Rupi Kaur Opens Up: “I Felt Invisible” How To Transcend Trauma & Find Your Self-Worth

Cuz for me poetry is a form of spirituality it was never a job or a career did you feel like you were prepared for the pressure or the success that came to you so early absolutely not really no not at all and I sold millions of books but I had so much impostor syndrome rupy core might just be the most famous poet on the planet rupy core literally named writer of the decade my very talented friend rupie Cor what do You feel like was the biggest pain you experienced growing up that have taken you the

longest to heal believing that I am somebody who has value and is worthy of being seen and heard and those experiences that were violent really left me feeling silent and invisible performing these pieces on stage was healing in a way I didn't expect it to be in those moments I was able to Exhale cuz we were exhaling together it was like I'm not alone these experiences as You know you feel so isolated and alone and it feels like it's only happened to you I'm going to ask you to read one poem okay my intention before

you open it up is to read the poem that you think will give your younger self the most Peace and Freedom okay I know which one to read it's actually one of the new ones welcome back everyone to the school of greatness very excited about our guest we have the inspiring rupe Court in the house so good to see you so good To be here welcome back it's been seven years since you're on the show and 10 years since milk and honey came out which is really cool and I love this kind of collector's addition

and 10 year anniversary of this um and I met you kind of right before everything really started to take off like it was taking off but it would like exploded after that and you were on tour for years and it's just been like three New York Times bestsellers at the same time it was just Like crazy town what CRA it was amazing and I was always just like applauding and clapping every time I see like another week on the list and just like all the things that you were doing was so inspiring so congrats the

work that you've done has impacted millions of people around the world in a profound emotional spiritual uh and physical healing type of way uh you know the women on my team love your work and so many people feel it speaks to them it Resonates with them the messages the content and how you share your poetry and I'm curious we just you know was talking off camera if you could go back 10 years ago and speak to Young rupe yeah right before and you have some like messages in here like a week before you published a

month before like seven months before if you could go back right before you published knowing everything that's happened in your life the last 10 years From the ups and downs the success the challenges the heartbreaks all the different things what would you share with her about what's to come in the next decade I wouldn't share too much because I feel like if she knew she might not even self-publish that or original Edition 10 years ago I I I still you know it's been 10 years and I have to say for me Everything that's happened is

still quite unbelievable really I haven't processed it um and I would tell heard that I'd be like you have absolutely no clue what's about to happen but please through the hardest moments just believe that you'll be okay yeah yeah what would you say are the three biggest lessons you've learned in the last decade about all of it everything in your life the success of the the work relationships friends family just Everything I would say one of the biggest lessons is one that comes up for me is I felt like over the last 10 years there

were many moments where I felt like I had to do everything in like a short amount of time I was like in my 20s I was like everything has to happen now and then I realized hold on I have the rest of my life ahead of me and so I can take my time that was one lesson that I can take my time and the other one was stop to Celebrate the wins that's something that I never did really um you know whether it was getting on the New York Times bestseller list the first time

staying on that list for four years crazy it was just so go go go that I didn't really take a moment to be like wow that's amazing instead my mindset was very much like okay cool now what and I feel like that um that was a disservice to me and so that's something that I'm working on now Moving forward moving at a slower Pace really and really trying to present cuz you were I mean your Instagram you were putting out content almost daily it felt like for a while of like poetry back in the day

maybe 7 years ago I sharing like like I would say yeah around the time of milk and honey in the sun of hours I was probably sharing like yeah two new pieces a week and I was kind of yeah I was all over the place and so I was like here's this And here's that and here's this and I think like be during the milk and honey era it was seamless it didn't feel like work really because I was I just fell in love with the craft so much and I fell in love with it

because I was performing on stage I first started performing in 2009 and being up there just made me feel so alive and I was just so taken like I was so swept off my feet by this craft because For the First Time it felt like I was stepping into my voice I didn't have that as a young girl I wasn't necessarily living in an environment where my voice was celebrated or valued and so through poetry I was finding that and it was just so incredible feeling like you know sitting at my desk and writing writing

writing until I found the right words and so the milk and honey era it just like sort of everything felt easy it was Just sort of flowing and I think it was because was extremely present uh I was writing from a place of non-judgment and I wasn't focused on any outcome or results because I had nothing to compare to yeah I just was like this is so fun like it when I would write a poem that I really liked and it made my stomach turn it was euphoric um and so the book was really just

a byproduct of this other purpose I feel like I had which was Finding those right words that me my stomach turn then using those words to connect with people and share with people but you were 21 at the time right yeah I was 21 when I um finished the manuscript and decided okay I'm going to put it out that's so young for you know to think about writing a book at 21 most people don't think that way yeah and also self-publishing back then was kind of clunky and hard like how did you even have the

courage to say I'm going to Write the most vulnerable stuff ever yeah and reveal myself at 21 I'm going to try to figure out the sub publishing world and get this message out to people when everyone could criticize everything I put out there yeah how did you have that courage to put out that type of work I so when I started performing in 2009 a lot of the pieces I was performing about in person were about these topics that were taboo whether it was sexual assault domestic violence and The people who were coming to watch

me perform it was such a supportive group everyone was very Progressive and radical it was a group of like young activists cheering for you cheering for me yeah and so and then they were like you know you should share this work online you can really connect with like the diaspora around the world cuz my original audience was like my community Punjabi 6 and so because of them I started sharing my work on Tumblr and Tumblr was also like a very radical Progressive space so everybody was like wow this is so cool and they my readers

online were the ones that planted the seed of publishing really so I wasn't even thinking about it they were like they would send me messages being like I love this poem what book is it from where can I get your book and I would laugh there is no book yeah I was like this is ridiculous that you think there's a book I'm I was in university I'm like still haven't finished my undergrad like there's no book uh but once they planted that seed I was like could there be one like should there be one and

that's when I started thinking about put putting one together I approached a creative writing professor at the school I was at and I asked her I was like I have a book of poetry like by the time I decided that I was going to publish the book the book was done being written it was finished I mean I had Hundreds of poems it was a matter of putting them together and deciding what was going to make it into the final manuscript and my professor looked at me and was like poetry nobody publishes that let's just

be honest there's no market for it and she gave me some advice that I think like made sense from her perspective cuz she was right it was and is really difficult as a young poet to get published and she was like you Should submit your pieces to anthologies journals literary magazines that sort of thing and I was like okay cool and she told me to order this book that you know gave you the addresses of all the places you could submit I started submitting and very quickly I was like this isn't going to work for

me because I am submitting these individual pieces to these Outlets that don't necessarily embody any of the topics that I'm writing about and I felt like I Was doing a disservice to my work because milk and honey although it's about 200 poems from cover to cover it also for me feels like one continuous poem so the this idea of taking these pieces apart and throwing them around and hoping they'll land I was like well of course it's not going to work that's not how it needs to be done this is how it needs to be

done and so I asked her that same Professor I was like well what do you think about Self-publishing and she said absolutely not really yeah she was like nobody in the industry will respect you because yeah you've bypassed the gatekeeper so that's not a good idea and then I remember thinking I don't even who is this industry I'm so far removed from like these Gatekeepers like I grew up in Bramton um Malton cities that are majority you know people of Color workingclass immigrants everybody I knew you know drove a truck worked at a factory or

Labor job I had no even like access point to this like industry of public in and literature but what I had was a community on Tumblr and Instagram of young people young women who felt so seen by these words I felt so seen by the words and all I wanted was to like share with them and so for me self-publishing just made sense and then I ended up yeah I ended up putting It out there in 2014 I was still in school I thought that you know hopefully I don't know 200 people would buy it

I had my elsat prep books I was going to go be a lawyer wow and then it all just happened I guess how how quickly did it did it happen for you where you were like oh this is more than a few hundred copies sold by like some friends and family yeah this is like they keep selling every week what what was that like initially I didn't I didn't have an Understanding about what were good book numbers so the self-published Edition came out in November 2014 and by April 2015 I believe I hand sold or

online on my website sold about 18,000 copies wow it's really good which I didn't think was good really yeah because the only numbers I knew were like music numbers and album sales which you know it be like so and so what Platinum multiplat Millions yeah yeah and I was like 19,000 oh my God I should Go be a lawyer because like this whole thing is not working for me and also at that point I wasn't thinking it's going to be my career it was my hobby my passion and I was like wow I'm just lucky

to like you know connect and like I got to graduate and then go do the next thing uh but then in April 2015 I published a photo online of a young woman on her period it's in that book and that really also brought a lot of people in to my work I was really Into photography and um yep that's one and in a way that book picture changed my life really it brought I mean it was such a viral moment that hundreds and thousands of people found my work and I was scared because I was

like oh no do these people think that this is what I do like I'm not just going to take photos of myself on my period although I love this series you know but like I write poems and luckily they stayed for The Poetry wow so I was very happy about that and then a publisher came along and they were like we want to publish the book and you know we went back and forth eventually uh I ended up signing a deal with Andrew MCM publishing and our addition with them came out the fall of 2015

and at that point still it was like very slow burn um I graduated in 2015 I went off to India to take a few months off we didn't do any media any press for the book I just sort of I went Offline CU at this point I was posting and sharing stuff online since like 2012 and I was tired so I was like peace the book is out my job here is done and I told the publisher I was like you know I also perform right like I think that's my superpower I love being on

stage and it's where I connect with people and they were initially confused because they'd not seen that before and so I kept pushing for them to book me Live Events and so they agreed to do one in San Francisco in 2016 okay an hour in like yeah year and a half year after the book came out originally right uh a year and a half after yeah and so I that's when I realized things were changing because we were driving up to that event and I was in the passenger seat of the car and I remember

looking to my right and I saw this lineup of people and I was like wait a minute those are for me I thought that and then I was like wow you're so cocky relax how Could you even think that's for you and I looked at the map but I was like see it's not for me because the bookstore is blocks away and so I was like okay we're good so anyways we're at of red light these two pedestrians are walking by they look in the car they're waving to me and they have this like look

on their face like they know me and so I just assumed that they thought that I was like somebody somebody that they knew and so I didn't want to leave them Hanging so I just like wave back and anyways we light turns green we keep driving I look over and that lineup of people is an ending and it keeps going and going and going until we arrive at the bookstore and I just freeze and I was like oh no what what what's happening and I remember my friend dropped me off I go in and the

woman working at the bookstore is red in the face is freaking out and she's like I don't know what we're going to do Enough books there's not enough books and she's like there's a line of people cutting through the neighborhood like this has never happened before and I remember I held her and I was like it's okay I was like I'm going to do two shows and I'm going to do two signings and I'm not going to leave until every book is signed like we'll be fine and then she like exhaled and like that's what

we did and that's after that moment it never slowed down it didn't slow down At all yeah so I would say a year and a half after is when like things sort of like began to kind of get wild and crazy and it was all Word of Mouth cuz no press wasn't posting on socials but it was women sharing this book with other women Mothers Daughters sisters to friends and it it's a book that I wrote but I truly feel like honestly I don't it doesn't even like belong to me anymore really because there's so

many people who've Touched it along the way it's our book and that's why in the new edition I've invited other women to annotate and share their Reflections as well because it didn't feel right for the 10e Edition just to have my Reflections yeah this is fascinating how did you so you're like 23 24 around this time right roughly did you feel like you were prepared for the pressure or the success or the fame or the audiences that came to you so early absolutely not really no Not at all cuz at that point I still would

refuse to call myself an author it wasn't until book three that I accepted that I was an author but you're a multiple York Time bestseller at that point yeah and I sold millions of books but I had so much impostor syndrome really so much cuz in my mind I was like this is weird this is a book that I made in my living room while in college living with my best friends like cutting out the poems and putting them in order On the floor and being like let me make the book cover and you know

Design This and do that I was doing all the marketing materials sort of like you know my friends were artists in their own right photographers singers you know my friend who's a singer was like we should like record a book trailer for you I know a girl and the girl would come with a video camera and then the singer would be like I'm going to take this poem I'm going to sing it and That's going to be the musical track behind it like it was a community effort and so it just felt like such a

homemade project that it was confusing then to see it out there in the world and be received in this big way he thought it was like a little arts and craft type of thing Hobby and like I just G to put together a scrapbook and put it out for a few people yeah and then millions of people later did it ever when did it start to feel like work And less like fun hobby art book two really yeah why I began to write book two well I was kind of already writing it but I began

to like mindfully write it um so the fall of 2016 I signed my book to contracts and um I feel like the moment I signed that contract the pressure just sort of set in and it was likeall because there was like real money behind the too there was a big Advance there was like more pressure There was excitement around it right and there was and there was something to measure up to it was like if now milk and honey had sort of set a bar and I it's not that anybody else said anything to me

I felt that if the followup didn't do as well then I didn't deserve to be here wow and that yeah exactly that I didn't deserve to be here and so and I had no idea how I even did it the first time so how was I going to do it again yeah so that was really the Challenge for me and so as great of an experience as it was to write milk and honey the Sun and her flowers my second book was that challenging really yeah but I'm so glad that you know I think at

the time it was so challenging and painful but in hindsight I'm so glad that I had the deadline and the pressure because I think if I didn't have the deadline and the pressure who knows if I'd ever finish it finish it yeah exactly now the thing that is Interesting to me is is you have this community of you know friends women or whatever it is when you're 1920 and you're doing your um you know live poetry at these small little events right in Canada yeah um and a lot of support cheering you on and celebrating

you when you're being vulnerable right sharing kind of these intimate stories from childhood or past or breakups and family Dynamics and traumas that you experienced but then When it gets out there to millions of people online is everyone so supportive about the types of content you're sharing around vulnerabilities traumas past pains hurts was everyone's as supportive or was there more hate and push back I would say that in terms of the topics I was covering and the themes everyone was supportive and the people that weren't actually have never read my work and they're kind of

just like what is Going on like she isn't you know whatever people do say um but I've never felt any push back from the topics I cover other than of course milk and honey being one of the most banned books in America because of the themes that I'm covering really sexual assault and Trauma U which is unfortunate I mean so many young people have told me that they too realized they were being sexually assaulted when they read milk and honey and now this book is banned across so Many schools and states in America so that's

kind of the only place where I feel like there's been push back around the themes but other than that I feel like thankfully it's always been received wow how did you feel about putting this stuff out there though when it's such vulnerable things that you've experienced I you know 11 years ago I opened up about being sexually abused as a young boy for the first time for 25 Years I held on to it and it was like a a poison that was inside of my veins daily and it was causing me to react and respond

in poor ways a lot of the time when I felt triggered because it was almost like if I ever felt under attack whether true or not if I felt it it was felt like I was being abused right and I didn't want to go back to that place yes and I was very and then it would remind me of the anger that I felt from being sexually abused as a boy yeah every time That would happen even if it was just like nothing was really happening but if I psychologically felt like I was being sexually

abused so for many years I would try to be successful try to get bigger faster stronger to defend myself right right yes and I lacked the emotional intelligence to communicate effectively and create boundaries right but 11 years ago when I opened up about it it I was terrified to share this story but I knew that I needed to do it I needed to let it out and for whatever reason I had a platform at that time that I felt called like a responsibility to share my platform even though I thought speaking up about this I'm

G to lose everything that's what I thought I thought everyone's going to unfollow me I'm G to have no business my life is over yeah I but at least I'll be free yeah you know what I mean and at least people actually know who I am or what I've been through and they can either Accept it or not and it was terrifying to talk about it how did you get the courage to talk about a lot of these traumas that you'd experienced yeah and also not let it re-trigger you yeah and I know you talk

about you know there's a poem here you're talking about being in therapy yes uh and where you just kind of rattle off all the traumas essentially that you've had just kind of like a grocery list yes and I can I can relate to that too because you talk About it so much that you get to a point where okay I'm processing it but how did you learn how to not let these things trigger You by putting them out there and just continue to have the courage to share these things yeah it started first sharing with

the women in my girls in my life I was in Middle School talking about it with the girls around me um and then it went to like on stage events where I felt safe and I think the fact that I've shared it with millions of if I had known that these many people would have had access to I don't think I would have done it wow so that was an accident but also for me for some reason performing these pieces on stage was healing in a way I didn't expect it to be but like you

I also experienced like when milk and honey came out it felt like I like let go of all this weight I was holding on to it just sort of like Left my body um of course it didn't it's something that continues to live inside of you but at least I wasn't holding on to it on my own anymore and then when I'm performing it and I'm in community with my audiences and they're connecting with it I feel like in those moments I was able to Exhale because we were exhaling together wow and it was like

oh I'm not alone like cuz these experience is as you know you feel so isolated and alone and it feels Like it's only happened to you yes and then when you're sharing it you're looking around and so many people have gone through it so for some reason nog on wood um it's been quite a healing experience for me to like be on stage and connecting with people through it and again though I think that throughout the years finding the language to like recognize triggers and set boundaries in my personal life to sort of take care

of myself has been Like a Learning Journey as well really yeah really yeah what do you feel like was the biggest pain or pains you experien growing up that have taken you the longest to heal I would say believing that I am somebody who has value and is worthy of being seen and heard really yeah that's probably been like the most most um hardest sort of thing to like work through what created that belief in you I think just I Was was there a number of instances or moments or was it just an overall tone

in like kind of family Dynamics or was there like a few things that really triggered you yeah I would say it was a mix of family Dynamics you know I cover some of the um experiences that have happened to me in chapter 1 of the book and those experiences that were violent really left me feeling silent and invisible and so it's taken a lot of work and I'm not even Done doing the work to you know be like I am worthy of being listened to I do have value and that's like something that I'm only

you know I'm really actually embodying like confidence and um celebrating myself and just the last few years really yeah so did you feel like you had confidence after the first couple books came out my confidence probably got worse really yeah you're number one New York Time Best Seller you're on the list for four years you're Making millions of dollars you're selling out Arenas did nothing how did it do nothing I don't know I just feel like uh I don't know I wish it was different um I just was like I can't I didn't allow myself

to really My Philosophy was if I don't let these words these amazing things people say about me if I don't let those in then I won't let all the negative things in either I just have to stay grounded and like Focus because That's just kind of how I have to like work through it and also it's because things are moving so fast there wasn't a moment to pause and be like wow this is really unique and cool what's happening it doesn't happen very often um but now Looking Back Now my life is moving at a

I feel more in control of it and now I'm able to be like wow I am doing good and I can celebrate that wow yeah so on a let's let's do a hypothetical scale on a scale from one To 10 when you know milk and honey or the next book is on the New York Times best hour list for months in a row on a scale of 1 to 10 10 being like the most confident and feeling the most valued and loveed whether self Lov or loved by others one being like I have zero confidence

zero self-love and self-respect I don't believe it all where were you on that scale most of the time for during that the kind of this whole run yeah like this few years like Book one and two being out and being so successful where were you on that scale of like I have confidence and self- love for myself I would say that I was on the lower end like two three four like um I would say like yeah 2 three four really but I would say now I'm at like an 8 n 10 oh that's good

so I and you know I think that goes to show that numbers and metrics are not what give bring confidence I mean yeah I could like go Online and you know see okay this week it's at number one it's just pixels on a screen to me all the nice comments that people leave all the things it's just like it doesn't actually feel like it's impacting your like real world and the things that you're going through with your family and your friends and your relationships and so I think because I wasn't prioritizing my personal life in

the same ways that I Used to um and doing things that brought me joy which was really just connecting with people the people in my life you know I was like on the road all of the time and so it went from it took me a few years to find the right balance and you know I think I beat myself up for feeling like a 234 but in hindsight I'm so glad that I have had those experiences because I think that's also inevitable like the journey is always kind of like this and now I I've

Learned lessons from that and those lessons are what have now brought me to a 8910 wow yeah I think this is really important for whoever is listening specifically women listening who maybe don't feel valued or confidence or feel like another impostor for whatever reason I think this is a really important thing and I want to ask you another question about it when did you start to feel like you were able to transition from A 234 to 8910 in Self-confidence self-love category I would say around I mean there were different moments I feel like my third

book homebody was like a much better writing experience it's where I began to trust my voice a little bit more it's where I began to find a process of writing that you know was sort of working for me uh and then when I hit the road in 2022 for a year I hit the road to do a world tour That really you know sort of Awakened a confidence in me cuz we did like 68 shows across five continents and you're on stage like every other night you know in front of thousands of people and sharing

when I'm on stage age it like even when I was a 234 as a 234 offstage I could walk on stage and feel like a 10 really the stage just had this power and has this power to sort of transform Me I I I feel like I see the stage as a sort of like living breathing organism that sort of can take a person and make them Larger than Life and so being on that World Tour after covid reconnecting with people from around the world really allowed me to Exhale and realize okay the hard moments

are worth it because what I love and what my purpose is is not necessarily to sell millions of books and be a number one New York Times bestseller that clearly didn't work Stick with me you know my purpose has always been I feel like to connect and share with people it's why I started to do what I do and so being on stage on that tour connecting and sharing and you know during my shows a lot of people don't realize there is like so much feedback back and forth there's constant vter the audience is yelling

and shouting things out and so that really helped me realize okay I am saying something that is worse Listening to wow how do you make your world your stage that's what I'm trying to do now so it's not just when you're on stage but it's day-to-day moment exactly exactly what I mean what advice would you give to women then who maybe feel like they're a two for and in confidence or of deserving of their value of selflove and maybe they're trying to um people please maybe they're trying to be a workaholic to prove something And

they're trying to create more results but it's not fulfilling the desire of I'm valued I'm loved I'm worthy exactly what advice would you give to women struggling with that yeah and how can they shift to start to feel that they are loved and deserving to be very worthy I I remember when I was writing my third book homebody I was beating myself up so much and then at a certain point I got annoyed of myself beating Myself up and I just sat there and I was like okay so like what am I getting out of

hating myself I'm hating myself as if if I hate hard enough something's going to change and everything's just going to get better and it clearly isn't so I can keep on doing it or I can find another way to live my life and for me it was just like I just was one day that blunt with myself and I was like enough of this now I need to find another way Um and then I think what it went back to was just like connecting and writing about the things that felt most honest to me and

writing the things that made me feel alive like when I'm creating is when I'm most connected to myself when I'm not creating is when my confidence starts to go down to like you know 2 3 4 5 six um but in those moments of creating and when I'm in complete flow and I'm in my purpose naturally I feel like the confidence is Just sort of like it sort of bubbles up and so maybe like finding the thing that brings you to that flow state but you were doing that for years in your early 20s right

you were creating and you're making stuff happen but you were like I'm still not valued or deserving of love right before milk and honey I felt like the confidence was definitely there like I would say that I was just so connected with myself because it Creating felt so magical um it was actually when the when I did self-publish and all of the pressure came is when I sort of lost that cuz I would wake up and be like maybe like that's all I have in Me Maybe I'm never going to write anything worth reading again

and you know I remember speaking to other women other authors and people and I real realiz everybody goes through that and it's just a matter of not giving up and just Getting through and learning also to not personalize every emotion I felt that was a big one because you know I would feel like everybody feels waves of anxiety or self-doubt or you know any type of emotion and I would personalize it so much and so I had to like really learn to be like okay this is an emotion that's moving through me it is not

the truth I'm just going to sit here I'm not going to react I'm going to let it pass and that was like also really helpful And so the Journey's kind of been like all over the place and you know I I always say that I feel like I'm the woman of my dreams when I'm on stage and I've really separated these two women the woman I'm on stage and the other woman who's like kind of sitting in front of you right now who's not on stage and I always say this woman the woman woman on

stage she's just so confident and she just believes in herself and the things that she says but When I'm off stage is when like the doubt comes in and la la la la la and so the goal for me or what I've been working on in this past year is bringing these two women together because there's no reason that this woman on stage can't be the everyday that's poetry right there I like it I'm interacting with your poetry right now I like this no because I think I mean and most people don't even have a

stage where they can like step into Being like an alter ego confident person almost also they don't have that right and they're just always anxious yeah and it's it's they're never feeling enough um do you have an alter ego when you're on stage I don't think it's my Alter Ego what is it I think it's just my biggest brightest self let's go I like that I just feel like me I feel like when I'm offstage if anything I'm feeding into the version of me that as a young girl people told me That I was not

enough not not smart enough not this or not that and because as a young girl that's what I heard and that's then what I sort of practiced being that's it's it's hard to like change those habits but the stage gave me this ability to always be the girl I felt I was inside the one that I felt like the people around me weren't ready to receive when I was younger but the stage gave me so much room for that it was my world nobody was on the stage With me those people who said that that

I you know wasn't enough and um didn't deserve to you know have a voice and use my voice those people were not on stage with me the stage was mine and I was going to use it however way i' like or whichever way I liked and so I feel like that's like the beautiful thing about the stage and why performing which was my first sort of love when it comes to poetry I mean that performing is where my work starts and it ends um which a Lot of people don't know but like that's why I

always say anytime I'm touring people come watch me perform because it's a it's like it's a totally different frequency compared to just being at home and reading the book on your own yeah yeah so owning your voice or or having a lack of voice seems like it was a theme throughout your childhood if you um could speak to parents who have young kids and they're Watching or listening right now what advice would you have for parents you're not a parent yet but if you could speak to parents from a a child perspective of you being

whether it was culturally or your parents or I don't know who it was but if it was like what is the environment that parents could create to instill their kids owning their voice without being like chaotic all day long but owning their voice yeah and growing up to Believe that they matter I feel I mean I don't know if I have the right answer here because what did you need to hear growing up I feel like what I needed was when I was using my voice not being chastised constantly for it you give an example

like hard for me to come up with one but it's my family is my life like they're like my greatest support system and I think that you know my parents are so Loving and they've given me so many gifts every child is different you know I'm one of four siblings and each each of us has needed something different maybe a different style of parenting and I think I you know maybe needed a little bit more affection than I received and so I think um giving children the space to experiment and use their voice and like

make that environment safe for them and trusting that they'll be okay and that only when we are given an Environment or put in an environment where we are allowed to use our voice and we practice using our voice and we're not you know told to like be quiet or we're not chastised for it we can then grow into the confidence of using our voice as like grown-ups and adults yeah wow um something we were talking about off camera is the process of a lot of your work is kind of based on like sadness and pain

it's like creating from a place of sadness and pain I've had Many musicians and artists on the show who who've also created from that place and they've gotten I guess either famous or had success with their their work from kind of sadness or Darkness or pain do you think it's possible to create art from a place of love and joy and be as successful as creating art from a place of pain and sadness I believe that it is possible to create from a place of love and joy can it be as Successful I don't know

but I don't care because I'd rather be happy and joyful then be sad so that's kind of where I'm at you're right like milk and honey was me processing some very tough situations you know I wrote to heal like therap writing was my therapy um but the joy that I'm feeling today and the happiness and the peace that I feel I would not give it up for the world and I'm happy to share also that I'm feeling joy and I'm feeling Happiness and I'm also in a state of flow with my writing it's flowing through

me the way that milk and honey flow through me for this next book that hopefully will come out soon but um I feel like you know with every project it's different but I'm in a place where I'm truly so happy and I I can feel that that joy is helping birth a project a book of poetry that I am so excited about in ways that I was excited about Milk and honey wow what do you how did you create an environment of Peace joy and love within you to be able to allow this to flow

out of you I just began to like tell myself the truth like which is what which is I feel like you know for a long time over the past 10 years I consistently did things that didn't necessarily bring me joy um a lot of that was just like you know if somebody was like oh this opportunity is really good or go do this or go do that I would Put aside something that I really enjoyed doing to go chase that opportunity because it was like good for my career and that was not really feeding my

soul and I was moving at such a quick Pace that I wasn't really able to take life in and so I think the thing that's brought me joy is presence and I really didn't have a lot of that post milk and honey cuz I mean life changed so quickly um that I sort of like lost it for a moment but being present has Allowed me to now get back to a place where I'm finally writing again without judgment and without focus on the end result or the outcome so when I am writing I get up

in the morning I go to a cafe I start writing and you know in the past few years if I was writing and as I was writing I was judging the work and I in the middle of the sense in the middle I was like this is really like this is not going to be this is not going to Make it to the book like just okay move on flip and then now and that made writing difficult because then when you're doing that that inner child that inner voice is like well you're really mean so

I'm just going to hide and I'm not going to come out and then you experience like writer's block and then you're just like oh my God like why isn't this working and there was just so much resistance but I would say that presence and focusing on the things that Bring me joy and like living life is where the Poetry comes from and so now I when I'm writing you know I I let it flow out of me without any judgment and the moment that it starts to not feel good and I get to a place

where I'm like uh there's some friction I stop I'm not like you know forcing myself to sit there for 5 to eight hours a day and write the way I force myself to do that with the sun and her flowers I'm like listen if I can get an hour in if I can Get two hours in it's good enough for me and then you know I go after I leave the cafe I go home and I might spend like a few hours editing if the flow is sort of coming and it's happening CU for me

poetry is a form of spirituality it was never a job or a career and I think when all the big metrics came it was like oh my god this is my job this is my career and I did began to stop treating it like a form of spirituality and now I've sort of after 10 years like come full circle To that moment where I'm like okay no this is a form of spirituality it's where I'm most connected to myself so why would I ever bring judgment into that space wow what does spirituality mean to you

connection with the self when I'm connected to myself I'm deeply connected to Nature in the universe and it's just presence it's breath it's slowing down it's laughter it's conversations it's love it's these things that I have learned to just value And prioritize so much more in my life do you have a relationship with God or the universe or do you have a to your creator to your creator or I definitely have like a relationship with my with the universe is kind of like as a sick person this um God is like a universal energy and

so it's a universal energy that's in me me it's in you it's in nature it's in all of us and so I definitely have a Relationship with that and also my community has served has given me so much resilience and strength in my in moments that I've wanted to give up you know my community has survived multiple genocides there's our history is full of examples of people rising to fight the oppressor and you know do really hard things and so in my life when I'm having a difficult time and I want to give up I

can just look at my community and find Endless examples of courage and resilience and that's I've like constantly tapped into that for the last 10 years to give me strength and keep going because I'm like oh my God if we could survive that this is easy I can do it I can write a poem yeah exactly I can write a book do you ever hear a voice that's not yours speaking to you what do you mean do you ever hear a voice inside of you that's a higher power a higher self a Higher version of

you God the universe spiritual I would say angel like do hear anything guiding you I wouldn't say a voice that is in mine but I would say that there's a voice sometimes I hear in my belly that is that is kind of like that woman on stage who is guiding me and it's like a gut instinct type of thing and it doesn't Happen a lot but I feel like there are that inner voice is always speaking um it's a matter of like are we tuned into listening to it or not and I write a lot

about that in the third book homebody I was really working on listening to my inner voice and you know have a lot of pieces about inner voice and going Inward and blocking out the noise um CU I feel like we always sort of know what we need it's a matter of are we listening to it or not yeah that's kind Of how I but I also heard you say that you had you know the inner voice was very like judgmental of you a period of times so are there two different inner voices like God I

feel like there's so many inner voices they're like confusing my whole life all the time but how do we tap into the higher power of our greater self our spiritual self our all knowing self our non-judgmental self versus tapping into the power of our critic I think it's Like practice like if you get so a k how many reps of that listening to that non-judgmental voice can you get in I just got for a while there there was just so many moments where I chose to believe the voice of self-doubt and I let that voice

have so much airtime that the more time it had the more that I you know it became my reality and this other higher power I was just sort of shutting out and not giving it you know this air time it deserved and so what's made the Difference now is just like getting those reps in and believing that and choosing to believe that that is the truth that's kind of been and now when the inner critic comes in I've used this like I've gotten enough reps in of using this like amazing voice that believes in myself

that this one can be a lot louder than the inner critic and the inner critic eventually just gives up and just decides to like all right call it how do we teach that how how would you teach a Friend that if you're got a girlfriend who's like you know they're so smart and talented and beautiful and you see something inside of them that they're unable to see every time they look in the mirror they're just like I'm ugly I'm not good enough no one loves me I get heartbroken all the time ah I suck you

know how can we teach that or how could you share that with someone else and how they can start to listen to their Spirit self over their critic self More I'm not sure but cuz people sometimes ask me that question and I'm like I don't know but like I'm still figuring it out yeah and also like I'm also I've gone through enough things to realize like I'm an 8 N1 confident right now but life might happen and knock me off my feet and like I might go through an experience that suddenly that voice of self-doubt

is back and suddenly I'm back at a 245 but this but the next time that happens I am going one thing I'm going to know for sure is that it's possible to work back to a 10 and that I think will make all the difference but also I think what has helped what my readers tell me at the end of shows or when I meet them on the streets is they say that when they found my work or they read my work it's when they feel most connected to themselves and they feel like they found

a voice and they've Started writing and I think that's a way to like um silence that inner critic and like learn to love yourself and believe yourself and that's why creativity is such a beautiful thing I use creativity to fall in love with myself and believe in myself and I think that a lot of my readers are doing the same thing wow that's beautiful we're you know milk and honey is 10 years uh old and and again if you Guys don't have the the new edition make sure you guys pick up a copy of this

really inspiring stuff he got a lot annotations from other inspirational celebrities and talented individuals who've kind of shared their thoughts and you reflect on everything at the end as well which seems like you're starting to kind of celebrate it you know at the end which is good because you're doing that more of like all the stuff you've done but we went back and thought about Like okay right before you started this you know if you could speak to that younger version of yourself but if you could go in the future 10 years and think of

you know 40 41 year old you 10 years in the future um and if we could imagine if we can go through a creative expression for a moment if you could just imagine the next 10 years from this moment this conversation and Then 10 years we do another conversation right it's 10 year 20 year anniversary of this you can imagine your life of everything that's about to happen relationships whether you have a family or not the work you do the community you're part of you know everything you do to create and things that happen in

your life and if you could go hypothetically if you could go 10 years in the future And imagine you are that person and you are sitting in front of yourself and you're going to give advice to your curing you 10 years in the future what do you think is the wisdom that you need to hear now from everything you're about to experience in the next decade that future you needs to tell you create work you believe in and don't rush it for anybody or anything that's one for Sure and my best work comes from being

connected to a life source which is like love and laugh in family and friends Center that and value that and the rest will figure itself out that's kind of the advice that I'd want to give to myself any relationship advice you think your future self would give you um because again your your readers and your followers Have seen you go through challenges and relationships from childhood to now right based on your work is is there anything that your higher conscious tenear you know self would tell you my next book is all about that um it

is about I think like milk and honey was it's like it's raw it's intense you know the experiences that you go through and the emotions you feel as like a Young teenager and this next book book five that I'm working on is the difficulties that come up with relationships more serious relationships as like an adulthood and that's kind of the book I'm writing right now and I am being very intentional with being honest and I'm really hoping that in 10 years I can look back at book five the one that'll come out hopefully in the

next few years and I can there'll be a lot of lessons there for myself Um so that's kind of like what I'm sort of processing right now is like what kind of relationship is right for me how to tell when a relationship isn't right when it's time to leave how to leave how to process the guilt of leaving hurting someone or exactly so there's like a whole world that I feel like I'm like diving into that um that I'm excited to share there with you know people of my generation I think a lot of us

are you Know I'm not married but like I have like lots of friends who are married and maybe not in the best marriages or you know people who are in long-term relationships and they're like well leaving seems hard so I might as well just stay to make this work and like I feel like these are topics that like we should you know that I'm excited to sort of like dig into in like a poetic way and like yeah explore so that's kind of my next thing and is this I'm just curious is this your writing

here it is okay and this on this poem in page 99 there's an annotation that you share kind of reflecting on you say who else is addicted to that feeling of falling in love you get at the start of relationships I live for it I swear the number of times I've almost ruined a good thing just so I could get back out there and experience that thrill again is problematic where do you think that Comes from that feeling of like that Rush the The Addictive feeling of like this newness or this kind of experience and

then it's kind of either gets boring or old or it's just not the same feeling yeah where do you think that comes from and where are you now yeah I think that I mean yeah I always talk about it with my friends that like initial Falling in Love Stage is so much fun and I think it's because I haven't found the right person I think I believe That when I do find that person I won't really be focused on trying to get back out there and experiencing that falling in love um and also what I'm

searching for or what I hope exists is freedom within a relationship and we sort of talked a little about that offline is I have this like limiting belief that I'm working on which is that oh long-term relationship are Suffocating so I probably can't yes you're trapped they're suffocating so I probably will never like be able to like survive one and so that and now what I'm working on bringing in to sort of my state of mind it's like no in the right relationship I can be with someone and still be free Amen to that I

mean I my whole upbringing was around feeling trapped because my parents had a model of they were both trapped yes and they were both miserable and it was chaotic In my my childhood in my in my home and I begged my parents to send me away at 13 cuz I just couldn't be around the energy I knew they each loved me but they didn't love each other yeah and it was traumatic in many ways um just the screaming the fighting the slamming the uncertainty of it all the chaos of it all daily I didn't know

what was going to happen yeah as a child you feel very unsafe if your home is unsafe yeah and so for me I would get into relationships And feel trapped and felt like I had to people please constantly I had to change who I was to make the other person happy and then I was just unhappy and trapped and I didn't have the courage or the tools to exit the relationship because I was afraid to be alone it was like whatever it was you know it's just like I was afraid to hurt someone HT someone

that's that really was yeah but then when I was alone I was like I'm free you know it's like peace I'm free that's Amazing I can be myself again yes and the thing that I've learned through uh you know just the healing journey is I was telling you about with Martha offline I was just like like when we started dating I I told her upfront I was like I'm going to tell you the truth about everything but you're probably going to run away CU you're not going to like it because every other person I would

tell the truth about they would get pissed off or angry upset and so I Would start kind of pulling back the truth because I didn't want people to be upset with me which just kind of limited a little bit right right and I was like I'm going to tell you everything the truth and you're probably not going to like it and she was like I've always been with guys who never told me the truth so she was the stuff that most women didn't want to hear from my past she was like okay I accept that

you know that's your truth yeah you know okay Cool and I was like really you're not going to get mad or scream at me and the more I just said this is 100% Who I Am you can take it or leave it yeah the more she accepted me the more safe I felt it took time you know because some women can be I'm sure guys can be tricky too and say yeah accept that about you then change later right right but I think the the more you step and do I'm 100% going to be who

I am and I'm also get to take responsibility for my Actions and things like that but I'm going to step into who I am in this relationship and if you can feel the other person accepts you yes then you're setting yourself up for I think a harmonious relationship if things align and everything else but and that's the one thing I said to Martha I said there's only one thing that will make me upset in this relationship before we got committed she'll say the same thing I said the only thing that will make me Upset you

can do anything and I will accept you I won get upset at you I get mad at you I'll never yell at you nothing you could ask her today I've never been upset of her for anything cuz I chose to accept who she was her life path her decisions her career she's an actress she kisses guys on screen like I've chose to accept that and not change her right but I said the only thing that I will not accept is if you get angry at me for no reason if you like get upset At me

for telling you the truth if you like are against something of me being who I am and you try to change me I was like that's not going to work you can have a conversation with me about something you don't like you can be disappointed or upset but you can't get angry at me without having a conversation first right without you can't react at me first you have to calmly have a conversation with me because then it triggers that unsafe Space exactly and I was like I'm gonna run away it's not going to work yeah

so you can be upset you can be angry but you have to communicate it calmly exactly can't scream at me none of this stuff yeah and beautiful she does that she's calm when she's upset and she talks to me and we work it out and so it feels like you found once you stepped into who you are you also attracted the person who also stepped into who they are yes and Just yeah you met somebody at your where you're at which is so beautiful but it took years you know it took years of making painful

decisions that were painful in relationships and uh sadness and all different things and then me doing the healing Journey which is all going to be a journey forever right so um but it sounds like you're doing the same thing for you yeah it's so amazing to hear you say all these things CU I feel like I'm like right behind you Doing the things I was 10 years ago I was doing what you're doing you know it's like it took me a long time to figure this out yeah yeah it's so like I'm so happy for

you and it's so happy to hear also it's possible what I meant to say cuz you're like I feel trapped and suffocating I'm telling you it is possible that you keep doing the healing Journey M if you look at your heart and you like really take care of it I'll tell you one more quick story cuz I know We got to wrap up here soon I was in like intensive therapy for I don't know six or seven months and I was going almost every weekend because I was feeling this pain in my heart I don't

know if you've ever had pain physical pain in your chest like like a sharp pain it's kind of a numbing pain consistently in relationships at different times when I felt like trapped right I'd feel this pain yes I felt you did yeah and I Remember I was like I will do whatever it takes to let go this pain but I don't know how to do it yeah I don't know how to do it I'm trying all these things and so I I met a coach and therapist where I was like I will be here every

weekend if I need to be and I was doing four five six hour sessions on Saturday sometimes cuz I wanted freedom I wanted peace and freedom and I didn't have it in the relationship and I didn't have the tools on how to like communicate and how to Get out and create boundaries and all these different things and there was one day three and a half years ago that I was having this conversation and all the healing like the journey and the integration it all integrated and I was able to literally heal my heart where it

kind of it felt this pain explode and like a rush throughout my body it's really hard to explain and it was like complete Freedom and peace that never felt in my life and I've had that peace in my my heart for the last three and a half years it hasn't come back and I'm so grateful for that because I didn't think it was possible but consistently showing up for self yes and healing the inner child inside of me and creating weird ceremonies where I'm like hugging myself as a child and like integrating that childlike self

and saying I have you as an adult you're safe you're home now and Being that parent to my younger self was one of the greatest gifts I ever gave to my younger self wow and it Set Me Free yes and so whatever Journey you're on right now which sounds like you've been doing similar stuff keep doing it okay keep doing it even when you're like H I don't want to do go to this session or do this work or I'm like tired of this why can't I just feel it it can't be easy yeah keep

going yeah I'm trying to remember that I feel good right now I'm That I always keep referencing the 8910 confidence because I've been doing the work because I'm doing the therapy and I'm being consistent with it so to not stop stop it when I'm at 8 n 10 in fact to make it like a continuous practice at that point so doesn't mean need to be every day or every week but like be consistent with it exactly I'm so happy for you we we met what seven years ago yeah seven years feel like a different person

and in the Best of ways yeah you're you're doing amazing things I want people to get the book milk and honey I've got two final questions for you and then we'll wrap it up I want you guys to get the 10th anniversary collector edition uh it's really inspiring it's 200ish poems correct 200 plus it's more now so I added I wanted it to feel like a director's cut of the original with like my thoughts in it and I didn't want to just change the cover You know of of course I did that was also one

of the most funnest Parts was one of the biggest challenges was trying to figure out how to take a cover that's sort of solidified in people's minds for the last 10 years and change it in a way that doesn't sort of disrespect the reader mhm who like loves that original cover so much and you know that original is black and white and for me when I thought about the last 10 years and being at where I'm at now this place of Celebration this place of Joy it was only natural to infuse the 10 year edition

with these colors that represent joy for me because I realized I all the challenges that I was experiencing when writing milk and honey I've overcome them as have the readers who fell in love with milk and honey have survived so much over the past 10 years and that's something to celebrate and so I wrote an introduction I did the annotations I've included diary entries And one of my favorite things is a new chapter I added um the remembering which is full of I think it's about 40 new poems okay cool yeah it's beautiful I love

all I love all of it it's amazing thank you um I'm G to ask you to read one poem okay and I don't know if um you know exactly where it will be but my my intention before you open it up is to read the poem um when you're at your lowest moment and to read the poem that you Think will give your younger self the most Peace and Freedom that she really needed to have okay I know which one to read it's actually one of the new ones okay okay there are seasons we shine

we glow certain months then there are seasons a cold knocks us to our knees and we we wonder why life hurts so much it takes wisdom to stay down it takes guts to decompose to wither to cry out all our color and then when we've reached the End of our end once everything past is shed the dirt will raise us little by little the Earth will feed us until our spines thicken and like the bring before we will rise faces full of color hearts full of joy we will stand soaking In The Heat Of Summer

in no time forgetting that the winter ever came oh that's a Wonder it's like a reminder that it will get better yeah yeah is there one more too yeah let me See and for those that maybe are new to you maybe this is their first time hearing about you what I don't know if that's possible but you also do all the the drawings yourself too which is so cool yeah I love doing Visual Arts was my sort of like first form of expression I started as a young kid and then when I found poetry I

sort of stopped drawing and painting alog together but then including these little drawings in the Poetry was a way for me to like bring my Love for drawing back that's cool this is one that I think is one that a lot of my readers love it's on page 197 I want to apologize to all the women I've called pretty before I've called them intelligent or Brave I'm sorry I made it sound as though something as simple as what you're born with is the most you have to be proud of when your spirit has crushed Mountains

from now on I'll say things Like you are resilient or you are extraordinary not because I don't think you're pretty but because I know that you are so much more than that amen let's go now I like that that's great thank you um I want to acknowledge you rupe for your resiliency and for your journey of showing up being vulnerable with yourself with your community your intimate Community but also your community of the world I want to acknowledge you for going on the Healing journey and starting to love yourself the way you deserve to be

loved and starting to believe that you're worthy and that your voice matters thank you so I hope you're I hope you're feeling that for yourself and I just want to acknowledge you for the journey you're on thank you that means so much especially coming from you I feel like you put so much love and joy out into the world and it's such an honor to be in conversation with you and to like Feel inspired it's not all the time that I get to like sit down and like a conversation like this just like feels so

easy and feels like I'm being fed so thank you for creating a space for so many of us of to like talk about healing and talk about the hard things so I appreciate yeah of course um before I ask the final question where can we get the book can we see you on tour soon how can we support you with what you're up to right now you can get the book Anywhere books are sold and I am on tour for the next two months um I'll be going across America the UK um and usually when

I'm on tour I'm performing but this is the first time I'm exclusively doing like a book signing tour so come get your book signs and you're not performing I'm not performing this time oh just a books book Sig photos and stuff like exactly exactly that's cool yeah we'll do a tour like a performance tour again with the Next book are you gonna be active on social media I've see you doing less consistently like you take like a month off sometimes be I know I'm so bad you went hard for 10 years so you Des tired

I don't know I mean I love to even speak to you offline about it but it's like I feel like it I've been doing it for so long like I've been you know on Tumblr since 2011 on Instagram since 2012 like how much longer can I keep doing it but I know that it's important you know What what tour forces me to like put myself out there and a lot of people don't also realize that I'm still kind of camera shy even though I stand up in front of people and I'm like you know performing

and doing all the things talking to a camera still a little bit uhuh odd to me but you know what I'm getting better at it and once I hit the road I start Tour on Sunday um I'm going to get back out there and just be like talking to all my people that's good That's good it's good okay perfect well we can follow you on social media and the website where can they get the link for the tour where is that it it is on my website rupic core.com you can go on my Tik Tok

or my Instagram and it'll be the link in BIO first link there okay cool Final question for you rupe what is your definition of greatness my definition of great at this moment is finding the strength to do the things that make you Feel alive because those things are not always easy to do but I believe that when we do those things that make us feel alive we can be great rupy thanks for being here appreciate you thank you amazing cuz how often do we walk around all day being like not really actually knowing how we

feel about a thing we're just some dull level level of not okayness once that dull feeling of like un disease is there that's not actually me and I'm like I mean like that's not Actually capital S self that isn't actually God in