Latest / Modern Sacred: Women's Work / The Importance of Women in Tech: Collective Wisdom in the Age of AI with Carissa Karban
Transcript
- Abby: Okay. Hello everyone. Welcome back to the modern sacred podcast. We are so excited that you're here. And today we have a very special guest with us that we have the pleasure of spending some time with and, ⁓ interviewing on a very interesting topic. So let me go ahead and introduce our guests here. We have a Carissa carbon. Chris is a facilitator of rewilding and embodied awakening. guiding people through shadow alchemy to transmute burnout and disconnection into devotion, pleasure, and inner sovereignty. She co-founded Astra Puffs, a heart-forward gaming platform where playful AI companions invite you to remember how to relate to yourself, others, and the unseen. So, Carissa, you are a badass. You are, you are, Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: and the embodied feminine space and you are bringing that to a very male dominated space of gaming and game construction. I don't even know if that's the right word. We're going to get into it. We're going to get into how you weave all of that together as a modern sacred woman. So welcome to the podcast. Carissa Karban (she/her): Thank you so much, Abby. Excited to be here with you and Chelsea. Chelsea Henderson: Yay! We're so excited to have you. What a cool woman you are. I, I, what? ⁓ that's actually our secondary company. We're just hype girls. So we're personal hype girls. Yes. We do that for each other. Exactly. ⁓ okay. It's, it's actually, yeah, it should be right. ⁓ okay. So before we dive into all this stuff, because I want to ask you so many questions, let's start with a couple of just basic. Abby: Yeah, seriously. Carissa Karban (she/her): Thank you, thank you. I'm gonna hire you for my hype squad, I appreciate it. Amazing. love it. Client number one right here. Abby: It's true. Yeah, it's a free service. Chelsea Henderson: of our primers. So we like to start out by asking guests like, do you associate more or align more with like your astrological sign, your human design, your Enneagram? Do you know any of those about yourself? And is there one you like align more with or represents you more that you'd like to share with us and our audience? Carissa Karban (she/her): It's a great question. I have really come from, not to go into my whole backstory, but I come from a very narrow-minded myopic view of like science and evidence-based is the only thing that's valid and real. And that has been, it's been shown to me over and over again that that's just a small aperture through which to view the world. So as I've been on my own spiritual awakening over the last six or seven years, I've come to believe all of it's true, all of it's valid, it's all data, right? It's all, do we want to do with the information? And so for me, I love astrology, I love my human design, I'm a projector. Okay, so I'm an Aquarius Sun. Yeah, see, this is amazing. See, there's so much alignment. But you'll tell, so astrology wise, I love the system. I'm not super deep into it. So yeah, I'm... Chelsea Henderson: Me too! Me too! Are we twins? What the heck? Please keep talking. Abby: No. Carissa Karban (she/her): Aquarius Sun, ⁓ Sagittarius Moon, Cancer Rising. I'm a projector in human design. I'm, you know, I don't necessarily do Myers-Briggs as much, but I do really love the Enneagram. I've been studying the Enneagram with Chris Hewarts for the last several years, have attended several retreats around the Enneagram. So I'm definitely a, I'm a type eight with a seven wing and for those Enneagram nerds out there, I'm a social subtype. So the subtype is, Abby: Yes. Woohoo! Carissa Karban (she/her): the lesser known, but I'm a social subtype, so I'm actually the countertype for the enneagram. Abby: ⁓ amazing. I am obsessed with the Enneagram as well. I've been studying it for years, reading books about it. And anytime I have any kind of relationship conflict, whether it's with my husband or whatever, I'm like, Enneagram, tell me what's going on. And it's always spot on when you know the other person's number. So that is amazing. An eight with a seven wing. So the eight is the challenger for anyone out there who isn't familiar. And the seven is the enthusiast. Chelsea Henderson: Amazing. Yeah. Abby. Carissa Karban (she/her): Absolutely. Yes. Abby: What is, I'm just curious, like what is that eight, seven wing feel like for you in your lived experience? Chelsea Henderson: I love that. Carissa Karban (she/her): Well, I would say I spent many years as sort of the unconscious or unhealthy eight, ⁓ meaning every time I walked into a room, I expected a challenge. You know, I kind of came in like weapons out armor on like everything is going to be a challenge. And I believe that we tend to manifest our expectations. Our inner reality becomes our external reality. So I encountered a lot of external challenges. I brought that challenger energy and. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Carissa Karban (she/her): It invited a lot of other people I encountered to kind of put their defenses up and put their armor on. And as I really dove into this work, yeah, I've been on the Enneagram path specifically for the last seven or eight years. ⁓ But I would say as I've really done that and other modalities of healing, of inner work, of contemplative practice, studying individuation with Carl Jung, all kinds of things, I've really learned how to take responsibility for my experience and that has really shifted how I show up as an eight and how I'm received as an eight. So I've actually mistyped with the Enneagram test as a two, which I took as kudos because for anyone who doesn't know, the growth opportunity for an eight is to move into a two, you know, really thinking about, and I think that's where my social instinct comes in as well. But what I've really learned to sum it up is, I like to say that my challenger used to show up as a sword and now it's more of a scalpel. Now it's more intentional. I'm more present. I'm more intuitive with when is the challenger energy really going to be valuable and beneficial instead of just, you know, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That's how I used to show up. And now it's much more intentional in how I wield it. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. ⁓ Right. Abby: ⁓ beautiful. ⁓ I've met many unconscious eights. I've worked with many unconscious eights in the nursing space and boy, it can be intense. Chelsea Henderson: I love that. Love that. ⁓ They're intense. Dude. Carissa Karban (she/her): Yeah, it's intense. We're intense. You know, I will be the first to own it. We can be very intense and unconscious. I mean, I would say any unconscious type, right? Any unconscious human, there is inadvertent harm that can be done as we look at intention versus impact. I think it's really important. And I will own that eights can be very intense. We can wield the sword a lot. So we often get a bad rap, but. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Carissa Karban (she/her): Oftentimes that armor is really because we're big softies. We have that just like putting heart, you know, and it's just been hurt a lot of times in the past. And so we create this story that we need that armor to protect ourselves. And what I've come to realize is, and we can unpack this later, but I like to say ⁓ it's the villain masquerading as the hero. So it's the part that says, ⁓ I'm protecting you from pain when actually that's the part that's creating the pain in the first place. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Yes. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: you Yeah, ⁓ I love that. Abby: Yeah, absolutely. And I agree, like they are such softies. ⁓ If anybody's familiar with Lord of the Rings, Gimli is typically seen as the eight. It's like, you know, all right, everything's, like you said, I have a hammer and where's the nail? But then underneath, he's just a big softie and he's really kind. And you wanna have an eight in your corner, because I do have some very conscious eights and like they... Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ my god. Smash it! So much. Carissa Karban (she/her): you Chelsea Henderson: Bye. Abby: They are great people to have around and incredible leaders. Like you said, knowing when to dial up the heat and when to turn it down. It's a really incredible personality type to be. Carissa Karban (she/her): Yeah, now I like to call myself the loving challenger. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Abby: ⁓ yeah! Yeah! Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ I love that. That's nice. I mean, they do love fiercely. My grandfather was an eight and not the most conscious. He didn't get to that in his lifetime, but the love was so intense and the protection was so intense. So to be his granddaughter, you know, this big, big old bear of an Italian man, you know, it was like really felt like such a safe haven. You know, as we got older, we were like, ⁓ okay, you're little much. Carissa Karban (she/her): Mm-hmm. ⁓ Chelsea Henderson: take it down a notch, you know, he would open any conversation with, you know what you need to do. We're like, no, no, no, that's actually not how you address people. Everybody does their own thing, turns out. Yeah, but I love that energy. It's so protective and it can be so big, which sometimes can be really, really beautiful actually when used right. So I love that you're using it. I'm a four and I Carissa Karban (she/her): Yeah. ⁓ Abby: Hehehehehe Carissa Karban (she/her): Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: I feel like I've done so much work to come out of that kind of like drama queen. Everybody look at me and my emotions, you know, and now it's like everyone let me share with you my emotions so that we can all kind of be in this place together. And it feels like just this little shift of of the drama has helped just create this kind of open flow of energy, which I love. It's like amazing when you kind of are able to harness and like you said, kind of shift into the consciousness. Carissa Karban (she/her): Mm. Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: makes everything so much richer. ⁓ I like that a lot. Okay, well, Carissa, then tell us where are you from? Carissa Karban (she/her): Mmm. Abby: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): Earth. Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ perfect. Me too. We have so much in common. Carissa Karban (she/her): We have so much in common. You know, I've had a hard time answering that question for a long time, in part because I moved around a lot as a kid, not part of a military brat or family, but just my mom moved around a lot. So mostly in the U S a little bit in Canada as well, because my family's Canadian, but bounced around to different places and never really felt like I grew up anywhere in particular. So now I just sort of jokingly say I'm from earth, but. Chelsea Henderson: you Carissa Karban (she/her): moved around, was born in Hawaii, moved around on the West Coast, East Coast, spent a lot of time in the Southeast of the U.S., mostly in the Carolinas. Chelsea Henderson: Perfect. Abby: It's awesome. ⁓ nice, beautiful. Chelsea Henderson: That's gorgeous. And you live in California now? Is that right? Carissa Karban (she/her): I do. Yeah. I was in, after living in North Carolina for a long time, I was in Colorado for five years and then did a full year as a nomad. ⁓ came to San Francisco thinking I was going to be here for two months and now it's been six. So yeah, now I'm in the Bay area. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Abby: That's right! Wow, that is so cool. What a life. Chelsea Henderson: So fun. ⁓ Seriously. Okay, I can't take it anymore. We have to dive into your work. We have to. Okay. So I have to ask right off the top. Will you please speak to what it feels like for you to hold these two spaces of working with embodiment and the feminine and these really conscious concepts and these awakening concepts and then Abby: Yes. Chelsea Henderson: Gaming, which to me, I have so much judgment, right? I'm going to acknowledge that right away. Before we started recording, I spoke to the fact that I am a judgmental bitch. It is me and I am working on it. And also, I can't help but see it through. I have a six-year-old son. He's really into games all of a sudden. And it's hard for me to not just be nervous about that. Just making him inclined towards less compassion, less empathy. Abby: Hehehehehe Chelsea Henderson: because we just shoot everything and I get that it's fun. I've played some of the games and playing games for fun. Like I can completely hold that space. But you're talking about using games in a way that it's actually seems like it's attempting to develop more of these compassion and empathy skills. So like how did we get here and how are you holding those spaces and how are you bringing feminine into this world that feels so masculine? Abby: Yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): Hmm. love that. Yeah. How much time do we have? ⁓ It is. It's time's made up. Exactly. I love that. ⁓ so I'll start with kind of, ⁓ what it is today and then we can unpack because there's, you know, a lot of strings that we could pull depending on where the interest lies. But I would say it's, it's a very interesting space to be in. So first off, I like to say that everything is a tool. Chelsea Henderson: We have all the time in the world. Please talk as long as you want. It's not a masculine thing too. Abby: All of it, all of it. Time's made up. Carissa Karban (she/her): Right, just as we sort of joked, know, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I think that everything is a tool. And unfortunately, what we know is the quickest way to get someone to, let's say, spend money or consume or stay on an application or a game is to tap into dopamine. Right? So many of the games out there, I will say I hold a perspective that everybody's doing their best. So yes, there may be some malicious players out there, but for the vast majority, think that we're all doing the best that we can. So when it comes to these games, I like to believe that many of them are not maliciously intended. It's really about they have pressures. The employees of these companies have a lot of pressure to compete with other games and how do we do this? Dopamine becomes a really easy sort of low hanging fruit to say, okay, well, if we can trigger that dopamine, then we get people to stay in the loop. We get them to spend more time in the game, to spend more in their purchases, whatever it is. And I think there's something to be said that people are enjoying that behavior, right? That is serving many people ⁓ oftentimes because they need to escape from a really harsh living situation. And this gives them respite. It gives them a sense of control. It gives them a sense of power. Abby: Mm-hmm, yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): of fun, of fantasy. We like to say that games give us a platform to explore the ideal self. ⁓ And sometimes that means giving ourselves an outlet to maybe ⁓ engage in less socially acceptable behaviors, we'll say it that way. And so I believe everything's a tool. And so what I see is, as maybe a type eight, as a challenger, I love to challenge the status quo. So it's this question of Chelsea Henderson: No. Abby: Hmm. Carissa Karban (she/her): Okay, if we recognize the power of games, right? Games are a storytelling medium, they're a connection medium, they're a way to challenge things like xenophobia because maybe I've never met you, you come from across the planet from a totally different culture, but if we've played the same game, that's a shared experience. That's common ground that we can build on. If we recognize that and we recognize that people are spending more and more times in game, especially, you you look at Chelsea Henderson: Right. Right. Yes. Yeah. Abby: Yeah, that's so true. Yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): Gen Z, Gen Alpha, they're actually spending a lot more time in games than on social media. So depending generationally on where you fall, a lot of people are spending more time in games, as well as really interestingly, I just heard a stat ⁓ recently about, they're calling them the Silver Surfers, right? These boomers who are starting to retire. They were really the first generation in the 80s that were playing arcade games and grew up gaming. And so as they retire and have more disposable income, Abby: ⁓ interesting. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: Yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): they're returning to games. And so there's this huge boom in the gaming industry where people want to play. People want to experience a shared environment with friends that feels a little safer or more exciting or different than the world that we're living in. So a lot of that was preamble to say. ⁓ When it comes to building Astro Puffs, something that's really interesting is we are leading with fun first. So we want to be very mindful of the fact that we're creating a game that if the only thing you want to do is play with fun AI companions in a super cute cozy world, great. I like to say that we're building fruit. ⁓ It's sweet, it's delicious. You don't need to know anything about the nutritional value of fruit. But if you're curious, if you want to look at the nutrition label, there's a lot built in kind of under into the foundation of the game, like leadership mechanics, like Abby: Hmm. Carissa Karban (she/her): connection to nature, indigenous and ancient wisdom, because it's a tool. And so it's this really fun opportunity to say, it doesn't need to just be one way. It doesn't need to just be hyper masculine. There can be other aspects of our lived world that we incorporate into games and that now offer at scale the opportunity for people to be exposed to different ideas and different practices. Chelsea Henderson: Wow! Abby: I'm amazed. am, I, I love so much of everything that you shared, both in terms of like people wanting to game, just to have fun, to have community, to, I even think about when I was, I did a little bit of gaming with Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars game. When I was a teenager, it was my brother's game and I got into it like hard and I created my persona. Carissa Karban (she/her): you Chelsea Henderson: fun. Abby: You know, I was like this badass buff chick with like, you know, she was awesome and it, I love how you said like it, it's that you get to play with your ideal self. I had never thought about that before. I feel like that is what I was doing was tapping into like that warrior woman spirit as a homeschooled lonely kid, you know? Like you get to play with these different archetypes, something I had never thought about. Like there's just so much, yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah, you were. Yeah! Carissa Karban (she/her): again. Mm. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Mmm-hmm. Carissa Karban (she/her): I just got chills when you said that. That's so beautiful. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Abby: Yeah, yeah, and my brother is big into gaming, ⁓ still is, always has been, and there would be times, know, like Chelsea said, that I would judge and, you know, watch him either playing games or spending money on games or whatever, but then I would also be a little bit jealous because he would have just been spending three hours hanging out with his friends. His friends that moved away, that were from middle school, that he's still in touch with because they game together in the same... Carissa Karban (she/her): Hmm. Abby: you know, reality space. So yeah, there's a lot like misunderstood, I think about games and that whole reality. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm, so cool. Okay, well, so here's something that's coming up for me that I'm curious about your perspective on, Cura. So like, I feel like humans, like, we've been trying to get to outer space, right? Like everyone was super excited when we got to the moon, and there's all these rich people who want to get out and try to colonize Mars. But I feel like the real discovery of another world for us was the internet. And maybe it was not a discovery, it was a creation. But either way, we kind of stumbled into this other world that we created. and didn't really know its vastness, what it was, what it was capable of. And we didn't really have a way to test it. So we all just kind of stumbled into the dark and we're like, whoa, okay. So some of us are going to use it in this really tame kind of Google Microsofty way. And some of us are going to go dark web and some of us are going to abstain and whatever, whatever. And it's still a really scary place. It's super new and it is vast and continues to kind of seemingly grow. And it feels like there's a lot there that could harm us and does harm us, right? And so I think when I think about games sometimes, it's hard for me, it's like the internet, it's hard for me not to think of our worst selves, right? Like men used to go to war, not just men, people used to go to war in person. It seems like we do that less now and they go to war via video games, right? These are gamers who are killing people with drones, essentially using their skills. I know that's not everybody by any means, but that's like my brain, the way I think about the internet when I'm thinking about myself on the internet, my child on the internet, my husband on the internet. It's like, this is an uncharted territory, really, that we all just have to, I think, be cautious of. And now we have AI. It's like just kind of continuing to grow on us. So first of all, I'm... incredibly inspired that you're thinking about it in a way of like, it doesn't all have to be bad, right? We can use this to our advantage, just like anything else. But do you think that there are ways for us like with these shooter games, right? Like I've played Halo at the arcade with my son and loved it and was like, Holy shit, this is the scary side of me. I'm like, blow them up, shoot them in the face, like kill it. I'm like, legit, there was an alien shooting at us and I was like, shoot him, shoot him. And then a car hit him and my son and I both left and I was like, Jesus, like we're savage. Like what just happened to us? So so I think that like for me, do you see things like what you're working on kind of coming in as this balance? Right. Like I think when we talk about embodiment, we talk about the rewilding of ourselves. Like that feels like it's a balance to what has been a long time of imbalance. Do you feel like this is a balance offering when you're talking about ⁓ we can move away from just that low hanging fruit of dopamine into a broader expansion and we can kind of continue to grow this and use this with intention. that like, does this feel I guess what I'm trying to ask is does this make you feel hopeful about this uncharted territory that feels pretty scary and ominous to me a lot of times? Carissa Karban (she/her): Mm. Yeah, I would say. Chelsea Henderson: And maybe I'm asking you to comfort me? I don't know. Carissa Karban (she/her): Well, I'm happy to share my perspective. ⁓ It may add comfort, it may not. So I can't say anything about the outcome, but I'm happy to share my perspective. I am bullishly optimistic. I'm very hopeful about the future, about AI. I would say that for me, rather than thinking of it as an offering of balance, for me, it's more an offering of integration because I believe that Chelsea Henderson: Please. Carissa Karban (she/her): the separation, the othering of parts of ourselves. Just like you said, Chelsea, you you play Halo and you're like, ⁓ I'm savage. Yeah, we're all savage. Turns out that lives inside of all of us. And I believe that most of the harm that's created is the denial that that exists inside of us. We tend to judge others. We tend to point those fingers. Chelsea Henderson: Great point. Ugh, I love that. Abby: Mm-hmm. Carissa Karban (she/her): And really it's all, they're all mirrors, right? Everybody is a mirror. Everything that we judge in somebody else or something else tends to be something that maybe we're not as comfortable or integrated in ourselves with. So for me, it's really about taking the opportunity. And I believe AI can enable a future, can enable. I'm not saying will enable, cause it really depends on the decisions that we make. And that's frankly, part of why I'm excited to be at the forefront of this technology, to be on the cutting edge, be, to have. Abby: Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: Yep. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): the opportunity to have a voice in this conversation because I believe that it can create a future where we have more time to be. We have the opportunity to look in the mirror, to reflect, to be contemplative because we're not all just identified with work and expected to work all of the time. So I'm very optimistic and hopeful about the future that could be created through AI. And I will say, I expect there to be a messy middle, just as my own personal Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Abby: Hmm. Yeah. ⁓ Carissa Karban (she/her): transformation. There have been, there's been a lot of reckoning with these parts of me that I've relegated to the shadows that I haven't looked at or I've been ashamed of. And so I think in that messy middle, I really think it's, it's people like us who are paying attention, who are wrestling with our own shadows, the things inside of us who are practicing integration. We are the leaders into the new earth and we will be here to hold space for others as they reckon with those parts of themselves. Abby: Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: I love that so much. That does actually comfort me. Thank you. And it makes me curious. Like, do you see the format that you guys are creating in Astro Puffs being able to be integrated into some of the other games that are a little bit more in that savage realm? Is that a possibility that we could begin to integrate and use all of these more as tools and entertainment? Abby: So good. Yes. Carissa Karban (she/her): Great. I certainly hope so. You know, what I'll say about Astro Puffs, the kind of tagline I'm using these days is we're creating the first shared world for humans and AI to play together. Because when we look philosophically at history, ⁓ when newcomers come onto the scene, whether we think about gender, race, culture, whatever it is, it really activates the us versus them, the bias that we all possess. It creates a lot of fear, division, oftentimes violence. And so for me, it's not just about Abby: Yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): thinking how does AstroPuffs influence other potential games, but really looking at the inevitable future we are walking towards of cohabitating with embodied AI. We look at the investments that Tesla is making in robotics, we see AI toys popping up. We're going to be seeing more and more that AI is coming to live with us in the real world. And so creating a virtual world where we can play together, we are more open to learning, we're more receptive to connection. Abby: Wow. Carissa Karban (she/her): especially in a gaming environment, when we're working towards a shared common goal, we're not as concerned about what do you look like or what's your political leaning or are you a human or an AI? I don't know. And so through that premise of play, we can start to challenge our own biases, start to let go of that fear to down-regulate our nervous system because we're safe, we're playing in this environment. Chelsea Henderson: Great. Abby: Yeah, yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Carissa Karban (she/her): that I really believe and hope can translate out into the world in how we are oriented towards a future with AI. And the last thing I'll say on that too is we are building with our AI companions in the game. We're one of the first, if not the first, I haven't seen any others. So if you know of any, send them my way. But one of the first companies that is training AI in a shared environment, a communal environment. Today, most of our AI applications are one-to-one. It's a person talking to their AI assistant or their agent. And so we think about a crowd, a multiplayer type environment that brings a whole lot of complexity in terms of training AI. So by being at the forefront and doing this and creating models that are founded in loving kindness, in emotional intelligence, in empathy, in maybe that coach, that loving challenger mindset, right? Rather than being the sycophant, we can. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: you Carissa Karban (she/her): use those agent brains across games, across industries, and hopefully in the embodied AI that we'll be living with very soon. Abby: Hmm. Chelsea Henderson: That is fascinating. Abby: I love that you brought up the sycophant-ness of the current AI that a lot of us are familiar with, which is, ⁓ that's such a great idea. Yeah, you're so spot on. You're so insightful. It's just constantly like, you're amazing. And the thought of creating an AI that's like, maybe it's saying you're wrong, or maybe it's saying, here's my perspective. Have you thought of it this way? And it's not just, yeah, how does it serve you to think that way? Chelsea Henderson: It's so obnoxious. Yeah. Have you thought of it this way? Yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): Yeah, how does it serve you to think that way? Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Mmm. Abby: Or just, yeah, it's not just that Syca fan. Chelsea Henderson: that's an interesting thing because it is I think I think a lot. Carissa, you talked about this is that one on one, right? ⁓ That that is very specific perspective and aspect ⁓ of the human ⁓ What I'm saying on one, especially with something like AI, I don't ⁓ use it that I think my generation, I'm just just past it or I just missed it. So I ⁓ I never had moment of using it. Carissa Karban (she/her): I love it. Chelsea Henderson: in an emotional sense, I use it like, hey, format this for me so that it saves me 45 minutes of work, right? Like I use it like a tool. ⁓ But I think a lot of people do. I just facilitated a workshop recently with a lot of women in their 20s who were saying they couldn't afford therapy, so they use ChatGPT. So they're having these really emotional, really intimate conversations. And that's a very specific type of information that's informing AI. And we've heard a lot about this. from talking about this with other folks of AI is the creation of white men mostly in a specific part of the world, in Western society. So it's not the voice of everyone, right? So this kind of collective informing, I think, is fascinating. And I'm curious, do you see a noticeable difference from your end in training it in that collective sense? Do you notice that it is? Carissa Karban (she/her): Hmm. Chelsea Henderson: responding differently that and what do you think is kind of the because I don't know anything about this. So in my mind, AI is like one warehouse somewhere with like a shit ton of processors just eating the rainforest alive and like that's kind of what it is. And so it's like a one. one unit thing, but it does feel like all the information pours into this kind of one source, right? So then if most of us are pouring in as it's our assistant, it's this thing that we just get it to answer our questions or it's this thing that we share intimate detail. Should I break up with him? Should I end this friendship? Should I whatever? ⁓ When you guys are training it in a collective sense, how do you see it responding to that? And do you think that that kind of information and training Carissa Karban (she/her): Hmm. Chelsea Henderson: could help it be less scary down the road for the people who think it's gonna uprise and just become our enemy in that Cylon sense. Carissa Karban (she/her): Mm-hmm. Abby: Right? Carissa Karban (she/her): Yeah, beautiful questions. I would say first, a disclaimer. I don't claim to have the answers, but happy to share my perspective. ⁓ I think what we see, especially as we look at right now, today, the big players, if we look at OpenAI, we look at Anthropic, we look at Google with Gemini. ⁓ Chelsea Henderson: Well, we don't expect you to. Carissa Karban (she/her): What we see inherently, and this is true of I believe every product, but we're seeing it at a different magnitude of scale is our embodied values become encoded in the products that we create. And so if you value profit, if you value extraction, if you value addiction, optimization, exactly, if that's what you value and what you're going after, Abby: Mm-hmm. Optimization, yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): then the product that you create is going to be very different than if you say, you know, I value connection. I value regenerative economies. I value loving kindness and maybe my motivation for doing something. Of course, you know, we're building a business, so I'm going to be the first one to say, we're going to make tons of money. Like, yes, we are thinking about making money and our profitability and our business model and go to market and all of that. And that's not why we're building. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Yes. Carissa Karban (she/her): inherently, that's not why we're building. And so my big soapboxing, as I talk to people around the Bay Area who are all involved in AI, is we can't encode what we don't embody. I believe that even with the best of intentions, even if you have a philosopher on staff who's saying, ⁓ we should be thinking about these things, if you then hand the philosophy to the programmers who don't embody, not saying they don't, but if you hand it to programmers who don't embody those values, Chelsea Henderson: Mm, yeah. Abby: Hmm. Chelsea Henderson: Wow. Abby: Good. Carissa Karban (she/her): there's a translation that inherently has to happen as people encode things through the lens through which they're viewing and experiencing the world. And so that's where we might cut corners. That's where assumptions, that's where, you know, we might collapse certain concepts together. These things happen ⁓ as a result of our embodied values. So I think maybe not a direct answer to your question, but I do think that Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Now that's a fabulous answer. Carissa Karban (she/her): it's really a time for us to look in the mirror at what do we truly value and not just what we say we value, but what do our actions say that we value? Abby: Hmm Wow Chelsea Henderson: I love that. And maybe that's something that could encourage more of us who do embody strong values around things like connection and collective shared living and resource conservation to get more involved in informing this. Because the thing that I find fascinating about AI is it really is us as much as we put into it. And I think I heard an MIT scientist saying AI could Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: solve our ecological crisis is for us if we asked it to with the right prompts, information and data. Right. So it's really all about it could also make a six breasted woman image for you to masturbate to. So it really depends on who you are. And unfortunately, there's a lot of those guys out there doing that more than there are the philosophers coming in, because the philosophers, I think, are going, Whoa, this is scary. I don't I don't want to be a part of this or this doesn't align with me. But maybe this is a reason for more of those people to get in and say, I want to have a voice in this because this is really a big part of our future. In a way that's really different than the internet. You can go on the internet and participate all day long. And it doesn't really change it that much. The only thing that changes it that much is what you consume because that's where they're going to target so they can continue to profit. It feels more of a profit engine. Abby: Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: than anything else at the end of the day to me. AI feels like it has this whole other component of being a reflection of us. Like you said, it just feels like this big giant mirror. And it just depends on what we put in front of that mirror, I guess. ⁓ OK, so then, well, no. I feel like. Abby: Wow, that is so good. Sorry. Yeah, go ahead. No, that's so good. Just for, again, for anybody out there who's scared of AI, like I'm just feeling really like hopeful and get involved. Like if you're afraid of it or if you're having these other values than what you're seeing, chat, chbte, open AI, like Gemini creating, that could be a call to step in and have your voice heard in these spaces if you are that. Carissa Karban (she/her): Hehe! Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: philosopher who is more about in-person connection, doesn't even have a phone. How can you bring your voice to this ⁓ creation? Because it's not going anywhere. Chelsea Henderson: Mm-hmm. No. No. Carissa Karban (she/her): That's ultimately what got me into it. was very resistant to AI at first and realized, know, like any, yeah, I've been studying engineering ethics for a long time and, you know, I tend to be frustrated with the idea that we constantly ask, can we, instead of should we? ⁓ And I realized, you know, the train's leaving the station, so I can either be on the train having the conversations, you know, using my voice in that way, or I can get left behind. Chelsea Henderson: Really? I really like that. Abby: And by being on the train, that's balancing that masculine feminine energy because we need more embodied, integrated, healed, know, self aware, conscious people, women, men, all the in betweens to be on that train when the train is just the hetero normative Western white man. Then that's what got us where we are. That's what created America. That's why we have no beaver, no buffalo like that is the train. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. . Abby: that got here and so like getting on that train, think that's really cool. Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Carissa Karban (she/her): And I would just, would love to add to that, you know, a lot of the times we talk about this phrase, like what got us here won't get us there, right? We need to make changes to create a different future. And I've been playing with that phrase recently and I say, we needed to get here in order to go there. So I believe that everything that has led us to this point is what enables our awareness. It's what enables the idea that we need to make any sort of changes because We don't know what we don't know. And so that's where, again, I take, you know, maybe it's a really optimistic view of the past as well, as well as the future, you know, thinking that I believe people are doing the best that they can. And I believe that even hundreds of years ago, you know, the colonizers were doing the best that they could with the information they had. truly, you know, whether they were evangelizing, whether they were colonizing, they really believed that they were bringing Abby: Hmm? Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Abby: Hmm, I love that. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): civilization, they really thought they were bringing comfort and ease and a more sophisticated way of doing things. And what we now see, what we now know is the amount of harm that is created through that imbalance, through that lack of integration, through that destruction of wisdom rather than the integration and saying we all have something to contribute. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Carissa Karban (she/her): Yeah, I think we're at this huge inflection point where we are being asked to look in the mirror. It's a catalyst. We're being asked like never before. And so I'm grateful for the activation energy that's inspiring people to look in the mirror and to make different choices. Chelsea Henderson: Okay, wow. First of all, I have chills and tears and second of all, I would hug you if you're here and you're okay with it. Obviously, I would force myself on you and third, I feel like something just healed like a little tiny thing just healed here for me. I have a really hard time with that and I love your perspective because I truly want to believe everyone is doing their best and I have a really hard time. Abby: Mm. Yeah, me too. Carissa Karban (she/her): Hmm. Chelsea Henderson: seeing it that way a lot of times because I don't know, I'm still on my healing journey, right? I mean, that part of that is not healed for me fully yet, obviously, if I'm projecting it onto others. ⁓ And I think you're absolutely right. Everything we're moving toward, we wouldn't have been able to even be here in the first place if not for. So like, for whatever reason, you know, it happened and we're here and we have all this potential. to go forward with and we have a lot of beauty here right now. And I really love that perspective. ⁓ So I'm really grateful to you for sharing that. Thank you. And I feel like that speaks to me a little bit about like, okay, I'll bring us back to our connection, the three of us. You, we never crossed paths there, but you attended classes and were part of the Welcome Goddess community here in Denver. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: well, in Golden, technically, ⁓ but in Colorado, which is where Abby and I met and you were part of that community. So obviously a lot of this kind of feminine healing, feminine, you know, rebalancing the embodiment, the healing, all of that is a part of your journey. Can you talk to me a little bit about when? Carissa Karban (she/her): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Abby: Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: A lot of this started to land for you and how your journey has gone with that because it's obviously such a beautiful perspective and it's such a beautiful balanced energy that you're bringing. Clearly you've been doing a lot of work here and I would just love to hear about that part of your journey if you wouldn't mind sharing. Carissa Karban (she/her): Hmm. Hmm. Abby: Yeah, me too. Carissa Karban (she/her): Yeah, thank you so much for the inquiry. ⁓ And also just wanted to acknowledge Chelsea too, like really appreciate you sharing your authentic, you know, ⁓ experience of what I'm saying and sharing your journey. think that anybody hearing your story that in itself is healing. So really appreciate that. ⁓ Yeah, I would say my journey has been a winding one. I spent decades deeply embodied in my masculine energy. Chelsea Henderson: Thank you. Yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): you know, listening to culture, following the quote unquote the rules, ⁓ really seeing that it's the masculine embodiment that gets you ahead, that helps you succeed, you know, in a patriarchal society that does tend to skew more towards the masculine embodiment and that value. And I would say one, I, like I said earlier, bringing in that challenger energy, I encountered a lot of challenges, but I think also embodying in my masculine and presenting as a female also created a lot of cognitive dissonance for people because the same behaviors, right? Classic, I'm not alone in this, but the same behaviors that are respected and valued when a man embodies them, I would get the negative feedback of, know, ⁓ she's aggressive, she's a bitch, she's doing this, she's too controlling. ⁓ And I will say I was, I was an aggressive bitch. I was controlling. I was all of those things. Yes. Abby: Yep. Yep. Chelsea Henderson: Been there. Yeah. Me too! Abby: Yeah, and so are the men who are that way as well. They just have a past, but they are also being aggressive and all of those things. They're just supposed to be, I guess. Exactly. Chelsea Henderson: Yes, yes, they just wear it differently. Carissa Karban (she/her): Yes. All of those things, according to culture, right? According to the familiar norms that we've kind of collectively agreed upon just by allowing it to exist. There's all some sort of collective agreement there. ⁓ And so I would say for me on my journey, I realized one, I was feeling a lot of pain. I was feeling I don't like harming people. I don't like being the bulldozer. And so that's where I'm also optimistic when I think about the pain that is being created. I'm not celebrating the pain or suffering that anybody is experiencing by any means, but I am saying that it can be an invitation. My pain was an invitation to say, okay, the way that I'm acting and behaving is creating a lot of pain inside me and I'm getting feedback that it's creating pain for others. So what's really going on here? And that has started a lot of deep inquiry and the reckoning of looking at the tendencies, the patterns, the beliefs that I've held about myself, about my place in the world, and essentially acknowledging that I was deeply embodied in my masculine. And I didn't know anything about what intuition was, what feminine wisdom was. I wasn't even attuned to my cycle or the phases of anything. ⁓ I was just very much, you know, go, go, go all of the time. And I burned myself out multiple times operating in that way. I was creating harm for myself and others. And so I was, I'm very, very grateful that I'm a deeply curious person because I was able to ignite my curiosity to say, what's really going on here? There's gotta be a better way. Maybe that's that challenger energy too, to say, there's gotta be something different that's available here. And so that really started, as I started looking around me at sisters in my network that Abby: Hmm. Carissa Karban (she/her): I felt really inspired by, know, who are dabbling in herbalism, who are getting into their intuition, who are really getting connected to their psychic abilities. It went from judgment that I had of like, ⁓ my gosh, that's garbage, it's woo woo, it's whatever, you know, to say, huh, maybe there's something here. ⁓ So it started kind of as like pulling on the thread of like, maybe I'll get it, a friend of mine gifted me my first Oracle deck and I was like, Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Carissa Karban (she/her): I'll play, I'll see what it is, right? I can just be curious, I don't have to believe in any of it. But that really started me down this path of what does it mean to listen to my intuition? What does it mean to listen to my body? ⁓ I went through a big transformation about six years ago in my relationship to my body, rather than this hierarchical top-down relationship of mind over body. I thought to say, maybe it's a partnership, right? Maybe there's a lot of wisdom, a lot of information I'm leaving on the table. Chelsea Henderson: Ugh. Abby: Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Carissa Karban (she/her): So how can I create the most effective partnership possible? And then that led me into really learning how to integrate the masculine and feminine. It's really, I think of it more as a rhythm than a balance. There are certain moments that need more masculine energy, certain moments that need more feminine. And it's been a deeply healing process for me to see that some of the challenge of embodying my feminine was because I had so many wounds around receiving. Chelsea Henderson: No. Abby: Mm. Chelsea Henderson: you Carissa Karban (she/her): I had so many wounds around slowing down, around being rather than doing. And so as I've really nurtured and nursed those wounds, I've done a lot of parts work and IFS to nurture those parts. It's really brought my feminine wisdom online, so to speak. Abby: you Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ my God. We're going to have to cut out some blank parts of this podcast because every time you talk, I can't respond. I'm bathing in it. Abby: I know, I'm just like bathing in it. Carissa Karban (she/her): Hahaha Abby: I'm just bathing in it. And I see, I keep thinking too about how it's not just women, it's men who also, the masculine feminine energies, we've said it on the show before, they are not male female. They are, there is, you know, the strong tree trunk and then the delicate leaves. Like it's this balance that exists energetically. And I just hear in your story both, you know, the masculine sort of, Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Mm-hmm. Carissa Karban (she/her): Yes. Abby: embodied women, which I've also been there before, Chelsea, I know you've been there before, like so many of us women, that is how we got ahead. That is how we got good grades and got through school and got our first jobs and started making money was very much masculine. No idea what our cycles are doing, no idea what our bodies are doing. ⁓ Push, push, push until you burn out and get an autoimmune disorder or a gastrointestinal just coming from a nursing background, your body. Chelsea Henderson: Mm-hmm. Mm. Push, push, Yeah. Abby: it breaks under that pressure and I see it both in men and women and I just keep thinking of the men out there as well who might be listening to this podcast, you never know, I know my husband listens to it, that that balancing happens for both of us. Yeah, shout out to Zach for listening. Send this to your male friends because that's part of it too, but yeah, just for all of us to. Chelsea Henderson: Hey Zach, woo woo, shout out. you Abby: Get back in touch with that. It's that softer side that receives and that trusts other people, that trusts ourselves, that trusts things outside of the mind. ⁓ Getting back in touch with that can be a ⁓ intimidating process, a vulnerable process. yeah, yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Very. But still. Carissa Karban (she/her): Yeah, and Abby, I love that you bring that up because I hear so many conversations these days, especially with women, where it's, you know, there's ⁓ an enthusiasm for sisterhood, which I love, right? Yes, coming together, sharing that sacredness, you know, coming into women's circles, whatever that looks like is amazing and very healing. And I often hear the othering of the man, you know, the vilifying, the adversarial dynamic of Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): well, men haven't let us do this or we're taking it back. And exactly to your point, that's something I've been saying for years is that men are hurting in this system too. To be cut off from our feminine, our emotions, our intuition, that's painful for all of us. And so that's where I really love to encourage people to say, yes, let's encourage the women's circles, the men's circles, the non-binary circles, the two-spirit circles. Like everybody needs a community where Abby: Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: Mm-hmm. Carissa Karban (she/her): They feel seen and resonant and safe. And we need to come together and realize that everybody is suffering in this paradigm. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm... Mm-hmm. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Abby: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the more that we can all play somewhere in the middle, you know, I just feel like there's so much there for us. Like I just spent an hour this morning doing like power lifting, dead lifts and everything like that. And that feels like so much more of like a just traditionally masculine space. Like I don't see any other women at the barbell at my recreation center in a suburb in Utah. And that's me playing in the middle a little bit. And then on the other side, like, Chelsea Henderson: Love that. Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Abby: You know, for men to have a journaling practice or to have a friend that they call and talk to when they are going through a relationship conflict. Play in the middle. And the more of us that can play in that middle space, we start to see each other as the same. Men and women are so much the same. We have separated them out into their different energies. But yeah, playing in the middle and then even bringing it back to what you do with gaming in that realm. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Mmm. Abby: being in that middle space, bringing in all of that feminine embodiment and work that you've done and bringing it to a traditionally more male-dominated space and bringing that perspective and the more of those perspectives that we have in AI, in the world that's being created, like the better we all are. Chelsea Henderson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And what I hear you talking about too is what I hear you both talking about is shifting us. I feel like we've evolved now to a point where we're ready to shift away from the othering, right? Maybe that was served us on an evolutionary level at some point to be like, I don't know what that is or who you are. And so you're I have to be wary of you. Right. But now we know. And I think there is something in what you're both saying that's so beautiful about Carissa Karban (she/her): Great. Abby: Yay. Chelsea Henderson: optimism for our future in releasing that instinct to other and recognizing the similarities because it's in the similarities. It's in the collective work. It's in I mean, Abby and I talk about this all the time collaboration, right? I don't I don't really see a lot of benefit to competition aside from like some fun at the park on a Saturday, right? Like I can beat you to that tree is a fun game. But like I can beat you in life feels destructive to everybody and I don't get it but collaboration like yeah, there's actually enough here for all of us if we work together to use it well and if that that feels like we have to take that other ing and put it to the side. It really doesn't matter at the end of the day what type of body you're in what skin color you have what religion you prefer if we're trying to survive as a species and up level as a species. So I love that what we're talking about really is like Like I do see a lot of power in healing as a woman and healing for my grandmother and my great grandmother and all the great grandmothers who weren't allowed to just be sovereign people in the world. They didn't have autonomy. They were owned and they were told what to do and told what to think. And that's a hard legacy to hold and it does deserve to be healed. And that is a little bit more of that just straight up male, female, masculine, feminine energy, perhaps. part of that as well. like, I think at this point, we're kind of moving past that. And now it's time to say, okay, we're healing all those things, and we're going to keep healing them. We're going to keep healing for the men that perpetrated that on those women as well. And look forward to something where that's just less a part of the instinct and the inclination, because it's no longer serving us. And I like how you talk about that, Carissa, to say, let's get in our women's circles and like, I have women's groups that I go to, my husband has a men's group and he comes back every time a better version of himself because he has been in the company of other humans that are interested in evolution and growth and change and challenging each other and seeing and witnessing just the same as I've come from women's groups. So it is by no means exclusive to us. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: You know, it might be a little more important in this moment, given this, you know, several thousand years of patriarchal rule that we've been living in in a very gendered way. But it's so funny to kind of hold all of those things at once and to see like, yeah, okay, this is true. And this is becoming more true. If we can kind of drop some of that and be more open, there's so much more potential for us. ⁓ And I like hearing you say that. And I do think that's something interesting with what you're creating in the game of like. AI doesn't have a gender. know, Abby and I have been fucking around with when we're mad at him, we're calling him a he. And when we love her, she's a she. I'm like, well, even that's like inherently a little shitty, but we'll let that go. But it's not we're kind of moving past that. Right. Like it's it's less and less relevant, I think those things that have caused us so much division. Abby: Yeah Hehehehehe Hehehehehe Carissa Karban (she/her): And I think for me, it's really in getting creative in how we apply it. So I said earlier, everything's a tool, right? And so I think that a lot of times I've seen people who shame themselves for having this tendency to, you know, us versus them to other, ⁓ no, I'm doing it wrong because I'm othering. And that's where it's like, let's let go of it. It's an evolutionary adaptation, you know, that has served us. But for me, it's, Abby: Yeah, it happens. Carissa Karban (she/her): in looking at how does the tool serve? Any sort of bias, any sort of behavior that goes unchecked can create harm. The simplest one to think of that I like to think of is eating sugar. There's a reason that our brain is wired to crave and desire sugar that served us, that has served us. And so the idea of saying, ⁓ I'm just gonna stop craving sugar, ⁓ it's harder to do. We can't necessarily just Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): switch off that gene expression or that wiring in our brain. And so instead it's most of us do a pretty good job of saying, okay, I need to moderate. I need to be mindful of how and when I'm consuming sugar instead of just doing it mindlessly. So for me, it's really the mindfulness because when we think of us versus them at the root of that tendency is, am I safe? Right. And so it's about picking up ⁓ signals of unsafety. Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Carissa Karban (she/her): And when I think about that, I say, well, we can just reapply that instead of us versus them looking at skin color or gender, we can look at us versus them in terms of disease, in terms of existential threats to our survival and our flourishing. So Chelsea, to your point of how do we collaborate? Because as humans, we're all in this together. So that can be the collective us and the them, the enemy that we're fighting against can be those things that threat. threaten our flourishing and our thriving. Abby: Hmm Chelsea Henderson: I love that. Yeah. Abby: That's incredible, I love that perspective. Like the other is cancer, it's disease, it's infectious disease, it's viruses, those are the others, yeah, scarcity, wow. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Carissa Karban (she/her): Exactly. Chelsea Henderson: Climate change. Yes. Okay. So that's also something that makes me feel helpful. Okay. I have to ask you because we've been talking about this embodiment. What if you don't mind sharing are some rituals that you have kind of taken into your everyday. This is something that I've been looking at for myself. I think I've had rituals that have been with me since my childhood. Carissa Karban (she/her): It's scarcity. It's scarcity. Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ And in the last couple of years of feeling like I kind of, you know, cracked open, fell apart, rebuilt a little bit. ⁓ Some of them serve, some of them don't. Some of them feel really good. Some of them don't have the same feeling anymore. And I find myself more and more curious about what other embodied women are doing in that sense. So are you, you know, ⁓ what Do have a regular movement practice? Are you still using oracle cards regularly? Like, would you mind sharing with us some of the ritual that you utilize to kind of stay in that embodied space? Carissa Karban (she/her): Yes, I will say it's definitely a practice. ⁓ And I do have, I have daily rituals and then I have, you know, monthly rituals, things that I love to lean into. But I think for me, I have a daily practice of meditation and breath work, especially the breath work helps keep me embodied. I like to say that meditation helps me connect to my divine nature and then the breath work helps connect to my embodied nature. So I do that every day. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Abby: Mm-hmm. Carissa Karban (she/her): Even if it's just five or 10 minutes, know, something small to connect intentionally to my breath, to wake up my body and say hello. I go for daily walks every morning, rain or shine. Typically, I love to get the sunshine in my eyeballs, get that early cortisol spike to help my circadian rhythm. And I just, I love the movement, you know, whether I'm listening to podcasts or talking to my co-founder or friends, whatever it is, having that movement practice is really great. And then. I tend to, at the end of the day, I wind down by doing some form of yoga, some form of stretching, know, just again, connecting to my body and checking in with how am I feeling. So I'd say those are sort of my consistent grounding practices every day. And then typically I've really cultivated a practice of when I feel a strong emotion, I feel the thing. And then I get curious, where am I feeling this in my body? What's the shape of it? What's the texture? What's the color? does it taste like something? And I get curious about that sensation in my body because we haven't talked about it specifically, but I'm sure you've all heard of or read the body keeps the score. And so I lean into that as a way to release a lot of the tension that I'm feeling. ⁓ So I get curious. I might do some movement practice around releasing it. I'm a big fan of ⁓ trembling like TRE. ⁓ Abby: Hmm. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Abby: Mm-hmm. Carissa Karban (she/her): releasing trauma in these ritualized way to say, don't know what I'm releasing, but I need to release something. ⁓ And something that a friend of mine introduced me to, I used to listen to music that was more about the mood I wanted to be in as a way to help me shift my energy. And she really encouraged in this somatic practice to start listening to music that helps you express what you are feeling. ⁓ So if I'm angry, I won't go straight to a calm song because I want to feel calm. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: Mmm. Carissa Karban (she/her): I'll listen to something that allows me to express the anger or the grief or the sadness, whatever it is. And then I'll transition into a different energetic space once I feel complete in that expression. And I think that really helps because otherwise I tend to kind of lock into it. My shoulders contract, my neck gets really tight. ⁓ And then I'll do it with plug. My partner gives me massages very, very frequently because Abby: ⁓ Carissa Karban (she/her): I'm constantly feeling that tension, especially as a co-founder. ⁓ So having a strong support network also really helps when I ask him, yes, shout out, shout out to those who are supporting us. Yes, absolutely. Chelsea Henderson: Heck yes. Another shout out. ⁓ yeah. Abby: Yes. Chelsea Henderson: Absolutely. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. I feel like that's something that I, you sometimes you just get caught up in life, right? In the day to day. I, one of my mentors always says that she says humans are very forgetful creatures and it makes me feel so comforted to be like, yeah, I am forgetful. And so I feel like every time I have this, this opportunity to connect, I want to hear that. And I'm like, ⁓ Carissa Karban (she/her): Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ yeah, I forgot about that. I love to do that kind of thing, right? And I think that is so cool. And that music thing, that's a really fabulous. Awesome. Carissa Karban (she/her): Mm-hmm. Abby: That's a really good point. It's a great perspective. Because it'll shift naturally. At least when I've leaned into that with music, listening to more of a heavy, angry song, it'll naturally shift that after three to 10 songs. I'm like, OK, I'm ready for some yoke lore now. Chelsea Henderson: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's played out. Carissa Karban (she/her): Yeah, think that's the thing. Emotions are meant to flow, right? Energy in motion, right? We can use all of these, like look at the play on words, but it's meant to flow through us. It's really when we hold onto it, when we clamp down on it, that's when it starts to create the inflammation and a lot of those problems that you were talking about, Abby. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Mmm. Abby: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that's shadow work that you were talking about earlier for anyone who's not familiar with that term That's what Chris was mentioning earlier that if you were judging someone else for something that that might be something that we're actually curious about for ourselves when I'm judging my brother for playing video games Maybe I'm kind of curious about how he's able to connect with his friends that way and I have friends that I don't connect with anymore That it's just data. It's data for curiosity when you find yourself judging Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Mm-hmm. Abby: something that maybe you just don't understand it. Yeah, and same with emotions. When we label certain emotions as bad and certain emotions as good, we push the bad emotions down into the literal cells of our body where they are held with all of that energetic tension. And then that starts to become disease as our body cannot hold that energetic frequency for in a definite period of time. It wants to flow. Like you said, it wants to get out and move through our bodies. Chelsea Henderson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Abby: Yeah, use music to like use the mood that you're in and let it flow. There's no emotions to be afraid of. They're all just data. Chelsea Henderson: Mm-hmm. Mmm. Ugh, okay, well... Carissa Karban (she/her): We try to control them rather than feel them oftentimes. Give yourself permission to feel it. Chelsea Henderson: Yes, and that's where the sticky point comes in. And that I think is where it becomes the story. That's where it becomes the story of my woes, know, the story of my crappy relationships or whatever it is. And it's amazing how then we become so invested in narrating that story. And I found that a lot recently. Yeah, where I'll have a ⁓ thing that happens. mean, yesterday I like bumped myself in something and it hurt really bad. Abby: Yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): Mm-hmm. Abby: and backing it up. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: this memory of this person that I'm no longer friends with that I, you know, I have this like really intense emotion attached to and all of a sudden this person was in my head and I and I was just like, ⁓ well, there you are telling your story again. Like that is so interesting. Like that's not you just got hurt. You felt the you know, and it's so funny how that like just the tailspin of it and it just identifying it as the story. Suddenly I was like, you know, like that's not Abby: Hmm. Chelsea Henderson: That doesn't have to stay. That doesn't have to stick here. That's not. It's just a passing thing. It's a fleeting hormone. And I can just wish myself peace and grace, wish them peace and grace and just keep on going. And it just moved through so quickly. And I think 20 year old me, that would have been my day. Right. And just would have been my then I would have been fighting and I would have been I would have been, ⁓ this is like happening to me. And it's incredible the agency that that creates. Just like, OK. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: There's the story. That's okay. Let's just keep going. Let it flow. And then turns out it does. And then it's done. It's amazing. Carissa Karban (she/her): It absolutely does. Yeah, it's so funny. My co-founder and I actually play this game called Peace No Peace. You know, when I'm feeling peace, when I'm embodied, I'm not overthinking things, I'm not analyzing, I'm just present. I'm allowing whatever needs to flow through to come through. And so whenever we start to realize, ⁓ I'm triggered, I'm feeling something really intense, I'm not feeling peace, that's when I usually will say, I'm compromised. Abby: Yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): meaning I can't trust the stories that are coming up because they're going to be informed by the past, by my wounds, by whatever it is. so it's like, okay, I'm compromised. I need to get back to a place of peace and then we can move forward. Abby: Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yes. Abby: I love that. Chelsea Henderson: I love that. I love it. Yes, please. Yes, that was me yesterday. I seriously bumped my hand on the counter and suddenly I hate the counter. like that was so compromised. Like it's an inanimate object. Like we can't hit the counter, but it's so funny how it just triggers this response. It's like it's so layered. I love that. Yes, let's please. We're going to adopt that if you guys don't mind. Abby: Let's start using that, Chelsea. Can we start using that as co-founders of Modern Sacred? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): But it's also Chelsea, it's so interesting the way that you said that, right? Cause it's like, it's an inanimate object. And I think this ties back to the AI conversation too, where it's an invitation to look at our relationship to the thing, right? It's never the thing itself. Yeah, the counter was just there, but, and I'm not gonna assume I know what stories were underlying, but I'll say for myself, you sometimes if I hit something, I go into self criticism or judgment because, ⁓ I was clumsy. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yes. Yes. Carissa Karban (she/her): Right, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going. I'm always this way or I'm never that way. I wish I was better. I wish I was different. And so that's where I think AI is this catalyst and this mirror exacerbating what has always been true. It's always been our relationship to the thing, not the thing itself. And that's where the invitation can come in to say, why did I get so upset about hitting myself on the counter? Sure, there's the pain, the physical pain that was caused in the moment. Chelsea Henderson: Yep. Carissa Karban (she/her): but it actually activated a story that I'm not good enough because I was criticized as a kid for always being clumsy and breaking things. And that can actually activate a wound. And so it's all that invitation into our own healing. Chelsea Henderson: Mm-hmm ⁓ Abby: Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. Yes. I love that you say that and that was my experience yesterday with just being like, this is just a story you're telling like that moment is done and we've really moved past that moment and there is and I think this goes back to something you said earlier is like for me, it triggered a feeling of unsafety. The unsafety of someone that I once loved and trusted no longer feeling like a trustworthy source, no longer feeling like a source of love. Abby: Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: given or received and that's a hard space to be in, right? That's a hard thing to lose, a hard shift to experience. And so it does come up when something comes out of nowhere and bites me, you know, even if it is a counter that's there all the time in the same space, you know, and that self-criticism, of course, jumps in because it's like I'm responsible for all these things. This is my fault. I should have done all of that differently, including Carissa Karban (she/her): Hmm. Chelsea Henderson: being more aware of my hand in the space in this moment with the counter that's always there. And the reality is like, you know, there's a lot going on. We're human beings. Like it's okay. Like I don't always have to be fully in command of my arms in the space. Sometimes I bump things and there's a lot of what I felt in that moment as I let those hormones pass through, as I let those emotions pass through and not clamp down on them, right? Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: is there's just this additional space of healing of like I had that moment of like like I've been really working on this in myself love journey of loving myself the way I love my son the way I love my dogs my husband right that just like I love you I love you I love you I love you and like in that moment I was like okay I love you I love you I love you I love you like it's all right you're okay your hand is okay you are safe right and peace and love to Abby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Chelsea Henderson: that me that was in that relationship with that person to that person who they were then who they are now and then and then it's just like the whole and I'll say this might have happened either way. I don't know. I believe the rest of my day flowed with beauty and intention and every person that I interacted with shared loving energy shared peaceful energy. I met people here. They met me here. We were in this even plane of exchange. Abby: Yeah. Yeah. Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: I was present. So I believe that that moment of allowing myself to just be human and to experience pain and loss and grief and to love myself and to let it flow, then just set myself up even better for what was yet to come in my day. you know, ⁓ it is a beautiful space to hold, I think, for ourselves because it can be so easy to do that thing of like. Abby: Hmm. Chelsea Henderson: I'm so clumsy. Like what the hell? Like that counter's always there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Abby: It's an opportunity for embodiment. Going back to what you were saying earlier that we can't encode what we don't embody. I wrote that down because that's just so good. like, you should like coin that. But you know, even in that moment, like I had a mentor who said everything is spiritual practice and that's an opportunity when you hit a counter or you hit a car. It's like, okay, this is the varying levels of spiritual. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm! Carissa Karban (she/her): Hmm. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): Hahaha Abby: opportunity for me to practice embodying self-love, embodying compassion, feeling my feelings, letting myself be really upset for a day that I got an offender bender with a parked car, which happened to my husband just this week. just to watch him, shout out to Zach, sorry Zach that I'm bringing it up. But, you know, just watching him go through. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Shout out to Zach. Again. Carissa Karban (she/her): you Chelsea Henderson: We love him. He's a lovely human. Carissa Karban (she/her): Trigger warning. Abby: He's amazing. watching him go through just the shame of like, I hit a parked car, like we had a lot of construction going on on our street. There were cars everywhere and there's a hole, there's a big pothole that our Prius would like sink in. So you have to be careful of that. And there's so much that we're taking in every time we drive a car that to hit. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Mm. Abby: ⁓ you know, to get on a little fender bender or bump another car once every 10 years, once every five years, but it's amazing how much shame we can get in around that story and insurance premiums are gonna have to go up and all of this, but you know, I had an opportunity to just hold the space for him. like, I'm not upset, you know, it happens. You had a lot going on and also it could have been a lot worse, you know, and maybe you weren't supposed to drive to Chipotle for dinner tonight, maybe. Carissa Karban (she/her): No. Chelsea Henderson: You're safe. Abby: The universe was protecting you from a bigger accident with someone who wouldn't have seen you. And we don't know what the whole story is, but I know that this is a big deal. And it was our neighbor's car, and she likewise stayed very calm and was like, bummer, you know, let's exchange information. Any three of us could have been like, why is your car there? And what are you doing? Watch where you're going. And it could have escalated, but it didn't. We were all able to stay. Carissa Karban (she/her): No. over. Chelsea Henderson: you Abby: embodied and calm and like that is that collective uprising when we can all do that for ourselves then we can extend that to others and we can stay calm even in pretty elevated situations and like that's how we raise the boats i think Carissa Karban (she/her): Mm. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Mmm. Abby: I just wanted to give you opportunity to share a little more about Astro Puffs ⁓ because ⁓ I, ⁓ for anybody there listening, interested in playing Astro Puffs or ⁓ looking at it for their ⁓ like who is this game What is the game set up? Who are you creating it for? ⁓ Feel free to just go for and tell us more about your game. Chelsea Henderson: Ugh, love that you asked that. Carissa Karban (she/her): Yeah, thank you so much for the space. ⁓ So I'll use some gamer speak and then I'll explain what I mean. So we're building a mobile native open world cozy multiplayer. So lots of words in there. Basically that means we're building right now, our first release will be on iOS. ⁓ Mobile games are a huge growing market and we are building with AI companions as the non-player characters or NPCs. So you can actually have quests that unfold conversationally, they remember you, they have that context. It's actually really fun. I was pitching on a big stage recently and before my pitch, I was talking to one of the characters about, you know, I have this pitch coming up and then later in a kind of different conversation, the character, you know, I said, oh, I have to go get ready for my pitch and it said, oh, good luck with your pitch at, you know, GDC Festival of Gaming. Like it was really fun that it remembered even things that I hadn't talked to. like outside of the game that I had talked to it about. So that was really fun. So it is a cozy game. So think in the likes of ⁓ Animal Crossing or Hello Kitty Island Adventure, like super cute, cozy characters. It's open world. So we do have the typical cozy game. You you go on quests, you can collect items, recycle them, craft new tools. It's really the conversation with those AI companions that sets us apart. So there's no violence, there's no shooting, it's definitely not a shooter game. We don't have any form of violence, not even fishing or anything like that in the game. But it is multi-dimensional. So we have right now about five dimensions in the game. In addition to you have like a main level, you can go explore our ice cream dimension, our underwater dimension. It's a lot of fun ⁓ as you're discovering the world. Abby: So fun. Carissa Karban (she/her): Right now we are in a closed alpha stage. you unfortunately you can't go to the app store and download it just yet. We're still building. We're still developing, but we do have a playable game. So if anyone wants to play test with us, I would encourage you to sign up for our wait list at astrapuffs.com. It's Astra like the stars, not Astro ⁓ astrapuffs.com would love to have you join our wait list. Sign up to play test. And follow us on social media. We're creating a lot of content, showcasing the game, really building in public, highlighting what it is that makes our game unique and showing some of the gameplay with our super cute characters and fun adventures and even a chaos log of the bugs that we're encountering along the way. Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ that is so fun. Abby: Okay, I just love learning more about it. That sounds so fun. And even that little interaction where you told a character, an AI character, nom with his chair upstairs. ⁓ Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Sorry. That's a shout out to my husband, who is a baby elephant. Yes, ladies. I married a baby elephant. Please continue. It's an earthquake. We're fine. Abby: I was like, what is that? ⁓ But what I was saying with that interaction with that other, that AI player, if you are a child or someone who you're developing empathy, how good it feels to tell someone something and then later have them say, how'd that go? Or, yeah, have fun doing that thing you told me and I could see it. Carissa Karban (she/her): Hmm Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Abby: doing something in them that goes, oh, that felt so nice that they remembered, and that models to them to do that with their friends. In the real world, if their friend says, you know, I'm having a birthday party, then next time you see them, how was your birthday party? Like, I remember that made me feel good. So it's like bringing in that element of like, just teaching kids or everybody how good it feels to have someone remember what you talk about. Carissa Karban (she/her): Yeah, I mean, it's really, it's friendship, right? You we talked earlier about the sycophantic nature of many of the AI tools out there that are just presumably sitting there waiting for you to come talk to it, right? And it's reactive and yeah, it just gives you kudos for anything you say. And that's just not real friendship. We think we want yes people, but we actually want people who remember us, who challenge us. It's more dynamic. It's more real. Abby: Yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): And so I think that's really important to keep in mind. And one other thing I did want to clarify too is our first release will be 18 plus. So I like to say that we're designing with kids in mind, but we're not designing for kids because so we have moderation techniques built in so that if let's say a player is cursing or describing something, you know, using hateful language, they will get put into a bubble. Abby: Okay. Carissa Karban (she/her): so they can't interact with other players in the game. However, they can still interact with the Astra puffs because we don't believe in excommunication and just kicking people out. We really believe in de-escalation and rehabilitation. So you can still talk to those Astras. They can get curious, ask you questions about, you having a bad day? Maybe someone got an offender bender, right? And they just need a place to vent and express. So instead of kicking people out of the game, Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Carissa Karban (she/her): you can still interact with our non-player characters. However, we also understand that AI is a very rapidly evolving technology. And while we believe we have great experience that lends itself to encoding technology more safely, ⁓ more consciously, we also understand that there are unknown unknowns. And so our first release will be for adults because we don't want to unknowingly create harm or Abby: Mm-hmm. Carissa Karban (she/her): something we couldn't anticipate. There are a lot of lawsuits right now with these chat companions because they're evolving. People are using them in ways that we don't anticipate. ⁓ eventually kids will be welcome on the platform but not in our first release. Abby: Okay, that's good to know. Yeah, cool, cool. So I'm like, can we make that real? Chelsea Henderson: Also the bubble, I love that. Can we make that real in real life? Having a moment, I need to go in my bubble because no one should hear me right now. Carissa Karban (she/her): Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Abby: They're like, Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ my gosh. Okay, well, we're gonna put all this information in the show notes so that everybody can find this too, because I think this is something that people should be involved in and helping to inform. That's so awesome. And how fun is that? I love it. Okay, so I wanna wrap up by asking you one of our kind of questions. Again, like we start out with these questions, we kinda like to keep up through line. ⁓ So the one I want for you, and this is going to be kind of interesting to me because I look at you and I see a very successful woman, obviously in a spiritual sense and an embodied sense and in a material sense. I mean, you just seem to have your shit tight and I love it. ⁓ But I would love to know from your perspective how you define success for yourself. And do you feel like you are meeting that definition? What do you feel like you have to shift or challenge regularly to stay? aligned with that definition. Carissa Karban (she/her): Hmm. I love that question. Thank you so much. It's something I've been wrestling with very recently, so timely. ⁓ Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Damn. Carissa Karban (she/her): How I measure success today is, am I present? Am I aligned? Am I acting from a place of love? If I can, every day if I can answer those questions affirmatively, then I am successful. And it's really hard to maintain that sort of north star of how I measure success when, especially, Chelsea Henderson: you Mm. Carissa Karban (she/her): being in the heart of Silicon Valley and startup culture, there's hustle, there's, I'm kind of taking a little bit of a mental health break this week because I was getting really burned out because I do get caught up with all of the awareness and all the work I've done. I still end up oftentimes thinking, why isn't this outcome happening? Or I need to be doing more. I need to be working harder and questioning my value, questioning, am I successful? Am I adding value? And right now, A lot of it comes down to giving myself grace, remembering that I'm doing something wildly ambitious and very risky and deeply uncertain. So increasing my capacity for uncertainty has been a step towards success for sure. Because I believe that when we exit the present moment, because we're playing past conversations, we're thinking about past wounds or Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: yes. Carissa Karban (she/her): For me, I tend to project into the future and try to solve and do things in this hypothetical future that doesn't exist. I'm not living. I am not living my life to its fullest because life only happens right here, right now. So the more I can practice what I call radical presence flow and non-attachment, that's success. Chelsea Henderson: Hmm. Abby: Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: Whoa. Okay, I'm becoming sycophantic, because you're fucking awesome and I really like everything that you say. Abby: Beautiful. Yeah, you are amazing. Chelsea Henderson: turning into a Silicon Valley AI! Carissa Karban (she/her): But you can still tell me no. You can still challenge me. Chelsea Henderson: Okay, well, thank you so yeah Listen, we're going squad side. Okay, we're real women in the real world and we really like you Okay, so thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are awesome And what you're doing is awesome and your presence is amazing Abby: you Carissa Karban (she/her): squad versus sycophant right where we had their important nuances there yeah Abby: Squad, squad. Carissa Karban (she/her): you Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: So thank you so much for being here sharing this with us. And ⁓ we want to talk again and hear how things go after the release of the game let's keep the conversation going. Hopefully you are amazing. Abby: Yes. Carissa Karban (she/her): Absolutely, the honor and the privilege is mine. Thank you so much for holding this space. Thank you for creating these conversations, for asking beautiful questions, and for doing your own work and sitting in it. I think, Abby, you alluded to this earlier, but a rising tide raises all boats, right? All flourishing is mutual. We are in this together. So whatever we can do to lean into each other, support each other, hype each other up, I am here for it. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm, yes. Abby: Yeah. Yep. you, Carissa. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your presence. I know you mentioned astropuffs.com. Where else can people, you know, find you and find your work if they're interested in learning more? We'll put it in the show notes as well, but for anyone who's just listening. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Carissa Karban (she/her): Yeah, these days I tend to be most active on LinkedIn. So you can find me on LinkedIn, Carissa Carbon. I'm also on Instagram, ⁓ wild underscore moss underscore ⁓ really reintegrating with the earth and becoming moss once again. And I'll say it here to hold myself accountable. I'm in the process of creating a new YouTube channel called Transmissions from the Crucible as I live through founder life and, you know, recording these raw unfiltered Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Abby: ⁓ Carissa Karban (she/her): unplanned sessions of what it's like to be in this life right now. Chelsea Henderson: you are ready to share it because that is awesome. ⁓ I think we need more of that the social spaces. Just the reality of human life. Like, yeah, this is what it really looks like. And it's messy. That's okay. ⁓ Well, Carissa, you are a joy. Thank for being with us. And thank you to our audience. We love you all. And we will see you next time. Carissa Karban (she/her): All right. Thank you so much. Abby: Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Carissa Karban (she/her): Thank you.