Layli Miller-Muro is an American attorney and activist. She is the founder and Executive Director of Tahirih Justice Center, a national non-profit dedicated to protecting women from human rights abuses such as rape, female genital mutilation/cutting, domestic violence, human trafficking, and forced marriage.

Layli Miller-Muro – Interview Transcript

Washington, DC, May 2018

Mount Madonna School

 

Ward Mailliard: Ok, so by way of introduction, this is- what can I say? This is one of the more amazing people that I know in the world. Originally, Alyse was kind enough to introduce us to Layli many years ago.

Layli Miller-Muro: It’s been a while.

Ward Mailliard: And every year that we come back to Washington, I try and get an interview. But my thought is that Layli brings a spiritual life into public service, and often we will have a question about that. Often we separate religion and spirituality from the secular state that we are, because we have a clear separation between church and state, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t bring the spiritual values into the work that you do. And I’ve always had tremendous admiration for who you are inside as it manifests with the work that you do, and that’s why I keep disturbing you every time we come to Washington.

Layli Miller-Muro: It’s not a disturbance.

Ward Mailliard: And the kindness that she showed us today was that she came to us instead of us going all the way out to Falls Church where she is, and it was thanks to Alyse’s generosity and the incredible generosity of the people who were scheduled in this room this morning, where they just said ‘sure, come on in.’ And that’s also a characteristic of this network of people; how generous spirited they are. And I just thank you so much for seeing us today.

Layli Miller-Muro: Thank you for letting me come, it’s always a highlight getting to meet your students.

Ward Mailliard: Thank you.

Aimee Kerr: Hi.

Layli Miller-Muro: Hi.

Aimee Kerr: So, we are the juniors and seniors from Mount Madonna School and this is our Values in World Thought program, and first of all, thank you so much for talking to us. We have some questions prepared, but if there’s any opening remarks you’d like, then we’d be- we’d love to hear it.

Layli Miller-Muro: I’m ok with questions. Go ahead.

Will Murphy: Hi, my name is Will. In an interview with Mount Madonna, you said, “My interest in civil rights, human rights more broadly, was something that was with me from an early age. A lot of that was informed by my religious tradition, because the Baha’i faith believes so strongly in justice and social issues, throughout my life, I was always very involved in those issues.” Could you explain how the Baha’i faith is woven into your work?

Layli Miller-Muro: So I think that the Baha’i faith influences my work both at a micro level and a macro level. So the macro level is the fact that the Baha’i faith- and forgive me if you all have already researched or learned.

Ward Mailliard: We have one expert in the room, right?

Layli Miller-Muro: Is that right?

Student: I wrote a paper on it for the world religions class.

Layli Miller-Muro: Oh you did, excellent, excellent. But maybe the two-minute version of what the Baha’i faith is, which will help explain the macro influence is that the Baha’i faith essentially believes in oneness, that’s the basic foundational principle of the Baha’i faith. So oneness in everything and that it extends and it manifests in different ways.

But the basic theology of the Baha’i faith is the belief in the oneness of all religions. So there’s this idea that religion is really all from the same source; it’s all from God, and that it was sent to humanity through different teachers, different prophets. And those prophets are all from the same source, they all have the same knowledge, none of them are inferior or superior to the other.

And so in that way, Baha’i’s belief in all the prophets of past religions were relevant, they were relevant to the time and the place and the culture that they came and that they helped give guidance and then reinforce that through religions over time to humanity depending on our capacity.

So Baha’i’s belief in oneness and the idea of evolution. We’ve evolved from stages of you know, illiteracy and a real lack of understanding of science, a real lack of understanding of who’s on the planet, or what even the planet looks like, to later stages of deeper understanding. And of course, I think every generation thinks it’s the best generation, but we know of course 100 years from now, we’ll know even more, and we’ll have even more insights and knowledge. So the teachers, the spiritual teachers we’ve been given are relevant to those realities.

So the Bahai’s follow the laws and teachings of Baha’u’llah who we believe to be the most recent of these prophets. We believe they come like every thousand years or so. And so Baha’u’llah’s teachings center, again, around this idea of oneness, but applied to current context. So when I say current, he came actually in the 1800s, and- the mid-1800s- in what was then known as Persia, but now known as Iran. And you know if you think about Iran even know, politically and culturally, you can only imagine what it might have been like over 100 years ago, particularly in regards to the status of women, illiteracy, corruption.

So when Baha’u’llah came, he talked about super radical things- and there were slaves during that time in Iran, that kind of thing. He talked about the complete equality of women and men, like unambiguously. No other religion- different religions have had different evolutions, but the original holy scripture, we had not had a religion that unambiguously affirmed equality of women and men, from the inception of the faith. That was super radical. He talked about all people needing to be literate, that was super radical, only about five percent of the country could read at the time. He talked about the harmony of science and religion, the fact that science without religion was unbridled materialism, but religion without science was mysticism and superstition and we need both of those together. The dangers of the extremes of wealth and poverty, he spoke very directly about the need to eliminate racism, the evils of slavery, all these kinds of things.

So the Baha’i faith informs me at a macro level because these teachings, by being a Baha’i, I believe they could help us. That these teachings are spiritual teachings for modern day. And while they certainly affirm all religions in the past, they do apply them quite specifically to current contexts. So the work of the Tahirih justice center is about advancing the equality of women and men, that particular principle. And there is an analogy in the Baha’i faith that humanity is like a bird with two wings and that the bird has one wing is male and the other wing is female and until both of these wings are equally strong, the bird of civilization will be handicapped and unable to soar and reach its fullest potential. And so this is holy scripture in the Baha’i writings.

And so if we take this seriously, we understand that it’s not just a women’s issue, it’s a men’s and a women’s issue. Men are attached to the same bird, and are flopping around on the ground together, we’re all handicapped by this lack of equality. And that it’s something we should work towards. So my professional work is really about trying to make that other wing healed and strong and hopefully coordinated with the other wing. So I would say at the macro level, the Baha’i principle of the equality of women and men is super important, and then also the Baha’i principle of justice is super important.

And the Baha’i faith, and all religions, have different concepts of justice. For example, Judaism talked about ‘an eye for an eye.’ And then Christ talked about ‘turn the other cheek.’ Mohammad had a different structure around justice. And Baha’u’llah has, I think an interesting complex view of justice which is that justice- there’s a quotation in the Baha’i writing that says ‘the foundation of society is built on justice, not forgiveness.’ So there’s a super important emphasis on justice. And there’s another quotation that says ‘the purpose of justice is the appearance of unity among men, and without it, unity is impossible.’ So- and it’s interesting because somebody- ‘appearance’ in English can mean two things. It can mean like façade appearance, or it can mean the emergence of something. And I asked somebody who spoke Persian to read the quotation in Persian and they said that the word ‘appearance’ in Farsi actually means the creation of, or the emergence of.

So we have this belief that unity is actually impossible without justice. And you know whether you think about sexual violence, or racism, or extreme poverty, any injustice issue, you can imagine how unity’s kind of impossible until you have justice, because it’s not fair really to say to people ‘can’t we all just get along,’ while there’s some structural serious injustice going on. So there’s a super important emphasis on justice, but then we’re warned that as individuals, we have to forgive 100%, completely. And the bar is super high, like there’re quotations that say if someone poisons you, give them honey in return. If someone is your enemy, become their friend. If they malign you, speak kindly of them. There’s another quotation that says if somebody errors ten thousand times, forgive them instantly ten thousand more. Like there’s this really high bar around forgiveness.

So we have this interesting concept where as an individual, we’re supposed to forgive, but as a society, we’re supposed to implement justice. So it’s this concept of advocacy basically, where if, you know, I don’t know, if you hit me, I’m supposed to just forgive you, not even fight back, not defend myself, nothing. But then you’re supposed to protect me. So it’s this idea, you know, that we are community, we’re a part of community.

And in my work, this is super important because there are justice systems in the context of violence against women specifically, and let’s pick domestic violence as one example. In domestic violence, different justice systems have experimented with different versions of justice on this question of the role of society and the role of the individual. Just to give you one example, in Brazil a case will not be prosecuted unless the victim decides to prosecute. So it’s up to the victim and the victim holds all the power to decide whether or not a case goes forward for trial and whether the case is prosecuted. So rather than being able to forgive, she actually has to hold on to hate maybe, hold on to anger, hold on to the desire for justice, the will to self-advocate, and the intention to carry it through- through a judicial process. The result of that is that only seven percent of domestic violence complaints ever go to trial. And when they go to trial, only three percent ever result in conviction. So you can imagine how with that kind of a statistical reality, it’s not a just system.

In the United States, there’s a different orientation. So a domestic violence victim who calls the police, may in that moment be willing to tell the police, ‘he beat me up, you can see the blood, I’ve had enough, I want to protect my children.’ But then in the next week, when he apologizes to her, he promises he’ll never do it again, he cries, says he loves her, she loved him, remembers that, wants their children to have a father, and she says, ‘ok, I forgive you.’ She calls the police and says, you know, he’s promised to never do it again, I believe him, even though he’s promised that a few other times before, I want to forgive him and I don’t want the case to go forward.

You know what happens? In the United States, the prosecutor will say to her, ‘I’m glad you’ve forgiven him, I’m sure that gives you personal peace, but I don’t work for you, I work for society, I am paid by the government and I am paid by the community, and the community has an interest in people not beating each other up. And so I don’t really care whether you’ve forgiven him or not, we’re going to trial. Now there are practical issues because you know- the police- the DA needs her to be a witness and it’s an evidentiary problem if she’s uncooperative. But, conceptually, it’s not her choice, it’s not left up to her to decide whether or not to move forward with trial or move forward with forward with prosecution; it’s society’s choice. Like society decides ‘we don’t want people hitting each other.’ And so the prosecutor says ‘we’ll move forward with this prosecution.

These concepts of justice which- I’ve shared with you that religious, spiritual concept, there are practical applications to that concept that we can experiment with in our laws and in our policies. So all that macro stuff affects my work a lot. I mean right now we’re doing a lot of work on race and racism and I’m regularly turning to the Baha’i writings which speak very directly and pointedly at white people. We talk about the role white people have in addressing subconscious senses of superiority, historic advantage, and all kinds of things. And there are Baha’i writings that speak specifically to people of color, and so there’s guidance there. So I turn to it a lot for the work.

Then there’s the personal side, which is just about daily prayer, daily reflection, the work that we do at the Tahirih justice center is traumatic. I did an interview for a crew yesterday and the guy behind the camera who was interviewing me- we had to break because he kept crying. And I forget, I don’t know if I’m numb to it, but I’m definitely conditioned to the suffering that our clients face. But I think that it helps to have a spiritual grounding that helps us perceive the work in a continuum of evolution. I think that if one had a spiritual perspective that made you think, ‘this was it,’ and ‘this was the end all be all,’ and ‘when people face that degree of injustice, there’s not much hope beyond,’ it would be super depressing, I’m not sure you could continue the work.

But when you have a spiritual lens, which I think can come from any faith and any spiritual or moral perspective, that we are all evolving, we are all growing, we are all learning, it feels way too slow sometimes, people are dying in the process, and sometimes we backslide. If we have the overall arc of progress in our mind, then it makes it ok, and it makes us realize that little wins are all a part of that larger continuum of growth.

So, sorry for the long answer, but it’s a complicated- it’s macro and micro, and on many levels. So thank you for the question.

Will Murphy: Thank you.

Emily Villareal: Hi, my name is Emily. In an interview with the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, you said, “we receive hundreds of calls every day and with only 55 staff members, we can’t help everyone. The volume of injustice is so great, and our backlog is huge, our cases are being scheduled out not until 2021.” So I was wondering, how do you prioritize what cases you take?

Layli Miller-Muro: It’s very hard, it’s emotionally hard. So our attorneys have a weekly meeting every week where they decide which cases to take. And the decision is based on a lot of criteria including emergency, level of emergency. Whether there might be other organizations who could help them. Where our funding streams are coming from, if we got a new grant to help child victims of human trafficking, if we have a case load then that we have to fill, we might be able to take more of those cases, that kind of thing. Sometimes we also look at training opportunities for attorneys; if they’ve handled a whole bunch of asylum claims but haven’t yet done any human trafficking claims, we may then try and balance out their case load. We have law firms that have really specific interests, if they say we only want to do gang cases from Central America, then we have them walk through the door and we realize those are the cases we can refer.

So it’s a complex matrix of consultation basically, but it’s hard, because when we do that we’re saying no to- right now the statistic is out of every 10 that call us, we can only help one. Yeah, so it’s a lottery which is really unfortunate, given lack of resources.

Jordan Willis: Hi, I’m Jordan. With girls and women seeking aid from your organization, what steps do you take for the mental health and rebuilding of trust and strength?

Layli Miller-Muro: Part of it builds on what I said before about spiritual orientation. There are other tactical things. So on staff, we have- well a few things we do for staff. We have a lot of trainings, trainings that deal with how to recognize secondary post-traumatic stress disorder, trainings that deal with boundaries and how to set them in a- how to provide compassionate care. So how to be compassionate to a client while at the same time saying to them ‘I can’t answer calls at three in the morning,’ or you know, there’s some boundaries around that which then help with your own ability to sustain the work.

We also have a timekeeping code. So we have to keep track of our time. At the end of every day, we have to log our time in a system in 15 minute increments. And the reason for that is that we have different funding streams that require us to show how much time, staff attorney time we’re spending on this type of case or that type of case, that type of case, that type of case…

And so we have a timekeeping code that’s for self-care, and it’s a way to let staff know that it’s work to walk around the block, it’s work if you have just spent four hours listening to an 11-year-old pregnant girl talking about how she was sold to 20 men a day. You might need to just stare at a white wall for a few minutes, or walk around the block, or listen to some music, or you know, this kind of thing. And we want staff to know that that’s part of work, taking care of yourself is part of work. So we have things like that.

Several of our offices have someone that comes in and does a support group. And it’s a fine line because these are our colleagues and we want to be careful because we don’t want people to feel that it’s therapy and they don’t have to reveal something terribly personal at a work environment, but we also want people to have the opportunity to vent about a difficult case or something they’re struggling with, nightmares they may be having. Also in a way that could be an early warning system for that staff person who may be young, who may not understand what the early warning signs are. So for example, in our Houston office- in our Houston office, they deal with a lot of central Americans who are coming up. Those cases are just brutal and incredibly heart wrenching. The level of torture and violence being inflicted by the gangs in central America is mind blowing. And boys are also victim to it but girls are commodities in it; they are often sold. The gangs have realized- this was a statistic just two years ago- that human trafficking is more lucrative than narcotics trafficking. And so girls are very, very vulnerable and are often being kidnapped and that kind of thing.

So, you know, our staff, particularly in the Houston office are just being regularly traumatized. And we ended up having a therapist come in every Friday so that people could meet as a group, and it was really helpful, people could meet as a group. But what was even more helpful was she served as an early warning system for two things: things that needed to improve within the organization, and feedback to staff that they needed to see a therapist basically.

So for example, a staff person might begin complaining about something at work and she could be like, ‘that sounds like something you need to talk to your supervisor about, that sounds like something you might be able to improve at a system level.’ And then you know, she might have a staff member begin to talk about their own nightmares, how- you know, and forgive me, well, you guys are old enough I guess. You know some of the work can make you look at groups of people differently. Like you know, when somebody has suffered systematically at the hands of a gender, or a race, or a religion, it’s human- and you have to do work to undo the association then that you have.

So it’s important that we have support for staff when they’re starting to go down the rabbit hole of the whole world is like this and you begin to develop these associations. And it’s important we do really conscious work to undo that for our own mental health. So, it takes work, a lot of work, and not everybody lasts. I mean, you know sometimes- I don’t think I could have been on the front lines- I’m not litigating cases anymore. And sometimes I wonder like how many years I could’ve really been doing that. I think it takes a special soul to do it for their whole career.

Jordan Willis: Thank you.

Samith Lakka: Hi, I’m Samith, and on the Tahirih Justice Center website, you wrote, “we are deeply disheartened at the rise in anti-immigrant and refugee sentiment in the wake of a vicious attack in Paris and Beirut, and we are working to combat it.” It does appear that some of the work you have been doing over the years to help those feeling gender violence is under threat from the administrative policies. Can you talk about what you have to do to hang on to those gains, and do you have allies in the government who are supporting you?

Layli Miller-Muro: I think you know, we’ve been doing this work for 21 years now, we have been doing this work in Republican administrations and Democrat- Democratic administrations, and every administration has had policies that were unhelpful, policies that were harmful, policies that we litigated against. But what is happening now is unlike anything we’ve ever experienced. And it’s not just on the policy side, although it is largely on the policy side. There are laws being undone, right now for example, the very legal precedent on which a lot of our cases are based, it’s the case that I worked on as a law student that set legal precedent with regards to gender based being grounds for asylum. That is now under threat, and about to be undone.

They’re separating women and children at the borders as a way to punish and deter people. They’re putting women and children arriving from the south in ice boxes for eight hours before they’re allowed to see anybody. There are inhumane and pretty overtly torturous approaches being taken to people who are suffering greatly, as a way to quote-on-quote deter people from coming. And it’s just on a level that we’ve never seen before. So it’s depressing and it’s just disheartening.

However, there are opportunities. The opportunities I think are in greater awareness by people generally. When the executive orders were issued and the travel bans took place for example, there was a huge uproar and outcry. When I began to see people organizing at airports and protesting- you know also, the ‘Me Too’ movement and the women’s marches, there’s an attention to the inhumane treatment of immigrants and women that I’ve never seen. I’ve never seen that before in 21 years. I’ve never seen people, at a grassroots level, stand up and say ‘no.’ And that’s huge, and it’s great, because it’s going to create a new generation of people who are informed and awake to the issues. And I actually feel like the price of horrific policies, may be worth the awareness and the commitment and the passion that’s now been evoked and has erupted. And I don’t think that would’ve been possible had it not been so outrageous, because we have this awful human tendency to not want to grow unless we’re uncomfortable. If we’re comfortable, we just kind of- we hang out, and we don’t want to learn, and we don’t want to change, and we don’t want to grow, unless we’re uncomfortable. And we’re not uncomfortable unless we’re being tested.

And so we have this unfortunate psychology, but I’m grateful for those tests right now because I think they are causing discomfort in a way that is good and is healthy and then it’s causing opportunities for learning. It’s causing like an anxiousness and an agitation that is right, and I hope will result in action and learning and awareness and commitment. So I think there are opportunities there, more at the grassroots level and that’s better anyway.

Cyrus Kamkar: Hi, I’m Cyrus. How do you remain hopeful despite the setbacks and disappointments that you may encounter?

Layli Miller-Muro: Well, I think maybe at the risk of repeating myself, having a world view that tests help us grow, that discomfort can be good, I think- and a worldview around this long term evolution, this concept that it’s a long game; it might not be my generation, it might not be your generation, but I do have faith that in the future, and I even see- I mean I don’t mean to be overly pessimistic, I do think from generation to generation, we’re seeing huge improvements. Women in my mother’s generation couldn’t do what I can do, and women in her mother’s generation couldn’t do what we can do. We’re making progress, clearly, clearly. Not fast enough but we’re making progress.

And so I think with that long world view, it’s exciting, and it’s positive. And with an understanding around tests and how they work, I think we can also get excited when we see certain things go bad; understanding that that’s an opportunity for growth. There’s actually- going back to the Baha’i faith for a minute, there is- and it took me a really long time to comprehend this. In the Baha’i prayer book, there is a section for tests. And it has like different topics, there’re different prayers and they’re organized by topic so there’re prayers about detachment and patience and assistance, and you know, different nice things. And then there’s this chapter called ‘tests.’ And what I didn’t understand- I’d read these prayers and they’re like prayers for tests, inviting them, asking for them. You know where usually people pray to be free from tests, something awful is happening and you’re like ‘oh, please God let me get out of this’.

But there’s actually this thing in the Baha’i faith about praying for tests. And you know the prayers say things like you know, ‘help me grow…help me become stronger…the only way for gold to become pure is by being tested through fire…the only way for muscles to grow is by having them be tested and having the fibers rip and then be reconstitute…the only way for soil to become fertile for growth is for it to be churned and tilled and completely cut up.’ And so there’re all these analogies around growth and we’re actually supposed to pray for them, we’re supposed to enjoy them, and say ‘yay, being tested again.’ And embrace it and figure out the nuggets of learning and blessing in those tests, and then apply them and grow and learn. And so I think that perspective can help a little bit.

Indigo Kelly: Hi, I’m Indigo. You said, in regards to mail-order-brides, “this industry predominantly places women at a disadvantage where the man is the paying client and the woman advertised as a produce, a commodity, this power structure is a theme in our society.” How can we work to balance the scales of power?

Layli Miller-Muro: It might be simplistic but I think that we have to- this idea of equality means a lot, but one of the things that it means is equal respect, and if we had truly equal respect for each other, then there would never be the presumption of purchase. I think you know the fundamental idea that one can purchase another person, purchase highly intimate services from another person, or purchase affection from another person, is rooted in a fundamental inequality, this idea that we’re inherently purchasable, or we can be commodities to each other. And I think that when that ends it will help a lot.

I also think, and I’m sure you all have done classes and training on this, but there’s a hyper sexualization right now in the world. Men are victims to it too, but women are particular victims and for a much longer period of time. And that’s another thing I think that has to really be fixed; the hyper sexualization of media, pornography, the way people view each other, it just creates incredible pressure, women, the way they view themselves. There’s studies for example that even highly capable executive women, I have the occasion sometimes mainly because of the fundraising work we do, to go into like receptions of like CEO women in New York City, or executive women, that kind of thing. And I’m always blown away by the manicures and how everyone is perfectly in shape, usually in really high heels, it’s a lot of work, a lot of work, a lot of dye, a lot of work, a lot of work. And the money and the time, it’s amazing. And men don’t have to- men executives look super different, super different than female executives.

There’s interesting studies on it actually where women feel pressure- and it’s not even just feeling pressure, it’s real statistically, that they will not advance professionally unless they are attractive, and there’s this real pressure. And men really don’t face the same pressure. I mean even just wearing- you wake up in the morning for an event like this; suit, color of the shirt, color of the tie, that’s kind of the main choices in men. But for women it’s a lot more complicated, that kind of thing. But apparently, women executives- I forget the statistic, you could look it up, there’re articles.

But there are millions and millions of dollars spent on beauty and there are two hours a day more than men spent on beauty and maintaining it. Whether it’s getting up in the morning, exercising, putting on makeup, coloring your hair, all these kinds of things. And so when you just look at pure productivity, men compared to women executives, men have an advantage, they’re not spending as much time doing that. And then you add to that the fact that 90% of executive women are married to men who work, where 80% of executive men are married to women who don’t work, there’s also an imbalance there in how much support one is getting at home. And then you add children to the mix and that gets even more complicated. So there are all these inequities.

But I think sexuality, physicality, material pressure, all of those things are super, super important and I think we can look to other countries- there are many European countries- like the United States’ press is merciless when it comes to Merkle, the head of Germany. But Europe I think is quite ahead of us where they’re not looking at physicality in the same way that we are, and the bar is really different. So I don’t know, it’s a bit of a jumbled answer but I think it’s the commoditization of women won’t stop unless we can change our lens, our physical lens on women.

Anika Compoginis: Hi, I’m Anika. So besides the immense cruelty and suffering of the individual who experiences FGM, what- can you speak about the long terms societal effects of FGM, and how you think the local population and culture would change if it was no longer practiced there?

Layli Miller-Muro: Female genital mutilation, it relates a little bit to your question, it’s about control, and it’s about the subjugation of women. It’s designed- it has different logic in different communities because it does serve different purposes in different communities, but the thread- the common thread is that it’s fundamentally about protecting- ensuring her chastity, her virginity before marriage, and her fidelity after marriage, by making sex completely painful. And so it’s about that control fundamentally.

And so you know, in the United States even, you can trace the history of what they call the ‘sexual revolution’ that related to the beginning of birth control. Because I mean for women, in addition to reputation being really important for maintaining virginity before marriage and then fidelity or chastity after marriage, the fact that you could get pregnant super easily was also a huge inhibitor to that. But in the 1970s there was this sexual revolution and it was fascinating because it resulted in revolt, like I think you know, with every source of freedom, there is sometimes a pendulum swing.

You know, you all are in your teenage years and I’m sure none of you have ever rebelled but, it is common that you know, when one tastes the difference between childhood and your day being completely organized and wanting that and wanting guidance, to wanting independence, there can be an extreme pendulum swing. And maybe it’s like ridiculous independence and you can’t tell me what to do ever and this idea of pendulum swing, independence. And then in adulthood, or with maturity, the pendulum comes back is like actually, I care what you think, I don’t want to be completely independent, I realize that we are interdependent. I have my own voice, I have my own identity, but I care what you think, and I can put myself in your shoes sometimes. And we come back a little bit and there’s this interdependence.

And I think that you know, what I have seen- so I’m trying to- the reason I’m relating it is because I think that we have to understand the long process in order to understand the stages that happen with the release of subjugation, because it’s not perfection. The minute subjugation is released, it isn’t perfect wisdom and maturity and perfection, there are moments I think of figuring it out, exploring the space and trying to understand what it might look like or what it might mean.

And so you know, with regard to female genital mutilation, when I was in Gambia, I used to be in Gambia quite often, we were working on a project and women were given voice for the first time. So in this particular community, there was a strong ethic of women not speaking unless spoken to, they weren’t allowed to voice in community gatherings unless they were specifically asked. This project was encouraging women to speak out. And you know when female genital mutilation ends and other kinds of things, there’s freedom, there’s more ability to make decisions, and there’s more ability to speak out.

What happened- and unfortunately the men viewed this as a sign that women weren’t equal and that this was a bad idea, letting them have a voice was a bad idea- was that they were experimenting with voice. And so there was a lot of yelling, a lot of anger, a lot of rage. They were given leadership positions but then maybe became almost worse dictators than the men that had had power for so long, they were tasting that power for the first time. And it was almost like this pendulum swing that happened. Then after a few years, it went back to the middle again and it was more about true equality.

And so I think it’s not that there’s something magically that happens when female genital mutilation ends, domestic violence ends, child marriage ends. But what it is, is a release of subjugation that then allows for learning, and the experimentation of what voice might look like, what power might look like, what equality might look like, what sexuality might look like. But that immediate response isn’t the end response, because there’s this larger, longer process in figuring out what the release of subjugation looks like.

Sienna Clifton: Hi, my name is Sienna. We have spent a lot of time in class readings about and discussing ways in which people participate in democracy that goes past just simply voting. Now more than ever, it seems that our country needs active and engaged citizens. Can you talk a bit about what you think it means to be an engaged citizen?

Layli Miller-Muro: So I hate politics, and I don’t actually think we’re going to improve much by engagement in politics, and I can explain more why. But to me, being an engaged citizen, means having authentic friendships with people who don’t look like you, living in communities that may be uncomfortable to you and your family, caring about other people’s children just as much as you care about your own children, wanting other people’s children to have schools as good as your own kids have school. To me, being an engaged citizen has to do with little micro decisions on a daily, hourly basis that involve recognizing our oneness and even preferring others to ourselves, and that’s what will make the world a better place.

And that will translate into policies, you know, because if I truly believe, if I really love the children several blocks away from me as much as I love my children, then I would want my tax dollars to go into their county also. This system we have right now of the way schools are funded is a design for inequality, and it’s rooted in ‘me, myself, my family, and my kids first, and I don’t really care what happens to everyone around,’ and it’s this hoarding mentality of ‘I’m going to make sure we’re good and my kids come out on top.’ Even if I’m not consciously trying to subjugate anyone else, if I’m not actively caring about others, we stay in the system that does prefer those with power and privilege. And so I mean I really think being an engaged citizen is about these little, teeny, daily, micro decisions that we make.

You know I mean, it’s a super tiny decision but I had this conversation with my kids about it. My ten year old was recently- I have a 10 year old, a six year old, and a 14 year old, so we’re all like over the map in terms of different stages of growth. But my ten year old was invited to a birthday party of a severely autistic kid in her class and you know- and she gets invited to a lot of birthday parties and she doesn’t always accept all the birthdays, she’s like ‘oh, I don’t really know that person that well… And I realized I was letting her do that and she was invited to this one birthday party and I happened to know the background of this one kid and she said ‘I’m not friends with him.’ And normally, I would be like, ‘oh, all right, I’m sure they’ve got other friends that come.’ But I kind of stopped and said, ‘yeah, but he invited you, and what’s to say he has any friends that are-.’ And I was like, ‘I’m not going to let you chose actually, you’re going to go, and you’re going to be super nice.’

And I remember having this epiphany around wait a minute, am I letting her chose- we all have this, and it’s not selfish with a big ‘S,’ it’s just a little micro selfish. Who I want to sit with today, who’s party I want to go to, who I want to- and we make these decisions based on ‘I like them…I’m comfortable/not comfortable…maybe I get social advantage by being friends with that person…maybe I’ll get social disadvantage by being friends with that person.’ And I don’t know, at some point it’s like we’ve got to pause and say, ‘wait, what about that person’s perspective?’ And ‘are we broadening our circle? Are we broadening who we care about?’ And it’s one thing to say we care but what does that look like in our daily lives? I actually think that’s more about being an engaged citizen.

I think our political system has to blow up, I think it’s so fundamentally flawed. At different times people have encouraged that and I think that the partisan system requires people to make decisions based on platform and based on alliances and clubs essentially, rather than based on merit of particular policies. And even with good intentions, when you enter that system, it’s just- you can’t- you stink of it, there’s no way really to even be a good person and function productively in that system.

The partisanship, I think also that the process of elections that we have which means that the money element and the constituent element will mean that we’ll never get good decisions, ever. So, so long as people need to fundraise in order to run for Congress, it means that they’re going to care more about their donors than what’s right. It’s impossible to be otherwise so long as people have to raise money, because you won’t get re-elected unless you raise money and you won’t raise money unless you make your donors happy and it’s this natural thing that then squeezes out really what’s right and what’s wrong. And particularly marginalized communities who don’t pay lobbyists and don’t have the same money.

I think also, the idea that you are beholden to your constituents is a fundamental problem because they’re not in the room, they’re not reading the report, they’re not hearing the witness testimony, they don’t have the same access to information and they don’t have the same opportunity for consultation. And when you enter a room and you have the intention to make a decision, you have to be willing to compromise, you have to be willing to listen, you have to be willing to have a product that ends up from the conversation that isn’t anyone’s. So you may have thrown in your idea, you had another perspective and you threw it in, but what should emerge is not the winner of one idea, it should be the combination of all the ideas, right? The problem is the way our politics works right now is constituents believe- they’re like, ‘you represent my district and I want you to win for our district on getting ‘x,’ ‘y,’ ‘z.’ And when you enter the room like that, you can’t have real consultation, and you can’t listen to other people, because you’re just debating and you’re advocating for your views and your ideas. And I just feel like that whole paradigm is wrong because it doesn’t allow for people to compromise or to hear each other or to look at merit or read reports or actually look at facts and statistics, because most constituents won’t have the time to read it and they’re too- we’re all too simplistic, and so we’re relying on tag lines rather than detailed academic reports and studies that really prove this policy works better than that policy.

So I don’t know, I’m just waiting for it to blow up really. I don’t- I don’t have a lot of faith in the whole political system. But I think what will- you know if we’re engaged citizens and we’re actually helping make the world a better place, it’s really about advocating, befriending, and actually caring about people who do not look like us, and who may even make us uncomfortable.

Zac Clark: Hi, I’m Zac. Throughout our past interviews with Congressman Jimmy Panetta and Shalon Dione, staff director of the House of Appropriations Committee, we have learned that opportunities come when least expected and that they have interesting, unforeseen outcomes. I’m curious to know what unexpected opportunities you’ve taken on your path.

Layli Miller-Muro: I think every one. There was an intern who worked for us at one point and she was leaving, it was the end of her summer and she came into my office said goodbye and I said, ‘oh, I hope you had a good summer,’ she said, ‘yes I did,’ I said, ‘what did you learn?’ and she said, ‘I’ve learned you can accomplish anything you put your mind to,’ I said, ‘that’s nice, who did you learn that from?’ and she said, ‘you,’ and I was like, ‘then you don’t know me at all, or anything about what my story is,’ because, it would be too long to detail, but I don’t think there has ever been an advance or a progress, a movement, an opportunity that I designed. It was- like I think it’s more about opportunity and a door opening and you just deciding to walk through basically.

So I really believe that our lives are a little bit like we’re boats on the ocean- and this is not from the Baha’i faith, this is just my own crazy thought. But I feel like, you know, we’re all kind of ships on this ocean, and we have different ships depending on our genetics, depending on where we grew up, and like we didn’t chose the boat we were plopped in but we were plopped in some boat, somebody you know got engines, some people got sails, you know whatever, everybody got different boats. But we absolutely chose whether to turn on the engine, whether to hoist the sails, whether to begin directing the boat, and whether to try, within our means and within our capacity.

And then we have this crazy ocean that’s beyond us, we don’t control the storms, we don’t control the tides, we don’t control the currents, but we got to navigate it, and we have to you know shift. And so I think we do have to set our direction, we do have to do goal setting and strategic planning, we have to get up and move, we’ve got to get up in the morning and do something and we have to make efforts. And all that is about steering the rudder and hoisting the sail and trying to go somewhere. But exactly how we will get there or even where we land is really not up to us, there’s so much other stuff that happens.

And so I think a lot of it- and people call it luck, I don’t really care what you call it, but there is so much grace and blessing or tests or whatever it may be that happens around us and I think that a life well lived is one that tries to figure out how to balance the two. I think that people who believe, usually out of a sense of entitlement because maybe you or your family has been lucky with a high degree of control, some people believe that if I just build the perfect boat, like the Titanic, let’s use that as an example right? If I just build the most beautiful, perfect, strong, state of the art boat, everything will go my way. And then the ocean is like, ‘oh yeah, you need some humility, you need to be schooled,’ whatever it may be, and then that happens.

And so I think a life well lived is one that recognized ‘I’m not in complete control here, but I am in control of my boat, and I’m in control of my response, I’m in control of the choices I make, how I decide to navigate, how I decide to course correct, whether I decide to hoist my sails, or whether I decide to float aimlessly.’ We chose that, we chose all of that, and then there’s a whole lot around us that we don’t chose.

And so I think you know, with me whether it’s the case I wrote, I mean I never wanted to be a lawyer, I went to law school because I worked in the Martin Luther King Center and I wanted to have a legal background, I never was going to take the BAR. But then I represented a young woman who made me realize that the BAR could actually be marginally useful. So then I took the BAR. I never wanted to work for a large law firm, I had huge prejudice against them; I thought they had sold their souls and they were the source of the Devil and all that stuff. And then I ended up working for a large law firm, and I was able to do 50% of all my time on a pro-bono basis and I spent millions of dollars of the firm’s money to represent people who had nothing, and that was a blessing. And then we developed our whole model at the Tahirih Justice Center based on the utilization of the resources, the very good hearts, and incredibly good will of attorneys at large law firms.

I never wanted to do gender issues. I went to a women’s college and to be honest, by the time I graduated, I thought I’d shoot myself if I had to hear another feminist theory, I was done, you know just the debates and like- I had enough of circular ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t.’ I just was frustrated with a lot of the debates. I cared a lot about race issues, I worked for the Martin Luther King Center. I wanted to work on issues of race and human rights. I wrote for- the way you apply in law school to get on a law journal, and getting on a law journal is what you want to do, it’s like a good resume builder, it’s a good way to develop writing skills, you rank them and they rank you, it’s a matching process. I ranked Law Review of course first, International Law Journal second, Criminal Law Journal third, Administrative Law Journal fourth, Journal of Gender in the Law fifth. What did I get? Journal of Gender in the Law.

I ended up representing this woman who suffered female genital mutilation and the next thing I knew I was a women’s rights advocate, I didn’t like chose it, I kind of didn’t want it in fact. I don’t know, life it weird. And I don’t think it’s about completely being like ‘this is what I want to be, although…’ And I’m sure you’re trying to teach them how to set goals, I think it’s good to set goals. I’m not suggesting that you just are like ‘I’m just going to float on the ocean and see where I land.’ Absolutely set your course; chart it, map it, hoist your sails, train, do everything. But then like be open to winds and current and opportunities and different things that happen, because we don’t know, I don’t think any of us fully knows what we’re meant to be. But I think if we have a sincere desire to be of service, the doors will open and we’ll be allowed to do it on some level, it just might not be what we thought, or how we thought.

Aimee Kerr: Hi, I’m Aimee. You wrote, “I lived in a town north of Atlanta, bordering the country that in the 1980s boasted being the only white county left in Georgia.” Have you seen any parallels between the civil rights movement and women’s issues?

Layli Miller-Muro: Yes, I mean I think there’s lots of parallels. By the way, that county is now 60% immigrant which I think is so fascinating and like a weird justice, Forsyth county. You know I think all civil rights movements have similar trajectories and similar learnings. I do think, and you all began our time asking about spiritual questions, and one of the advantages I think that the civil rights had was its spiritual base. The civil rights movement was grounded in morality, it was grounded in morality, and its mantra was love. And Martin Luther King- whether it was Martin Luther King or Malcolm X, they both were grounded in spirituality, and in morality, ‘in’ morality, not immorality. And their politics, their policies, were rooted- what they advocated for was rooted in sometimes biblical, sometimes Qur’anic, but always a moral compass.

Sometimes, I don’t know, if today our different civil rights movements are grounded enough in some value system. And I’m not suggesting it has to be the church, I don’t- you know, I don’t believe that it has to be the church, or has to be- but it does have to be- there has to be a moral compass, there does have to be a moral center. And I think the moral center then allows for concepts like love or forgiveness that are kind of important to match and to partner with concepts of justice and airing and truth telling and correction and change. And I don’t think that’s happening right now. And so I wonder- I do wonder about you know, the future of different civil rights movements, and I think what I see- and I just don’t know, the jury is out and we’ll see where different movements go.

But what is clear as a difference, just as a factual matter, is that the civil rights movement in the United States, and in India with Gandhi, all had spiritual foundations that did guide, on some level, policy and strategy. And sometimes I just wonder if that would be helpful with different movements right now. But it would be hard because I don’t think that’s where people are right now.

Phoebe Grant: Hello, I’m Phoebe. When we spoke with Susanna Wellford earlier this week, she talked about her two sons and it was clear that they had both been deeply influenced by the values of gender equality that she brings to her work. Do you feel that your daughters are taking on some of your values in a similar way?

Layli Miller-Muro: I hope so, and my son, I hope so. Now, he’s six, so he- but he was on a soccer team recently with girls, it’s still combined at his age. And he was like, ‘girls can’t kick a ball,’ and I was like, ‘what?’ And I had this kind of like where did he get that from? And it’s pretty you know, his father is just a huge feminist and a wonderful dad and very involved, and of course my work and I think when he made that comment it just made me appreciate how pervasive some of these concepts are. And also, you know I think little kids at that age, they’re trying to differentiate, that’s the developmental stage he’s at, it’s a lot of differentiating and you know, why do you have this and I don’t have this? That’s his M.O. right now.

But it’s also a vulnerable time for creating artificial distinctions between people, and it just was mind blowing to me how- I had a friend of mine who, she’s a physician and they were watching a TV show with a woman who was a doctor and her son said, ‘women can’t be doctors.’ And she said, ‘what do you think mommy does?’ And he was like, ‘oh.’ I think even- it’s just, it’s hard, it’s hard in this world.

So I hope, I hope they’re getting it. I think there’s micro stuff and the macro stuff. I take them to work often, they see what I do. I hope, you know, we’re trying to model in our home, equality and what that looks like. And it’s hard because our work paradigms don’t allow that. Like our whole work environments make it really hard, it makes it so that one person has to default usually to primary care taker role because when hours are eight am to six pm but kids have after school activities it makes it like impossible. So I mean we tried really hard, we were doing 50/50 parenting for many, many years where I came home early several days a week for afternoons and then he came home early several days a week for afternoons so were able to really balance that. But this whole paradigm has to shift really to make it possible to have true equality.

But no, my kids are definitely absorbing it. I always want to be careful because I don’t want to make them feel like they have to-I want them to find their own path. And recently, my older daughter- well, one day she was telling me she wanted to be a lawyer- she told someone else this, not me, and I overheard and I was like ‘oh, that’s an interesting thing.’ And now she wants to be a robotics engineer, so I don’t know, I don’t know where that will land. But I think my hope is not necessarily that my kids follow in my footsteps or that they even work on the same issues, but it’s that they feel strong and of service to humanity in whatever way- whatever way their talents direct them, and that’s what’s most important both as women and as men. Yeah.

Ward Mailliard: So I want to take a few minutes here and hear from you guys what’s struck you, what’s touched you about what Layli’s said so far.

Sage Turner: Alright, hi, I’m Sage, and what struck me was how you said the human tendency to not grow unless you’re uncomfortable, and that you should kind of appreciate when you’re uncomfortable, that it leads to so many opportunities, and I thought that was a really great perspective.

And I also liked when you said “hoist your sails and set a course but be open to the wind and current,” and that spoke to me a lot. Thank you.

Anika Compoginis: About a third of our interviews now have talked about now how women make up at least half of the human population, it’s just so important that we don’t leave them behind and that they’re equal. So with your bird metaphor, how both wings have to be equally strong, that just struck another chord for me. So thank you.

Ruby Bracher: I thought it was really interesting how you incorporate so much of your spirituality in your work and how to said that- or how you mentioned that you weren’t sure whether or not civil rights movements today were incorporating enough values into their like system, because I feel like a lot of movements today are kind of pushing against religion in some ways and I’m not a very religious person but I think that speaking with you and reading about you has sort of helped open my eyes to how religion can- like is still relevant in our society today. So, thanks.

Layli Miller-Muro: Because I think it’s important- and I do think a lot of people are grappling with ‘what’s this religion for anyway?’ And there’s so much bad that has been done in religion name and lots of things you can see about it that are bad, but I do think that it’s important to appreciate an organic fact which is that all things with an incredible capacity for good have an equal and opposite capacity for bad. And in fact, the badness is almost a measure of its potential for goodness, because it’s this equal and opposite capacity. I think in the same way- like medicine for example, super potent medicine has incredible capacity to heal, and it has equal and opposite capacity to poison. So cancer, for example, the way cancer is healed, and it’s like you could argue that cancer is one of the most aggressive, evil, awful forms of disease, the way you kill it is with poison. You would not take that if you’re healthy. Leukemia in particular, they literally experimented with different kinds of poisons and it did kill a few people and then they figured out how to kill the cancer.

But it’s like a really deep concept, I think it’s fascinating around things that have amazing potential to heal and grow have equal capacity- the atomic bomb can detonate and you know annihilate an incredible number of people, and it has an incredible capacity to provide clean energy for an astronomically large population. Like it has equal and opposite capacity, just depending on how we use it. Justice and the law has incredible capacity to make right, wrongs, and it has incredible capacity to perpetuate injustice, and even create it. Religion is the same way.

So I would just encourage you to kind of view things that have great capacity for progress and good and contribution and service, have equal and opposite capacity to annihilate, detonate, poison, etcetera. So it’s like this fascinating thing, so anyway.

Ruby Bracher: That’s so fascinating, thank you.

Will Murphy: First off, I really liked the more in depth explanation of the Baha’i faith because it’s one thing reading about it but it’s much different when you actually talk to someone, so that was a little eye opening. And I also liked when you said the partisan system encourages like exclusivity and clubs and makes you vote more for a platform than actual values, which is something that I’m very frustrated about too which was good to hear.

Zac Clark: In your answer to my question, your ship metaphor, I really, really like that. The idea of balancing chance with experience is something that I haven’t really thought of. I always thought you either have to have one or the other, either there’s fate in your life, you don’t have any control over anything, or it’s completely under your control and there’s no outside experiences that can kind of deviate from your path. But you bringing to light that both of them can happen at the same time it’s like oh, that makes sense now.

Layli Miller-Muro: Yeah.

Carl Ward: I loved your answer to the question about being an engaged citizen. It was different to a lot of the answers- because we’ve asked that question to a lot of people and we’ve gotten kind of a similar answer from a lot of the people we’ve asked it but you had a very different interesting answer and I-

Layli Miller-Muro: I mean you should vote too.

Carl Ward: Yeah, oh yeah. But it- I mean that’s the thing, it was great to hear another perspective too and talking about avoiding all selfishness especially- well not especially, but also you know, minor selfishness really- I think everybody does that from time to time, I know I do a lot-

Layli Miller-Muro: We’re human, yeah.

Carl Ward: Yeah, and it’s really important to notice those things and try and stop that from happening, because yeah, if nobody was selfish ever, I think all the problems in the world would be fixed.

Layli Miller-Muro: Yeah, it’d be profound.

Noah Kaplan: Well, a lot of things, but I’ll just say what you said about science being- I can’t remember your exact words, but being material without religion, unguided material I think you said.

Layli Miller-Muro: Unbridled materialism.

Noah Kaplan: Unbridled.

Layli Miller-Muro: Yeah, it’s a quotation from the Baha’i writings actually. Science without religion is unbridled materialism, and religion without science is mysticism and superstition.

Sienna Clifton: Going off of what Carl said about your answer about engaged citizens, also that you just said the little things that people can do that are easy to put into your life if you put your mind to it. So that was also really nice to hear those little things you can do.

Priyanka Bharghavan: I really liked what you said about praying for tests, and that was something I thought about and I thought I was kind of insane because I liked having challenges when a lot of people like, like you said, ‘don’t give me challenges.’ And I just thought it was nice to hear that.

Gracie Howley: I was interested in hearing about how at your- I don’t remember what it is- but how you had like the therapist come in and your workers face and hear about a lot of trauma and how that affects them. And I really liked when you said that “a life well lived is one that recognizes we are not in control,” and that life is weird, and I think that’s really cool to recognize that and I think more people need to like accept that and have that be open.

Zachary Wagner: One thing I found really interesting was how human nature was a common theme in what you were saying, how there are certain things in our humanity that are- can be used for both negative and both positive. And in my own research of the Baha’i faith I found that a lot of the constructs that were set up, since it was- it was created later than most religions in that region, it had more progressive values towards those things and I found it really interesting how we can use spirituality, not just religion, but a spiritual life within ourselves to use human nature for good and to change the things that can be negative into positive things.

Layli Miller-Muro: Yeah. Because I’ve heard this come up with a few of you is- and sorry, this is like my one a year opportunity to just pontificate on different philosophical things but I think this idea of praying for tests and being uncomfortable, like this whole concept of growth through tests and growth through discomfort. I want to emphasize how profound it is but also how most of society doesn’t agree. And I would encourage you, if it rings true for you, to be aware and have your antenna up for lies you’re being told by the rest of society about it. And what I mean by that is it’s both commercial and people with really good intentions.

So people with really good intentions, like best friends that say to you, ‘yeah, you don’t have to deal with her because she told you there was something about you that she didn’t like and that makes you uncomfortable, and so don’t be friends with her.’ And so there are people in your life who will perpetuate this notion that you should surround yourself with comfort, you know? That you should surround yourself with only people who affirm you, who send you emojis that make you feel good that you know, that there are all these little memes that pop up on Instagram that basically say ‘only good energy’ and ‘anyone that has bad energy; don’t be around them,’ but that’s not the world.

And if we really believe in discomfort and we really believe in growth, then that person who makes you uncomfortable, have lunch with them, sit down with them, and say ‘I want to learn about your story, why do you come off that way to me?’ Or ‘why do you feel’- you know because everyone has a story and everyone has maybe a perspective or a history or beliefs and in fact their criticism of us might be right, like it might be right, but because we surround ourselves with people who only affirm what we want to hear about ourselves, we’re never open to hearing from that person who says ‘you annoy me and this is why. But if we did, if we allowed ourselves to do that, we would grow so much because the truth is there might be a whole lot of people who think that but nobody actually tells us that because they know we don’t want to hear it because they’ve heard that when other people tell them stuff that they don’t want to hear they just stop being friends with them. So it’s like this perpetuated thing.

Even therapists, I’ve had it out with recent therapists who are perpetuating this view that you should just surround yourself with people who make you comfortable and who affirm you, and I- a really good friend of mine who’s a therapist, I was like, ‘you know, what is up with this ‘erect a wall…break the relationship with the person who makes you uncomfortable…or who…’’ and she goes, ‘yeah, it’s actually our training in school.’ And I was like, ‘but do you believe that? Do you really believe that’s going to make the world a better place?’ You know, ‘that’s going to build bridges between people, that’s going to heal families, that’s going to help people really grow?’ And she goes ‘no, it just allows us all to be in bubbles and silos and walk around happy in our own little universes.’ And I was like ‘then why are you doing it then?’ We had this kind of long conversation about it.

But I would just caution you because the world doesn’t actually believe it. People say it, ‘tests help us grow, let’s get to know people who are different from us.’ But the minute people are actually making us uncomfortable, we recoil, and we erect to these like self-protective comfort zones, and our therapists encourage it, our friends encourage it, and the media encourages it. And I would just be like- the world is not actually in agreement in general that tests are good for us or that we should enter zones of discomfort, that we should have conversations with people who have told us they hate us, people who we think are evil and wrong, we’re actually told to stop conversations with them, but then we’re not growing, and then we’re not learning, and then we’re not building bridges.

And so I don’t know, I think to really play out this concept requires action on those micro, small levels that are pretty profound in fact, and I would just really encourage people. Also the media- I have a really good friend who wrote a book that I highly recommend called The Search for Serenity, Deepak Chopra wrote a forward to the book, and what she does- and she’s a Baha’i, and she wrote the book because she was really struggling with the juxtaposition of the Baha’i writings of ‘tests are good for us and we should pray for them,’ with what she was hearing in society. And she learned through writing this book, and what it is, it’s a historic examination of the concept that stress is bad for us, because there’s a common medical, commercial mantra that stress is bad for us. And she was trying to reconcile it spiritually for herself against this other concept that actually, maybe it’s good for us.

And so she had cancer and she became a health reporter for CNN and she found herself perpetuating some of these ideas and she was like ‘why is this?’ What she learned is that before the 1940- 1940s, 1950s, the mantra in America was ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ And there’s actually this ethic that’s also very Eastern. My sister lives in China and Chinese also have this ethic around suffering is good for you actually. Now people can take it too far too but it’s this idea that hard, stress, suffering actually makes you better. The United States had this ethic too, what happened though in the 1940s and 50s was that the tobacco industry hired ad agencies in New York City and they said ‘we need an advertising campaign to sell cigarettes.’ They did research and what they found was that people were finding themselves a little confused and slightly stressed out by all this new stuff like washing machines and there was this new technology that was growing, particularly for women, to make life at home easier for them.

And they developed a whole ad campaign around ‘modern life is stressful and you need a cigarette to make you feel better.’ That a cigarette will de-stress you and you’re stressed, you may not even know you’re stressed, but you’re stressed because modern life is stressful and buy this cigarette and it will make you less stressed. And then it snowballed from there. And since then, ad agency after ad agency after ad agency has been payed millions and millions of dollars to make you feel stressed when you’re not even stressed, to make you believe things are stressful that are like logically shouldn’t even stress you out and to develop an incredibly low tolerance for stress so that you’ll buy the yoga retreat and you’ll buy the food that will make you feel better, you’ll buy the alcohol that will you know, make you relax, you’ll buy the cigarette, whatever it is.

So there’re all these products that are designed, so you’re getting all these messages that may not be right actually around this issue of stress and discomfort and that tests can in fact help us grow. So I just built it out a little more because I heard some interest in it, you guys were lobbing onto it, but I think it’s a deep conversation that could- there’s a lot to unpack there around- we’ve all been sold lies around not stretching ourselves, that’s not helping out in society.

Ward Mailliard: And the work that you’ve done- I suppose there’s a quantitative aspect of the number of people that you have served over the years. I first became acquainted with you through the book, it was sent to me from Bill Moyer’s publicist and it was in a box of books she sent me because she thought they would be good for my students, and I picked that one out, it’s the only one I read.

Layli Miller-Muro: I don’t think I ever knew that.

Ward Mailliard: And when I- and so when I you know had the chance through Alyse to bring the kids to meet you, I jumped at it. Yeah, so it had a big impact on me.

Layli Miller-Muro: Wow, wow. And yeah we’ve helped over 25,000 women and girls since- and in fact, I think since the last time I met with your students we opened up an office in San Francisco, so we’re in San Bruno. Yeah, I mean it’s a lot of work, there are a lot of wonderful people. We have 80 staff now and we have just an incredible team of senior really smart people. Thank you, thanks for having me.

Ward Mailliard: This was fabulous.