying to impress people around you, like that goalpost keeps shifting, right? As soon as you succeed at something, people want you to hit the next one, and then they want you to hit the next one. And it's sort of like a bottomless pit, if you will. And you never stop to evaluate, like, is this really what I want to spend my life doing, you know? And is this— and is this how I want to live my life, you know? Mm-hmm. And I think at a certain point it became really clear to me that it was so— I felt so out of alignment in the academy, you know, in that way, that I, I just had to find— I had to find myself. I had to find center, um, you know, so that I could be a better mother, so I could be a better teacher, so I could be a better leader, so I could be much more in alignment with myself. Because I had to confront, you know, the, the failures of, like, 2 divorces, being kicked out from my home country. And then, you know, I think one of the things about being a leader in, in higher ed is you're just constantly confronted with, like, Micro failures or what have you. And it just, it all kind of started piling on. And I hadn't taken a minute to really ask myself, what is your purpose? And what is it that lights you up? And who are you living your life for?

So, was it difficult for you to step down? In this recent role that you just had, right? Because that was only one year.

It was one year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, and I, I, I, I'm not gonna say too much about that other than to say I love the University of La Verne. It's a fantastic institution. Um, you know, I had to step down for personal reasons, and, um, you know, I've been really doing a lot of healing now, and, and I've actually found my true calling, which is interestingly what had taken me into higher ed in the first place was pursuing a PhD in medical anthropology. And all of those studies of shamanism, plant medicines, sexuality, subcultures, mindfulness, altered states, alternative medicines, like all of that. And, you know, one of the things that I got to do early in my career is I got to live in like 7 different countries, I got to travel to 80 countries, I got to create this incredible network of humans who were doing well by doing good. And, you know, at a certain point, my trafficking work, I became very critical of parts of the tourism industry that fueled trafficking, right? So I was part of that group of whistleblowers who said, look, you know, Cambodia, Thailand, like, there's increased trafficking because you have a type of tourism where people are coming to Cambodia and Thailand and they, you know, they want to go and they want to go to an orphanage and they want to see, like, you know, it's a very crude way of speaking about it, but poverty porn, if you will. And as a result, you know, my fieldwork revealed that people were going from the cities like Bangkok or tourist areas like Angkor Wat in Cambodia, they were going into the rural areas and actually, like, taking kids from families in the rural areas so they could fill these orphanages so that they could meet the tourism industry. And I'm like, well, this doesn't make any sense. And so, you know, you had trafficking and then, you know, I had done fieldwork in Madagascar. You had animal wildlife trafficking all kind of bound up with tourism. And then when this latest wave came around spiritual tourism, I started to see that again, right? And so one of the pieces I wrote recently was about the ayahuasca murders, right? A white male tourist From Canada goes to Peru and is in such desperate search of ayahuasca, even when the shaman tells him it's not for him, he murders a 95-year-old indigenous woman healer, right? Because in this sort of spirit quest. And so I'm like, oh my gosh, here we go again. But then I thought to myself, Pardis, why would you just sit and critique? Why wouldn't you offer people a different way of being in and moving through the world? You're a bridge by nature, right? Like, I know I'm a bridge by— I'm a bridge person and I'm a bridge by nature. Why not offer people, invite people to be a part of revolutionizing the travel industry, to looking at travel as a type of social impact factor, to looking at travel as an opportunity to be part of a larger social movement for cultural conservation?

Hmm.

So You know, it was hard to leave the academy, and I needed to take a moment to do some personal kind of soul searching. But recognizing what really is like, you know, in my heart, and you know, starting a company that offers and invites people to travel mindfully, that invites people to be in that. space of wellness and wellbeing without harming other people, that invites people to build community in and how they travel. Those are things that definitely light me up. Absolutely. And so, it's been a real joy for me to start to do work that's very much in creation. Mm-hmm. So that I can heal. Yeah, yeah,

yeah.

And change. Yeah.

So tell us about this company.

Yes, yes. I'm very excited about the company. Um, and we are really inviting people to, you know, uh, find the creator within through— in and through journeying in the world in a mindful way. People say, as within, so without. I think our motto is, as without, so within. So you make the strange familiar and the familiar strange. You get to have experiences. We bring the opportunity to have experiences like going and spending time with shamans in Bali, Indonesia, but in a way which is not necessarily extractive, but rather that offers the traveler an opportunity Not just to have an experience, but to serve an experience. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, we were really excited to be also, you know, providing some travel guidance kind of in this space. So as you probably know, wellness tourism is like a $3 trillion industry. Spiritual tourism is, is, is growing rapidly, but there's not a lot of like do's and don'ts. And so what we're trying to avoid is a, is a repeat of that, that trafficking situation from a decade ago, right? How can we give people a pathway? So the company's got guides, guidebooks, um, you know, spiritual concierge travel, um, and then these trips that are 4 times a year in different parts of the world where you can engage meaningfully, spiritually, and sustainably. Um, and then, you know, most probably most importantly, we teach people how to be cultural conservationists without kind of hitting them over the head and saying— Mm-hmm. We're inviting them to be a part of something. And I think that that's just a better way to move in the world, if you will.

So do you lead these trips? And what would people have to search to find these trips to sign up for?

Yeah, exactly. So for now, you can contact me. Our website is just about to go live. We're very excited. Um, and, um, for now you can contact me. We're doing— we're planning our first 2 trips this year, so you can reach out, um, if you're interested. And we also do, um, provide that sort of spiritual travel concierge. So if you're, you know, if you are interested in having— let's say you are interested in figuring out how to have an ayahuasca experience that's not extractive and where you're not upsetting a cultural and Physical ecosystem, we can actually help with that. So we can actually help. We can either lead the trip or we can help put together a trip for you. We can do private. We can do group. And yeah, and and we're also going to be doing one trip a year will be a singles trip. So if you're single, we'll be bringing different single people together so that you can meet because that's a you know one of the things I realized in my divorce was. Gosh, suddenly a lot of the world of travel was like, uh, for people my age was a lot of like couples and families. And so I, I wanted to make sure that, that there was an opportunity for singles as

well. I do have a quick question to ask you in terms of the spiritual wellness space and your research. Have you actually— have you been a participant in these ceremonies? Or just as part of your research, you were just kind of doing fieldwork, so not necessarily participating in that experience, but just observing and, you know, and taking notes of people's experience in it and interviewing the shamans or the practitioners, or have you actually done it yourself?

Yeah, so there's so many kinds of plant medicines that there's no way any one person could Yeah. Could have experiences with all of them. I mean, every time I turn around, there's another plant or there's another mushroom strain or there's another, you know, and I think to keep up with all of them is, is I think impossible. I mean, I've had the great, I've had the great fortune of working with a shaman. I've, I've been working with a shaman for some time now, you know, every week. Um, I've had good fortunes, you know, to be able to drop in through guided breathwork through, and I've, I've, you know, I've, I've, I've had the good fortune to experience a lot. And not every plant, not every medicine, of course, but, um, I have found this to be an incredibly, um, rich area of healing that people don't necessarily at face value, they can either say, oh, that's too far out there, that's super woo-woo, or they could, you know. But I, but I have been heartened to see that there is this new wave of interest, um, in, in the plant medicines and that, you know, different parts of the world, there, there is a lot more interest in that. Uh, and, and, you know, I think it's also important to, to talk about when we think about spiritual tourism, it's not just the plant. I mean, certainly that's like one of the areas, but You know, I've done a lot of work, you know, in Ayurvedic traditions in India, and that has been great. And a lot of work with breathwork and holotropic breathing, that's also been really interesting. A lot of energetic work and shadow work. And, you know, you get a lot of that. And so we'll be doing a trip to Scotland for that kind of energetic and shadow work. for the holotropic breathing and the shamanic work, it'll be Bali. For the Ayurvedic work, of course, it'll be India, you know. And so there's so many different kinds of ceremonies that you can be a part of, that some with plants, some without plants, right? And so there's just so much out there. And I think that that's another part of what we're doing, you know, with this company You know, is we're inviting people to be really— to pay attention to their intentions. And so, you know, one of the things you see now is you've got this huge wave of people are like, I'm going to go do ayahuasca, which ayahuasca is a beautiful, powerful, wonderful medicine. But is that necessarily the right thing for every person? Is every person necessarily ready? To go and do that, right? Not necessarily. And so, are there other medicines that maybe— breathwork. Is there other self-excavation that somebody might want to do before appearing in the jungle in Peru or Costa Rica and then drinking as much? And there's also so many different approaches, right? Mm-hmm. Some people say, well, the shamans should drink and sing a song. Some people say you should rub it onto your skin. There's so many different theories, and I think one of the important things is to be mindful of your intention and then, you know, to have somebody help guide you to perhaps the right place for, for you so that you're also not doing more harm than good.

Yeah, yeah. Wow, we went like on this whole like 360. Thank you so much for Thank you for sharing. So we're kind of coming short on time here. I'm very excited to share your work with our audience and your new company when it launches. And I'm sure many listeners, I think, would be intrigued and interested in participating in your, in your trips, upcoming trips in the future. I usually ask my, my guest 3 questions before we wrap up. So would you like me to shoot them all once at you, or you want me to do it one, one at a time?

Whatever you want, whatever you feel called to do.

Okay, let's do it. My first question is, what keeps you grounded? My second question is, what resources has helped you along the way in your, in your journey that you would recommend to other people? So I guess the way I put it is, you know, people who are listening to your story and resonate with some of the things you've shared, um, you know, if you were to speak to them And they were to share something with you and you would say something like, oh, I really recommend this book. It was very transformational for me, or I found it very enriching. I think it may help you. Or it could be a podcast or whatever it is that you have absorbed that you find helpful to you that you might find that be helpful to others. And then the last one is, What 2 cents would you give to the audience listening? Or sometimes I reverse it, which is be like, what would you tell your younger self what you know now?

Love that. Oh gosh, these are great questions. Okay. I'm like, got to get it all done in 5 minutes. Okay. I'll do my best. I'll do my best. What keeps me grounded? I would say, I mean, people often say, My kids, but they don't say why. I mean, obviously we love them for sure. That's it. But I have 3 amazing kids. Um, the reason they keep me grounded though is because I am like, I have at least once a day like an epic failure, like an epic parenting failure every— because I have a 14-year-old daughter. Like, who, who is a single mom of a teenager and doesn't fail? But like, that's really important, right? And But it— but the— but the— I would say what keeps me grounded are my failures. And so, you know, my, my children keep me humble because I'll have these like, my like, okay. And then, and they give me the opportunity to learn from it and to ask myself like, where's that coming from? Like, why, why am I saying this to my daughter? Why am I telling her she can't do this? Or what's activating in me? Like, is it my younger self activating or? You know, how can I be compassionate to myself and to her in this moment? So I, I feel like they give me so many opportunities to grow. They're like my greatest teachers. So, um, and, and my horse, of course. Like, every time I fall from my horse, or every time, you know, my horse like shoves me or whatever, I'm like, thank you. You know, it like just jolts me back into like consciousness, which is, which is so great. You know, I think that's— Mm-hmm. That's a really big A really big grounding factor is embracing my failures. I love that now. I love to embrace them now.

Yeah. I love your answer because of the many people I've chatted with, I've never had anyone say their children or a pet, or I mean horse. So that's new for what keeps you grounded. And I love that. I love that.

What do people usually say? I'm

curious. Meditation, my yoga practice. Um, running, uh, journaling.

Yeah, yeah. Which all, all of them, they—

Yes, exactly.

All valid, important.

Whatever works for you, whatever speaks to you. Yeah,

yeah. And I mean, to the journaling point, I definitely journal so that I can be like, okay, here we had this experience, what was that about? You know? Um, so that, that definitely, uh, is I think on your second question, my answer there was going to be yoga and breathwork. Mm-hmm. And breathwork in particular, actually, that resource. You'd asked, well, what's a resource I've found really helpful? I've been working with my shaman, this particular shaman for 2 years. And every week we do 2 hours or hour and 45 minutes of breathwork. And dropping in has just been incredibly healing for me. I mean, it has allowed, you know, and it's funny, I had tried so many things. I had tried EMDR, I had tried, you know, Transcendental Meditation. I had, I had tried so many things. And it wasn't until I met this shaman and I engaged in breathwork that it started to actually like give me the space and to unlock. And doing sacred fire ceremonies has also been— I would say if there's one thing I would recommend to people, I would cheat and I would ask for 2, which one would be breathwork and the second would be sacred fire. Those ceremonies, and now I hold those ceremonies for my kids and for friends and family. Everybody talks about just how transformative it is, how you feel the next day. I mean, you just feel like a huge weight has come off your shoulders, and at the same time, you've been infused with that, like, intergenerational strength, you know?

Mm.

Um, so I think that's really, really big. Um, your third question, what, what advice would I give? It would be the same that I would give to people out there or to my younger self. Get out there and explore so that you can find— continue to find the creator within. It's a big world out there. Don't let it get small, right? Like, a lot of people, the older they get, the smaller they let their world get. Like, we talked about running. It's like, I have a friend who's a runner and she literally runs the same path every day. And I'm like, why? Like, if I were you, I would be— I would be like, I'm gonna go and run in Utah. Like, I'm gonna go run— like, I'm like, get out. There's so much out there, you know? And, and, and There are so many different ways of approaching your life, and sometimes it takes getting out and, and getting into a totally different environment in order to get to know yourself. And so I would say, you know, journey without to find the creator within.

Oh, that's so beautiful, so encouraging as well. I think that's a very good reminder for For many people. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Well, I could keep going, but I think this is a wonderful way to wrap up an introduction of who you are and the work you do and your journey. I don't know if you have anything else you wanted to add on before we bid farewell.

I just wanted to thank you for being such an awesome interviewer, but also for like Really supporting, um, this kind of conversation that is open and honest. I— it's so rare that I get to do that. So thank you for that. And, um, thank you for picking up my book. Like, it's, you know, you— I'm imagining— I'm like literally imagining you at the airport looking at a bookshelf of like all these amazing books. And I, I gotta tell you, like, when you first told me that, as we first started talking, it totally activated my imposter Imposter Syndrome, I'm like, oh my God, she probably was like, why did I pick up this book? You know, like, I was like, because I still struggle with the, like, I'm not good enough constantly. I mean, I think we all do. And so, you know, you said that, I was like, oh man, she picked mine. Hope she didn't regret it.

Oh, I definitely did not regret it. I've been passing my book around. Like, I don't even have it with me right now. I've already passed it to 2 other friends. Oh, actually, oh my God, even my sister read it, who, who went to your alma mater. Um, my sister who went to Occidental, and she went to Columbia as well for her, for her—

oh my gosh, I gotta meet your sister. Yeah, that's the— yeah, it's the Barack— well, it's the Barack Obama track too.

Exactly, exactly.

And where does your sister live now? Where does she live now?

We're all in Taiwan. We're all in Taiwan now.

Well, I, um, I, I went to Taiwan once in 2004, but it's been like 20 years. So I hope that, you know, maybe someone will pick up my book in Taiwan and invite me to come do a book signing. Hopefully I get to come and meet you in person. That would be amazing. Yeah,

but thank you so much. Um, I think it was meant to be that I picked up your book, and here we are conversing. I'm— you're my first author that I've— I'm, I'm interviewing as well.

Really? Oh my gosh. Well, I'm honored. I'm honored. Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed this and, um, really excited also to be part of the community that you have created. You've done a fantastic job. I've been following you on Insta and I really love everything that you're doing. So excited to be connected in this way.

So I will put all the, um, resources that we've talked about in the episode resources, uh, you know, links below so people can follow you, look on your website, follow your new company as well and get in touch with you if they're interested in your work and want to learn more. So yeah, thank you so much. And very excited to see what you're doing next.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

That's all we have time for today. Thank you for listening. You've been listening to Currado Connects. For more Connects content, collaborations, and discoveries set to inspire you on your own individual journey, please head to our website at www.currido.co. Until next time, stay inspired, and thank you for joining us at Currado Connects.