May 2025 Resources and Recs
And more on what to expect in June!
Don’t forget book club on June 30 at 8pm ET! We are going to be discussing ‘Drinking from Graveyard Wells’ by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu. Link will be sent day of.
If you emailed me about running a conversation club, THANK YOU! You’ll hear from me shortly now that I am planning what this space will look like moving forward.
Scroll down for the June schedule — including conversation clubs, quarterly Q&A with me, podcast releases, and essays!
Hi all! May was a wild month. I had so many speaking engagements for mental health awareness month and AAPI heritage month. I love doing speaking engagements to help bridge cultures, talk to employees in corporate settings, consult with nonprofits, and also to train leaders, managers and other clinicians in being more culturally responsive and inclusive. I have been doing this for 5 years now and this year, sadly, was the first year I have gotten pushback for my content.
Thankfully everyone who brings me in — usually folks in the community! — are on the same side as I am about the importance of this work, but given the initiatives that come from top-down — I have had to rework some of my content in certain spaces so I don’t use certain words (ie. diversity, inclusion, bias, etc) and it just makes me so enraged that this is where we are…
Anyway, I don’t always want to share the ups — and sharing these downs can help humanize this work, me, and our need for this community space.
With that said, I will leave you with one takeaway from a corporate fireside chat I was a part of. I was asked: “What are some of the common struggles bicultural folks experience in the workplace?” Here’s my answer as a quick (not comprehensive) list:
External pressure from peers, family, or society to act more in line with one culture can lead to code-switching fatigue. Remember, inclusion and assimilation are not the same thing. Assimilation says, you belong if you are like us. Inclusion says, you belong even if you are different.
Miscommunication or tension due to differing cultural norms (e.g., directness vs. indirectness) can lead to assumptions, misunderstandings, and isolation
Implicit bias or structural barriers can cause certain employees to be overlooked for leadership roles due to perceived cultural “fit."
Pressure to represent an entire group and being treated as a spokesperson for an entire culture. It may be well-meaning, but I hear stories of folks who are expected to explain or justify behaviors of an ethnic group in diversity initiatives or team discussions.
Bicultural skills go unnoticed, like cultural navigation, resourcefulness, empathy, cross-cultural mediation, or multilingual communication
Building culturally intelligent workplaces, leadership, and teams is imperative for fostering belonging -- and honestly, boosts productivity, engagement, and retainment. It truly is a win-win for everyone.
A letter from Avani Patel, our fearless community leader who is moving on to other pursuits!
As you all know, or may need to be reminded of, our fearless community leader, Avani Patel is moving on! I will be running conversation clubs in June and am going to be working with a bunch of amazing therapists who want to be a part of these to expand these community meeting spaces. Stay tuned later this summer for that update!
In the meantime, please read Avani’s farewell letter:
To the Culturally Enough Community,
Technically, my role here was to lead this community. Over the past 2 years, I've done that through discussion threads, author interviews, and my personal favorite: Conversation Clubs. Every other week - members of this community would gather, open their hearts, and support one another. Small talk didn't last long here - but real talk did. I watched in awe as people who were strangers to one another became united, instantly, by their shared humanity -- all within an hour. In short - I watched you all prove that we can tighten the distance between us, simply by telling the truth of our lives.
Holding this space was my job, but you all did the work (I made sure of this through extended, borderline awkward silence ;) - so while I am leaving this beautiful space, I know that this work lives on. And for that - I want to say: thank you. Thank you for supporting and uplifting each other, week after week, and letting me bear witness to it all. May you continue doing this with and for each other - both in these conversations and in life beyond them.
As for me, I would love to not be strangers! I still exist on the internet and elsewhere :) Here is my website, my Instagram, my Substack, and my email. Please keep in touch if you feel so inclined - I would really love to hear from you!
Either way - I'll be cheering this crew on with admiration, love, and joy. Keep on, keepin' on - y'all. I'm so proud of us, and of you.
Lots of love,
-Avani
June’s theme: Unpacking our immigrant guilt and exploring emotion regulation between cultures. Here’s the schedule of essays and events.
(Those with * next to them are for paid subscribers only)
June 2, Essay: The silence we inherit as children of immigrants
June 6, Essay: What the West gets wrong about ‘guilt’ (and how you can work through immigrant guilt)
June 10, Community Event*: Conversation club at 8pm-9pm led by Sahaj
June 11, Bonus Podcast Content*
June 18, Essay: How to reclaim emotional autonomy
June 24, Community Event*: Conversation club at 6pm-7pm ET led by Sahaj
June 25, Bonus Podcast Content*
June 26, Community Event*: Quarterly office hours with Sahaj at 7pm-8:15pm ET (paid subscribers)
June 29, Essay: On being more emotionally mature than your parents + June resources and recs
June 30, Book Club: Discussing ‘Drinking from Graveyard Wells’ by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu at 8pm-9pm ET (everyone is invited)
Books I read in April and May (and in what format — audio, physical, kindle):
I’ve had an amazing reading time lately… so many good, funny, thought provoking, interesting, and captivating reads. Asteriks means it’s on the list for top 10 reads this year:
📖 The Enigma of Room 622 by Joel Dicker: I enjoyed this wild ride. It’s slow paced and takes some time to really get footing on who’s who and what’s what but once you do there’s all kinds of twists and turns. I think writing something as intricate as this is a feat in itself. It’s a long one but I was surprised how quickly I blew through it.
📖 Goddess Complex by Sanjena Sathian: This book was bonkers. It brought up a lot of feelings and thoughts about motherhood, choices we make as women, parenthood, babies, and more. The main character is unlikable but in a satirical way (I got past it when I told myself the extreme behaviors and choices were purposeful to drive home a point) but the contrast of what our lives COULD look like was definitely thought provoking and daring. Like her first book, I found the last 1/3 hard to read and less enjoyable than the rest of the book. I definitely want to discuss this with friends.
📖 The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See*: This book was so engrossing and easy to read. I learned so much about haenyeo and the women and history of Jeju — it’s a painful history but i’m so glad I read this and highly recommend. At its core it’s a book about friendship, colonization and generational trauma (and healing)!
🎧 Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis*: I found this complicated, controversial (from certain reviews) book so witty and smart and fun!! I definitely recommend. It’s a fresh plot and just generally a fun ride even though it’s about a particularly sensitive and serious issue!
🎧 We Could Be Rats by Emily Austin: I really loved this book. it’s short, it’s poignant. it’s a masterclass in sister relationships and how different siblings can be from the same parenting or childhood. I also loved the exploration of class and differences in perspectives and within the same family. just a CW with suicide and an attempt. But from beginning to end the book isn’t what it seems to be and I loved that.
🎧 Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) by Jesse Q Sutanto: Listen on audiobook, she’s so cute and funny! such a fun cozy mystery read and series!
🎧 Heartless Hunter and Rebel Witch (Duology) by Kristen Ciccarelli: I’m def in a romantasy era and this was a fun listen. I loved both — they did not disappoint. The enemies to lovers trope, the drama, the plot, the metaphor for power and capitalism and othering!
📖 The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai*: Different from books I usually read but she’s such a lovely writer and this is such a heartbreaking, hopeful, poignant book. It took me a long time to read so I could really savor the story and characters.
What I’ve watched:
Ok, so my husband injured himself at the end of March and got surgery in early May so I have been heavily caregiving. We have been watching A LOT of TV because he couldn’t do anything and I couldn’t leave him for too long. As such, enjoy all the deep corners of TV we got into:
Adolescence: OMG if you have not seen this, I highly recommend. It is so good and poignant and sad and the fact that each episode is done in one take (ie the camera never stops recording) is AMAZING. This show really made me think about gender, parenting, social media, and more. And that kid, he deserves an Oscar!
Hacks: We watched all of the seasons of this and I don’t know why it took us so long to get into this. It’s so good and funny.
Based on a True Story: This is so underrated. What a fun show about a couple making a podcast with a serial killer. It definitely wasn’t supposed to end the way it did and I’m sad there isn’t a season 3 but it’s still fun to watch.
Laid: This show is weird and cute and fun. Hoping they come out with a new season so we can learn more about this inheritance…. (don’t worry that doesn’t ruin anything.)
Keeping up with Righteous Gemstones and Abbott Elementary
Traitors season 1 and 2: We love Survivor and have had a few friends recommend Traitors (US), so we finally got into it! I think it’s fun, but I do wish there were more relationship building moments we witnessed to add some depth to each player and their struggles.
And then I watched Running Point, Harlem S3, and Survival of the Thickest S2 without Sam and loved all three :)
Fascinating articles and topics and resources:
I am so bad at texting back these days and I feel so guilty about it. I have so many unread messages, and I hate how unreliable or inaccessible it makes me come off to friends — old and new. I recently read this article and it really, really, really resonated.
A reminder we could all use:
If you struggle with conflict resolution here are some great resources for helping you get better! I have started recommending The Artist’s Way to clients who are struggling to feel joy or don’t know how to access their creativity. It’s been such a fun ride. I think I’ll do the whole curriculum again myself soon. This is a handy article on retraining your brain to crave movement.
And this interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates on choosing not to have apolitical friendships in his life is so critical:
