April 8, 2025 • 77 mins
Longtime VISIONS consultant and psychologist Dr. Sarah Stearns shares her story, starting with her rural Connecticut upbringing to becoming a founding consultant with VISIONS Inc. In addition to talking about her personal and professional trajectory, she shares how her own experiences with discrimination fueled her commitment to multicultural work and systemic change.
This is the final episode of Season 1 of Into Liberation. Please make sure you follow us on your favorite podcast platforms, and sign up for our newsletter to stay updated about what we’re doing.
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Into Liberation: A podcast about transformative change, equity, and liberation is a production of VISIONS, Inc, a non-profit that offers effective tools that help individuals and organizations communicate and forge connections across differences that drive collective success.
Since 1984, we’ve offered research-based, time-tested approaches to cross-cultural learning that invite participants to engage in equity and inclusion work, starting at the personal and interpersonal levels and expanding to include changes toward institutional and cultural levels.
VISIONS offers actionable approaches that empower people to identify actions, explore their motivations, and effectively move through complex situations with respect and humanity for others and their differences.
Any opinions and views expressed by the speakers are their own and do not reflect the positions of VISIONS, Inc.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (00:00):
Hello, you're listening to Into Liberation, a
podcast about transformativechange, equity and working
against oppression.
I'm Lina Achter, director ofPrograms with Visions Inc.
Welcome.
I'm pleased today to bespeaking with longtime senior
Visions consultant, dr SarahStearns.
(00:22):
In addition to serving as aconsultant for Visions basically
since the organization wasfounded, sarah is a psychologist
who has been in clinicalpractice for several decades.
Sarah is actually my firstintroduction to Visions.
She facilitated a PACE workshopthat I took in Los Angeles back
in 2019.
I remember the workshop beingradically transformative for me,
(00:43):
and little did I know then thejourney that it was starting me
on.
Sarah has been a mentor andmodel for many of us at Visions,
and hearing her story remindedme of how far things have come,
as well as of the deepimportance of the work as it
continues.
Hi, everybody, I'm very excitedto introduce you to actually
one of the people who introducedme to the Visions model, one of
(01:04):
my first who introduced me tothe visions model my first, one
of my first PACE instructors, drSarah Stearns.
Hi, sarah, hi Lina.
Thank you so much for agreeingto sit down.
We've been planning this for awhile and I've been really
looking forward to thisconversation For folks who don't
know you would you introduceyourself briefly?
Dr. Sarah Stearns (01:28):
Sure, I know we'll probably get into this in
more detail later, but I alwaysintroduce myself in these
sessions as as a white girl whogrew up in a rural new england
town and basically had verylittle experience of diversity
growing up, except that my mydad, taught at Wesleyan in the
beginning of my life and he wasvery connected to the
(01:51):
international community there.
So we oftentimes did have peoplefrom other countries and that
included people of color in ourhome, which was, I think,
unusual for this little townthat we grew up in, that I grew
up in think, unusual for thislittle town that we grew up in,
that I grew up in, and I alwaysappreciate the fact that my
parents were both politicallyminded, in the sense that they
(02:14):
cared deeply, I think, aboutwhat was happening in our
country, and my father inparticular had grown up at a
time during the depression whenhis family had really changed,
their economic status, had losta lot because his father was in
the financial sector and I thinkthat gave him a lens through
(02:37):
which he really understood thedynamics of class.
And I came to understand thathe didn't understand many of the
other dimensions.
He certainly didn't understandwhiteness and that was, you know
, part of his era.
So anyway, about me I grew upand have lived in many parts of
(02:58):
the country.
I now live in California.
I was trained as a clinicalpsychologist in my late 20s and
early 30s.
Before that I had visions ofbeing an actress and a director.
So I was very involved in thetheater for my developmental
(03:19):
years and then I also was acompetitive athlete and I think
those things very much shapedthe way in which I probably over
internalized a sense of havinga lot to bring to the world.
You know, a lot of options anda lot of permission to do things
(03:43):
that I loved, and I thinkgrowing up, coming of age in the
60s was also a time when youknow the kind of go find
yourself and who you are.
Messages were much more just apart of the culture, and so I
think I really benefited fromgrowing up in that before I
(04:03):
finally landed in my program tostudy psychology.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (04:10):
So I'll stop there.
You've been with Visionsbasically, before Visions even
came to be.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (04:18):
Well, you know I was talking to Dr Valerie
Batts about it because I wantedto be accurate in this
description.
She and I were in graduateschool together and that is how
I came to know her and JohnKappenman, and being in their
circle meant, you know, in someways being a part of the ways in
(04:42):
which Visions was born.
But I was not.
They had moved back to the EastCoast how to say this?
We both had moved to the BayArea of California to do our
internships, so we were able tostay in close contact.
And then they moved back to theEast Coast, to Richmond, and it
(05:05):
was during that time that theactual foundational work of the
founding of Visions happened.
But then I got a phone callsaying you know, we're doing
this thing and I want to inviteyou to be a part of it.
(05:25):
I probably we couldn't pin downthe exact date when that
happened, but it was probably 85or 86, not right at 84.
And what it meant for me wasvery much a wonderful way to
think about how was I going tocarry forward some of the I
(05:48):
don't think at the time I wouldhave called it progressive, but
I would have called it activismthat I was involved in during my
college years.
And then, you know, there weremany reasons why I felt like I
really resonated with whatVisions was trying to do because
I really valued the notion ofbeing in relationship, I valued
(06:10):
the idea that having difficultconversations is part of growth,
and I also knew that I had alot to learn.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (06:21):
Fantastic.
Well, there's a lot that I wantto ask you about in there, and
I'd love to start with yourupbringing in Connecticut and
what that was like, what it waslike to leave that context, and
also how you bring thatexperience into your I'll ask
(06:43):
you this later, but how thatexperience still comes into your
work.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (06:48):
Well, the little town that I grew up in
and it was truly little it was.
There was no commercial area oftown.
It was very diverse, mixed, interms of the class status of
people, but I would say that Ioften describe it more as a
working class town because ofthe probably 35 to 40 total kids
(07:14):
.
In my year, my grade, I thinkthere were only three of us that
went to college, maybe four,and so it was very interesting
growing up with people who had avery different perspective on
what the trajectory of theirlives would be.
And my parents obviouslypresented a very different model
(07:35):
for us.
They were both college educated.
My father had an advanceddegree and, you know, education
for them was the absoluteessential to life in terms of
giving, you know, guaranteeingthat there were options in terms
of what you could do with yourlife.
(07:55):
And it was interesting becausemy family ended up being five
daughters.
I'm the second of five daughters.
I'm the second of fivedaughters and I often wonder,
you know, how having all sisterschanged my parents' way of
thinking.
I don't think it diddramatically, because both of my
grandmothers had also attendedcollege, but you know to think,
(08:18):
if there had been boys in thefamily whether there would have
been a differential in terms ofwhat got prioritized, in terms
of the ways in which our futurelives were talked about.
But because education was socentral and the only options,
(08:39):
the school in my town only wentup to the ninth grade, so it
would have taken beingtransported to a neighboring
town, a high school that I thinkmy parents worried was not
(09:05):
going to be a good settingrelative to already feeling
somewhat like it wasn't cool tobe smart.
I don't know whether you knowthat social set of messages was
just because of the ways inwhich people's lives weren't
centered on education.
(09:27):
But they thankfully decidedthat they would send me away to
school for the 10th, 12th gradesand I went to an incredible
all-girls school where themessaging couldn't have been
different.
It was all about incrediblewealth of options there were in
(09:55):
terms of the things that youcould learn, the ways in which
the pedagogy was about learningfrom primary sources, so really
engaging in critical thinking.
You know, being in a settingwhere I didn't feel like I had
(10:15):
to compete with girls for boysattention, which I think already
something I was not just awareof but probably had low
self-esteem around, so you knowit was, you mean, certainly not
(10:44):
knowing what I wanted to do withmy life, but absolutely clear
that I could have that I couldself-determine what next.
And, and that was justincredible.
So back to my town.
I mean, I think it wasinteresting looking back,
(11:05):
especially when, in visions, wewould kind of think about our
early growing up experiences and, you know, remembering that
there was one black family thatwas in, you know, the school
system, there were Jewishfamilies.
It happened that, you know,because the town was so small,
(11:26):
we, I didn't experience any kindof exclusion of those families
and I really felt, you know,like attending birthday parties
and sleepovers and that kind ofthing happened, you know, for me
, with those families.
(11:49):
And so there was an awareness ofsome differences, seeing
families from the inside alittle bit more even at that age
and noticing I mean, one of theevocative memories was the,
just the smell of the food thatwas being cooked in those houses
(12:12):
and you know, just a way ofrecognizing those differences.
But it wasn't until high school.
And then you know, of course,as my circles expanded, that I
think I really had a sense ofthe things that the so-called
monoculture of my upbringinghadn't exposed me to.
(12:35):
There were so many things thatwere new to me and again, I
think that invitation to be opento it through the international
students visiting my home etcetera, was just that.
It was almost like it was soexceptional that it was
exoticizing a little bit.
(12:56):
It wasn't a true immersionexperience in difference
experience, indifference andkind of owning.
That white wasp culture wasreally something.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (13:13):
I was steeped in because it's all that was
around me, and then so boardingschool, that was still in New
England.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (13:20):
No, it was in upstate New York.
Oh, okay, okay.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (13:25):
And then your college experience.
I know that a number of thingshappened in college and what was
that like?
Was that your first?
So boarding school?
I'm assuming that it wassomewhere upstate, right?
Dr. Sarah Stearns (13:42):
Yeah, Okay.
So I'll tell a bit of a funnystory.
I you know, back in the day,when I hear kids now having to
apply to 15 schools or whatever,I only applied to three and
they were very different, andthe one that I immediately was
(14:03):
accepted to was MiddleburyCollege, which is also New
England school, small, but I waswaitlisted at Harvard.
And so, even though I had mailedmy letter accepted to Harvard
and I sat by the mailbox andbegged the postman to let me
take back that letter and,frankly, there was so little
(14:38):
thought given to well, where doI really want to be?
You know, it was much more aboutfeeling like I couldn't imagine
you know how how different theexperience would have been.
You know, sometimes I think,because of the number of things
that that I was good at or Isucceeded at in high school,
(15:01):
that I would have been so-calleda big fish in a little pond at
Middlebury.
But I was a very small fish ina very big pond at Harvard and
it was, you know, daunting.
It was.
Luckily, I was academicallyvery well prepared, but I think
socially I wasn't.
There were so many things, somany people who came from wealth
(15:28):
or came from social powerpositions or you know just the.
The amount that each personshowed up feeling comfortable in
their skin was very differentthan how I experienced myself
and and it took a while for meto figure out, you know how to
(15:51):
claim my space there.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (15:55):
And then that's where you got introduced
to, as you mentioned earlier, alot of the activism that shaped
your life and your outlook.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (16:13):
Absolutely, I mean I think.
So.
I started college in 1969.
And Harvard had been one of theso-called hotbeds of the
anti-war movement in 68.
And so I stepped into that andwent to the March on Washington
that November of my freshmanyear and so I had the first
experience of being in a reallypowerful sense of collective,
(16:36):
you know, expressing our beliefs, getting tear gassed for it.
Getting tear gassed for it, Imean being kind of on that edge
in a way that I think was muchmore familiar to people who had
been more politically active orhad found avenues for political
(16:57):
action before that.
And my roommate, who was insome ways much more radical than
I was, who was in some waysmuch more radical than I was.
She belonged to the SocialistWorkers Party and also was very
active in the anti-war movement,and our tiny little dorm room
(17:17):
became a place where people whowere on their way to Canada to
escape the draft could come andstay Again, just this
opportunity to see people inaction or have contact with
people who were talking aboutthings.
And she even dropped out ofschool because her sense that
(17:43):
being at an elitist institutiondidn't fit her description of
herself at that time to gounionize factories in
Massachusetts.
So there were ways in whichpeople were expressing
themselves.
I too dropped out after myfreshman year, but I did it in a
(18:05):
very different way.
I just needed to get out and Iwas, as you remember, very
involved in the theater at thatpoint and I went abroad to try
and to get into theater schooland, you know, pursue more of a
professional career at thatpoint, and that didn't work out.
(18:26):
But you know, again, it was agood experience because I got
outside the US and could talk topeople who had a very different
perspective on the US than justhaving grown up there, then
just having grown up there again, being able to see the United
(18:46):
States through the eyes ofcountries that had very
different ways of thinking abouttheir role in the world than
the way in which the US then,and I would say even now, can
(19:09):
presume that it has apositionality of, you know,
moral dominance or somethinglike that.
And it was, you know, all thecracks were showing, I think,
given the behavior of the US inthe Vietnam War, right, right.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (19:22):
So how long?
Where did you go abroad?
Dr. Sarah Stearns (19:37):
Right, right.
So how long?
Where did you go abroad?
Sometimes where I would sleep,because it was easier to sleep
on a train and find a place tosleep.
But so I went all over,including went to Czechoslovakia
while it was Soviet occupied,went into the far reaches of
(19:58):
Northern Scandinavia, which wasa place that I would
subsequently return to because Iloved it so much there.
And so I had, you know, andagain, looking back, what gave
me the sense that, as a justturned 18 year old, I could
travel independently with thatlevel of freedom.
(20:21):
It's not that I didn't have youknow level of of freedom, it's
not that I didn't have you knowthe scary experiences of
sometimes feeling like therewere predators around me, but I,
thankfully, was able to escapeany kind of actual attack and I
I had just an incredible, againeye-opening, experience yeah,
(20:45):
there's nothing like travelingat that age.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (20:47):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Then what took you back to?
Back to university?
Dr. Sarah Stearns (20:55):
one theater school that seemed like it would
accept me, but not until thefollowing year, and my parents
believed that I should come back.
In fact they re-enrolled mewithout even insulting with me.
So I got back and literally thefollowing day was sent back to
(21:16):
school and that year again was.
I would say it was difficult,in part because I was, I had had
this completely otherexperience and to kind of go
back to the structure andrequirements of being so focused
(21:40):
on classwork and that kind ofstuff.
And by that time I was doing alot of theater.
I, you know, would close oneproduction and go into the next.
I sometimes even wonder how I,you know, was ready for my exams
and stuff, because that wasreally the center of my life and
(22:02):
I was also playing on thetennis team and the basketball
team, so there were lots ofthings going on.
But once I was back, there werelots of things going on.
But once I was back and I gotre-engaged, ultimately I'd I
ended up choosing to stay atuniversity during that time.
Okay, okay, and then?
Dr. Leena Akhtar (22:24):
I recall you told me that it was I have the
impression of it being almost byaccident that you ended up in
psych.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (22:33):
Absolutely.
I mean, if there had been amajor that included being in the
theater, I would have done iteasily.
But because there wasn't, Ifelt like I had to choose either
between.
English literature orpsychology were the closest
things I could think of to thetheater and I just didn't
(22:56):
imagine myself wanting to writepapers of literary criticism.
You know, I was much moreinterested in the workings of a
human being and the human mindand the human experience and I
knew at least that wouldstimulate my interest.
And I think that's one of thereasons I stayed, because in my
(23:16):
sophomore year I actually waslucky enough to kind of be
mentored by the head of thedepartment and put into seminars
that were in some ways muchmore.
They were smaller scale, whichI liked that, you know, there
were probably 12 people in aroom as opposed to a lecture
(23:39):
style class of, you know, 200.
And I just found myself reallyintellectually challenged in
ways that were really wonderfulto me and I got into really
having a different position fromwhich to look at myself.
So I would say that's when mysense of introspection and, you
(24:04):
know, trying to understand whereI'd come from, what the
dynamics of my family were, youknow, what were the ways in
which it fueled a lot of myinsecurity and ways in which I
don't think I would have usedthe word healing at the time,
but that I needed some healingwas clear to me.
(24:24):
And trying to remember, I don'tthink that I began therapy
until maybe my junior year andthat was not something my
parents had any sense of orapproved of.
I think my poor mother thoughtthat therapy was only about
blaming the mother, which therewas a grain of truth to that.
(24:49):
No, for me it was aboutabsolutely wanting there to be a
place that felt like I couldexplore and feel safe and deal
with the pain that I was in.
So that kind of kept meinvolved in in staying at
(25:14):
Harvard.
I did drop out one other timeand that was basically a mental
health break for me.
I dropped out for one semester.
It was good for me.
I I had to work, so I became ahouse painter and you know there
were just ways in which it gotme once again kind of outside
(25:38):
the Harvard community and someof the things that I found
difficult about being there.
But you know, ultimately Idecided that I did want to
finish and again my goal was notto continue in psychology.
In fact, I really couldn'timagine myself going to graduate
school, because it was againsomething that didn't come
(26:03):
easily to me to be so focusedacademically as was required at
Harvard.
But there's more to that story.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (26:16):
You went to college in 1969.
That was the same year asStonewall.
I cannot imagine that that wasa particular.
I cannot imagine that coming toan awareness or coming out was
an easy thing in that period.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (26:33):
It wasn't, and I was not out, in part
because I was not even awarethat that would be a choice that
I would make.
And I do talk about it as achoice because I think as my
identity evolved, because Ithink as my identity evolved,
part of what I became aware wasthat, even when I was in
(26:56):
relationship with men who Ithought had a consciousness
around it and were invested inthe values of sharing power, the
society that we lived in wasstill so structured in that way
that I always felt, like youknow, that it didn't suit me.
(27:18):
So at the time, honestly, whatI would talk about, lena, was
that I would be Isidore Duncan.
I don't know if you rememberthat she was a dancer and quite
a flamboyant.
Now, I was not flamboyant, Ican tell you that, but her
lifestyle appealed to me becauseshe was nice and she basically
(27:40):
moved comfortably, seemingly,around in the world because of
her art and she had lovers and,you know, she basically had much
more control of her life.
And that's what appealed to me.
It was that I was uncomfortable.
(28:00):
My older sister, who was twoyears older than I, got married
the week after she graduatedfrom college and I think that
template, you know, stillexisted.
Again, I wouldn't consider myfamily traditional or
conservative, but I think youknow, literally after her
wedding, my sister's wedding, itwas kind of like, oh, you're
(28:22):
next and good, wow.
And I was like, no, I don'tthink so.
By that time I had a sister.
My family spanned it many yearswith the same parents.
I had a sister who was probablysix at the time that my older
(28:45):
sister married and I said I'lltell you what I'll have a joint
marriage with Jennifer, mysister.
That way we could postpone anydecision-making around seeing me
partnered.
So anyway, you know, back toyour question.
I think I was, because I was inthe theater.
I was very aware of gay men.
(29:06):
I wasn't aware of gay women atall and would not have, you know
, thought of myself.
So it was more.
I don't know if you want tojump to this, but after college
I was starting to play morecompetitive tennis and in that
(29:28):
setting that I met my firstwomen who, who and many of them
didn't identify as lesbian.
They were in marriages but itwas clear that, you know, that
was because they weren't given achoice wow, that they had.
It was almost like a secretsociety.
Back Back to your point.
(29:50):
No, it was not easy for them toidentify and many of them did
not live out in their lives, andso it was for me, you know,
something that was kind of asurprise and not something that
I felt I don't at all have thecoming out story of like finding
(30:13):
my true self or something likethat.
It felt much more like, oh okay,this is an option, and how
would my life be different if Ipartnered with a woman and how
would I be able to have, youknow, a different?
I mean again, it's hard to knowhow much this would have been
(30:35):
the language I had access to atthe time.
I think I was very aware that Ididn't want to be in the power
structure of a heterosexualmarriage.
I had seen that with my parentsand it was appealing to me.
So it took me a while before Iexperimented, and it felt like
(30:59):
that experimentation with being,you know, in a relationship
with a woman.
And then it was only atgraduate school that I I
actually allowed myself to be,you know, much more drawn to and
choose a relationship with awoman, and that began my
(31:21):
experience of dealing withhomophobia.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (31:26):
You talked about that because you were out
in graduate school to the pointwhere it caused you difficulties
in terms of finding a committeeto Well, I was, you know.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (31:40):
It started actually at the very beginning
of my time.
I was at University.
So that's North Carolina, thisNorth Carolina, and I was very
aware that, as much as theyclaim to be, you know, very
influenced by, I think, whatthey would consider more
(32:01):
Northern or Northeastern culture, it's very Southern and there
were very clear messages aboutwhat was okay and not okay.
I won't go into all of it, butit was clear to me that once it
was known that I was dating thiswoman, that things changed for
(32:23):
me, that there was a sense of mybeing less trustworthy, my
ethics were called into question, my behavior clinically was
called into question.
There were ways in which, evenwhen I remember walking in to
(32:44):
receive a paper that I hadwritten from a professor and she
said, sarah, this is actuallyquite good.
And I said you sound surprisedand you know, and because I was
in friendship with Valerie Batts, who was a colleague, classmate
of mine, she helped meunderstand.
(33:06):
You know, it's kind of like,when you are seen through that
lens of being less than it ispervasive, and you will start to
feel like you're starting noton, you know, the level playing
field, so to speak, but in aditch, you know, or in sand or
(33:27):
whatever, that there's a way inwhich dealing with people's
attitudes and assumptions aboutyou are part of systems of
oppression.
And you know, I don't thinkthat I would say that I had
experienced that so directly asa woman.
(33:47):
Again, being in an all-girlsschool was, I think, a big
escape during my adolescencefrom having any kind of
pervasive sexism that I wasdealing with.
And then I had white privilege,I had relative class privilege,
whatever.
This experience was a first forme and it was like continuously
(34:09):
being kicked in the gut by youknow the surprising attitudes of
people.
I had the person who hadinterviewed me to come to Duke
say you're the worst choice weever made.
There was a point when Icompleted the requirements for
(34:31):
my master's that even thoughDuke didn't offer a master's
level degree you know you werekind of in the doctoral program
they offered me an exit master'sto try and get rid of me
(35:08):
no-transcript professor emerituswho was willing to support me.
I kind of put my did mydoctoral dissertation work in
behavioral medicine because thenI could draw on the faculty
from the medical center.
And you know I got through.
(35:30):
But it was clearly, it wasalmost like they felt it would
be a stigma on their departmentGraduate me.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (35:42):
Wow, so I can't imagine just that must
have been quite a cloud to existunder for however many years.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (35:55):
You know, lena, it was and it wasn't
because, I think, as painful asall that was, it also was
outrageous enough for me tomobilize around that feeling.
And again, would I have beenable to do it if I wasn't in
(36:18):
relationship with Arlie Batts?
I don't know.
I mean, her perspective, herability to translate what I was
experiencing through herexperience of racism, was, you
know, it was such a gift.
I don't, I can't imagine, if Ihadn't had that perspective,
(36:41):
that I would have been able tomobilize my outrage as much and
see it, as you know, justsomething that further committed
me to changing the world.
I mean, I sometimes feel likeit's so grandiose, but back in
(37:02):
the age of Aquarius, when I wasin college, I just know that in
that circle of people that Ibelong to, there was a sense
that our generation was going tomake the world a different
place, you know, a place thatwas defined by love and defined
(37:23):
by peace and defined by, youknow, a preferred way of being
in relationship not just tohuman beings but everyone.
You know the whole ethos wouldbe governed by that kind of you
know, inclusivity would be theword that we would now use.
(37:44):
And so I'm not saying that itoriginated through those
experiences at Duke, but I thinkit what would I say?
It got strengthened, it gotmore steely, it got more.
It was more commitment to it,because once I was so clearly
(38:09):
targeted and I could understandand have the experience that,
you know, I had only listened tothrough the voices of people
who were the targets ofoppression that I'd met with and
talked with in my life.
You know it, it really it waslife changing.
And that was even before.
(38:31):
I mean, I don't think I even,despite the fact that I had that
relationship while I was ingraduate school, I didn't claim
the identity of lesbian.
I mean, I just felt maybe thisis just a one-off experience, I
don't know.
So I didn't come out till I was30 with an acknowledgement then
(38:52):
, and I think it was becausethere was more that I understood
.
And once I moved to California,to the Bay Area, of course there
was a much.
There was a flourishing gaycommunity, and so you know, I
really had a sense then of nothaving to live in this small,
closeted world of North Carolina, that there were many more
(39:15):
options and I could really thinkclearly about.
So where do I see myself inthis, in this story?
And I remember someone sayingyou know there are lots of
reasons that one can you know.
If you don't feel like I wasborn this way, which was still
an argument, that was being youknow, if you don't feel like I
was born this way, which wasstill an argument, that was
being you know, used oftentimesso that people couldn't be
(39:40):
converted or whatever.
But I think you know I muchmore embraced the sense of
choice.
You know, sense of choice.
You know that I chose thiscommunity, I chose this power
set of relationships.
I chose to be in in that kindof community because that's
(40:01):
where I felt most free to bemyself interesting.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (40:08):
I want to, I'm curious to go back to okay, I'm
thinking about like 10 thingsthat you just said, which is why
I'm a little bit quiet and I'mcurious to go back to when you
first struck up a friendshipwith Dr Val, what that was like,
what that initial meeting waslike like.
Clearly she helped you, as nowshe's helped like many, many,
(40:31):
many thousands of people and,yeah, what were the early days
of that encounter like?
Dr. Sarah Stearns (40:40):
well, I think it.
I think it helped that how tosay this it did not feel like I
was entering a relationship thatwas unlike any other
relationship I'd had, because incollege and you know, in other
(41:03):
contexts I had been how to sayit?
You know, I had had strong andeven intimate relationships with
, in particular, black people,so there wasn't a foreignness to
it to me, and I think I wonder,I'd be curious to ask whether
(41:27):
that was something that shesensed.
I think she's also someonewho's such an amazing bridge
person, in other words, whobridges, you know, very
intentionally, across difference, and so that may have helped.
I think she heard, in what Ishared with her the level of
(41:52):
vulnerability that I felt and,again, my, my sense is that that
oftentimes that's a hard placefor white people to go, and yet
it is.
What I've learned is it'sessential to be able to be in
(42:18):
that level of vulnerability andfeelings, sometimes to make
connections, especially acrossrace.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (42:28):
For white people to be in their
vulnerability and feelings.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (42:30):
Yeah, yeah, okay, okay those are some of my
guesses.
I I remember that we both kindof felt like we were, you know,
swimming rough waters when wewere in our statistics class
together, so that was a veryconcrete bonding experience.
(42:53):
She was in you know kind of asubset and I remember
interviewing her because we hadto practice doing clinical,
clinical interviewing and youknow, there were things that
that happened in that interviewwhere, you know, she gave me
some real feedback about placeswhere I had it gave me some real
feedback about places where Ihad made assumptions that were
(43:14):
probably racially based.
So, you know, even in the earlystages of our relationship, I
felt like those were theconversations we were having and
I think, I hope that that'spart of how the trust was
building.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (43:30):
Interesting.
So then I want to ask about soyou both moved to California and
were in the Bay Area, and thenthey went back to Richmond, as
you said, and then you got acall when they were starting
this organization.
I'm curious to know what doingthe work in those early days as
(43:54):
a white person was like.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (43:56):
Well, part of what was, I think, compelling
was, I think, even then while wedidn't really understand it in
the way we do now, it in the waywe do now the commitment to
(44:17):
being in a multiculturalcommunity and valuing the white
perspective in addition to theother perspectives.
It wasn't kind of like I camein and I was in any way to be
what I think many white peoplethink about in terms of this,
that they're going to get beatup or they're going to somehow
be confronted and shamed orsomething like that.
(44:40):
That was not the community thatVisions was even at the
beginning, although there wereso many instances that I can
recall where I stepped in it, soto speak.
You know, I said or did thingsthat were clear evidence of my
limitations in terms ofunderstanding race and racial
(45:03):
dynamics, and, and so I waschallenged about that, and yet
it always came about in a waythat further connected me as
opposed to push me away.
To basically put together youknow how we would deliver the
(45:38):
model, you know what were theways to teach it, what were the
things to anticipate.
What happened in the process, aswell as just the infrastructure
of the organization, was allyou know.
We were building the boat as wewere sailing down the river,
and so I sometimes was shockedby how much of those those times
(46:00):
which in my mind were veryprecious because we were just
kind of gathering from differentparts of the country someplace,
but a lot of it was wasrelationship building and that
meant, you know that any at anypoint in the process or
conversation, if somethinghappened, the, the content
(46:21):
issues would would kind of fadeand very deliberately and
intentionally and with a lot ofand intentionally and with a lot
of my mind.
You know I sometimes share whenI'm teaching PACE and other
things.
You know this was so beyond myemotional bandwidth.
(46:42):
You know it's kind of likeintensity of feelings and the
capacity to rocket between angerand love and laughter and all
sorts of things.
That was not my experience as aWASP.
I came from a very muted kindof family, internal family
experience, and sometimes Iwould just kind of like I'm sure
(47:08):
I hope my mouth didn't dropopen, but you know there was a
sense that I hadn't been in thisvital an exchange before in my
life and you know, and so it soprofoundly, the changes that
(47:34):
were happening in me werehappening at that level, not
just at the level of, you know,the cognitive.
How are we do this work indiverse community where people
come and inevitably be at oddsor, even worse, you know,
(48:02):
hurtful to each other, and youknow so.
I feel like you know so.
(48:23):
I feel like that was the groundin which I made what I now see
is a lifelong commitment tovisions and was teaching and
doing a lot of other things togenerate income.
I wasn't concerned about incomerelative to visions.
I mean, it was nice but it wasnot essential to me and I think
that that's one of the thingsthat has really shifted.
(48:49):
That has really shifted is that, I think, for us in the early
days, that notion of reciprocity, that notion of what you do for
the betterment of, or even thesurvival of community, goes
(49:11):
beyond what it is that you mightreceive in return, and and
again.
That was that resonated sodeeply with me that I really
felt like you know, even whenthere were tensions around, you
know what was happening.
Usually it was intentionsaround administrative issues or
(49:33):
whatever.
I never imagined feeling like Ican't be here any longer,
because the gift to me is thatVisions has I mean, I say this
about my clients as well but thegift to me is that I get to be
a better person, to feel reallypropelled to learn something
(50:17):
because I didn't understand itbefore or I didn't have the
context or the contact in whichto understand it.
I mean, all of that was justlike this continuous invitation
to live in this communityinvitation to live in this
community.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (50:35):
When you were talking about feelings.
It's interesting and ironicbecause my introduction I
consider my introduction toemotional literacy as having
happened at a pace that youtaught, at where the feeling
wheel was up, and then we wentto the next slide and I remember
(50:56):
thinking no, no, no, no, no, Iwant to see that again.
I would like to look at that.
What is that?
Yeah, so that's an interestingfull circle moment and I'm
curious also to know a littlehold on, let me just just where
I'm sitting.
Okay, I'm curious also to knowwhat client work was like in
(51:23):
those early days, as you know,with this model that you know
you all were pioneering andwhere white people were being
invited just as much into thework, like how was that?
And and like what, what mighthave been present there that you
don't see so much anymore now?
Very curious about that.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (51:45):
Well, I wanted to get back to what it
meant being a white person,because I think that back then
there still was a sense thatfirst of all, it was only called
diversity work it wasn't DEIand it was really about
understanding the meaning ofdifference and understanding the
(52:08):
experience of people who arethe targets of oppression.
To me it felt like there wasmore focus on that than there
was on understanding theexperience of privilege.
And so, even as a white persondoing the work and early in the
day, you know, we had one bigcorporate client that really
(52:28):
supported our work big corporateclient that really supported
our work and then there werelots of small nonprofits that we
would oftentimes work withquite, you know, not exactly pro
bono, but you know it was kindof like a lot of our work was in
these smaller settings.
You know that that whole partof our name about intact ongoing
(52:50):
natural settings you know thatwhole part of our name about
intact ongoing natural settings,you know, was very compelling
to me Because basically what itmeant is here are people who are
in a, who maybe experience acommon purpose or are brought
together because of their work,and as important as the work
they're doing are theirrelationships with each other,
(53:13):
and so back in the day, it feltto me like so much of what was
happening internally at Visionswas this idea that when we do
our work with each otherinternally, we will be prepared
to do our work with our clients.
Right right and I love thatbecause, again, it really meant
(53:36):
that it wasn't.
It didn't position me as theall-knowing expert that came
into these settings.
It was like I'm in a processand I'm going to invite you into
the process that I'm in and, asthe white person in particular,
I began to learn.
So what are the barriers forwhite people in doing that?
(54:00):
Like what were the issues ofshame or fear of confrontation
or conflict, or you know thethings that go into the model of
modern racism.
You know just watching peoplewhite people scramble around
(54:21):
wanting to deny, avoidingcontact, having.
You know the positionalityaround.
You know being good or beingkind or welcoming to people but
not really getting howinevitably the power dynamics
(54:42):
were going to play out if theydidn't own what it meant in the
systems they were in to occupywhiteness.
And so it was very and some ofthe best experiences of my life
have been where I feel like I'monly like two steps ahead of the
people that I'm leading.
(55:03):
I'm very close to being wherethey are.
I remember where they arebecause I remember where they
are, because I was just thereand I remember, you know, for
example, coming to be aware ofthat one when white people start
to have a sense of you knowkind of what's wrong with this.
(55:26):
You know, when they kind ofhave a breakthrough moment, the
first thing they often do iswant to turn around and strangle
the white people around them.
That don't get it, you know,and I can remember sitting in
circles.
We always were in circleswanting to leap across the room
at somebody and shake them, andalways being held in a vision's
(55:49):
model that said, people don'tlearn because of that.
If anything, they will becomemore guarded or defensive
because of that.
So how to do this work, as Isay with love, how to hold
people, meet people wherethey're at is another way that
we say it how to be engagedfully in taking someone and, of
(56:13):
course, being trained as apsychologist really helped
because you know, you wouldn'tscold your clients.
You know that wouldn't behelpful.
You know what are the ways thatthat invitational model of?
Have you tried this?
Have you thought about it thisway?
What are the ways in which youknow you would feel like this is
(56:34):
something you?
You know something's in it foryou to change and so all of that
just felt so I mean, natural isis I don't even know if it felt
natural, but it felt right.
It felt just like where Iwanted to be.
So the early days were about thecontinued learning about how to
(56:57):
hold people on that journey,how to manage being in a
co-facilitation relationship.
I mean now you know there's somuch that I take for granted
because I've co-facilitated withthe people of color in forth,
for example, or when there wasconflict in the room which one
(57:36):
of us made, it made sense for usto handle that, and often that
was race-based.
You know that my role as thewhite facilitator was really to
take on what was happening inwith the white participants, and
this was even before we wereusing a lot of the
intra-cultural group by race,where I would be specifically
(57:58):
dealing with with just the whitefolks in the room.
But all of that was what it wasabout, evolving away and it
wasn't like so we could write itdown and turn it into a script.
It was about being present inthe moment, to what was
(58:20):
happening, in a way that was,you know, much more
intentionally attuned to racialdynamics than I had ever been in
my life, that was and powerdynamics overall, you know, and
there were times that I steppedin it because I, you know, I
remember oftentimes when I wasworking with white men, I didn't
(58:45):
take into account the sexismthat was also present, the
sexism that was also present,and the white men would be
clearly infuriated at me, youknow, because I had done
something that they did notexpect through the gender
dynamics of the interaction.
(59:05):
So, again, it wasn't just aboutrace, but it was about learning
all of those dimensions and howto attend to.
You know, like the Jewishpeople in the room who
oftentimes wrestled with howmuch anti-Semitism they felt and
therefore couldn't immediatelyconnect to white privilege, you
(59:29):
know, it was like athree-dimensional moving puzzle
that you were always learningthe new ways that the pieces fit
together.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (59:41):
Interesting.
I mean my cohort coming in 35years in is at the benefit of
learning from all of thisexperience, which felt very well
established actually by thetime I came in.
So I appreciate hearing youtalk about it and I also
appreciate it as a whole for howit evolved and and really
(01:00:06):
sounds like it coalesced throughall you all's experience like
as you did it.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (01:00:11):
Yeah, I mean I don't want to skip over what
the hard moments were.
I mean there were some reallyhard moments where people, for
their own reasons, felt thatthey couldn't stay at Visions
(01:00:32):
reasons felt that they couldn'tstay at visions.
You know, whether it wasbecause the work that we were
doing or the way we were doingthe work didn't fulfill that
same sense of calling.
You know, they had a differentway of thinking about it and I
remember there being some, a lotof sadness in those losses for
me, or people whose own woundswould emerge so persistently
(01:00:57):
that it really got in their wayof doing the work effectively.
So I mean, there was a lot ofthat.
There were you, the obviouschallenges of being a small
organization led by, you know, awoman of color, and you know,
(01:01:19):
in the fee for service, time wasthe whole question where, you
know, should we be trying to getgrants or whatever?
But we were trying to surviveon fee for service or whatever,
but we were trying to survive onfee for service.
And it was remarkable, Lena,how thin those times could be.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (01:01:38):
Yeah, oh, I can imagine yeah.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (01:01:41):
And what it meant again to have the strong
leadership Valerie Betts andothers you know who were just
willing to say this work is tooimportant.
Let's, let's figure out a wayto do this.
Again, it was so I oftentimesfeel, especially in this day and
(01:02:03):
age when, you know, I'mappalled by some of the ways in
which the direction our countryis moving that the people who
seem to have the most resilienceand optimism are people who
have dealt with the mostoppression in their lives.
And so I kind of turn it and Isay, okay, so how is this coming
(01:02:27):
from my privilege to think thateverything should work in the
way that I one expected to?
Because it doesn't.
You know, this world is toobroken and it brings me back
down to earth, and you know,then I can kind of say, okay,
I'm back up for the yeah I mean,that's a whole other question
(01:02:50):
now.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (01:02:52):
And well, okay , I want to make sure to ask the
work you did with visions, thetraining in the model, and your
concurrent, if I'm not mistaken,work, as you know, psychologist
in clinical practice how didthey dovetail and how did they
(01:03:17):
influence one another?
Obviously, we're anorganization that's very
clinician heavy.
That's what I love about it.
I don't have formal trainingmyself and I think it's just.
I think it's like a dominantingredient in our secret sauce.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (01:03:33):
Well, I'll tell you, I mean, that's where,
looking back now, that I can dothat, I just feel like it was
almost magical is the wrong word.
But you know, it was such ablessing because each part of my
work life influenced andinformed the other parts of my
(01:03:55):
work life.
So when I was teaching, forexample, I was always thinking
about, you know, broader systems, the context of people's lives.
I wasn't just focused on theirinterior life, clinically lives.
I wasn't just focused on theirinterior life clinically, I was
thinking relationally, but I wasalso thinking about the broader
(01:04:21):
social forces and the historiesof those forces in people's
lives and so, passing that on tonew clinicians who might be
tempted to have, you know, justthis very limited lens through
which thinking about the workthat they would do, especially
because, you know, in someplaces I was teaching, they were
still very influenced bypsychoanalytic thought.
(01:04:43):
Yes, they hadn't contextualizedit all in the ways that I think
now people are more familiarwith doing.
So, with each thing that I waslearning through visions I could
bring it into my teaching.
Or when I had the experience ofsitting with a family and
(01:05:07):
watching how relieved they werethat there were things I
understood or ways that Isupported their resourcefulness
or the ways in which I reallycould see that their suffering
was not a product of theirindividual failure.
I mean, I could just see howthat opened up the sense of
possibility for them innavigating whatever.
(01:05:31):
They had come to see me forclinically.
I did a lot of work incross-racial relationships
because in some ways I was awhite person that could hold
both perspectives.
And you know, a lot of goodtherapy is about especially in
couples or families is about thecapacity to hold multiple
(01:05:55):
positions, and so my ability todo that really had come from my
vision's work.
My teaching, my clinicalteaching, for me was how I kept
myself abreast of what washappening in the field.
You know, it kept me reading sothat I would be able to bring
(01:06:19):
new materials to my classes, andone of the things that in the
last, my last teaching, was atSmith School of Social Work and
I moved from teaching familytherapy into some of the
anti-racism work that washappening in the school, which
(01:06:39):
was also coursework.
And then they invited me to dothe gender class and you know,
again, I had some exposure togender issues and it was at a
time when gender fluidity andnon-binary ways of thinking
about gender were really new toacademics, and so I got to be on
(01:07:02):
the cutting edge of that andthen bring that back to visions.
So I mean everything was such abeautiful.
So I mean everything was such abeautiful weaving together.
You know, I think of it, as youknow, like sweet grass that gets
braided.
It just felt like and I don'tfeel like I did that.
(01:07:24):
It feels like that happened tome.
The way that I could, you know,was about just going with it as
opposed to trying to control itbeing willing as opposed to
being willful about it.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (01:07:43):
Willing as opposed to willful I really like
that.
I'm going to borrow thatFantastic.
So when I got on the call withyou, you said you were in Hawaii
and I was like, what are youdoing in Hawaii work or leisure?
You're like I'm retired, I'mjust in Hawaii.
So now that you are retired,and noting that we're in just
(01:08:04):
this, what feels to meunprecedented and quite chaotic
moment, having done the workthat you have done all your life
and also having lived throughother chaotic moments from from
what I understand, what is itthat you would say to people who
(01:08:26):
are doing the work now?
Dr. Sarah Stearns (01:08:29):
Wow.
You know, one of the thingsthat's very difficult for me now
is to feel like I have theright to step back, because
there's so much need, much need,and I happen to believe that
(01:08:58):
this particular life that I'veled has allowed me to have a set
of skills that are much neededin the world right now.
So that's hard for me tobalance.
You know my wish for a kind ofspaciousness in my life now,
that when I was working I didn'tfeel much about a constant
(01:09:37):
process of becoming who they are, you know, weaving together
what appeals to them about themodel or what you know where
they find joy or excitement orpassion.
I mean, I always am gratefulthat I did my work with passion,
because to me that confirmedhow in alignment it felt with
(01:09:58):
things of spirit in me.
And I think what I would say iscontinue to find what's
important in the work other thanjust the practical matters of,
you know, a career.
And I think I say that becausemy sense is that unless, unless
(01:10:25):
someone continues to evolve anddevelop and become at a personal
level, the work will get stale,work will feel too hard, the
work will be too frustrating.
(01:10:46):
There are too many challengesthat exist, and especially now
that somehow, and especially nowthat somehow, taking it on
simply professionally will leadpeople to burn out or drop out.
So for me, if there's anylesson from my life story, it's
(01:11:10):
find what sustains you at thatmuch deeper level.
And you know I am so gratefulbecause some of what has
sustained me is that some of themost important relationships in
my life are within the visionscommunity, are within the
(01:11:34):
visions community, that whatI've learned about being in
relationship in a way that youknow hopefully translates to the
other important relationshipsof my life, are about staying in
, not giving up, being, you know, willing to be in in those
challenging moments Like thoseare the blessings that came to
(01:12:01):
me through my work with visionsand I wouldn't even call it work
through my life in visions is amuch better way to put it
through my life in visions is amuch better way to put it.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (01:12:13):
It brings me back to something that I heard
you say before that I foundquite striking.
Probably two years ago you saidthis is a glimpse of the world
that I want to live in.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (01:12:28):
I oftentimes, when I have what I consider a
more successful consultationexperience, is when the people
in the room in let's use themodel of a multi-day training
feel like sitting in the room isnow different than when they
entered the room, yeah, thatthere's something that's
(01:12:52):
happened that they couldn't evenhave set an intention towards,
because they didn't even knowwhat was possible.
And yet, because of thecontainer that was created,
because of the conversationsthat were had, whatever they now
sit around and they recognize alevel of connection, a cross
(01:13:17):
difference, that they didn'thave before.
And so in those settings, Ioften that's my way of saying
goodbye to the group is sayingyou know, take a moment and
reflect on what it feels like tosit in this circle.
This is the world I want tolive in and, you know, frankly,
(01:13:43):
I find that it is.
In many organizations or othersettings it's so far from what's
true.
I mean that people are livingat a much more fear-based level.
They're so subscribed to amodel of competition, to a model
(01:14:09):
of competition they're, frankly, scared of dealing directly
with difference, so they eitherdeny it or paper it over, and
they certainly don't seethemselves as being able to
change anything.
And that's the other thing thatI think you know really comes
(01:14:36):
through in the work that I'vedone towards the end of of my
work with visions is wantingeach person to imagine the
changes they can make.
I use that word, you know, kindof how do you see yourself as a
change agent?
And that can be in theirrelationship with their teenage
child.
It can be, you know, in theways in which they relate to
(01:15:00):
their people who are in higherpositions of power, where they
don't underestimate that theyalso can have power in those
conversations, underestimatethat they also can have power in
those conversations.
Wanting people and maybe thisdoes go back to what I shared
with you about coming of age inthe late 60s, the age of
Aquarius.
(01:15:20):
I mean, I think that maybe Iromanticize it, I probably do.
What I remember and bring backoften is that I felt like we
were being called to change theworld and to create the world
that we wanted to live in, andso some of the greatest
(01:15:44):
satisfaction that I have in mylife is feeling like I was able
to try and do that in my life isfeeling like I was able to try
and do that.
Beautiful Sarah, thank you somuch for taking the time and for
speaking to me and for sharingyour story so generously.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (01:16:03):
I hope it was helpful to someone.
Oh, my goodness, I think itwill be helpful to a great many
people and I'm so glad to youknow, have been able to hear it
and like be in this conversationwith you Again.
You were like my first exposure, in many ways, to visions.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (01:16:20):
So it was like a personal connection that
I really appreciate having withyou, Lena, Beautiful Same same.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (01:16:27):
Thank you so much, Sarah.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (01:16:29):
All right, have a good rest of your well,
you're going to bed.
Right, I'm going to bed same.
Thank you so much, sarah.
All right, have a good rest ofyour.
Well, you're going to bed.
Right, I'm going to bed, yes.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (01:16:37):
This is the final episode of this inaugural
season of Into Liberation and mylast as Visions Program
Director.
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Thank you so much for listening.
It's been a pleasure, Thank you.
Hello, you're listening to Into Liberation, a
podcast about transformativechange, equity and working
against oppression.
I'm Lina Achter, director ofPrograms with Visions Inc.
Welcome.
I'm pleased today to bespeaking with longtime senior
Visions consultant, dr SarahStearns.
(00:22):
In addition to serving as aconsultant for Visions basically
since the organization wasfounded, sarah is a psychologist
who has been in clinicalpractice for several decades.
Sarah is actually my firstintroduction to Visions.
She facilitated a PACE workshopthat I took in Los Angeles back
in 2019.
I remember the workshop beingradically transformative for me,
(00:43):
and little did I know then thejourney that it was starting me
on.
Sarah has been a mentor andmodel for many of us at Visions,
and hearing her story remindedme of how far things have come,
as well as of the deepimportance of the work as it
continues.
Hi, everybody, I'm very excitedto introduce you to actually
one of the people who introducedme to the Visions model, one of
(01:04):
my first who introduced me tothe visions model my first, one
of my first PACE instructors, drSarah Stearns.
Hi, sarah, hi Lina.
Thank you so much for agreeingto sit down.
We've been planning this for awhile and I've been really
looking forward to thisconversation For folks who don't
know you would you introduceyourself briefly?
Dr. Sarah Stearns (01:28):
Sure, I know we'll probably get into this in
more detail later, but I alwaysintroduce myself in these
sessions as as a white girl whogrew up in a rural new england
town and basically had verylittle experience of diversity
growing up, except that my mydad, taught at Wesleyan in the
beginning of my life and he wasvery connected to the
(01:51):
international community there.
So we oftentimes did have peoplefrom other countries and that
included people of color in ourhome, which was, I think,
unusual for this little townthat we grew up in, that I grew
up in think, unusual for thislittle town that we grew up in,
that I grew up in, and I alwaysappreciate the fact that my
parents were both politicallyminded, in the sense that they
(02:14):
cared deeply, I think, aboutwhat was happening in our
country, and my father inparticular had grown up at a
time during the depression whenhis family had really changed,
their economic status, had losta lot because his father was in
the financial sector and I thinkthat gave him a lens through
(02:37):
which he really understood thedynamics of class.
And I came to understand thathe didn't understand many of the
other dimensions.
He certainly didn't understandwhiteness and that was, you know
, part of his era.
So anyway, about me I grew upand have lived in many parts of
(02:58):
the country.
I now live in California.
I was trained as a clinicalpsychologist in my late 20s and
early 30s.
Before that I had visions ofbeing an actress and a director.
So I was very involved in thetheater for my developmental
(03:19):
years and then I also was acompetitive athlete and I think
those things very much shapedthe way in which I probably over
internalized a sense of havinga lot to bring to the world.
You know, a lot of options anda lot of permission to do things
(03:43):
that I loved, and I thinkgrowing up, coming of age in the
60s was also a time when youknow the kind of go find
yourself and who you are.
Messages were much more just apart of the culture, and so I
think I really benefited fromgrowing up in that before I
(04:03):
finally landed in my program tostudy psychology.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (04:10):
So I'll stop there.
You've been with Visionsbasically, before Visions even
came to be.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (04:18):
Well, you know I was talking to Dr Valerie
Batts about it because I wantedto be accurate in this
description.
She and I were in graduateschool together and that is how
I came to know her and JohnKappenman, and being in their
circle meant, you know, in someways being a part of the ways in
(04:42):
which Visions was born.
But I was not.
They had moved back to the EastCoast how to say this?
We both had moved to the BayArea of California to do our
internships, so we were able tostay in close contact.
And then they moved back to theEast Coast, to Richmond, and it
(05:05):
was during that time that theactual foundational work of the
founding of Visions happened.
But then I got a phone callsaying you know, we're doing
this thing and I want to inviteyou to be a part of it.
(05:25):
I probably we couldn't pin downthe exact date when that
happened, but it was probably 85or 86, not right at 84.
And what it meant for me wasvery much a wonderful way to
think about how was I going tocarry forward some of the I
(05:48):
don't think at the time I wouldhave called it progressive, but
I would have called it activismthat I was involved in during my
college years.
And then, you know, there weremany reasons why I felt like I
really resonated with whatVisions was trying to do because
I really valued the notion ofbeing in relationship, I valued
(06:10):
the idea that having difficultconversations is part of growth,
and I also knew that I had alot to learn.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (06:21):
Fantastic.
Well, there's a lot that I wantto ask you about in there, and
I'd love to start with yourupbringing in Connecticut and
what that was like, what it waslike to leave that context, and
also how you bring thatexperience into your I'll ask
(06:43):
you this later, but how thatexperience still comes into your
work.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (06:48):
Well, the little town that I grew up in
and it was truly little it was.
There was no commercial area oftown.
It was very diverse, mixed, interms of the class status of
people, but I would say that Ioften describe it more as a
working class town because ofthe probably 35 to 40 total kids
(07:14):
.
In my year, my grade, I thinkthere were only three of us that
went to college, maybe four,and so it was very interesting
growing up with people who had avery different perspective on
what the trajectory of theirlives would be.
And my parents obviouslypresented a very different model
(07:35):
for us.
They were both college educated.
My father had an advanceddegree and, you know, education
for them was the absoluteessential to life in terms of
giving, you know, guaranteeingthat there were options in terms
of what you could do with yourlife.
(07:55):
And it was interesting becausemy family ended up being five
daughters.
I'm the second of five daughters.
I'm the second of fivedaughters and I often wonder,
you know, how having all sisterschanged my parents' way of
thinking.
I don't think it diddramatically, because both of my
grandmothers had also attendedcollege, but you know to think,
(08:18):
if there had been boys in thefamily whether there would have
been a differential in terms ofwhat got prioritized, in terms
of the ways in which our futurelives were talked about.
But because education was socentral and the only options,
(08:39):
the school in my town only wentup to the ninth grade, so it
would have taken beingtransported to a neighboring
town, a high school that I thinkmy parents worried was not
(09:05):
going to be a good settingrelative to already feeling
somewhat like it wasn't cool tobe smart.
I don't know whether you knowthat social set of messages was
just because of the ways inwhich people's lives weren't
centered on education.
(09:27):
But they thankfully decidedthat they would send me away to
school for the 10th, 12th gradesand I went to an incredible
all-girls school where themessaging couldn't have been
different.
It was all about incrediblewealth of options there were in
(09:55):
terms of the things that youcould learn, the ways in which
the pedagogy was about learningfrom primary sources, so really
engaging in critical thinking.
You know, being in a settingwhere I didn't feel like I had
(10:15):
to compete with girls for boysattention, which I think already
something I was not just awareof but probably had low
self-esteem around, so you knowit was, you mean, certainly not
(10:44):
knowing what I wanted to do withmy life, but absolutely clear
that I could have that I couldself-determine what next.
And, and that was justincredible.
So back to my town.
I mean, I think it wasinteresting looking back,
(11:05):
especially when, in visions, wewould kind of think about our
early growing up experiences and, you know, remembering that
there was one black family thatwas in, you know, the school
system, there were Jewishfamilies.
It happened that, you know,because the town was so small,
(11:26):
we, I didn't experience any kindof exclusion of those families
and I really felt, you know,like attending birthday parties
and sleepovers and that kind ofthing happened, you know, for me
, with those families.
(11:49):
And so there was an awareness ofsome differences, seeing
families from the inside alittle bit more even at that age
and noticing I mean, one of theevocative memories was the,
just the smell of the food thatwas being cooked in those houses
(12:12):
and you know, just a way ofrecognizing those differences.
But it wasn't until high school.
And then you know, of course,as my circles expanded, that I
think I really had a sense ofthe things that the so-called
monoculture of my upbringinghadn't exposed me to.
(12:35):
There were so many things thatwere new to me and again, I
think that invitation to be opento it through the international
students visiting my home etcetera, was just that.
It was almost like it was soexceptional that it was
exoticizing a little bit.
(12:56):
It wasn't a true immersionexperience in difference
experience, indifference andkind of owning.
That white wasp culture wasreally something.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (13:13):
I was steeped in because it's all that was
around me, and then so boardingschool, that was still in New
England.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (13:20):
No, it was in upstate New York.
Oh, okay, okay.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (13:25):
And then your college experience.
I know that a number of thingshappened in college and what was
that like?
Was that your first?
So boarding school?
I'm assuming that it wassomewhere upstate, right?
Dr. Sarah Stearns (13:42):
Yeah, Okay.
So I'll tell a bit of a funnystory.
I you know, back in the day,when I hear kids now having to
apply to 15 schools or whatever,I only applied to three and
they were very different, andthe one that I immediately was
(14:03):
accepted to was MiddleburyCollege, which is also New
England school, small, but I waswaitlisted at Harvard.
And so, even though I had mailedmy letter accepted to Harvard
and I sat by the mailbox andbegged the postman to let me
take back that letter and,frankly, there was so little
(14:38):
thought given to well, where doI really want to be?
You know, it was much more aboutfeeling like I couldn't imagine
you know how how different theexperience would have been.
You know, sometimes I think,because of the number of things
that that I was good at or Isucceeded at in high school,
(15:01):
that I would have been so-calleda big fish in a little pond at
Middlebury.
But I was a very small fish ina very big pond at Harvard and
it was, you know, daunting.
It was.
Luckily, I was academicallyvery well prepared, but I think
socially I wasn't.
There were so many things, somany people who came from wealth
(15:28):
or came from social powerpositions or you know just the.
The amount that each personshowed up feeling comfortable in
their skin was very differentthan how I experienced myself
and and it took a while for meto figure out, you know how to
(15:51):
claim my space there.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (15:55):
And then that's where you got introduced
to, as you mentioned earlier, alot of the activism that shaped
your life and your outlook.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (16:13):
Absolutely, I mean I think.
So.
I started college in 1969.
And Harvard had been one of theso-called hotbeds of the
anti-war movement in 68.
And so I stepped into that andwent to the March on Washington
that November of my freshmanyear and so I had the first
experience of being in a reallypowerful sense of collective,
(16:36):
you know, expressing our beliefs, getting tear gassed for it.
Getting tear gassed for it, Imean being kind of on that edge
in a way that I think was muchmore familiar to people who had
been more politically active orhad found avenues for political
(16:57):
action before that.
And my roommate, who was insome ways much more radical than
I was, who was in some waysmuch more radical than I was.
She belonged to the SocialistWorkers Party and also was very
active in the anti-war movement,and our tiny little dorm room
(17:17):
became a place where people whowere on their way to Canada to
escape the draft could come andstay Again, just this
opportunity to see people inaction or have contact with
people who were talking aboutthings.
And she even dropped out ofschool because her sense that
(17:43):
being at an elitist institutiondidn't fit her description of
herself at that time to gounionize factories in
Massachusetts.
So there were ways in whichpeople were expressing
themselves.
I too dropped out after myfreshman year, but I did it in a
(18:05):
very different way.
I just needed to get out and Iwas, as you remember, very
involved in the theater at thatpoint and I went abroad to try
and to get into theater schooland, you know, pursue more of a
professional career at thatpoint, and that didn't work out.
(18:26):
But you know, again, it was agood experience because I got
outside the US and could talk topeople who had a very different
perspective on the US than justhaving grown up there, then
just having grown up there again, being able to see the United
(18:46):
States through the eyes ofcountries that had very
different ways of thinking abouttheir role in the world than
the way in which the US then,and I would say even now, can
(19:09):
presume that it has apositionality of, you know,
moral dominance or somethinglike that.
And it was, you know, all thecracks were showing, I think,
given the behavior of the US inthe Vietnam War, right, right.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (19:22):
So how long?
Where did you go abroad?
Dr. Sarah Stearns (19:37):
Right, right.
So how long?
Where did you go abroad?
Sometimes where I would sleep,because it was easier to sleep
on a train and find a place tosleep.
But so I went all over,including went to Czechoslovakia
while it was Soviet occupied,went into the far reaches of
(19:58):
Northern Scandinavia, which wasa place that I would
subsequently return to because Iloved it so much there.
And so I had, you know, andagain, looking back, what gave
me the sense that, as a justturned 18 year old, I could
travel independently with thatlevel of freedom.
(20:21):
It's not that I didn't have youknow level of of freedom, it's
not that I didn't have you knowthe scary experiences of
sometimes feeling like therewere predators around me, but I,
thankfully, was able to escapeany kind of actual attack and I
I had just an incredible, againeye-opening, experience yeah,
(20:45):
there's nothing like travelingat that age.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (20:47):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Then what took you back to?
Back to university?
Dr. Sarah Stearns (20:55):
one theater school that seemed like it would
accept me, but not until thefollowing year, and my parents
believed that I should come back.
In fact they re-enrolled mewithout even insulting with me.
So I got back and literally thefollowing day was sent back to
(21:16):
school and that year again was.
I would say it was difficult,in part because I was, I had had
this completely otherexperience and to kind of go
back to the structure andrequirements of being so focused
(21:40):
on classwork and that kind ofstuff.
And by that time I was doing alot of theater.
I, you know, would close oneproduction and go into the next.
I sometimes even wonder how I,you know, was ready for my exams
and stuff, because that wasreally the center of my life and
(22:02):
I was also playing on thetennis team and the basketball
team, so there were lots ofthings going on.
But once I was back, there werelots of things going on.
But once I was back and I gotre-engaged, ultimately I'd I
ended up choosing to stay atuniversity during that time.
Okay, okay, and then?
Dr. Leena Akhtar (22:24):
I recall you told me that it was I have the
impression of it being almost byaccident that you ended up in
psych.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (22:33):
Absolutely.
I mean, if there had been amajor that included being in the
theater, I would have done iteasily.
But because there wasn't, Ifelt like I had to choose either
between.
English literature orpsychology were the closest
things I could think of to thetheater and I just didn't
(22:56):
imagine myself wanting to writepapers of literary criticism.
You know, I was much moreinterested in the workings of a
human being and the human mindand the human experience and I
knew at least that wouldstimulate my interest.
And I think that's one of thereasons I stayed, because in my
(23:16):
sophomore year I actually waslucky enough to kind of be
mentored by the head of thedepartment and put into seminars
that were in some ways muchmore.
They were smaller scale, whichI liked that, you know, there
were probably 12 people in aroom as opposed to a lecture
(23:39):
style class of, you know, 200.
And I just found myself reallyintellectually challenged in
ways that were really wonderfulto me and I got into really
having a different position fromwhich to look at myself.
So I would say that's when mysense of introspection and, you
(24:04):
know, trying to understand whereI'd come from, what the
dynamics of my family were, youknow, what were the ways in
which it fueled a lot of myinsecurity and ways in which I
don't think I would have usedthe word healing at the time,
but that I needed some healingwas clear to me.
(24:24):
And trying to remember, I don'tthink that I began therapy
until maybe my junior year andthat was not something my
parents had any sense of orapproved of.
I think my poor mother thoughtthat therapy was only about
blaming the mother, which therewas a grain of truth to that.
(24:49):
No, for me it was aboutabsolutely wanting there to be a
place that felt like I couldexplore and feel safe and deal
with the pain that I was in.
So that kind of kept meinvolved in in staying at
(25:14):
Harvard.
I did drop out one other timeand that was basically a mental
health break for me.
I dropped out for one semester.
It was good for me.
I I had to work, so I became ahouse painter and you know there
were just ways in which it gotme once again kind of outside
(25:38):
the Harvard community and someof the things that I found
difficult about being there.
But you know, ultimately Idecided that I did want to
finish and again my goal was notto continue in psychology.
In fact, I really couldn'timagine myself going to graduate
school, because it was againsomething that didn't come
(26:03):
easily to me to be so focusedacademically as was required at
Harvard.
But there's more to that story.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (26:16):
You went to college in 1969.
That was the same year asStonewall.
I cannot imagine that that wasa particular.
I cannot imagine that coming toan awareness or coming out was
an easy thing in that period.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (26:33):
It wasn't, and I was not out, in part
because I was not even awarethat that would be a choice that
I would make.
And I do talk about it as achoice because I think as my
identity evolved, because Ithink as my identity evolved,
part of what I became aware wasthat, even when I was in
(26:56):
relationship with men who Ithought had a consciousness
around it and were invested inthe values of sharing power, the
society that we lived in wasstill so structured in that way
that I always felt, like youknow, that it didn't suit me.
(27:18):
So at the time, honestly, whatI would talk about, lena, was
that I would be Isidore Duncan.
I don't know if you rememberthat she was a dancer and quite
a flamboyant.
Now, I was not flamboyant, Ican tell you that, but her
lifestyle appealed to me becauseshe was nice and she basically
(27:40):
moved comfortably, seemingly,around in the world because of
her art and she had lovers and,you know, she basically had much
more control of her life.
And that's what appealed to me.
It was that I was uncomfortable.
(28:00):
My older sister, who was twoyears older than I, got married
the week after she graduatedfrom college and I think that
template, you know, stillexisted.
Again, I wouldn't consider myfamily traditional or
conservative, but I think youknow, literally after her
wedding, my sister's wedding, itwas kind of like, oh, you're
(28:22):
next and good, wow.
And I was like, no, I don'tthink so.
By that time I had a sister.
My family spanned it many yearswith the same parents.
I had a sister who was probablysix at the time that my older
(28:45):
sister married and I said I'lltell you what I'll have a joint
marriage with Jennifer, mysister.
That way we could postpone anydecision-making around seeing me
partnered.
So anyway, you know, back toyour question.
I think I was, because I was inthe theater.
I was very aware of gay men.
(29:06):
I wasn't aware of gay women atall and would not have, you know
, thought of myself.
So it was more.
I don't know if you want tojump to this, but after college
I was starting to play morecompetitive tennis and in that
(29:28):
setting that I met my firstwomen who, who and many of them
didn't identify as lesbian.
They were in marriages but itwas clear that, you know, that
was because they weren't given achoice wow, that they had.
It was almost like a secretsociety.
Back Back to your point.
(29:50):
No, it was not easy for them toidentify and many of them did
not live out in their lives, andso it was for me, you know,
something that was kind of asurprise and not something that
I felt I don't at all have thecoming out story of like finding
(30:13):
my true self or something likethat.
It felt much more like, oh okay,this is an option, and how
would my life be different if Ipartnered with a woman and how
would I be able to have, youknow, a different?
I mean again, it's hard to knowhow much this would have been
(30:35):
the language I had access to atthe time.
I think I was very aware that Ididn't want to be in the power
structure of a heterosexualmarriage.
I had seen that with my parentsand it was appealing to me.
So it took me a while before Iexperimented, and it felt like
(30:59):
that experimentation with being,you know, in a relationship
with a woman.
And then it was only atgraduate school that I I
actually allowed myself to be,you know, much more drawn to and
choose a relationship with awoman, and that began my
(31:21):
experience of dealing withhomophobia.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (31:26):
You talked about that because you were out
in graduate school to the pointwhere it caused you difficulties
in terms of finding a committeeto Well, I was, you know.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (31:40):
It started actually at the very beginning
of my time.
I was at University.
So that's North Carolina, thisNorth Carolina, and I was very
aware that, as much as theyclaim to be, you know, very
influenced by, I think, whatthey would consider more
(32:01):
Northern or Northeastern culture, it's very Southern and there
were very clear messages aboutwhat was okay and not okay.
I won't go into all of it, butit was clear to me that once it
was known that I was dating thiswoman, that things changed for
(32:23):
me, that there was a sense of mybeing less trustworthy, my
ethics were called into question, my behavior clinically was
called into question.
There were ways in which, evenwhen I remember walking in to
(32:44):
receive a paper that I hadwritten from a professor and she
said, sarah, this is actuallyquite good.
And I said you sound surprisedand you know, and because I was
in friendship with Valerie Batts, who was a colleague, classmate
of mine, she helped meunderstand.
(33:06):
You know, it's kind of like,when you are seen through that
lens of being less than it ispervasive, and you will start to
feel like you're starting noton, you know, the level playing
field, so to speak, but in aditch, you know, or in sand or
(33:27):
whatever, that there's a way inwhich dealing with people's
attitudes and assumptions aboutyou are part of systems of
oppression.
And you know, I don't thinkthat I would say that I had
experienced that so directly asa woman.
(33:47):
Again, being in an all-girlsschool was, I think, a big
escape during my adolescencefrom having any kind of
pervasive sexism that I wasdealing with.
And then I had white privilege,I had relative class privilege,
whatever.
This experience was a first forme and it was like continuously
(34:09):
being kicked in the gut by youknow the surprising attitudes of
people.
I had the person who hadinterviewed me to come to Duke
say you're the worst choice weever made.
There was a point when Icompleted the requirements for
(34:31):
my master's that even thoughDuke didn't offer a master's
level degree you know you werekind of in the doctoral program
they offered me an exit master'sto try and get rid of me
(35:08):
no-transcript professor emerituswho was willing to support me.
I kind of put my did mydoctoral dissertation work in
behavioral medicine because thenI could draw on the faculty
from the medical center.
And you know I got through.
(35:30):
But it was clearly, it wasalmost like they felt it would
be a stigma on their departmentGraduate me.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (35:42):
Wow, so I can't imagine just that must
have been quite a cloud to existunder for however many years.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (35:55):
You know, lena, it was and it wasn't
because, I think, as painful asall that was, it also was
outrageous enough for me tomobilize around that feeling.
And again, would I have beenable to do it if I wasn't in
(36:18):
relationship with Arlie Batts?
I don't know.
I mean, her perspective, herability to translate what I was
experiencing through herexperience of racism, was, you
know, it was such a gift.
I don't, I can't imagine, if Ihadn't had that perspective,
(36:41):
that I would have been able tomobilize my outrage as much and
see it, as you know, justsomething that further committed
me to changing the world.
I mean, I sometimes feel likeit's so grandiose, but back in
(37:02):
the age of Aquarius, when I wasin college, I just know that in
that circle of people that Ibelong to, there was a sense
that our generation was going tomake the world a different
place, you know, a place thatwas defined by love and defined
(37:23):
by peace and defined by, youknow, a preferred way of being
in relationship not just tohuman beings but everyone.
You know the whole ethos wouldbe governed by that kind of you
know, inclusivity would be theword that we would now use.
(37:44):
And so I'm not saying that itoriginated through those
experiences at Duke, but I thinkit what would I say?
It got strengthened, it gotmore steely, it got more.
It was more commitment to it,because once I was so clearly
(38:09):
targeted and I could understandand have the experience that,
you know, I had only listened tothrough the voices of people
who were the targets ofoppression that I'd met with and
talked with in my life.
You know it, it really it waslife changing.
And that was even before.
(38:31):
I mean, I don't think I even,despite the fact that I had that
relationship while I was ingraduate school, I didn't claim
the identity of lesbian.
I mean, I just felt maybe thisis just a one-off experience, I
don't know.
So I didn't come out till I was30 with an acknowledgement then
(38:52):
, and I think it was becausethere was more that I understood
.
And once I moved to California,to the Bay Area, of course there
was a much.
There was a flourishing gaycommunity, and so you know, I
really had a sense then of nothaving to live in this small,
closeted world of North Carolina, that there were many more
(39:15):
options and I could really thinkclearly about.
So where do I see myself inthis, in this story?
And I remember someone sayingyou know there are lots of
reasons that one can you know.
If you don't feel like I wasborn this way, which was still
an argument, that was being youknow, if you don't feel like I
was born this way, which wasstill an argument, that was
being you know, used oftentimesso that people couldn't be
(39:40):
converted or whatever.
But I think you know I muchmore embraced the sense of
choice.
You know, sense of choice.
You know that I chose thiscommunity, I chose this power
set of relationships.
I chose to be in in that kindof community because that's
(40:01):
where I felt most free to bemyself interesting.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (40:08):
I want to, I'm curious to go back to okay, I'm
thinking about like 10 thingsthat you just said, which is why
I'm a little bit quiet and I'mcurious to go back to when you
first struck up a friendshipwith Dr Val, what that was like,
what that initial meeting waslike like.
Clearly she helped you, as nowshe's helped like many, many,
(40:31):
many thousands of people and,yeah, what were the early days
of that encounter like?
Dr. Sarah Stearns (40:40):
well, I think it.
I think it helped that how tosay this it did not feel like I
was entering a relationship thatwas unlike any other
relationship I'd had, because incollege and you know, in other
(41:03):
contexts I had been how to sayit?
You know, I had had strong andeven intimate relationships with
, in particular, black people,so there wasn't a foreignness to
it to me, and I think I wonder,I'd be curious to ask whether
(41:27):
that was something that shesensed.
I think she's also someonewho's such an amazing bridge
person, in other words, whobridges, you know, very
intentionally, across difference, and so that may have helped.
I think she heard, in what Ishared with her the level of
(41:52):
vulnerability that I felt and,again, my, my sense is that that
oftentimes that's a hard placefor white people to go, and yet
it is.
What I've learned is it'sessential to be able to be in
(42:18):
that level of vulnerability andfeelings, sometimes to make
connections, especially acrossrace.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (42:28):
For white people to be in their
vulnerability and feelings.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (42:30):
Yeah, yeah, okay, okay those are some of my
guesses.
I I remember that we both kindof felt like we were, you know,
swimming rough waters when wewere in our statistics class
together, so that was a veryconcrete bonding experience.
(42:53):
She was in you know kind of asubset and I remember
interviewing her because we hadto practice doing clinical,
clinical interviewing and youknow, there were things that
that happened in that interviewwhere, you know, she gave me
some real feedback about placeswhere I had it gave me some real
feedback about places where Ihad made assumptions that were
(43:14):
probably racially based.
So, you know, even in the earlystages of our relationship, I
felt like those were theconversations we were having and
I think, I hope that that'spart of how the trust was
building.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (43:30):
Interesting.
So then I want to ask about soyou both moved to California and
were in the Bay Area, and thenthey went back to Richmond, as
you said, and then you got acall when they were starting
this organization.
I'm curious to know what doingthe work in those early days as
(43:54):
a white person was like.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (43:56):
Well, part of what was, I think, compelling
was, I think, even then while wedidn't really understand it in
the way we do now, it in the waywe do now the commitment to
(44:17):
being in a multiculturalcommunity and valuing the white
perspective in addition to theother perspectives.
It wasn't kind of like I camein and I was in any way to be
what I think many white peoplethink about in terms of this,
that they're going to get beatup or they're going to somehow
be confronted and shamed orsomething like that.
(44:40):
That was not the community thatVisions was even at the
beginning, although there wereso many instances that I can
recall where I stepped in it, soto speak.
You know, I said or did thingsthat were clear evidence of my
limitations in terms ofunderstanding race and racial
(45:03):
dynamics, and, and so I waschallenged about that, and yet
it always came about in a waythat further connected me as
opposed to push me away.
To basically put together youknow how we would deliver the
(45:38):
model, you know what were theways to teach it, what were the
things to anticipate.
What happened in the process, aswell as just the infrastructure
of the organization, was allyou know.
We were building the boat as wewere sailing down the river,
and so I sometimes was shockedby how much of those those times
(46:00):
which in my mind were veryprecious because we were just
kind of gathering from differentparts of the country someplace,
but a lot of it was wasrelationship building and that
meant, you know that any at anypoint in the process or
conversation, if somethinghappened, the, the content
(46:21):
issues would would kind of fadeand very deliberately and
intentionally and with a lot ofand intentionally and with a lot
of my mind.
You know I sometimes share whenI'm teaching PACE and other
things.
You know this was so beyond myemotional bandwidth.
(46:42):
You know it's kind of likeintensity of feelings and the
capacity to rocket between angerand love and laughter and all
sorts of things.
That was not my experience as aWASP.
I came from a very muted kindof family, internal family
experience, and sometimes Iwould just kind of like I'm sure
(47:08):
I hope my mouth didn't dropopen, but you know there was a
sense that I hadn't been in thisvital an exchange before in my
life and you know, and so it soprofoundly, the changes that
(47:34):
were happening in me werehappening at that level, not
just at the level of, you know,the cognitive.
How are we do this work indiverse community where people
come and inevitably be at oddsor, even worse, you know,
(48:02):
hurtful to each other, and youknow so.
I feel like you know so.
(48:23):
I feel like that was the groundin which I made what I now see
is a lifelong commitment tovisions and was teaching and
doing a lot of other things togenerate income.
I wasn't concerned about incomerelative to visions.
I mean, it was nice but it wasnot essential to me and I think
that that's one of the thingsthat has really shifted.
(48:49):
That has really shifted is that, I think, for us in the early
days, that notion of reciprocity, that notion of what you do for
the betterment of, or even thesurvival of community, goes
(49:11):
beyond what it is that you mightreceive in return, and and
again.
That was that resonated sodeeply with me that I really
felt like you know, even whenthere were tensions around, you
know what was happening.
Usually it was intentionsaround administrative issues or
(49:33):
whatever.
I never imagined feeling like Ican't be here any longer,
because the gift to me is thatVisions has I mean, I say this
about my clients as well but thegift to me is that I get to be
a better person, to feel reallypropelled to learn something
(50:17):
because I didn't understand itbefore or I didn't have the
context or the contact in whichto understand it.
I mean, all of that was justlike this continuous invitation
to live in this communityinvitation to live in this
community.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (50:35):
When you were talking about feelings.
It's interesting and ironicbecause my introduction I
consider my introduction toemotional literacy as having
happened at a pace that youtaught, at where the feeling
wheel was up, and then we wentto the next slide and I remember
(50:56):
thinking no, no, no, no, no, Iwant to see that again.
I would like to look at that.
What is that?
Yeah, so that's an interestingfull circle moment and I'm
curious also to know a littlehold on, let me just just where
I'm sitting.
Okay, I'm curious also to knowwhat client work was like in
(51:23):
those early days, as you know,with this model that you know
you all were pioneering andwhere white people were being
invited just as much into thework, like how was that?
And and like what, what mighthave been present there that you
don't see so much anymore now?
Very curious about that.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (51:45):
Well, I wanted to get back to what it
meant being a white person,because I think that back then
there still was a sense thatfirst of all, it was only called
diversity work it wasn't DEIand it was really about
understanding the meaning ofdifference and understanding the
(52:08):
experience of people who arethe targets of oppression.
To me it felt like there wasmore focus on that than there
was on understanding theexperience of privilege.
And so, even as a white persondoing the work and early in the
day, you know, we had one bigcorporate client that really
(52:28):
supported our work big corporateclient that really supported
our work and then there werelots of small nonprofits that we
would oftentimes work withquite, you know, not exactly pro
bono, but you know it was kindof like a lot of our work was in
these smaller settings.
You know that that whole partof our name about intact ongoing
(52:50):
natural settings you know thatwhole part of our name about
intact ongoing natural settings,you know, was very compelling
to me Because basically what itmeant is here are people who are
in a, who maybe experience acommon purpose or are brought
together because of their work,and as important as the work
they're doing are theirrelationships with each other,
(53:13):
and so back in the day, it feltto me like so much of what was
happening internally at Visionswas this idea that when we do
our work with each otherinternally, we will be prepared
to do our work with our clients.
Right right and I love thatbecause, again, it really meant
(53:36):
that it wasn't.
It didn't position me as theall-knowing expert that came
into these settings.
It was like I'm in a processand I'm going to invite you into
the process that I'm in and, asthe white person in particular,
I began to learn.
So what are the barriers forwhite people in doing that?
(54:00):
Like what were the issues ofshame or fear of confrontation
or conflict, or you know thethings that go into the model of
modern racism.
You know just watching peoplewhite people scramble around
(54:21):
wanting to deny, avoidingcontact, having.
You know the positionalityaround.
You know being good or beingkind or welcoming to people but
not really getting howinevitably the power dynamics
(54:42):
were going to play out if theydidn't own what it meant in the
systems they were in to occupywhiteness.
And so it was very and some ofthe best experiences of my life
have been where I feel like I'monly like two steps ahead of the
people that I'm leading.
(55:03):
I'm very close to being wherethey are.
I remember where they arebecause I remember where they
are, because I was just thereand I remember, you know, for
example, coming to be aware ofthat one when white people start
to have a sense of you knowkind of what's wrong with this.
(55:26):
You know, when they kind ofhave a breakthrough moment, the
first thing they often do iswant to turn around and strangle
the white people around them.
That don't get it, you know,and I can remember sitting in
circles.
We always were in circleswanting to leap across the room
at somebody and shake them, andalways being held in a vision's
(55:49):
model that said, people don'tlearn because of that.
If anything, they will becomemore guarded or defensive
because of that.
So how to do this work, as Isay with love, how to hold
people, meet people wherethey're at is another way that
we say it how to be engagedfully in taking someone and, of
(56:13):
course, being trained as apsychologist really helped
because you know, you wouldn'tscold your clients.
You know that wouldn't behelpful.
You know what are the ways thatthat invitational model of?
Have you tried this?
Have you thought about it thisway?
What are the ways in which youknow you would feel like this is
(56:34):
something you?
You know something's in it foryou to change and so all of that
just felt so I mean, natural isis I don't even know if it felt
natural, but it felt right.
It felt just like where Iwanted to be.
So the early days were about thecontinued learning about how to
(56:57):
hold people on that journey,how to manage being in a
co-facilitation relationship.
I mean now you know there's somuch that I take for granted
because I've co-facilitated withthe people of color in forth,
for example, or when there wasconflict in the room which one
(57:36):
of us made, it made sense for usto handle that, and often that
was race-based.
You know that my role as thewhite facilitator was really to
take on what was happening inwith the white participants, and
this was even before we wereusing a lot of the
intra-cultural group by race,where I would be specifically
(57:58):
dealing with with just the whitefolks in the room.
But all of that was what it wasabout, evolving away and it
wasn't like so we could write itdown and turn it into a script.
It was about being present inthe moment, to what was
(58:20):
happening, in a way that was,you know, much more
intentionally attuned to racialdynamics than I had ever been in
my life, that was and powerdynamics overall, you know, and
there were times that I steppedin it because I, you know, I
remember oftentimes when I wasworking with white men, I didn't
(58:45):
take into account the sexismthat was also present, the
sexism that was also present,and the white men would be
clearly infuriated at me, youknow, because I had done
something that they did notexpect through the gender
dynamics of the interaction.
(59:05):
So, again, it wasn't just aboutrace, but it was about learning
all of those dimensions and howto attend to.
You know, like the Jewishpeople in the room who
oftentimes wrestled with howmuch anti-Semitism they felt and
therefore couldn't immediatelyconnect to white privilege, you
(59:29):
know, it was like athree-dimensional moving puzzle
that you were always learningthe new ways that the pieces fit
together.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (59:41):
Interesting.
I mean my cohort coming in 35years in is at the benefit of
learning from all of thisexperience, which felt very well
established actually by thetime I came in.
So I appreciate hearing youtalk about it and I also
appreciate it as a whole for howit evolved and and really
(01:00:06):
sounds like it coalesced throughall you all's experience like
as you did it.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (01:00:11):
Yeah, I mean I don't want to skip over what
the hard moments were.
I mean there were some reallyhard moments where people, for
their own reasons, felt thatthey couldn't stay at Visions
(01:00:32):
reasons felt that they couldn'tstay at visions.
You know, whether it wasbecause the work that we were
doing or the way we were doingthe work didn't fulfill that
same sense of calling.
You know, they had a differentway of thinking about it and I
remember there being some, a lotof sadness in those losses for
me, or people whose own woundswould emerge so persistently
(01:00:57):
that it really got in their wayof doing the work effectively.
So I mean, there was a lot ofthat.
There were you, the obviouschallenges of being a small
organization led by, you know, awoman of color, and you know,
(01:01:19):
in the fee for service, time wasthe whole question where, you
know, should we be trying to getgrants or whatever?
But we were trying to surviveon fee for service or whatever,
but we were trying to survive onfee for service.
And it was remarkable, Lena,how thin those times could be.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (01:01:38):
Yeah, oh, I can imagine yeah.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (01:01:41):
And what it meant again to have the strong
leadership Valerie Betts andothers you know who were just
willing to say this work is tooimportant.
Let's, let's figure out a wayto do this.
Again, it was so I oftentimesfeel, especially in this day and
(01:02:03):
age when, you know, I'mappalled by some of the ways in
which the direction our countryis moving that the people who
seem to have the most resilienceand optimism are people who
have dealt with the mostoppression in their lives.
And so I kind of turn it and Isay, okay, so how is this coming
(01:02:27):
from my privilege to think thateverything should work in the
way that I one expected to?
Because it doesn't.
You know, this world is toobroken and it brings me back
down to earth, and you know,then I can kind of say, okay,
I'm back up for the yeah I mean,that's a whole other question
(01:02:50):
now.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (01:02:52):
And well, okay , I want to make sure to ask the
work you did with visions, thetraining in the model, and your
concurrent, if I'm not mistaken,work, as you know, psychologist
in clinical practice how didthey dovetail and how did they
(01:03:17):
influence one another?
Obviously, we're anorganization that's very
clinician heavy.
That's what I love about it.
I don't have formal trainingmyself and I think it's just.
I think it's like a dominantingredient in our secret sauce.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (01:03:33):
Well, I'll tell you, I mean, that's where,
looking back now, that I can dothat, I just feel like it was
almost magical is the wrong word.
But you know, it was such ablessing because each part of my
work life influenced andinformed the other parts of my
(01:03:55):
work life.
So when I was teaching, forexample, I was always thinking
about, you know, broader systems, the context of people's lives.
I wasn't just focused on theirinterior life, clinically lives.
I wasn't just focused on theirinterior life clinically, I was
thinking relationally, but I wasalso thinking about the broader
(01:04:21):
social forces and the historiesof those forces in people's
lives and so, passing that on tonew clinicians who might be
tempted to have, you know, justthis very limited lens through
which thinking about the workthat they would do, especially
because, you know, in someplaces I was teaching, they were
still very influenced bypsychoanalytic thought.
(01:04:43):
Yes, they hadn't contextualizedit all in the ways that I think
now people are more familiarwith doing.
So, with each thing that I waslearning through visions I could
bring it into my teaching.
Or when I had the experience ofsitting with a family and
(01:05:07):
watching how relieved they werethat there were things I
understood or ways that Isupported their resourcefulness
or the ways in which I reallycould see that their suffering
was not a product of theirindividual failure.
I mean, I could just see howthat opened up the sense of
possibility for them innavigating whatever.
(01:05:31):
They had come to see me forclinically.
I did a lot of work incross-racial relationships
because in some ways I was awhite person that could hold
both perspectives.
And you know, a lot of goodtherapy is about especially in
couples or families is about thecapacity to hold multiple
(01:05:55):
positions, and so my ability todo that really had come from my
vision's work.
My teaching, my clinicalteaching, for me was how I kept
myself abreast of what washappening in the field.
You know, it kept me reading sothat I would be able to bring
(01:06:19):
new materials to my classes, andone of the things that in the
last, my last teaching, was atSmith School of Social Work and
I moved from teaching familytherapy into some of the
anti-racism work that washappening in the school, which
(01:06:39):
was also coursework.
And then they invited me to dothe gender class and you know,
again, I had some exposure togender issues and it was at a
time when gender fluidity andnon-binary ways of thinking
about gender were really new toacademics, and so I got to be on
(01:07:02):
the cutting edge of that andthen bring that back to visions.
So I mean everything was such abeautiful.
So I mean everything was such abeautiful weaving together.
You know, I think of it, as youknow, like sweet grass that gets
braided.
It just felt like and I don'tfeel like I did that.
(01:07:24):
It feels like that happened tome.
The way that I could, you know,was about just going with it as
opposed to trying to control itbeing willing as opposed to
being willful about it.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (01:07:43):
Willing as opposed to willful I really like
that.
I'm going to borrow thatFantastic.
So when I got on the call withyou, you said you were in Hawaii
and I was like, what are youdoing in Hawaii work or leisure?
You're like I'm retired, I'mjust in Hawaii.
So now that you are retired,and noting that we're in just
(01:08:04):
this, what feels to meunprecedented and quite chaotic
moment, having done the workthat you have done all your life
and also having lived throughother chaotic moments from from
what I understand, what is itthat you would say to people who
(01:08:26):
are doing the work now?
Dr. Sarah Stearns (01:08:29):
Wow.
You know, one of the thingsthat's very difficult for me now
is to feel like I have theright to step back, because
there's so much need, much need,and I happen to believe that
(01:08:58):
this particular life that I'veled has allowed me to have a set
of skills that are much neededin the world right now.
So that's hard for me tobalance.
You know my wish for a kind ofspaciousness in my life now,
that when I was working I didn'tfeel much about a constant
(01:09:37):
process of becoming who they are, you know, weaving together
what appeals to them about themodel or what you know where
they find joy or excitement orpassion.
I mean, I always am gratefulthat I did my work with passion,
because to me that confirmedhow in alignment it felt with
(01:09:58):
things of spirit in me.
And I think what I would say iscontinue to find what's
important in the work other thanjust the practical matters of,
you know, a career.
And I think I say that becausemy sense is that unless, unless
(01:10:25):
someone continues to evolve anddevelop and become at a personal
level, the work will get stale,work will feel too hard, the
work will be too frustrating.
(01:10:46):
There are too many challengesthat exist, and especially now
that somehow, and especially nowthat somehow, taking it on
simply professionally will leadpeople to burn out or drop out.
So for me, if there's anylesson from my life story, it's
(01:11:10):
find what sustains you at thatmuch deeper level.
And you know I am so gratefulbecause some of what has
sustained me is that some of themost important relationships in
my life are within the visionscommunity, are within the
(01:11:34):
visions community, that whatI've learned about being in
relationship in a way that youknow hopefully translates to the
other important relationshipsof my life, are about staying in
, not giving up, being, you know, willing to be in in those
challenging moments Like thoseare the blessings that came to
(01:12:01):
me through my work with visionsand I wouldn't even call it work
through my life in visions is amuch better way to put it
through my life in visions is amuch better way to put it.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (01:12:13):
It brings me back to something that I heard
you say before that I foundquite striking.
Probably two years ago you saidthis is a glimpse of the world
that I want to live in.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (01:12:28):
I oftentimes, when I have what I consider a
more successful consultationexperience, is when the people
in the room in let's use themodel of a multi-day training
feel like sitting in the room isnow different than when they
entered the room, yeah, thatthere's something that's
(01:12:52):
happened that they couldn't evenhave set an intention towards,
because they didn't even knowwhat was possible.
And yet, because of thecontainer that was created,
because of the conversationsthat were had, whatever they now
sit around and they recognize alevel of connection, a cross
(01:13:17):
difference, that they didn'thave before.
And so in those settings, Ioften that's my way of saying
goodbye to the group is sayingyou know, take a moment and
reflect on what it feels like tosit in this circle.
This is the world I want tolive in and, you know, frankly,
(01:13:43):
I find that it is.
In many organizations or othersettings it's so far from what's
true.
I mean that people are livingat a much more fear-based level.
They're so subscribed to amodel of competition, to a model
(01:14:09):
of competition they're, frankly, scared of dealing directly
with difference, so they eitherdeny it or paper it over, and
they certainly don't seethemselves as being able to
change anything.
And that's the other thing thatI think you know really comes
(01:14:36):
through in the work that I'vedone towards the end of of my
work with visions is wantingeach person to imagine the
changes they can make.
I use that word, you know, kindof how do you see yourself as a
change agent?
And that can be in theirrelationship with their teenage
child.
It can be, you know, in theways in which they relate to
(01:15:00):
their people who are in higherpositions of power, where they
don't underestimate that theyalso can have power in those
conversations, underestimatethat they also can have power in
those conversations.
Wanting people and maybe thisdoes go back to what I shared
with you about coming of age inthe late 60s, the age of
Aquarius.
(01:15:20):
I mean, I think that maybe Iromanticize it, I probably do.
What I remember and bring backoften is that I felt like we
were being called to change theworld and to create the world
that we wanted to live in, andso some of the greatest
(01:15:44):
satisfaction that I have in mylife is feeling like I was able
to try and do that in my life isfeeling like I was able to try
and do that.
Beautiful Sarah, thank you somuch for taking the time and for
speaking to me and for sharingyour story so generously.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (01:16:03):
I hope it was helpful to someone.
Oh, my goodness, I think itwill be helpful to a great many
people and I'm so glad to youknow, have been able to hear it
and like be in this conversationwith you Again.
You were like my first exposure, in many ways, to visions.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (01:16:20):
So it was like a personal connection that
I really appreciate having withyou, Lena, Beautiful Same same.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (01:16:27):
Thank you so much, Sarah.
Dr. Sarah Stearns (01:16:29):
All right, have a good rest of your well,
you're going to bed.
Right, I'm going to bed same.
Thank you so much, sarah.
All right, have a good rest ofyour.
Well, you're going to bed.
Right, I'm going to bed, yes.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (01:16:37):
This is the final episode of this inaugural
season of Into Liberation and mylast as Visions Program
Director.
Please make sure you follow uson your favorite podcast
platforms and sign up for ournewsletter to stay updated about
what we're doing.
Thank you so much for listening.
It's been a pleasure, Thank you.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!