Deborah Santana on Loving the Fire, Choosing Freedom, and Levelling the Playing Field

[00:00:03] Hi, I'm Dr. Russell Thackeray and welcome to Resilience Unravelled, a podcast with new ideas, new thoughts, and new thinking about resilience. Guests with remarkable stories, products and services that can really power up your own mindset and resilience. You can also go to our site for more information, to ask questions, or to access some of our resources at resilienceunravelled.com. Let's get started.

[00:00:32] Hello and welcome back to Resilience Unravelled on a fine evening in the UK. But sitting in front of me is someone who I think is not in the evening. I think they're in a different time zone to me. So first of all, let's welcome my guest, Deborah Santana. Good evening, Deborah. How are you? Good evening, Russell. I am wonderful. Thank you. And yes, it is morning here in Los Angeles. I was going to say, so you're in Los Angeles. Are you very good?

[00:01:00] And at the moment, you're in the middle of the World Cup, the Football World Cup. Are you seeing any evidence of that or has that passed you by? I'm not paying attention to that. That's what we'd like to hear. Very good. Look, it's a really delight to meet you. Why don't you just tell us a little bit about who you are? I am a writer. I'm a mother. I'm actually now a grandmother. I'm a seeker. And I love flowers.

[00:01:29] Oh, what sort of flowers are your faves? My faves are peonies. Oh, lovely. I love those. Garden roses, dahlias, and orchids. Oh, quite an eclectic mix. Is it because you like a cut flower? Is that the idea? Yes. I love flowers in my garden, but I myself am not a very excellent gardener. So I love cut flowers and I love to arrange them.

[00:01:59] And the more eclectic the collection, the better my arrangements turn out. Okay, very good. I like that. I've got recently into gardening, actually. You find this amazing sort of sense of well-being to be out in the open air, but also in the green space and growing things. And suddenly you do all this work with your hands in the dirt. And then you're going out in the mornings and picking things to eat. What could be better? Nothing. Nothing. Fantastic, isn't it? Enough of this tomfoolery.

[00:02:29] Well, tell us a bit about what you do, Deborah. I have a nonprofit and I've worked in the nonprofit world for decades. My nonprofit is called Do A Little, and I serve women and girls in the areas of health, education, and happiness. But I'm very much involved in my day-to-day life with leveling the playing field for people who are marginalized in our societies.

[00:02:56] And I love mentoring young people who haven't quite found their way yet and to support them in believing in themselves and trusting their own light and finding what they're passionate about in life. That's interesting. So your nonprofit is, I think it's particularly aimed at women and girls. Is that right? It focuses on that, but of course I help young men and men also, but my main focus is women

[00:03:25] and girls because I'm trying to level that playing field. So in which way is that not level, would you say? Oh my goodness. Women are- That was an easy question, really, when you think about it. Off you go. Yes. Just the other day, the hugest church society here in America, the American Baptist Society,

[00:03:50] again refused to allow women to be ordained in their church. I mean, this is, what, 2026? So that's a very large example of why I do the work I do, because any exclusion to me is absolutely unnecessary. I don't know if you know this, but my parents were an interracial couple, and my dad, African American, and my mom, Irish, English, Scottish.

[00:04:18] So I grew up in that world of exclusion, trying to make me a non-person, trying to exclude people of color and women from higher education, from health services. So it's been part of my DNA, really. And it seems interesting in the States that the amendment, so we don't want to injure you

[00:04:42] into politics, but it's commonly stated that there's a sort of a real move against women's rights, against specific amendments. And the rise of this idea that the trad wife should be reappearing, and this idea that women's place is back in the home and barefoot in front of the kitchen sink, raising children. And it seems so odd to me that the culture should be so retrospective. What do you think's going on there? I'm not a political analyst, of course.

[00:05:12] I am a person who lives from her heart. But what I think is going on from my pedestrian observation is that the administration that is in power is doing the same thing that it has been doing for the 250 years that this country has been a country. And that is trying to move our society back into a white patriarchal system that benefits

[00:05:39] only the trillionaires and the billionaires and those who fit a certain model of person. And it's really egregious to me. And also, it's just, it's non-human because my whole belief system comes from a very indigenous place where I honor everything, the planet, the land, nature, oceans, flowers, as well as every person.

[00:06:08] So it's just so the antithesis of who I am that I don't even want to try to understand it because it makes me feel unhappy. And it makes me feel that, yes, we are going backwards and I don't, it doesn't give me hope. Yeah. I understand where you come from there, but I often think you have to understand these just because otherwise you can't counter them in a way. And I've often seen, it's really interesting the way the Me Too movement took off in your

[00:06:35] country because there was a real need for it, wasn't there? And I don't think people realized how unequal the genders were in the state. I often notice it in things like, we watch, I used to watch particularly a lot of US sitcoms. And so you'd always have something like, mom would be, there'd be a family, wouldn't there be, and there'd be a few kids. And mom would be, have her work, have a job. And she would always have a really good job. And then within half of an episode, she decided to stay at home and have kids and look after the kids.

[00:07:05] And it was this constant sort of drive towards women being back in the home. And I don't know whether it's a religious thing or not, but it just strikes me. Inequality seems to be rooted really hard. And so also what we've also seen this year is this massive drive for anti-LGBT plus rights as well, which are often seen to be the way, the gateway into suppressing women. And I think anybody who's doing anything to get equality and diversity back into the States

[00:07:35] is someone whose work needs to be supported. Can people do to help your nonprofit? I think just looking at the organizations I support would be helpful. I come from a background. My mom worked when I was growing up, which was very unusual in the 1950s in America. She worked for the government for Social Security because my dad was a musician and he worked evenings. And together, their income provided a home for us.

[00:08:04] My mother was also a feminist. So I just follow her example because I was raised with that, believing that we all can have access to whatever we want. You want to stay at home with your kids? That's great, but it should be your choice. And I worked when my children were young and I worked very hard because I only went into the office. It was our own business, Santana Management.

[00:08:29] I only went into the office three days a week, but I was working day and night from home. So I just feel the freedom to choose is very important. That is the essence of our human life. Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. And from that choice comes accountability. And actually, for too often, people are making choices and they're blaming someone else. Now, I was reading some information about you before we started chatting today, and it talks about you reclaiming your voice.

[00:08:58] And I wonder how you lost, because obviously you had a voice because you had a strong parental values that are going on there, and you're reclaiming it now. So what led you to losing that voice in the intervening time? I think being married to Carlos Santana for 34 years was what didn't cause me to lose my voice. It just allowed me to take a backseat to his fame. And I was a supportive person. We had our own business. I was very involved in the management of that. I had my family.

[00:09:28] I was involved with the children's school. But in terms of me feeling seen in the world, that was what I think made me lose my voice. And interestingly enough, since I've been on this book tour and talking about my book, I have felt that I'm being seen as me. And I think that's such an interesting concept that I wasn't seen as me. I was seen as someone's spouse.

[00:09:58] And I know this happens for a lot of people in relationships with powerful people, not just women. Your identity becomes enmeshed with theirs, and you're seen as a supporting cast member rather than the diviner of your own life. So I just think I really wanted to write this book so my children would know who I am, what I've done with my life. And now I'm noticing that I feel very loved and supported for who I am.

[00:10:27] So there will be people in the world who've not heard of Carlos Santana. So do you want to just tell us who he was? Because that's interesting. You talk about this lack of sort of the loss of identity. And you see this a lot with, as you say, even in normal marriages, but these sort of celebrity marriages can be quite peculiar. So who was Carlos Santana? He still is. He's a guitarist.

[00:10:51] He's a band leader of a very popular rock band called Santana. And his entire career has been devoted to that, and his entire life has been devoted to that. And I guess from that comes an income, comes a way of life and such. So it must be hard to leave behind. Was there an awakening for you that meant you had to leave that? Or why did you discover yourself? It wasn't hard at all to leave that.

[00:11:21] Actually, part of the impetus for me to leave was to live with my own values and my own schedule, my own passions, and to be able to focus more on what I came here to do, which I feel is to be in circle with other people, not to have this hierarchical structure where someone is more important than someone else.

[00:11:44] So in my heart, I wanted to find circles of individuals who want to live in an equal structure and a more listening to each other, not making others do what they want, but wanting to be encircled together. So how does that work practically there? Just give me an example of what that means.

[00:12:11] The organizations I'm involved with, I'm an advisory council member of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Oh, wow. And so I sit on that council in circle with other brilliant people who are helping that museum be seen and be visited. I'm a lead investor at the Courage Museum, which is, I'm on the steering committee for this wonderful new museum that will open next year in San Francisco,

[00:12:39] which is going to be educational with scientific research, showing us how we do not have to live in a violent world and teaching young people tools with which to live their lives to change that imbalance of violence. So I'm able to sit on boards and councils where people are working together, not to satisfy one person's mission, but to satisfy a common goal. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[00:13:06] So if you think about those tools to help people live a more productive life, I know it's very trite to boil it down to too few things, but are there all standout things that people need to learn those skills? Which, what skills would there be? I think one of the first skills is to identify where you've been impacted by violence, if we're talking about the Courage Museum in your own life, and how that has affected you. Where do you have a trauma body?

[00:13:34] How can you use therapy or tools to heal that trauma? And in terms of the Smithsonian, we are an educational institution. The whole purpose of the Smithsonian, who came from your land, John Smithson, and created this amazing, we have 19 museums and a zoo and research centers, all to diffuse knowledge. Yes.

[00:14:03] So education is so important for every being on this planet. And to pay attention to that and have original resources, not AI resources and not social media that is not telling the truth, but to go to educational resources that will really give us information to live better lives. Yeah. And it is interesting, isn't it? Because I think the Smithsonian's been the victim of the history being rewritten somewhat, isn't it?

[00:14:33] And I think it's fascinating. You say that about AI. I think most people believe everything that AI says, but they don't realize that it has an agenda. It has guiding minds, doesn't it? It's so frightening because people do not look at their resources. They don't look at where that information is coming from. I really look at everything because I know people are making things up. I want the original information and I want the truth. Yeah. And it's hard to get there.

[00:15:02] So you've written a book, which is great. It's called Loving the Fire, which is, I think, a song, but I might be wrong. Is that a song or have you written that song? Well, you've just written a book called Loving Night. The song may come next. You've written the book. So who did you write the book for? It's a memoir. So I'm guessing it's a wide readership, is it? I hope so. My intention, of course, as I said, was to really tell my story so that people would know who I am, apart from my former life. But it's for anyone.

[00:15:32] We're all walking through fires every day. I use the analogy that when I left that 34-year marriage, I felt like I was walking through a forest fire with trees burning all around and I was being singed by what I was leaving behind. And yet I realized that why I say loving the fire is because actually it burned away what I didn't need.

[00:15:55] And I got through the fire just as if with any forest fire, new green shoots of life sprout. And you have new identity and new purpose. So it ended up being something that allowed me to love myself and choose myself and find freedom. And that's particularly apt and quite heart-rending in a way, given the fires that went on in Los Angeles and all parts of the world last year. So was it easy to think of that analogy or did you have to struggle to find it?

[00:16:25] I actually thought twice about naming my book Loving the Fire because of all the suffering that had gone on here. And I'm from Northern California. And when I was living there about seven years ago or eight years ago, we had horrible fires that burned entire towns. So I thought about not using that title. But on the other hand, I wonder how many people who went through those fires also have found new life and new trees that are growing.

[00:16:56] And the tree in Lahaina, Maui, I don't know if you remember the fires in Maui that took out the entire town of Lahaina, which I have visited many times. And people thought that banyan tree that had been there hundreds of years would not come back. And it did. Yes. Yes. And it shows that sort of cyclical thing about nature, isn't it? It is stronger, but just slower. That's all. But quite interesting. And from its slowness comes its strength. So people are going to read this novel. They're going to get a memoir.

[00:17:25] They're going to get you to know you better. Are you, a lot of memoirs have a sort of deeper message. They have a message of they give skills and tools and such like. Is that part of this? Or is it more about awareness of your journey? Or are you just trying to be inspirational because of where you come from? What's the sort of thinking behind that? I think it's twofold. One of the main cores of my getting through the fire is my daily practice of meditation.

[00:17:51] So I think that gives me so much resilience and gives me so much insight into what is really true for me. I start each morning sitting at my altar. I have pictures of my children, my grandchildren. I have candles. And I start the day in a way of honoring what will come to me and believing that there are miracles, believing there is light out there.

[00:18:18] And I try to breathe in that light and start my day like that. So I show people that anything that I went through in my life, I always went back to my meditation. I've meditated every day since I was 21. That's a huge core of my life. And the mission part of my book is at the end, I have two pages about how to walk through fire. Oh, okay. So I'm offering people, not a handbook, but a little list of things to do.

[00:18:46] And one of the big ones for me, it's not the only one. One of the big ones is to move away from people who are toxic in your life. And it's interesting, isn't it? It's such a simple thing, isn't it? But we can become addicted to toxicity, can't we? And also, we don't trust ourselves enough to say no or to say, this is making me feel good. I think you're actually harshing my glow, as the young people say.

[00:19:16] So... Get you. It's hard to say, actually, this isn't working for me. My contract is up with this person. We had a great journey, but guess what? I need to move on so that I can live in my true self and my authentic being. So I think I want to encourage people to look at their lives. Look at what's working and what's not. And move towards what's working and what brings you joy and light. Yeah. It's an important message, isn't it?

[00:19:45] Because I do think we get stuck in relationships. You were in a marriage for 34 years. And some of the times where we're almost hostages in our own relationships, aren't we? And you can see how people get in there because it's a sort of a comfort and a casualness and a carelessness towards ourselves. That means we do get stuck in these relationships. And it takes courage to actually recognize that a relationship is toxic. And we're part of that toxicity as well, isn't it?

[00:20:14] I think that's the thing that people forget. What do you think about that? I think you're absolutely right. I have a certain gift that I like change. So even though I was in that marriage for 34 years, I made it work until my soul was clawing to get out. And so I think part of it is to realize what are we forcing or what are we trying to make work?

[00:20:43] And what do we have the bravery to say? This actually isn't working for my highest good. So let me make a new choice. Let's make a new life. And it's such a beautiful thing to do because I've been gone from that relationship 17 years now. I am so happy. I am so filled with peace and gratitude and joy. And you'll have new relationships that couldn't have been possible in the old relationship.

[00:21:12] That's the point you're making about the fire giving you the strength to burn toxicity down, I suppose. Absolutely. Interesting. Sorry, I should have asked Justin that question. You could have said it far more eloquently than me. Tell us where we can get hold of the book. Tell us where we can find out more about you. Find out more about me on my website, deborasantana.com. And you can also purchase the book through my website.

[00:21:38] But hopefully it's through bookshop.org, which we have here in the States, which takes you to independent bookshops to purchase from. And of course, it's on Amazon, which is now the ruler of all things. BMO. Yes. We're making those tech bros stronger and stronger by having to use their systems. And that's interesting. So, but there you go. It's one of those things, the necessary evil.

[00:22:04] And you're sitting there on the amazon.co.uk website very nicely. So that's good. And I think it's absolutely brilliant. And you were just saying beforehand, without giving a secret away, that you were just about to record an audio version of the book. Is that right? Yes. I'm in the process of recording my audio book now, which will be ready in about a month, perhaps. And that will be online also available through Amazon and Audible. Yeah. And have you recorded a, have you done an audio recording before of your book?

[00:22:34] I have. 20 years ago, I released my first memoir, which was called Space Between the Stars, My Journey to an Open Heart. Oh, it's hard work, isn't it? There you are. It's rewarding as well. Deborah, it's been an absolute joy to meet you. Thank you for spending time with us today. And I'm really very pleased that we've not really talked about pop music because I know so little about it. So I have to go and ask my wife who Carlos Santana was earlier. So I hope you're the only Santana I know is you. And that's all that matters to me.

[00:23:03] That's rebranding. Look, thank you for spending time with us tonight. And I really do appreciate everything you're doing for us. And DeborahSantana.com. And Deborah's with an H on the end. And as you say, the book is called Loving the Fire. Choosing Me. Finding Freedom. So there you go. It sounds absolutely brilliant. And I shall be ordering my own copy very soon. So that'll be one sale from the UK to start you off from tonight. So thank you for spending time with us. Thank you so much. You take care.

[00:23:35] Hi, I hope you found that episode useful and entertaining. If you want to support our work, please go to resilienceunravel.com. And you can become a member there as well. You can also send us a question there and even apply to do a podcast. You can also leave a review on Apple Podcasts or any of the other podcast hosts of your choice. As well as getting hold of some useful resources about resilience and a whole lot more.

[00:24:02] Join us next time on the next edition of Resilience Unraveled.