150. A Regenerative Life
Carol Sanford on living, dying & changing paradigms
Starting the year with Carol Sanford feels incredibly special. She’s been at the heart of what we might call the ‘regenerative paradigm’ for decades. Friends and colleagues have spoken about her with me for years, right up until the end of last year. And last month, a previous guest and author of Sand Talk, Tyson Yunkaporta, featured Carol on his podcast. That’s when I learned the sad news that she may only have a few months to live. When I wrote to her expressing my care and respect, and to see if she’d possibly be up for a chat with another Aussie podcaster, she said sure, but ‘I am declining and so can’t wait long.’ Days later, we shared this conversation.
“And I watched him do that. And one guy asked him, ‘well, how do you get people to change paradigm, if that’s how they grew up and that’s their religion? And he said, ‘well that’s your job. I figured out the problem.’ And it had a huge effect on me, I took the answer personally. I’m supposed to figure out how to help people shift paradigm.”
Carol is Executive Producer at The Regenerative Business Summit, 5x TEDx presenter, and a highly awarded best-selling author of six books – currently writing her seventh. Carol launched two startups, ran and sold them, then turned to educating businesses globally, from big companies like Google and DuPont, to ‘new economy businesses’, as she puts it, ‘developing leaders toward the business of the 21st Century, with individuals who want a Regenerative Paradigm education’. Rebecca Henderson from Harvard Business School said Carol "created an approach that reimagines business. Her approach will be The Future of Business."
But all that’s just the touching the surface. This is a deeply cherished conversation about Carol’s regenerative life.
This conversation was recorded online with Carol at home in Seattle and Anthony in Perth on 2 February 2023 (Australian time).
-
Please note this transcript isn’t perfect, but hopefully serves to provide greater access to these conversations for those who need or like to read.
SPEAKERS
Anthony James, Carol Sanford.
Anthony 00:00
You're with The RegenNarration, exploring how people are enabling the regeneration of life on this planet by changing the systems and stories we live by. Welcome to the 150th Episode kicking off the new year. This is still independent media, free of ads and freely available thanks to the support of listeners like you. Thanks so much for the support that came in over the summer break including from you Frederick Banks for your generous donations. Thanks also to the food connect shed crew and to Adam Coates for your generous subscriptions. And to Mary-Anne Anderson and Robert Staley for committing to a full year with yours. And Thanks Robert for buying the book by my old mentor too. If you too sense something worthwhile in all this, please consider joining Frederick, the food connect shed, Adam, Maryanne and robert, part of a great community of supporting listeners, with as little as $3 a month or whatever amount you can and want to contribute. You can get all sorts of benefits, principally of course continuing to receive the podcast with transcripts every week. Just head to the website via the shownotes regennarration.com/support. Thanks a lot.
Carol 01:18
And I watched him do that. And one guy asked him, Well, how do you get people to change paradigm if that's how they grew up and that's their religion? He said well that's your job. I figured out the problem. And it had a huge effect on me. I took the answer personally. I'm supposed to figure out how to help people shift paradigm.
Anthony 01:51
G'day my name is Anthony James. This is The RegenNarration. And that was Carol Sanford. Starting the year with Carol feels incredibly special. She's been at the heart of what we might call the regenerative paradigm for decades. Friends and colleagues have spoken about her with me for years, right up until the end of last year. And last month, a previous guest and author of Sand talk, Tyson Yunkaporta, featured Carol on his podcast. That's when I learned the sad news that she has only a few months to live. When I wrote to her expressing my care and respect and to see if she'd possibly be up for a chat with another Aussie podcaster, she said, sure. But I am declining, and so can't wait long. Days later, we shared this conversation. If you're less familiar with Carol, I'll try give you a little sense. She's executive producer at the Regenerative Business Summit, five times TEDx presenter, and a highly awarded Best selling author of six books - currently writing her seventh. Carol launched two startups, ran and sold them, then turned to educating businesses globally. from big companies like Google and DuPont, to new economy businesses, as she puts it, developing leaders towards the business of the 21st century with individuals who want a regenerative paradigm education. Rebecca Henderson from Harvard Business School, said 'Carol created an approach that reimagined business. Her approach will be the future of business.' But all that's just touching the surface. Beaming in from Seattle, this is a deeply cherished conversation about Carol's regenerative life.
Carol 03:44
Hello. And I'm sorry, I can't go put on a headphone. It's in a place I can't walk. I am incredibly disabled. And so I barely can get around within a small space.
Anthony 04:01
Yeah, no worries, Carol,
Carol 04:03
can you hear me?
Anthony 04:04
Yeah, yeah, I can hear you really well. And we're good to go.
Carol 04:08
All right.
Anthony 04:09
Thanks a lot, Carol. It's such an absolute privilege to speak with you today. You've you've meant so much to so many people I know including myself for such a long time. So thank you.
Carol 04:19
Well, I'm happy to be here. We'll see how long I can talk. I get pretty tired pretty quickly.
Anthony 04:26
I wondered. How are the days for you at the moment?
Carol 04:31
Oh they're marvelous. I get to run workshops for all my people. I'm finishing my seventh book with Ben - do you know Ben Haggard? No. He's, he writes for me, my hands don't work anymore. And so he writes down what I am saying, but I'm also losing my ability to speak so. I mean, I know I'm dying but I'm having a good time.
Anthony 05:01
I love that. That is beautiful. You know, it's interesting hearing - hearing you speak with Tyson essentially, I think it was just last month wasn't it and it reminded me of an old friend of mine I met when I was in the field overseas and, and along came this guy from French speaking Canada. And the last time I ever spoke to him, was years later, I'm back in Australia, and I give him a call. And he was about in the same position you are right now I think his speech had started to suffer and, and be a struggle. And it was, it was so confronting at the time for me, because I was younger, and it was new. But also he, you know, he knew seven languages, he traveled the world. He was doing development work here and there and such a amazing soul, it seemed cruel in that sense that speech went almost first for someone like that, but you've found a way, or is it perhaps just consistent with everything you've been about in life to even embrace it?
Carol 06:07
Well, we're all gonna die, Anthony. And I happen to know how and kind of even when, which most people don't know. And I worked at hospice, and helped a bunch of people transition out of their body. So it feels in some ways crazy familiar. So I'm not afraid of dying. I have things left to say, so are you recording?
Anthony 06:35
Yes.
Carol 06:36
Okay, good. All right. So what are we going to talk about?
Anthony 06:40
Well, it's common that I would start, almost at the start, in a sense, like to actually trace back to upbringing and place of upbringing and what impact that had on people's lives. I'm wondering even, was there something in your upbringing that held you in such good stead? And you mentioned your hospice work, but does it go back further, the qualities that hold you in good stead today for this experience?
Carol 07:10
Well, I'm eighty years old, what happened that shaped our life were miserable challenges by fairly evil people
Anthony 07:19
really?
Carol 07:20
Well I had a father who was a pretty lost and disturbed human being and a mother who was mentally ill. So those have stood me - learning how to survive in that environment, is really important. But the way that happened was, my maternal grandfather was half Mohawk, which is a tribe here in the US, part of the Iroquois nation. And so my grandfather, kept me sane by working with indigenous wisdom that why Tyson loves talking to me, he finds patterns and themes and subjects, that are similar to his upbringing, and maybe he feels like he missed. And so I got the disturbing part from my parents. But I got a lot of wisdom from my grandfather. And I've written a lot about him in my book 'The Regenerative Life.' After I dedicated my second book to him, people told me they wanted to hear more. So the regenerative life is comes from his teaching, and also my book, 'The Responsible Entrepreneur.' He gave me four archetypes that are not like Jungian archetypes, but are indigenous ones that teach people how to rebuild a nation, because the Mohawk were decimated by colonization marches across the US into camps, basically, and - not him. He was much younger, but he was taught the ideas of how you regenerate a nation. And so I wrote those into my second book. 'The Responsible Entrepreneur.' All of those taught me all different ways to see the world than I was getting in my household, and my mother had the good sense to run away with me and my sister when I was about six and a half and my sister was four. And so we fled, and had a new home for some time. And then went again to Dallas, Texas, where I grew up from about eight or nine. And in all those things, you learn something, if you can. My sister was pretty destroyed by it all. I wasn't, somehow my grandfather pulled me through.
Anthony 10:20
can you encapsulate the quality that he passed on to you or the essence of it?
Carol 10:38
Well, it was something I learned years later to call Karma Yoga, whatever you're given you grow you from it. And almost all these traditions I've studied since then have a similar message, you don't go off in a monastery, or an ashram or something, you take whatever you're given, and use it to work on yourself. And so it was a daily life practice. And you do it with everything that shows up. So that's probably philosophically the thing. And then I found teachers later, who were saying very similar things. Like I work in Google or I have - not now but until a few months ago - and they were in meditation twice a day. And then people go back to their ordinary mechanical way of thinking. And so sitting twice a day, meditating is good, but it's really incomplete. You need a practice, that teaches you all day, every day on everything you're doing. So if you got a boss, or an employee, or a husband or wife or partner, you have a lot of trouble with, the place to start is with yourself. And we teach or I teach frameworks to use, that build your capacity, to be able to make sense of a world and evolve yourself, do the work on yourself. For example if you ask yourself and situation with your life partner, I've got a framework that was called reactive ego and purposeful. And the question is, When am I being reactive to, where am I letting my ego got hooked, and can I move, so I see some purpose in what we're doing, either on my own or together? And if we don't do that, we become a victim. And feel like the other person is, whether it's employer, boss or partner or child, we will feel like they are causing us misery. And so one of the things my grandfather taught me is that no one can cause you misery. Whatever is going on, is happening in a dynamic. And you have to learn to do this kind of looking at yourself, and managing and he said, you know our young warriors, and it mostly was men are taught from a young age to be witnessing, that wasn't his word. But that's when I've come to use - of your own reaction to everything that's going on with you and take back your internal locus of control. So you're at least being mindful of what's going on and you have a choice about your reaction, you may not have a choice about the event but you always are in charge of your reaction. My grandfather also taught me a lot about animals in his way to farm. He raised pigs and he worked with the State Department of the Farm Bureau. Where he educated people about farming and animal husbandry. An he did it from the indigenous point of view, and that looks a little like, we went out and fed the pigs and then we went for a walk with the pigs and walked down to a creek or crick that was near there. And if you sat down the pigs would come sit with you like family. Right? And my grandfather when he talked to me, he often talked to the pigs too. And, you know, they went oink, you know, and he said, there's no dividing line. And unless you get the idea, that we each have our roles, the pigs have their work to do, we have ours. Also farms and the plants have their work to do. So it was always about learning about the system and how they work together. And how it was you worked in that process? So maybe this gives people a flavor of my, probably, young years.
Anthony 15:52
Yes, it reminds me of Kate Raworth in donut economics wrote about an indigenous fellow who addressed the College of Natural Resources. And he was saying, they're not resources, their kin, like you were sort of just outlining there. So what if it was the College of Natural kinships or something like that? It would change everything.
Carol 16:10
Yeah. I mean, every each one is unique. I'm really bothered when people say I should learn from nature. Because I am nature. That would leave out a human role, which is we're here for a reason within the system. And what is really important is to learn the role each entity has. And how it is we build our capability to do that. Humans, you know I got a pitching match on LinkedIn with somebody who is furious that I said, humans are a keystone species, that just means they're a peg in something that has a really important role. And if it goes away, like the wolves went away here, then the whole system collapses. It's not we're better, keystone doesn't mean we're better, it means we play a role that links between some dynamics. And if you say get rid of humans, you're not understanding what the role of humans is, and how that peg that holds all these together, is really important. Like the wolves are not more important than the large animals that trample down and cause our life shed not to work. But they're, they're critical. Because without the wolves, the other animals can't play their roles. So we are letting down the ecosystem by not teaching people how humans need to work and think. That's what I do, is helping humans to understand their roles. Because even my grandfather said, we're making a mess. Humans are.
Anthony 18:16
well, if anyone was gonna know he was gonna know too, hey, what they went through?
Carol 18:16
Yeah.
Anthony 18:21
So I had a friend just the other day, actually, Dominique Hes - she's prominent, regenerative design tends to be the label she gets put under.
Carol 18:57
Yeah I know Dominique.
Anthony 19:02
There you go. Well, she says, essentially, what - the little battle you got into on LinkedIn. She was bringing up again, the other day feeling like the regenerative paradigm that is trying to be expressed and worked in and worked at is missing, yeah, the people bit, the humans as keystone species bit, and she's thinking what needs to happen to remedy that, to ensure that it comes along in that way?
Carol 18:58
Well, we right now don't educate humans in their work anywhere. It's all about doing and all this stuff out there. I'm writing my last book right now, number seven, that says, the education system needs to change. And how people learn to parent, it's really deep. And so our entire school system, don't teach humans how to think for themselves. They teach them content and answers from experts and that's where you have to begin because humans can't play their role unless each one can think for themselves. They tend to borrow ideas from experts - from their parents or authorities. And everybody comes to me wants answers and I don't answer questions. I don't do q&a. And I'm trying to reverse that tendency and indoctrination we have from the behaviorists, you know who they are?
Anthony 20:12
Yeah
Carol 20:12
Tyson and I are both on a rampage against them. Because in the early 1900s, number three or four year, they pronounced the idea that humans can't think for themselves. And thus they become experts that are certified with some science. And so all public schools in the States and shortly after everywhere, were created with experts deciding what should be taught. And increasingly, you had outside feedback, and outside experts, and outside authority, and no one thought for themselves. And that put us on this path. Because it's easy nowadays to say, but these kids can't tell whether they're right or wrong, they needed somebody else grading them - something at work. People at work don't know whether they're right or wrong, they need feedback. If you change that, and you start building capability, individuals, kids and parents and teachers, even teachers are not assumed to know anything. They have to have outside curriculum designer, right? So the answer to Dominique's question is, you have to start with educating the capacity of each individual to think for themselves. And that has to happen at work, at home, and you have to stop filling up the space with experts or knowledge. Coz when people say humans are making a mess, they don't know anything, they're right. But the problem is, if we keep doing it that way, they'll always fail to learn their role and to develop and to make a difference, and we will die as a species. And that species will then leave a void of consciousness, the ability for people to see their effects and to help change effects. And then those folks will be right saying humans need to die and go away. But they leave the void of consciousness then.
Anthony 22:46
yeah. I wonder for you. I mean, I assume for you school was of that nature as well. And so it was as an adult where you came across other encounters that helped you see this.
Carol 23:01
No, my grandfather. I mean, I did later, I studied with a guy named Thomas Kuhn at UC Berkeley. And Kuhn wrote a book called, it came out that year we were there, the structure of the scientific revolution. It was about paradigms. And I was in a class with him. And he was pretty young and trying to figure out what he figured out - the paradigm shift. And so he would go with us, there was a place called Telegraph Avenue at the university, and it had a coffee shop or, I don't think it served alcohol. I can't remember - maybe beer. And we're just sitting in that cellar and talk about paradigm shifting. And somebody asked him, how in the world he got the idea of paradigm shift. And you know, he was a scientist. He was talking about it happening in science, where you for 100 years have one paradigm and boom and it shifts. And they said, How did you do that? And he said, Well, I sat around and watched people talk. Let's do it right now, he'd say. So he'd go around, and we had people from all over the world in the 60s. And he said, Where did you grow up? And what was your religion? And what influence did it have on you? And he'd go to the next one, next. And I watched him do that. And one guy asked him, Well, how do you get people to change paradigm if that's how they grew up and that's their religion? He said, well that's your job. I figured out the problem. And it had a huge effect on me, I took the answer personally. I'm supposed to figure out how to help people shift paradigm. So I also listened to a lot of people who were working on epistemology, how we learn and know. And I figured out these two were related and so I've worked on helping people choose how they learn, not tell them how to learn, but how to choose and to become aware of it. So my answer to Thomas Kuhn's question was, help educate them so they can see their own choices, their own sourcing, and they will change when they actually can see. So I've written a lot about it. My last book has even more on epistemology, and how you help people discover how they got where they are, and then do they want to change. So you don't need to tell them to change, which we keep trying to do, and drive them deeper in their corner. So we get more conflict, more polarization. You don't need to do that. Create a framework where people can see themselves, and then they will change. And I watched it for almost 50 years in my career. If you look at who wrote the forewords in my books, they're CEOs of companies and senior executives. And they all say, I learned how to think about my thinking. And that changed me. Carol never told me what to think. She gave me how to think. I use some of the how to think, I got to better answers. So the problem is we keep trying to condition. We don't like what people are thinking. So we think well, we'll re-condition them, we'll give them incentives/rewards. But that's what got us here.
Anthony 27:08
And that's where your conversation with Tyson went, no, when he said in his typical manner, he said the Fascists are going to win, because the ones who would condition have an effect and sort of hold the - I'll just use a glib term - the mainstream, the dominant trajectory, still, at the time, the dominant culture. But you disagree, you still think human capacity can - I dunno is overcome the word - can come through?
Carol 27:41
So I worked in South Africa, from 1993 to 1997. And I watched the work we did radically change Afrikaners who'd been opposed to the removal of apartheid. And I never told them to. I did same thing in Dupont with mining. And I didn't tell them mining is bad. I taught them how to assess what the quality of impact was in their own thinking. And they changed so many things. And so I know, now, once you're really attached to something it gets harder, but the way you do it is to move a whole system, they have to make money. So I went into companies and Colgate Palmolive was who I worked with in South Africa, and we never told them, you need to particularly be good people or make a certain kind of thing. The Constitution in South Africa required they move black managers to the top of the company and reflect what the population looked like. So we did choose what was required. And we said, well, we have to educate people how to move to the top. And we did that in six months, because everyone agreed we should, including, we only lost one white manager - an Africaner who said I can't do this, and he left. Everyone else because we didn't tell him they had to change, we educated them on assessing how to do their own change, they moved. So the reason we get the question you ask, Well, how do you get people to do this? Is because they assume it has to be a doing. You have to move them. You have to change laws you have to influence and control and they don't understand the power of educating people to see their own mind and its effect. And so it's a simple answer and the thing is, in South Africa, what we did took six months for some things, a year for a few others, and in the mining industry it took only a couple years, but it was all through education, not on what to think, but on how to think and see your own effects, and then you choose.
Anthony 30:33
yeah. And you were invited in to do that, right. And this is true of so many businesses, including big companies around the world over your lifetime. And it's always made me - like I've had this bit of a struggle throughout the time I've particularly known your work, because I think you perhaps represent it to me most, in the sense that you've had this enormous success, like with, with how you've worked with these people. And yet, a lot of these companies, I mean, even Google, for example, but not just a single out, I guess, I've wondered are the structures that they operate in, still holding them tightly so that whatever they've benefited from with you, they still can't really act out. I mean, they can act out to the extent that you've described it there, for example, but with shareholder structures, or infinite growth oriented economies, or extractive surveillance mode online technologies, are these things ...
Carol 31:34
You sound like Tyson! You're referring to everything that doesn't work. I don't work where it doesn't work. I find leaders who are willing to make great change, and we go work there. And it influences hundreds of 1000s of people. And like in South Africa, when they replaced [?] with a GM I was working with, they put it in a guy who was basically a Nazi and he pretty much undid the structure we put together, but you couldn't take it out of the people. No one who worked in the company reverted, they kept doing the things the right way, and trying to lift up these guys. And eventually he has to be moved, and to leave his new GM position. So the problem is you can move, by moving probably the minds of a few hundred people at a company with 3000, they all change. And they worked in the township. Those people who are in the townships are still bringing about change at the level of everyday work especially in Soweto and Alexandria. And the people who were in Colgate no longer have the structure that we put in place. But it's in the mind and heart of the people who are still leading things Mandela started. So quit looking at what doesn't work - its exhausting. And it was the same thing I was saying to Tyson. Don't be so skeptical. It takes very little to move a whole lot. And if people go find the places people are ready, even if thats 5% of a neighborhood, go with the 5%. Because research shows it probably takes 2 to 3%, once those people move so - I don't look where people are stuck, I find leaders who are ready to move.
Anthony 33:52
It reminds me of a recent guest I had late last year, Karen O'Brien. She had just released a book called Quantum social change for a thriving world. That was the subtitle - it's what I remember. You matter more than you think, was the title. That's right. On quantum subject change. And yeah, extrapolating what we're learning from quantum physics into the social, cultural domain. And it's a terrific hypothesis, but it really reminds me of precisely what you're saying that in everything, everywhere in every moment, embodying a way of being is going to bring about all these reverberations, or fractals.
Carol 33:52
I don't think that's enough.
Anthony 34:19
What do you think?
Carol 34:23
I don't think that's - I believe in all that theory. I have a technology to use it, to apply it every day working with people because that level you're talking about - I don't know about her - It's such a high level of abstraction. We can say ya, of course, but what do I do to help grow people to think well? I haven't read the book. But I find a lot of people say to me, well you're talking about something somebody else said, but most of them don't have a technology, a way of every day, redesigning work, so it lives up to those principles. And so that's what I have been building. I have two communities, one with change agents, who are consultants, teachers, some owners of companies, and they meet with me for several years. And then suddenly, they see what that meant - the entanglement and the quantum and so forth. But they now know how to re-design a company based on it, and how to educate people. And then I have a company group where you have teams of people who come in and learn how to re-design their business. And so when you are part of those two communities, we give you a technology - a technology means how to translate theory into practice into design. So I think there are a lot of people - or well, enough, maybe, they're getting the new theory. My work is based on quantum science, on indigenous teachings, and on lineage of wisdom teachers, like, out of various countries, ways like Buddhist traditions, and different versions, and also Hindu, all of those have threads in them and have had for decades or centuries, that we draw on. And so I think my grandfather and other indigenous - and I find the threads in all those things. And then we translate them into a technology. We don't teach them those things directly. We show them a technology about what that means, how do you design with it. I don't, I think that the theory is good, a lot of people writing more or less good ideas, but they don't know how to tell you what to go do with it. So I've got these 3,000 who I've managed to in my lifetime, share a technology with.
Anthony 37:35
Yes, indeed. You mentioned those other wisdom traditions, have Western wisdom traditions been important on your journey as well?
Carol 37:45
Yes, Socratic method is a Western philosophical tradition. It's a big part, and so we have Eastern and Western - I did happen to just mention Eastern, but there are quite a few philosophical traditions that are Western wisdom tradition. And Socrates is probably the most intense one we work with. And Pythagorus
Anthony 38:19
Can you describe how you work with that?
Carol 38:23
Well, that's a really probably impossible question. Because it takes years to get connected. But Socrates had five things he was working on all the time, which we have technology for. One was being non mechanical. Humans are so sound asleep, and so we have a variety of practices. They help you wake yourself and your team up. One is like a disruptive practice. If you sit in a workshop with me, I may insult you on purpose, or something I can see you're insecure about or you're not thinking about. I might say, So is that an idea you've had all your life and you've never questioned it? And people become defensive. Oh so now you're going to become defensive? Well, is that a mechanical response? So I do that to members until they're no longer bothered by me doing it. And then so that's a Socratic process, because it's about waking you up. Humility is another one. Can you be with people even as a teacher and not feel a need to be smarter than them or need to teach them as you as an authority? And so I'm constantly, when people first join us, and especially students - I did teach at a couple of universities - I say, don't trust me. Ever. Don't assume that I am any kind of authority or expert. So don't accept anything I tell you. But don't reject it without testing it with your own personal experience. That's the only time you can say, you know the answer to something is when you're doing that. Most people who are out there teaching, work hard to get to be experts and look like they know more and can teach you. So we learn from Socrates, how to help everyone learn to think for themselves.
Anthony 40:53
And you've created - you alluded to before - you've been part of creating peer groups and networks as well throughout your life, quite a number and at quite a scale too. And they're now sort of moving along on their own steam?
Carol 41:07
No, I have not quit teaching any of them yet. They meet with me eight times a year to learn the next evolution, but they all have independence, so no one's dependent on me. I'm not in charge of anything. I just happen to have some ideas that's good to play with. So they've never not moved on their own. And as I was learning this, I moved on my own. I don't report to anyone, no one's in charge of me. So we're all independent forever. And they've asked me to keep teaching as long as I can. And that's probably coming to a close in a couple of months. Because I will choose to sit down and die like the sages and be gone. And then everyone has their own new seeds, a place to start a new level of work. And I need to tell you, I'm getting really tired. And so let's think about kind of some wrap up questions for five minutes.
Anthony 42:26
Alright, yeah good. You've actually given me the perfect segue when you said to sit down and die like the sages, because I was wondering, if you would contemplate life - in this moment for you - if you'd contemplate life as a spiritual journey?
Carol 42:39
Well, I've always thought of it that way. I don't know whether karma exists or not, but I choose to believe in it, because it makes me a better human. And I believe there is some kind of development. I personally believe I chose to die, before I was born, with ALS. It's a terrible disease. You know how people die with ALS? They suffocate. Your lungs quit working. Doesn't that sound horrible?
Anthony 43:13
Yeah.
Carol 43:13
Yeah. And so very few people would want to get it. But I think I chose it before I was born. Because I figure we get to learn a whole lot. And since I'm terrified of suffocating, and being claustrophobic, so I think all that was in my plan. Now, how do I deal with it now? Pretty well, mostly the good news is that I'm not afraid of dying. So I'm leading conscious dying workshops, coz on this western plane of existence we don't teach people how to die. We don't teach them how to be conscious, and in the moment with their deteriorating body. So the people in one of my two communities are meeting with me every other month and I report what I'm doing, watching my dying. And also we've invited them to be present with me as I go through some phases. One is the sages dying, and for me that means you stop eating and drinking, and your body lets go of your spirit so to speak. You can in the States in most places do Death with Dignity, which means you administer a substance to yourself that kills you. I feel that feels unnatural. And I probably couldn't qualify for it. Because you have to be able to say yes to doing the drugs, and you have to administer them. And with ALS, you can't do any of that, you can't move. I can't even go get my microphone right? How would I go get .... well, anyway. But the sages, throughout history have said, my work, it's completed, I can do it this time. I'm gonna sit and it'll take about three to four weeks, if I don't eat or drink. And I've asked people, they come be with me doing that. And including online, but they have to be in community with us, working on their own exercises and work I'm offering. And then the second, the last phase, is after I've left my body, to sit in practices that are used in Tibetan Buddhism for helping a soul wing its way onto its next body or whatever its chosen. To be with me for that 49 days. So I'm doing the best I can to spiritualize it and to invite people in who want to learn about dying, instead of hiding from it. So yeah, it's a learning.
Anthony 44:35
Oh, yep. And that is an inspiration. I was just listening with my wife to friends and colleagues of my wife, one of whom has become a death doula.
Carol 46:38
Yeah.
Anthony 46:39
Yeah, works with people just like this.
Carol 46:41
I've done that. I did when I said I work with hospice, what they called us, we got trained to be death doulas. Or dying doulas, I think we more called it. Coz it's a process, not about the moment only of dying but the process of choosing how you will die if you can, and how you will be engaged with other family members and friends.
Anthony 47:13
Yeah, and you did say at one stage a couple years ago, you were gonna write a memoir - is that woven into this current book?
Carol 47:21
No. Well, it's woven into many of my books like my grandfather's story. The one I meant to write, and I doubt that I'll make it. I had two books I'm not going to get written. The memoir was called I Am Not ... what was it called?
Anthony 47:47
Oh, yes. I remember this. I am. I am too, smart.
Carol 47:51
I am too, smart. Exactly! Because my father told me repeatedly I was stupid.
Anthony 47:58
Dear.
Carol 47:58
And I spent my whole life overcoming that constant daily - I know, it's a terrible thing to do to a child.
Anthony 48:07
Oh.
Carol 48:08
But my last book is about how smartness really happens. And so it has some of my story. So I think what I've done instead of getting all the way to a memoir, is woven it in.
Anthony 48:23
I thought you might say that. I think of the impact Thomas Kuhn and that moment had on you and I, I feel like you're having that, increasingly still, that sort of a moment on other people now. And I guess, what would you like to say, in this particular context as we go out? In terms of passing the baton?
Carol 48:49
No, there's no such thing. Each person when they die, who they are and what they came to do dies with them. The thing is, you have to know and ask, what did I promise to do before was born, that I've not completed? And what I'm asking people who are sitting with me during the VSAD it's called - Voluntary stopping Eating and Dying - I've asked you get to touch a portal by being connected with me leaving, and you are to ask yourself, what is mine yet to do? I'm sitting here with you, Carol, leaving your body and I can feel now my entire life and my work and now what is mine left yet to do?
Anthony 49:38
I'm really taking stock ...
Carol 49:41
Go do your thing.
Anthony 49:44
Taking stock of that, Carol. Let's go out with a reflection on a piece of music that's been significant ...
Carol 49:52
I never play music, none.
Anthony 49:54
Really?
Carol 49:55
I have silence. Silence is what I do. I don't listen to records - I did when I was young, my 20s and 30s but I mean music's never been my doorway to anything
Anthony 50:09
but silence has?
Carol 50:11
Silence. I love silence.
Anthony 50:15
your life has been so full. How would you - would you have practices that you would consciously then go and be silent somewhere?
Carol 50:23
No, I've lived alone a huge amount of my life. My husband died 20 years ago. And he always was in the shop when - we lived in the woods. And he was all day except for dinner in the shop. So it was silent all day. And he walked in the woods, at times we did together. I've always lived with a lot of silence around me. Except when my kids of course were very young - they were noisy.
Anthony 50:57
All right, I can't thank you enough. Thank you so much for being with me
Carol 51:02
You're welcome. Thank you for asking and for listening.
Anthony 51:05
I will certainly be thinking and feeling of you for you throughout this next period and taking a lot of stock of what you've said. Thank you.
Carol 51:14
Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Anthony.
Anthony 51:23
That was the legendary Carol Sanford. For more on Carol and her life's ongoing work, see the links in the show notes. I'm still sitting deeply with this one and wonder how you might have found it. Thanks very much for joining me for another year of The RegenNarration. And of course, thanks as always to the generous supporters who've helped make this episode possible. If you value what you hear, please consider joining this community of supporting listeners so I can keep the podcast going. Just head to the website via the show notes regennarration.com forward slash support. Thanks again. Thanks also to cousins Maz and Kor-B for loaning a studio to me for this one. Reno's to the unit upstairs of us here sent me packing. And as always, if you think of someone who might enjoy this episode, please do go ahead and share it with them. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden, off the soundtrack to the film Regenerating Australia. My name is Anthony James. Thanks for listening.
Find more:
A fundraiser organised by Carol’s family to help her with much needed care and assistance.
Music:
Regeneration, composed by Amelia Barden, from the soundtrack of the film Regenerating Australia, available for community screenings now.