Serena Burgess on Sri Lankan Identity, Activism and Challenging Perceptions

In this captivating episode Dee talks to Serena Burgess about cultural identity across generations and why the philosophy of yoga is an emotional toolbox for life. The conversation emphasises the importance of correcting narratives around Sri Lankan identity and the dynamic nature of the island. 

Serena was born in the UK and is a well established yoga teacher and doula living in Sri Lanka. She shares her journey of growing up between Sri Lanka and the UK until settling there with her English husband, why she sees herself as Sri Lankan and the different perceptions that other people have of her.  Serena discusses her philosophy of yoga beyond the mat, activism, and her efforts to decolonize yoga through the creation The Conscious Courage Yoga Collective. The conversation offers wide insights into multi-generational views of identity, and the resulting  parenting choices for her own children successfully challenging accepted norms of perceived best practice. 

Serena also talks about her involvement in the peaceful people's uprising known as ‘Aragalaya’ and how the reality was a beautiful, creative, community experience despite misleading information received in the West, with devastating consequences for Sri Lanka in 2022.

The podcast underscores themes of resilience, interconnectedness, and the potential of creativity in modern Sri Lanka.

Summary

Welcome to Sri Lanka: Modern Perspectives
Meet Serena Burgess: Yoga Teacher and Doula
Cultural Identity and Belonging
Conscious Courage: Yoga and Activism
The Role of a Doula in Sri Lanka
Empowering the Next Generation
Reflections on Sri Lanka and the West
Supporting Sri Lankan Female Entrepreneurs
Upcoming Projects and Final Thoughts

Title: Sri Lanka: Modern Perspectives from an Ancient Melting Pot
Host: Dee Gibson — Sri Lankan-born, award winning designer based in London and founder of boutique hotel Kalukanda House in Sri Lanka. www.kalukandahouse.com | instagram @deegibson2017 & @kalukandahouse

Podcast Themes:

• Modern Sri Lankan identity and culture
• Architecture, art, and design
• Sustainability and heritage
• Diaspora experiences and storytelling

Why Listen:
This podcast offers deep, intelligent storytelling about Sri Lanka’s evolving identity — a blend of East and West, ancient and modern. It’s for listeners who love culture, travel, architecture, and thoughtful conversation.

Transcript

Serena Burgess

​[00:00:00] 

Hello and welcome to Sri Lanka, modern perspectives from an ancient melting pot. The podcast that shares conversations of a dynamic modern day, Sri Lanka. I'm your host, Dee Gibson, a British Sri Lankan designer living in London and founder of boutique hotel, Calacanda house on the South coast. I've made it my mission to lift the veil on what, and more importantly, who this island is.

So join me and my guests. As we talk about all the things you never read about in your favorite travel pages. As we discovered deep wells of fascinating people, reclaiming their identity and narratives on the global stage through creativity and culture. No subject is taboo, so expect conversations on activism through art and yoga, to updated sartorial design choices, performances on [00:01:00] love and lust, and forgotten heroines being narrated back into our history books.

There's plenty more besides, and this is the island I see and I want to share with all of you. 

In this episode, I talk to Serena Burgess. This has been a yoga teacher for 18 years and firmly believes. Leaves that yoga is not confined to the mat alone, but as a toolbox for life. She's also a qualified do that in Sri Lanka and comes from a three. Generation lineage of women helping women through pregnancy and birth. Serena lives in Sri Lanka with her family and is dedicated to living. Living her life with purpose and integrity for the values she holds. 

Dear. She's a firm pacifist and created her own teacher training. Program and community called the conscious coach collective. We talk about being born in half a chair, heading out to Sri Lanka and. Traveling back and forth until she settled here. Our exploration of cultural. Cultural heritage. And why yoga needs to be decolonized. She [00:02:00] says, I use the phrase purpose is my medicine. And honestly, as I observed myself, when I feel I can't do something. Or contribute in some way. 

That's when I start going a bit insane.

Welcome Serena Burgess from sunny Sri Lanka to my podcast. How are you

good. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Absolute pleasure. I always love seeing your smiling face. Where are you 

In my bedroom and I'm overlooking the garden and I've got the fan on because it's really hot here. It's threatening rain. So it's that kind of like just before the big rain, everything gets hotter and hotter. That's where we are. Okay.

Does it feel, when the rain breaks, does it feel like a real sense of

always. It's always this kind of Oh, finally it came.

Oh. It's lovely for you to hide indoors and speak to me instead so I want to share all [00:03:00] about you because I'm such an admirer of you as a yoga teacher, as a person. I think people would love to hear about it, 

 you've been in Sri Lanka for a long time, but you sound like a Brit to me.

I am a Brit. 

 born in Hertfordshire and I lived there till I was twelve and came on holiday only once to Sri Lanka when I was eight. And I think my parents They were like that first generation came to help build the NHS type situation.

My mother worked for the NHS. She moved to England when she was 19. and they hadn't been home since I think it had been 11 years. Since they had come back to Sri Lanka and then obviously it was a bit of a shock when they came back and found all their family was getting older and so we moved here when I was 12 I went to high school here and stayed here till I was 18. And I remember very distinctly being like, I'm just going to get out of here as soon as [00:04:00] possible when I first arrived. And then by the end of that six, six and a half years. Sri Lanka was my home. I didn't want to leave at all.

Wow. So you've flip flopped between the two

Then I moved back to England when I was 18 and I lived there for 20 years and I did I went to university, did the whole corporate London thing for a long time and then trained as a yoga teacher during, so the end 10 years or so of that time there. I always thought I needed a backup plan and that's turned out to be what it was. And and yeah, and then moved here when I was 38, which was now 13, 14 years ago. So yeah 

 There are a few layers in there that I'd just like to quickly touch on and just see what your kind of perspective is, because firstly, as a 12 year old, Born in London and then [00:05:00] being taken back to Sri Lanka and 12 is that sort of real delicate age where you're making friends and then it's a massive cultural shift.

How was that? And now the same with your children? 

No, so one of my children was born in the UK, but she was only four when she moved here. She actually feels very Sri Lankan. She identifies as mostly Sri Lankan, I think, even though she's mixed race. Weirdly, my son, who was born and brought up here and hasn't lived anywhere else, has an English accent, and I sneakily think he identifies as British more than I do.

It's really strange.

really strange. So Satya, my daughter, is very much more Sri Lankan than my son in how she perceives herself. That's not how other people perceive her, but but that's definitely how she perceives herself. And yes, moving to Sri Lanka at 12 was really hard. It was really hard.

But I [00:06:00] was, didn't know the language. Like you said, cultural differences. I remember my mum at some point in her very kindly saying, I don't think you can wear shorts on the street. And I was like, excuse me. And then promptly continued to wear my shorts everywhere. And I'm lucky I have very liberal parents.

 I think because they spent most of their twenties and thirties in the UK. They let me do pretty much whatever I wanted to do. It wasn't I didn't go from a very British upbringing to suddenly being in a very traditional Sri Lankan upbringing at all. They maintained their consistency, which I'm very grateful for. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, that's really interesting because I've lived in the UK all my life. I lived in Sri Lanka when I was very little, but I've basically lived in the UK. And my perception of Sri Lanka, when I hit 18 and that of all my 18 year old Sri Lankan sort of [00:07:00] family was that Sri Lanka was very much still in the past because those were the sort of the memories and the stories that perhaps my parents had, I was really shocked when I went to Colombo and saw people wandering around in short skirts.

It was just like, wow. We were clubbing in our teens. Yeah.

So I hear, I wasn't allowed to go clubbing and I lived in the UK. So I was living Sri Lankan life in the UK and you were much freer. And I find that really fascinating. And that's what this whole sort of, yeah, this sort of mini podcast series is about talking to people like you and really peeling back those layers about perceptions and changing the narrative for everyone who isn't Sri Lankan, and maybe those of us who are Sri Lankan as

there's this very big issue for people like you, people like me around our identity and really who are we, [00:08:00] who, how does that translate into who our children become where do we belong? I still Sri Lanka feels like home to me, but just two days ago, two of my yoga students, neither of whom are Sri Lankan.

said they do not perceive me as Sri Lankan. And I'm like, what? But I'm Sri Lankan! Yes!

oh 

Why? What was, what were you doing that wasn't?

know. Obviously my accent is very different. But when I moved here at twelve, I used to get teased for my accent and people used to think I was putting it on. And, yeah, no, it was really quite It was really difficult. It was really difficult. And so obviously there's that. I don't know.

 I clearly don't present as an outsider's perception of what a typically Sri Lankan woman presents as, so yeah, [00:09:00] I can understand it, but because of how I feel, it was a shock because I feel Sri Lankan.

 Yeah. But that's one of the reasons I wanted to ask you to come and talk to me because I feel like you and I are very similar and I have this I have a business, I've got Kalukanda House on the South Coast. And I will have Sri Lankans coming up to me and saying, are you Sri Lankan?

And when I say, yes, I'm Sri Lankan, they're really

Yeah, I know.

back to you. I wonder as well, if it's just in you because of the way your parents brought you up, but [00:10:00] you're, you do present as someone who's very confident. And very conscious about how you speak to other people, how other people perceive you, which is a really nice segue actually into your yoga program that you've designed.

 So tell me about conscious courage. And 

What is it you're doing as a yoga teacher?

conscious courage is born out of a few years off trying to figure out for myself how my deep sort of desire to be an active participant in the world hopefully in a positive way Marries with yoga and for a while I I in, in my heart instinctively knew that there wasn't a difference that being an active participant for [00:11:00] positive change in the world was yoga, but the way that presents on the outside.

So if you looked at my Instagram a couple of years ago, I was a very active member of the Arugalaya. So you would see. me marching down the streets with a cloth tied over my face and and then you would see me doing yoga in, in two posts down the line.it was strange if you were looking at that, to figure out who this person was and how these two things fit together cohesively.

 And then what I realized and the work that I needed to do really was to find the right words to explain how those things fit together. Because on the surface you're like, she's marching in protest, And then she's doing yoga and meditating and how is [00:12:00] that the same thing at all? 

And so over these last two years as I formulated Conscious Courage, which is actually a yoga teacher training, but also it's called Conscious Courage Yoga Collective. So I really am hoping to attract more and more people who believe this about their role in the world. As I formulated it, what I realized was yoga has been co opted as an exercise form, as a love and light, good vibes only sort of practice for individual well being.

And I have no problem with individual well being. In fact, I think for us to show up in the world, we have to be grounded and centered and regulated in our own nervous systems. However, it dawned on me that yoga just goes beyond that. So yes, of course, we do all the things we do in our yoga studios, but when you teach a class and your call at the beginning is, we are all one, [00:13:00] what does that actually mean?

They're not just words. It actually means that I have to consider you as someone in my heart, and you have to consider me as someone in your heart, and by that definition, I have to care about what happens to you and your family, whether you're in the room with me, or whether you're across the world in I don't know, a famine situation, or in an earthquake, or if you're in a war situation.

That impacts me because I genuinely feel that connection of humanity as a whole. I ask a question about that? Because I love everything that you're saying, and it makes so much sense. In this day and age, when there's so much going on, how do you also protect your own sanity there's so much stuff in the world, isn't there? I think in one of our conversations that you and I had, I I use the [00:14:00] phrase purpose is my medicine and honestly, as I observe myself. When I don't feel like I can do something, or I don't feel like I can contribute in some way, that's when I start going a bit insane.

That's when I feel the most sad, that's when everything hits me the most. and I think it's a personality thing, honestly. I'm quite a, active kind of driven person anyway. But I, like I'll manufacture stuff. So at the moment, I'm pretty desperate about what's happening in the Middle East and in Gaza and in the West Bank.

And I'm part of a group in Sri Lanka that, that does work for Palestine. Oh, I don't even want to say Palestine. I want to say for humanity. I want to say anti genocide rather than if it was the other way around, I'd feel the same. So we do teach ins [00:15:00] and we have done protests and we do fundraising and what came up very recently was there were people who wanted to join our group because they simply didn't know where to turn to with these feelings.

And so I'm now volunteered myself to run talk circles. So they're not meetings where we're planning. They're not meetings where we're thinking about the next action. They're just spaces that, because I'm good at holding space. Cause that's my job. There's spaces where people can express their sadness and their grief and their anger and their outrage and whatever it is that they're feeling in a community that's in solidarity.

if that makes sense. And so that,

And do you combine that with movement as

so I will probably it's an interesting it'll be an interesting group cause there will [00:16:00] be quite a majority of Muslim people in that group because they are very naturally drawn to this cause quite significantly. But I will be doing self regulation techniques.

So soothing of the nervous system. We'll probably do some form of meditation or contemplation before we start talking and then I'm like I might do a little bit of somatic movement again, just to help regulate and then I'm hoping to do a nice Shavasana at the end so people can just let go a bit after having Had that discussion or being able to express.

I'm imagining we're going to need some tissue boxes and all of those sorts of things So it's not really, I'm not directly impacting anybody anywhere in the world I guess the aim, is to shore up a community who wants to be active and to give them [00:17:00] tools and give them energy and keep them going if that makes sense.

And also, I think it's really lovely for you to, in your way, as you say with your conscious courage mindset of creating space and a platform, a safe space, and a platform for them to be able to say things that maybe they feel like they can't say in other places, 

We sidetracked from Conscious Courage.

 I, oh, yes. Obviously because it's your title, it's your thing, but I suppose my perception of it is this, it is very much around you in everything you do. I think it's such a great description for you as a

Aw, thank you. 

Absolutely. As well as this program that you've put together.

 I suppose I see it as part of, Serena Burgess and also I've got to bring in as well. I think it's because for me, whilst I'm [00:18:00] saying that there's this beautiful contrast between you holding space for people who are upset, marginalized, feeling angry, and feel like they need to get these kind of negative feelings out, because if it isn't out, then what happened?

And then on the other side you're also a doula. And you're helping people bring life into the world. And it's almost like you're this kind of conduit of bringing life in and holding space for all of these energies. What is it, how did you become. a doula and what does that involve?

What's that like in Sri Lanka

 Yeah, so many layers. I had two very good births. And a lot of that stemmed from the fact in my first birth that I was actually training to be a prenatal yoga teacher at the time. And my teacher trainer is this amazing [00:19:00] woman called Uma Dinsmore Tully, who is renowned in the field in the UK.

She's written books and all sorts, she's amazing. 

And what came out of that was this idea that actually birth doesn't have to be this terrifying thing that I believed along with everybody else, all the other women in the world have been sold this line. And so through my yoga for pregnancy classes, I've often spread this message, like I'm not making any promises that you're going to have rainbows and butterflies and there's not going to be any pain at all, but what I want people to realize is that they again can be active participants in their labor and that they have choices and they're educated enough to understand when a word is thrown at them, they know what that means and they can question it or say yes, but they've done that from a position of strength.

rather than a position of, oh gosh, I better just do what the doctor tells me. And so I decided to do my doula qualification. So I've done that through Red Tent [00:20:00] Doulas in the UK.

 It is registered with Doula UK, but it is quite an alternative version of doulaing, maybe slightly I wouldn't say unorthodox, but just a little bit wider thinking than just the medical faculty. It's also true that my mum is a midwife and one of my very close aunties is a midwife who literally retired maybe three or four years ago in the UK.

So I come from a line of birth workers. And I it wasn't something I thought, yeah, this is my path. And then suddenly it was my path.

 So multi generation of handing down this, there's something very, I don't know. Spiritual I've said that to you before. I think that's really otherworldly idea, but you've got a daughter as well. Let's watch that space. Let's see what she's, I want to come to her in a minute because what she's doing is amazing.

 she's just studied the Reiki [00:21:00] Foundation 1 and 2 with her grandmother over the summer. 

and she said that at some point she's going to do the yoga teacher training. Because, why wouldn't you?

 I'm fascinated by the choices you've made about what you as parents input into her upbringing, for education, her belief systems and creating this kind of base who the 17 year old she's talking about doing this yoga teacher training.

She's doing Reiki. She's at this special, school, isn't she, in Wales, in the

at United World College at, of the Atlantic.

 Describe that, because we're sitting in the UK with the normal sort of school system, which is generic and everyone understands, but this school has got a very different way of looking at things 

So UWC is a movement for people. For I think their school's mission is using education to bring young people [00:22:00] together for peace and sustainability. My daughter was an environmentalist from the age of 11. The story goes that we were in the supermarket and she started crying because someone was using a billion plastic bags.

And I just said to her when we got in the car, you can sit and cry about this. Or you can decide to do something about it. And it set her on this path where she applied to Earth Guardians, which is an American organization of youth environmental organization. Some of those were the kids that took the United States government to court for human rights over their future. 

And so she applied to them to start a Sri Lanka chapter, because again Earth Guardians has chapters globally, all around the world, and kids getting involved in this work. And then, she was also, actually, and my son, and actually my little one, was [00:23:00] very much involved in her Earth Guardians journey, so much so that he's about to start, take it get it up and running again now that his sister's not here. 

And they were both involved in our peaceful people's uprising that happened here in Sri Lanka two years ago. The Aragonaya. You're talking about the Arab one.

And that was that was also a conscious decision. I didn't take them into dangerous situations. But they were at our occupation site every day during the protests. 

And they were active participants. 

I'd like to just touch on that. Can I just touch on that? Because, sorry to interrupt you. God, I know we could talk for hours, but there is but I just think it's really important to say, because when I was I was sitting in at the time of the Ara Goliath, and I knew that it was a very peaceful protest.

There were libraries that were [00:24:00] setting up, and I was hearing about multi generational members of families, but also different religions everyone was peaceful. Now, I know that there was then this kind of moment at the end when there was a real flare up which was actually a reaction to something and I don't want us to have a political discussion because we don't need to do that today.

But I do want to point out something that you've just said which was it was peaceful and unfortunately the way it was portrayed over here. It was devastating for Sri Lanka because it portrayed it as this very sort of aggressive, Thing, anti establishment. It wasn't,

anti establishment, but it was full of music and art and expression and it was so beautiful. I don't think we'll ever witness something as beautiful. [00:25:00] organic and uplifting again in my lifetime. It was all these different communities. We had the first ever Colombo Pride March. 

We, I just can't even explain how many different communities got to express themselves in that space. We had transgender people making artworks. we had the disabled community there, there was a deaf and nonverbal community there. We had Sri Lankan war veterans on site and these are next to each other, which is in a society of

Unheard of.

taboo and so much stigma, these things go and it wasn't perfect.

Of course, nothing is perfect. And it was spontaneous. It wasn't planned. Nobody really had a manifesto for the future, [00:26:00] but honestly, it was quite remarkable. Yeah. And I've heard as well that it seems to have been a really catalytic Tick moment for all the creativity. Sri Lanka has been creative forever, which is what I've been trying to say to people, but there, it feels like there's it's a really powerful now because maybe all of these people who had been in the shadows before or in those cracks that never got any visibility are suddenly on the stage.

Aren't they? 

I think for all its maybe lack of success in creating system change there are some very real Benefits that we've seen as a result of that. The marginalised people. But also we've got an election coming up in the next few next week ish. And people are actually urging each other to read manifestos and talking about accountability in a way that, [00:27:00] that was never on the table in any previous elections.

It was just like, oh, which symbol do I stick my cross against? Whereas I think it raised a level of awareness of actually we do have rights and actually we do want people in power who can lead our country in a way that's beneficial to all of us. And so I think there's a legacy for sure, that the Ara Galea.

recently, as you may or may not know, we've had a a governmental change and there was a lot more sort of thinking around use your voice, go and vote and all of that kind of stuff. Were people reading manifestos? No. We were listening to election debates and things like that, but there, there's never enough discussion is there.

It's just, you're swept along. And as, as you say, if you do make it to the voting booth, you'll suddenly they're in front of a bunch of boxes and you end up making, some [00:28:00] people make decisions that are not as informed. It's a slow process and it's not everybody, but I feel like there's more awareness.

 sorry, that was a sort of slight diversion going back to your

 The school, and yes Basically, we were not boarding school type parents. We wanted our kids around us all the time. We didn't want to leave them, let them go ever. But it was suggested by a friend that this school might suit Satya because of all of the work and activism that she had participated in literally through all of her teens.

And she's ended up actually on a, an actual course called the systems transformation pathway. Something about future leaders and the areas of interest in that are, human migration, biodiversity, preservation, clean energy, and [00:29:00] food security, all of which really feed into her interest in changing the world, really, or keeping the world a safer place for the next generations.

I think it's interesting just thinking about how smart she is, but with your input and with the school's input and all of the things that have been happening, how she's being informed as a young woman and will come, potentially maybe even come back to Sri Lanka with all of this kind of learning and be this next generation of 

systemic change makersto help not only Sri Lanka, but other people in the world. But you and I had a conversation the other day about her ongoing education, whether she would stay, in the UK to study at university. And it was a really interesting kind of observation that you had

what would be required of you.

 [00:30:00] You have this amazingly free life. you said something to me about what you would need to do 

it's just this, I don't, sometimes I wonder if my brain is just weird, but for us to now move back to the UK and, integrate back there and be able to just exist because we haven't been in, or I haven't been in the UK for a while, my husband has. I would literally have to get a credit card and run up debt and get this credit score thing, which I was saying to you.

People seem to take that as normal. And I find it really dystopian that in order to participate and function, you don't even participate, just function, just be able to be part of a country, you have to be in debt. And then you're just a worker bee in this [00:31:00] system. And. The thing is that maybe, I don't know if my thinking is radical, but it honestly feels like all of the systems that I also have bought into are just created to service a few and have all the rest of us as the little worker bees who make the cogs turn.

And we never, the ones who are in that position, we never get off of that wheel. Unless we fully divest or we move to Sri Lanka and you can semi divest, I can't fully divest even here because we're still a capitalist society, I'm still having to pay school fees, and that's just the system we live in.

But over here at the moment, and I don't know that it's not all going to go in the same direction anyway, but at the moment it feels a little bit more [00:32:00] a little bit freer, a little bit freer than that. I like, I don't have to have a credit card to be registered in the world as a part of the system. 

 As part of Sri Lanka. I wanted to hear those words from your mouth because otherwise no one would believe me. And I think that is really interesting. You reflecting back to us. When I say us, sorry, let me rephrase that you as a citizen of the world, but you've lived in the UK and you lived in Sri Lanka and you're currently in Sri Lanka and you're reflecting back to the Western economy. Actually I'm going to have to. Put myself in debt and indenture myself in order to come and live in the UK, which is a country that I was born in is I'm freer in Sri Lanka. And I wanted to hear you say that because it's really [00:33:00] easy, like I keep saying to people for the West to look at Sri Lanka as the country that, and other South Asian countries.

And that any other place that we don't understand as the countries that don't have it, because

it's very interesting because there are so many people who want to live in Sri Lanka and call themselves expatriates, like so many it's, I'm not, I, yeah look, right or wrong, I feel like the system is the system, wherever you go. But just recently I've seen a huge amount of people, 

So there's a draw for sure 

 people from the West can see the attractiveness of that. And it goes beyond the weather. And the good sir.

Absolutely. Complete. And that's part of what this is about and I want people to have [00:34:00] these stories and hear from people like you and me, actually. Because I think it's much more of a balanced view about what Sri Lanka is about. And I keep saying it's way more than beaches and

Yeah.

and a colonial past.

It's about a present. very dynamic

there's a very thriving arts culture here. we've been plagued. over the years with so many obstacles to our development from tsunami to civil war to Easter bombings like things that have literally ground our country to a halt and we've come back each time and I feel like that comeback is better and better each time. 

And right now it feels like there's such a thriving art scene. Yoga is exploding here [00:35:00] so many things are really coming to the fore now, in this

Yeah. that's one of my missions with my place is all the guests who I have, I really encourage them to have yoga classes with our Sri Lankan yoga teachers listening to you guys, because yoga is, as you say, it's so So much more than just movement. It's a mindset the artisans and the talent, I really want them to get their sink, their toes in the ground and really feel that energy and understand the

Yeah, absolutely,

as far as I'm concerned, it's the difference between travel and tourism.

And it's all about the people, the difference between travel and tourism is. Speaking to people.

yeah.

whenever we talk, we normally keep going for a couple of hours, don't we? I've got a couple of questions that I'd like to just put to you,

very passionate about is shining a light on Sri Lankan [00:36:00] female founders, entrepreneurs, obviously you're a yoga teacher, but you run your own business.

Why is it important to you to have this light shone on specifically women in Sri Lanka?

we've got to stick it to the patriarchy, it's the most important thing.

I was counting on you to say that.

But,

I teed you up.

it was like, you just didn't tell me to say it, that's what was great.

I knew you would. 

 It's a really weird situation here, because it's very patriarchal from positions of authority and businesses and that. And yet there are these matriarchs in the home who literally are the drivers of everything. 

And yeah, for our women to be celebrated and our women to be brought to the forefront, it feels [00:37:00] only fair. It feels. Only necessary that we shine a light on people and it's not, look, I'm very clear, I'm from a place of privilege. There are also women who are from much less privilege than me, who are doing amazing things. 

And if people like you and I, who are from privilege, can shine a light on those people, even more valuable, I think. Cause, they really don't have a platform where you and I do to an extent. 

And I hope as well that by doing that, with you being a Sri Lankan yoga teacher, I'm constantly on the lookout for more Sri Lankan people who are yoga teachers. I've already roped you in. You don't need to put your hand up 

 you represent something that's aspirational to so many people who might think I couldn't possibly do it. Or how can I monetize that? How can I make it and a living, how can I have an [00:38:00] impact? And there you are doing exactly that.

And you give people who want to be you hope that

But also I also try and provide financial assistance for people to do my teacher training. Sri Lankans.

I offer an an NIC and National Identity Card rate to make it more accessible. I the training that I run in Colombo, I do it in a way that they don't have to pay for accommodation, they don't have to take time off work and they get a Sri Lankan rate because it's really one of my missions to have more really well qualified Sri Lankan yoga teachers.

fantastic. 

Yeah. Oh thank you for that. you came to the residency that I had at Calacanda House in June.

I loved and I know you could only be there for a day, but you took this gorgeous class for us [00:39:00] and read some readings and it was a beautiful group of people who just bonded very quickly. And you're You're already worldly wise and holding space yourself, but I'd love to get an idea of how that was for you to be in a space where you were held as well and whether, you think there's a need for more of these residencies because I, I want to keep providing them, but what did you think of that

Yeah, I thought it was a breath of fresh air. It was, you had curated this amazing group of women who all had so much richness and value to add to this pot that we created. And it felt In those moments when each of us, I don't know how it felt for other people, but when I wasn't holding space, when I wasn't doing my presentation, it felt like [00:40:00] that moment of exhale.

And I can just allow all this other richness to infuse me. And I think it really created some friendships. Yeah I've stayed in touch with people and we've had conversations about books and all sorts of stuff in the interim. 

One of the other things that's like super important to my mission, if I want to call it a mission, is community. We can't do any of this work by ourselves. And so fostering spaces where powerful women come together can only be a good thing.

Yes. And like you say, have that breath of fresh air because My mind is going

Yeah, the synopsis.

all of the ideas.

I just realized I used the word powerful and I feel like every one of those women was very powerful. But there was a softness to that space that nothing was [00:41:00] done in that sort of corporate power woman sort of way. It was really about storytelling and learning each other.

And I think that was, So valuable for all of us.

 I really appreciated your participation. 

my last question for me, what's next for you 

I am working on publishing a book that I've written, which is it's not really written. I've drawn it. It's a journal for pregnant women that sort of. is a bit different from, Ooh, your baby's the size of an avocado. It's more how we process this journey into motherhood and the transition, which is known as matrescence and the emotional journey that we go on as women really, who are the women in our tribe?

 What's my birth story? How does that affect my potential story [00:42:00] for giving birth to my child? So I'm working on that. I am in talks about bringing Conscious Courage to the UK. Yeah, so we'll see how that goes. I'm working with Red Tent doulas actually to set up their yoga faculty.

So Red Tent will offer yoga classes and master classes because we have a lot of really amazing yoga teachers. who are also doulas. Somehow these two things go hand in hand. And then once the faculty is up and running, then I will start making the offer of having the teacher training in the UK. Those are my two big projects.

 So yeah we'll see. 

 it's been such a pleasure speaking to you. I really appreciate you coming on.

 [00:43:00]