Happy Sunday WS readers ☺️!

I’ve been brimming with excitement all week in anticipation of sending out this weeks newsletter ft. one of my favorite human beings: Cassandra Lam.

Cass is a community builder, entrepreneur, and yoga teacher currently based in Brooklyn, NY. As CEO and Co-Founder of The Cosmos, she creates transformative spaces for Asian womxn to get support for their self-healing and self-discovery journeys through intentional community.

I met Cass almost 2.5 years ago when I attended the 1st Cosmos retreat in Seattle. Since then it’s been amazing to see The Cosmos take off and Cass self-actualize fully into the beautiful human being she always has been.

Through some of my craziest life changes and lowest of lows, Cass has always been a supportive friend and role model to me. I’m so excited today to dissect the anatomy of her wellnes OS and share it with you all!

Note from Cassandra: When Patty and I first sat down to do our Wellness Wisdom interview 2 months ago, the world was in a different place. What’s new is how many people - especially white people and non-black people of color - are fighting for change in their families, places of work & worship, and communities. So I am editing my responses today to unequivocally center this truth: none of us are well until all of us are well. Because there is no wellness without freedom. Freedom is a necessary condition for wellness.

What’s your definition of wellness?

Much of how I’ve come to understand the world, how it really works, and my role in it is thanks to the work of black womxn activists and thought leaders - the ones in my life and on my bookshelf. So it should come as no surprise that my self-care philosophy borrows from the great Audre Lorde who said:

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

Whether we know it or not, all of our actions and inactions affect others. Because all sentient beings live in relationship to one another on Earth, it is impossible to separate the personal from the political. In the same vein, it’s also impossible to separate self-care from community care!

Much of what we immediately think of when we hear “self-care” is a concoction of capitalism. Products we’re told to buy to feel better or the insidious belief that we’re only successful if we can do it all alone - these are all manifestations of an economy designed to create some winners at the expense of many losers.

I define self-care as: 1) Anything that allows me to taste and further develop my appetite for liberation, and 2) Anything that allows my community to do the same.

This can look like dancing, laughing, and loving the person I am becoming. This also looks like voting, participating in my community mutual aid group, and inviting loved ones to practice anti-racism.

❤️ How do you regulate emotions?

✏️ Resources I recommend:

🧠 Intellectual Wellness: How/what do you like to learn?

✏️ resources I recommend:

"How we spend our days is how we live our lives" - Annie Dillard

✨ Self-care

My daily self-care practice is incorporated into my morning and evening rituals. The repertoire of practices within these rituals represent various ways to meet myself.

💪 Fitness

Learning how to care for my nervous system makes me a more effective, empowered, and conscious human being and entrepreneur.

🍎 Nutrition

Consumption extends far beyond what we put into our mouths. It’s everything that we absorb through all our senses: who we hang out with, what we watch on TV, what we listen to, and what we give our attention.

Applying that principle to nutrition, I try to be fully aware of what I put in my body since it directly impacts how I feel. This is not just a personal opinion by the way, science is starting to back this up!

I recommend reading The Mind-Gut Connection by Emeran Meyer, it’s fascinating. For example, did you know that 90% of our serotonin is made in the gut!

This concludes Cassandra’s Wellness Wisdom Stack! My key takeaways?

Be well ❤️,

Patricia