Jaya Ramesh & Priya Saaral on Parenting at the Intersections of Race and Neurodivergence

Debbie:

Hey, Jaya and Priya, welcome to the podcast.

Jaya Ramesh:

Thank you for having us.

Priya Saaral:

Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

Debbie:

Yeah, I’m really looking forward to this conversation. And if you listen to my show, you may know that I always ask guests to introduce themselves. I read your formal bio, but I kind of like to hear in your own words how you would describe the work that you do in the world and as part of that talk about your personal why. I know probably our whole conversation is going to be about your personal why in many ways, but let’s start with an introduction. So, Jaya, could you tell us a little bit more about you? And then we’ll go to you, Priya.

Jaya Ramesh:

Yeah, sure. So I am originally from India. I immigrated here when I was young. And I’ve lived both on the East Coast and now make my home outside of Seattle. And I also identify as a neurodivergent person. And I’m raising two kids with my partner of almost 20 years. One’s a teenager and one’s in elementary school. We also have a dog we’re pretty sure is neurodivergent. And yeah, in my professional hat that I wear, I am a mental health therapist and I primarily work with adults and couples who are multiply marginalized by their neurodivergence or race or gender or, you know, different aspects. And also do some work around supporting smaller organizations in becoming more anti-oppressive. So those are the hats that I wear. I’m really happy to be here today.

Debbie:

Thank you. And how about you, Priya?

Priya Saaral:

Thanks, Debbie. I am also a mom. I have a tween son who just turned 12 and I recently inherited a title from him a couple of days ago. He said, Mom, you, or he calls me Emma, I think it’s your birthday too today because you, you were born too. And I thought that was a very profound thing to receive on his birthday. So I am a 12 year old mom and have really embarked on quite a discovery in my parenting and that propelled, you know, a self-discovery process for myself too in connecting you know, the experiences of raising a neurodivergent child with my own experiences as a neurodivergent person. And I was identified before I became a parent, but I think we make meaning of it in layers and definitely parenting was a big portal into me understanding my neurodivergence more. And I also have a neurodivergent dog too, and Coco and Bagels are best friends and they have their ND radars pinging, I know. And I am also a first generation immigrant. I’m born in India as well, so again, I have actually lots of commonalities. Came to the US as a young adult. And I think a lot of factors led me to really understand myself and the work I really wanted to do. And that was a very roundabout process for me. I came to social work, clinical social work, and then mental health work with children at various different points in my career. And just absolutely fell in love with working with children in a way where in a dyadic form and in a family-centered form. It was also a really good fit for my nervous system and the way in which I can be the best support to people. And I, yeah, I just really, I think I found my calling. And I think as I started working with children, a lot of whom were neurodivergent and a lot of whom are of color, I started to see that the work was very incomplete without supporting parents in that journey. And so I really, yeah, I call myself a parent and coach. I have run groups and really enjoy doing that work of parent support as well. And yeah, glad to be here. And we, Jay and I found each other as colleagues, but quickly grew into friendship and found ourselves writing a book. So that’s another new hat that we are wearing now as authors.

Debbie:

That’s great. Well, thank you for that. Just before we move on, I have to say that I have a neurodivergent cat. Okay, so I’m just like, sure they would all get along in some capacity. But you know, you started to talk about this Priya, but that’s I really love to know a little bit more about the impetus for the book that is coming out right now as listeners are listening to this episode. You have a new book, it’s called Parenting at the Intersections, Raising Neurodivergent Children of Color. So we’ll talk about the book, which is such a needed resource. I’m so excited that you’re getting it out into the world, but I’d love to know how it came together?

Jaya Ramesh:

Well, I can kick us off. We were connected with an agent who has a neurodivergent black child and found that there were books missing speaking about this experience. And so we were invited to write the book. So we totally appreciate how rare that is and that many people spend years pitching books and writing, so feeling very grateful for that opportunity. So that’s sort of the birth story of the book that way. But I think maybe we’ll also just speak a little bit to our own personal motivations for saying yes to this invitation. We don’t always say yes to the things that are presented to us. When I first found out, or when my husband and I first found out that our older child had ADHD but also was highly gifted, navigating that 2E diagnosis, we felt sort of, that the resources we were finding were not actually speaking fully to our experiences. They were touching on some of it. But there was maybe a presumed assumption of commonality that didn’t acknowledge things like race and immigration and the impacts of systemic oppression on folks like us. So what really motivated me was to write the book so that parents who might be in sort of a similar place of wanting to have their experiences reflected that really captured just all the different pieces was what was really motivating me. 

Priya Saaral:

Yeah, I think a big part of the why for me was my own experiences growing up in a context and a time where neurodivergence was not recognized. It was really not and hence not supported and but also as an immigrant family growing up in Singapore at the time. I, you know, really grew up in an academic environment and a context where because it wasn’t recognized, I really struggled in big ways to fit the mold of a compliant child, which is, and not just a compliant child, but a compliant child that can excel in academic, within the pressure of academic rigor and in these institutions I sort of absorbed these messages and had no way to give a name to that, to identify that, and to really be able to see that this was something that was happening outside of me, and it’s not my fault that I was feeling this way. And I really struggled to fit in that single version of of what I was expected to be.

And I really wish that, you know, and then now having more distance from that and having so much more experience as a parent and really seeing my journey unfold, I have so much more compassion for the place where I was in, but also the people that cared for me. Of course, my parents did their very best and nobody was able to support them to be able to see this differently and to support me differently I think in a way I wrote, I co-wrote, I said yes to this book with Jayat so that we could write the book that I wish my parents had, you know, raising me.

Debbie:

Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it’s interesting as you’re talking, I’m thinking about when I first started Tilt Parenting, one of my frustrations was that within the parenting space, there were so few resources. I was reading all these kind of general parenting books, and I’m like, this doesn’t apply to me. And so there was really, there were very few books out there kind of looking at neural divergence as a bigger thing. It was like, you know, you’re an ADHD problem child, here’s what to do kind of thing. And now here we’re at the place where now there’s a lot more books on neurodivergence. And those books aren’t speaking to the experience of parents raising kids of color. So it’s, it’s slow progress. But that’s why, you know, I’ve been talking to parents for years and years and wanting what this book has to offer. So that’s why I’m so grateful and excited that an agent came to you and saw the need and asked you and that you said yes.

Jaya Ramesh:

Yeah. Thank you.

Debbie:

I love it if you could talk a little bit about the process of writing the book to you. One of the things that struck me when I started reading it was just how thoughtful and intentional and conscious you were of the voices you were bringing into the book and how you, the language that you used and really setting this very respectful framework for the reader. And I’d love to know just a little bit about how you navigated that? It’s hard to write a book. And it’s clear that you put so much thought into this book that’s coming out.

Priya Saaral:

Thank you, Debbie. I think this was a very iterative process for us, the pages that we begin the book with. And I think those are the pages here, perhaps speaking to Debbie, where we really lay out the tone for the book, the way that we approach this book intentionally, not as experts, but as co-creators, as as facilitators of people’s stories and as storytellers, as to amplify the voices of people who are raising children at this intersection. And I think one of the things that really felt very clear to us at the beginning, as you said, is to approach this, even though we are professionals in the field. We also really wanted to de-center ourselves in an expert kind of way because it’s really so prevalent out there where especially parents at the margins are being told what to do and how to do it and that is really what we did not want to add to with this book coming out and it’s not very typical as you’re saying because parenting books are really about what to do and how do you, you know, pick what to say to them so that you guys will feel better in the moment. But really, I think even though there are glimpses of guidelines of perhaps how to have conversations and how to center yourself and how to center your child, those are scattered through the book. We really wanted to kind of convey that parents have the wisdom inherent within them. And that this book really encourages parents to read through, firstly, to name the oppressive forces that they are parenting within and how that has contributed to the erasure of intuition and being able to really connect with their own inner wisdom of what is needed for their child and for themselves. And so I think that’s one of the frameworks we were very clear on at the very beginning. And, Jaya, I’d love to pass it to you too, if you want to add to that.

Jaya Ramesh:

Yeah, I love this question about the process. So thank you for surfacing that because it’s, you know, we so often, I think, just look at the final outcome and then here’s the book, but there’s a whole two years of our lives that we, you know, really dedicated to this. And I think things that really stick out for me is that we intentionally between us committed to create a listening environment where we took time to actually process our feelings before we even delved into the work. You know, and we found ways to even approach our effort and I think there was a lot of conversation and I think beautiful conversations that Priya and I had that sadly I think you know the readers won’t get to see but they see more in sort of the manifestation of the book but negotiating things like how we hold time and how we hold labor and really making room for both of our humanity to be present and to do the work in the ways that, you know, we’re actually talking about too, in terms of parenting, of what can feel more laboratory right, and giving that space for us to also notice, I think, the ways that supremacy culture or colonialism or capitalism really also kind of have the grips on us, right, and that when you’re working within the context of a publishing system. There are these deadlines and things like that right and so we’ve been talking and living into the very thing we’re talking about felt super rich and continues to feel really rich. Yeah, so that’s I think the only other piece I want to add to that.

Priya Saaral:

May I also add, Debbie also, that I think as two neurodivergent people, writing a book together and working on a project so intimately over two years, I have to, I’m so proud that we did this together. It has been the hardest professional undertaking I’ve done in my life and the most rewarding. You know, nothing but I’m tearing up thinking about this because I think it’s been that part of our work together, I don’t think it comes through in the book because that’s not really what we’re centering in the book. But I think being on a podcast where parents and hopefully other folks get to listen to this is that I think it really was very affirming for me and I think for you too, Jaya, but to really know that neurodivergent people can create meaningful things and they don’t have to do it alone. And I think that was one of my roadblocks for a very long time, but I felt very alone in my head and my processes, that I would have so many ideas in my head. That never materialized because I felt so alone. And I genuinely feel like we’ve evolved so much over the last two years. And so even when I think about the book, the book where we had version one and 1.1 and 1.2, Fast forward to two years, it’s a completely different book. Because each time we had the conversation about how we felt about it or what we needed to come back to, we went back and wrote a few things more, edited more of what we wrote. And so it has really been an iterative process and it’s just so rich what Neurodivergence can bring to the table.

Debbie:

That is I’m just so touched that you share that with us. Thank you. I wish listeners could see you right now and you just look you’re kind of glowing and beautiful and emotional and it’s very moving and I think rich is the word like I think the book itself it feels so different from so many other books parenting books parents for neurodivergent kids and I think it’s all of what you’re talking about coming through. And so it’s very exciting. And yeah, thank you for sharing that. I wanna talk about some of the kinds of common experiences that parents kind of parenting at the intersections experience. So, I would love it if you could share with listeners what some of the common experiences, you know, parenting within these systems of oppression, what are some of the things that parents at the margins may regularly experience, the parents who aren’t living that experience may not be aware of.

Jaya Ramesh:

Yeah, and I think to answer that question, Debbie, it’s a good question. I wanna just kind of pull back a little bit to maybe make the connection of what engenders those feelings or experiences that parents might have. And one of the things that Nespre alluded to is that we situate and place parenting within larger systems of oppression, right? So one of the things we do is we take the really sort of big and sometimes, you know, overwhelming concepts like settler colonialism or white supremacy, right, and break it down for our readers so that we can actually see the through line of how they might show up in our day to day and how we’ve all sort of taken that in. And that when we are raising around neurodivergence and race and gender and all of those different pieces, right? I mean, here in this book, we’re really focusing on neurodivergence and race, but that can be expanded out. That our children’s quote unquote non-compliance to the norm or the standard that is defined through these systems, right? Presents us as parents as an opportunity to begin to unpack, investigate these messages that we’ve taken in. And so we interviewed over 30 families and people were sort of all along the spectrum of experiences and feelings. Right? So there were parents who expressed a lot of grief, right? Expressing a lot of sadness, especially coming, you know, if they were coming from immigrant cultures, we’re already sort of striving to belong that your child’s difference could pose a threat to that belonging. We interviewed parents who were fully embracing and just like, okay, this is, and they were feeling the joy around raising their kids with neurodivergence. So we could sort of go, like there was, people were sort of all over in terms of that. One thing that regardless that we can consistently heard from parents was the loneliness, right, not being fully understood as a parent of the struggles of trying to not only be there for your child, make your marriage work, navigate the educational system, navigate the medical system. And then if you’re a black or, you know, a black parent, like really also worrying about the implications of the juvenile justice, the carceral system, right.

And also defending and explaining your child to even just your family, who you would hope would get it. So there’s a lot of advocacy and a lot of loneliness. And so part of our hope and wish in this book is that parents who do pick this up will see themselves reflected and know that there is this larger community out there who just would get it, we get it.

Priya Saaral:

I think that sums it up. And I think the experiences that parents feel are not just located or linked to one location, right? It’s all around and all, it’s at the grocery store. It’s at school, it’s at, no if there’s police involvement, there’s a criminal justice system right there. And it’s exhausting and it’s exhausting. And sometimes the question of advocacy, it just feels momentous and too much. And so we also do want to say to parents, and we say this in the book that where you are is okay. How you choose is okay. If you’re not able to step up to advocate for your child, we understand and you’re okay, you know? There are so many constraints and factors that weigh parents down and would end the situation that the context that Jaya situated parenting in, it impacts parents on an everyday basis. And it really does impact the way they show up for themselves, the way they show up for their kids. And some days they’ll have more energy to rise above those pressures and some days they have that energy and we just want parents to know that there are people alongside them at every part of that spectrum.

Jaya Ramesh:

And I mean, the other pieces you’re saying that’s coming to me is that parents and their own intersecting identities also impacts how they’re being read in the world. Right? So, you know, having someone read you as an incompetent parent, based on your race, right at the restaurant, and have those kinds of maybe even subtler ways right like how people give you the side eye that also like adds to the weight that parents are experiencing.

Debbie:

Yeah. I mean, you described that so well, and you can just feel that sense of loneliness and the pervasiveness of that experience of always being, or in so many spaces, being misunderstood, being judged, being dismissed, being marginalized. And so in terms of the, you know, the parents who are reading your book who are really strongly – Is it about being seen? Is it about saying that, you know, just that sense of you are, we see you, we know what this is like, and it’s okay. Like, can you talk a little bit about how you, this isn’t like a prescriptive nonfiction book. So tell me a little bit about how you hope that readers who are identifying with this experience will use your book and will feel as a result of reading it.

Jaya Ramesh:

You’re right, it’s not prescriptive, right? Like one, two, three, and you’re fixed. So maybe because we’re both in the mental health field therapist, we do believe that reflection and validation is very key for any kind of change to happen. And the awareness of making those connections of Oh, this isn’t actually mine. This is something that is systemic that I’m holding. And in every chapter throughout the book, we offer both somatic practices as well as questions for self-inquiry. Because what largely colonialism has done is disconnected us from our ancestry, our intuition, land, all of those things, right? So the hope is that by engaging in those questions and those somatic practices, that parents can really tap into their, not only ancestral wisdom, but their intuition, and be in right relationship with the messages that feel so prevalent, right? That’s something I’m noticing as I was telling you earlier about, as we’re talking to our older kid about college and like, what is success and what does it mean to launch? And so really having to notice my messaging around that coming from an immigrant background.

Priya Saaral:

I think I’ll add that as we alluded to earlier, so many parents we interviewed have made different decisions about similar, you know, places in their life and in their parenting. And we do want parents to know that there’s no one right way to do things. There are multiple right ways. And I think that is a way to disrupt the binary that oppression puts us in and systems above us put us in. And to be able to see a multitude of experiences and so many colorful ways of raising children is really important to parents feeling seen and valid for their choices that they’re making.

Debbie:

So you do talk a lot in the book about masking, about identity development. We know that for young people, identity development is part of their job. It’s what they do. And there are a lot more complications when you are a kid of color, when you’re in multiple marginalized identities as you’re talking about. So how can parents create the conditions for their kids as they’re navigating this in very complex times with very complex realities of being a child who’s living in those intersections.

Priya Saaral:

I think it is.It is a two part, I mean, it’s a process of, as you’re parenting, your child is discovering who they are at every stage of their development, right? And when we think about identity development, and in the book we speak to both the processes of identity development and identity development discovering who you are as a person of color, as a young person of color growing up in this context, but also discovering who you are as a neurodivergent person as well. And it starts really early, right? The idea of who you are and being seen as different and feeling different in the world starts early for our children. And one of the things that we mention in the book, which I think really hit me as we wrote this, is that our children do not have the privilege of discovering themselves and how they want to identify themselves, because the world often identifies them for them, you know labels are placed on our children so young just based on their behavior just based on the color of their skin and so there’s no luxury of time in one way for parents to say hey you know I want to take my sweet time to talk about this because they’re already learning that if you’re the kid that is making the noise and being disruptive in school, you are more likely as a black child to be pulled out than a white kid who’s being disruptive. And so they know they have a felt experience and a felt sense of what it’s like to be marginalized already, right? And so we really offer to parents, you know, that I think we also want to meet parents where they are and in their development of understanding and supporting their children’s development. Because for as many of us as parents, and I can also speak for myself, that we didn’t have these conversations at the dinner table growing up. Right, my parents never talked to me about being brown, about, and I also grew up with class privilege and caste privilege and we had the privilege of not being othered in many ways as well. But I think when having grown up in these contexts where I didn’t have these conversations happen with me, it has been a very new experience for me as a parent to start to have them or to have them with my child. And so that’s been a growth and a process for me as well. So I think we speak to both of that. I’m going to take a pause. 

Jaya Ramesh:

Sorry. No, I really appreciate what you’re saying about two developmental processes happening at the same time. One is the child’s and one is the parents, right? And so if identity development ultimately is, you know, if we’re supporting that as parents for our children, I think of it as, how do I get my kid to accept and love who they are? That’s to me the whole process of identity development is landing in your body and knowing you’re okay. And that my role as a parent, and we heard so many parents speak to this, is that the world will keep holding up a broken mirror to you. I’m gonna hold up a different one. And I’m gonna surround you with literature and movies and art and music and people who reflect that and affirm it. Right? And as Priya is saying, it’s like from a very early age, they’re already targeted. They’re marked. And they’re scrutinized at various levels. So my kids may not be as scrutinized as maybe their Black peers. But they’re scrutinized. And then if, as a parent, developmentally, neurodivergence is like I’m seeing that as something that’s not okay, then how that clashes with how I affirm my child’s identity development is gonna be sticky. And we’re not here to judge or say one way is the right way. And I think that’s really a gift that we wanna keep offering, where you are is okay. You’re on a journey. And it’s not any one is more involved than the other, but there’s a journey that everyone’s walking. And we can’t really skip the steps. And so just to sort of wrap that up is, we see parents raising multiply marginalized children as math makers because the models we’re given don’t apply to our kids. It actually, I think, provokes my anxiety to use those models. 

Debbie:

I would love to, before we wrap up, just talk about education for a minute. It could be its own podcast and maybe we’ll have to do another conversation just about that. But we know the statistics and as you mentioned, kids of color are much more likely to be disinvited from schools, to be punished, to be seen as behavioral challenges. That might be the default as opposed to looking for some sort of neurodivergence. I’ve heard from so many parents who feel just exhausted and wanting to know, how do I advocate for my child in a school system knowing that they’re being targeted? And I don’t have answers for that, because I’m the white parent of a white child and I know how exhausted I am and have been advocating in the school system. So with those additional considerations. What advice do you have for parents in making sure that their kids are seen and respected in a traditional educational model and is it possible? Big question, sorry.

Jaya Ramesh:

Great question. I having so my kids go to public school and a lot of the parents we interviewed for this book also have kids in public schools. So I just want to first start by saying the types of advocacy the amount of advocacy does is a lot and it almost feels like nonstop and you have to be vigilant as a parent to what may be getting missed. And so I just want to really kind of affirm that piece of it. I’m not sure if it’s advice, but one of the folks that we interviewed for the book who runs an organization, I think it’s in West Virginia, not remembering exactly, and I’m happy to follow up and find the name out. She helped us really sort of develop, you know, things that parents need to be attuned to in this process around 504 IEPs, right? The rights that parents have, the like importance of documenting everything that was said. And, you know, the, you know, having people in the room with you who are literally like your advocates and are going to be there to not only witness what’s happening, but also go to bat, right? Um, and I want to tie that back to something that I think Priya was also, you know, saying about, you know, the example of her kid, which is we have to work within the systems we’re in, yes. And when our children have behaviors that are being coded as disruptive or non-engaging or avoidant or, you know, there’s all these labels, that it’s very easy for us as parents to just feel like, well, why can’t you just be easy? Why aren’t you just doing the thing that’s being asked of you? And if we can feel supported and resourced enough, then maybe hear those behaviors as actually communicating something very, very profound, not only about their needs, but about the system itself. And so I’m just holding the tension of, yes, there are things you wanna do so that your child can access the learning that they need to in the system. And like it’s not your kid and it’s not you. It’s like a really big almost Herculean task to take on such a deeply entrenched colonial system that was not meant for learners that are differently wired, right? But really the project of education is to continue to produce the ideal citizen who can go out and become better producers and consumers. So I’m just holding that tension. How about you, Priya? What do you think?

Priya Saaral:

Yeah, I think you answered that beautifully and I just want to just reiterate that Cheryl Poe, who is the person that helped us think a little bit more about sort of the some of some, you know, these are, this is one section where we do offer some concrete tips for parents and it’s in the appendix of our book. One of the things that she  Well, she has many things to offer. And if listeners have a chance to check out Cheryl Poe and her organization is Advocating 4 Kids. And that’s a great resource. I’m happy to offer that to you to put on the show notes as well. But really, I think the sense for what she does for her community is really building support for parents. And I think it can, like you, like Jaya is saying, it feels momentous to be against a big system fighting for your rights. And oftentimes parents at the margins don’t have the luxury to look up and know what their rights are in the first place. And so it’s so easy to be overridden by the system. But there are, that’s why people like Cheryl Poe are so important to help us become aware and to know that parents are not alone, that there are people who can support them on this journey as a school special education advocate. There are also, we’ve discovered over the writing process, there are so many organizations around the US that have a community-oriented spirit to really building a sort of a mass presence where there is peer advocacy, there is emotional support that gives parents the strength to take baby steps towards standing up for their child’s equitable rights. Yeah.

Jaya Ramesh:

So one thing that I do want to say, we mentioned documenting, but I think the other thing is, never have your kids sign anything without your presence. That was a really important tip from Cheryl on protecting your child’s rights and that they should not be talked to without your present. Those kinds of really, it seems that you would want the school to honor those fundamental rights, but just actually having that in the 504 IEP, I think of like, my child, you know, like, I need to be there for that, whatever documents getting signed. So that’s something more practical.

Priya Saaral:

Yeah, yeah. I also remember the documentation that public schools often begin the year with a code of conduct, that that is where parents are asked to sign sort of a statement where they say that they’re consenting to any sort of to knowing that their child might be punished for any behaviors that may impede, yeah, the education of other peers perhaps or something like that. And there’s language that she provides and we’ve included that in the appendix where she encourage parents to write in a couple of lines there before signing it to say, I’m unable to sign this because I can’t guarantee that my child can abide by this code due to their disability. Um, and having those protections in place before you sign anything can be really protective for your child.

Debbie:

Thank you, thank you for sharing that. And I actually wanna also just let listeners know that you talk in the book about unschooling also as a form of resistance. And I had Akilah Richards on the podcast last year talking about raising free people. So it’s too much to go into right now, but I’m gonna have a link to that episode in the show notes. It’s a great book, it was a great conversation. Just a question as we wrap up then. This really is probably my last question. But I guess I’m curious to know for parents who aren’t raising children of color, what can we do? And are they part of the readership for your book?

Jaya Ramesh:

Absolutely. Because we don’t live in silos. And we really believe that in this very specific experience, there is also something universal for us all to take in. And we need our communities, right, or whether it’s our educators, our families, our neighbors to know this experience so that it mitigates the loneliness that we feel, right? So what a gift I think these 30 families are giving to the readers, to letting people into their lives. Yeah, so thanks for asking that, absolutely.

Debbie:

Yeah, I mean, it is such a readable book and I really loved the profiles and the stories and the anecdotes of the families that you shared. And so, and I, yes, we all have to be doing this work together. There are no silos. Priya, you wanted to add something.

Priya Saaral:

I think just that, I think when we come to this intersection or just the experience of parents raising children who are multiply marginalized in many ways, we’re really thinking about a trauma sensitive approach to parenting. And when we think about it that way, it’s really applicable to any parent. If we could raise our children the way that parents at the margins can raise their children, I think we will have really, you know, we will have liberation for all, I think. Yeah.

Debbie:

Well, your book is a huge step forward. Again, listeners, it’s called Parenting at the Intersections: Raising Neurodivergent Kids of Color. And where should listeners go to learn more about you and about the book?

Jaya Ramesh:

We have a couple of places where you have burgeoning Instagram presence, slowly. And we have a website as well, parentingattheintersections.com, that has podcasts we’ve done, upcoming events. Yeah, and then the book is available for pre-order now on all bookseller sites. Yeah. Did I miss anything? I don’t think I missed anything else. That’s it.

Debbie:

Well, I just want to say thank you. Thank you so much for sharing with me in advance. You reached out to me quite a long time ago. And thank you also for your patience with my slow reading and response time. I get inundated here. But I’m so glad that I had the chance to read your book. I’m so glad to have this conversation with you. And I would love to continue the conversation, because we really just scratched the surface. And your book, it is such a gift, such a rich resource. So congratulations and thank you again for today.

Jaya Ramesh:

Thank you so much, Debbie. Really appreciate it.

Priya Saaral:

Thank you so much.