We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Vanessa Carlisle a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Vanessa, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?
I don’t often use the word “optimism” for my approach to life and work, but I do believe that “hope is a discipline,” like Miriame Kaba wrote. Because I am often bearing witness to clients and students who are experiencing strong feelings, I know in my bones that all things pass, in time. I trained to become a death doula in early 2020, and I was completing my training just as the COVID lockdowns began. Within months, I had committed to being a caregiver to my grandmother as she transitioned to hospice. Some days, I felt the fear of it all: the pandemic, the terror and rage about George Floyd and centuries of injustice, the loneliness and difficulty of caregiving, the grief of losing my grandma. Other days, I could feel a sliver of safety and joy–grandma wiggling her feet when we played music she loved, the gratitude I felt to be present with her, the beautiful way my family all pitched in, the satisfaction of taking action that aligned with my values. My friend Florie, who more experienced and wiser than me, told me to imagine my grandmother having the most peaceful and lovely death possible, and to hold space in my heart for that possibility. This is the discipline. It does not mean putting your head in the sand. It is not about toxic positivity or spiritual bypassing. It is about meeting the truth of the moment with all of your feelings (fear, loneliness, joy, connection, exhaustion, etc.) and consciously envisioning what would be beautiful, what would be good.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
My work has three pillars: Sexuality and Relationships, Self Defense, and End of Life Care. I write and teach in all three areas. I see individual clients & partners as a sexuality/somatic coach, I teach deescalation and self defense workshops for organizations and companies, and I work with people at the end of their life and their loved ones to smooth the path.
What is exciting to me is how these different fields are actually deeply connected. I am a credential collector–I have a PhD in Creative Writing and Gender Studies and a black belt in jujitsu, along with a stack of certificates for everything I practice. All my work centers on embodiment, self compassion, and community care. Everything I do revolves around dismantling the harm caused by unjust systems, and freeing ourselves to connect deeply with each other while we are here.
As a longtime sex worker, trauma survivor, and harm reduction practitioner, my lived experience deeply informs all my writing, teaching, and coaching.
I co-authored a book called <i>Awaken Your Sexuality: A Guide to Intimacy and Connection After Addiction and Trauma</i> with Dr. Stephanie Covington, coming in Oct 2025 from Hazelden Press. (Available to preorder now, and there’s a workbook!) I’m looking forward to bringing this work into the world. I’ll be at Book Soup on Sunset Blvd on Friday Oct 10th to celebrate the publication of Awaken Your Sexuality, and it’s going to be a party! I’d love for like-minded people to mark their calendars and join us there!
Here’s a link to preorder <i>Awaken Your Sexuality:</i>
https://tinyurl.com/ycy9wpff
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
In my life, three important qualities that I’ve tried to hang on to are: curiosity, willingness, and connectedness. Curiosity is what keeps me learning, investigating, staying humble about what I think I know, and filled with wonder at the world. It’s where my laughter comes from.
Willingness is what keeps me moving, especially when I am confused or discouraged. I must be willing to engage with what is in front of me, with the realities that I see. I may not feel courageous all the time, but I can be willing to keep going, regardless.
Connectedness is one of my reasons to live. Isolation is a killer. Shame is a killer. Not to mention criminalization, or the ways in which humans still hunt one another and put each other in cages. Connectedness is what brings us safety in disaster, and it is also a simple joy on a quiet day. I watch my niece figure out how to pull herself up on the edge of a couch, and I clap for her, and she smiles, and that is connection. Love begets connection. I can’t be connected to everyone, and not everyone is appropriate for me to connect with. But I can imagine that webs of connection span the whole of us, and be grateful for my part it in it.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
I have carried a copy of Eduardo Galeano’s <i>Walking Words</i> with me for over 25 years. It is probably his least famous book, and now it’s out of print. I once read it to a cabin full of eight year old girls when I was a camp counselor in my twenties, and they would quiet their shrieking and stare at me, wide-eyed, as the tales of a pregnant man, a woman who built mountains by throwing scissors in the ground, moon people riding a toboggan, and so many more, spilled out. This book has captured my imagination over and over again, and I absolutely love the writing. I wish my Spanish was strong enough to read it in its original! Galeano wrote <i>Open Veins of Latin America</i> (and many more) a book that helped me understand the brutal horror of colonialism and the history of conquest in North & South America that informs our present day. It is also a very important book to me. In <i>Walking Words</i>, Galeano wrote playful, strange, dreamlike fables that sound like folklore and may or may not be retellings of old stories. It’s a remarkable piece of art, too, filled with original woodcuts.
I return to this book when I need to ground myself in the mysterious, the ineffable, the not-for-Instagram. It’s a reminder that all of what makes us humn is not accessible through the internet–there are stories that must be told another way.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.vanessacarlisle.com (new site coming July 2025!)
- Instagram: @vanessacarlisle
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/vanessa-carlisle-phd-mfa-33a50b6
Image Credits
J.T. Macmillan, Vidy Oviyan, Hazelden Publishing
