Silvia Vasquez-Lavado, IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOUNTAIN: A Memoir of Courage
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now.
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[0:58]Sylvia Vasquez-Lavado is the author of In the Shadow of the Mountain, a memoir of courage,
[1:04]which by the way, I loved.
[1:06]Sylvia is a humanitarian mountaineer, explorer, social entrepreneur, and technologist,
[1:10]living in San Francisco.
[1:12]In 2014, she launched courageous girls, a nonprofit that helps survivors of sexual abuse
[1:17]and trafficking with opportunities to find interest and cultivate their voices
[1:21]by demonstrating their physical strength.
[1:23]courageous girls has had projects in Nepal, India, the United States, and Peru.
[1:28]Vasquez-Lavado was recognized by Fortune magazine as one of the corporate heroes of 2015.
[1:33]Scenet, named her one of the 20 most influential Latinos in Silicon Valley.
[1:37]She has also been recognized by the Peruvian government as one of the Marco Peru ambassadors,
[1:42]country brand ambassadors.
[1:44]She is a member of the Explorers Club and one of the few women in the world to complete the seven
[1:48]summits.
[1:49]Welcome, Sylvia.
[1:50]Thank you so much for coming.
[1:51]On mom's, don't have time to read books to discuss in the shadow of the mountain, a memoir of courage.
[1:57]Thank you, Sylvia.
[1:58]What an honor.
[1:59]I have been looking forward to these conversations, so I'm so thrilled.
[2:03]Thank you.
[2:03]I don't know if you got my note, but when I finished this, I was just sitting.
[2:08]I read it right in this chair here and I just had my hand over my heart and I was like,
[2:12]oh my gosh, and I went on DM Instagram and I was like, this is the most powerful memoir I've
[2:17]read and so long. This is amazing. So anyway, thank you.
[2:21]Thank you.
[2:22]I finished reading it and I just felt like, oh my gosh, the intersection of your, well, you know,
[2:27]I should let you talk about what the book's about, but I was just going to say this intersection of
[2:31]of the climbing and just getting through all that and all this stuff you've got through in your
[2:36]personal life and how it all just like intersect and came together beautifully at the end.
[2:42]Oh my gosh, I feel like I just went on such a journey with you and it was amazing.
[2:45]Well, I mean, that was my dream. That was a goal for me when putting the story out and it is
[2:51]funny, but even though the book hides as a climbing journey, it's not really like a climbing book.
[2:58]No, no, no. It is, it is a story of us. It is actually, and I think that was my dream.
[3:04]I mean, for me to put the story out there and you know, as you were asking me, what is the book about?
[3:09]It is this personal, very personal role intimate journey. This book is this almost open circle
[3:16]about, you know, going through, through this journey of what happens when you isolate yourself,
[3:24]when you're not able to really rely on community, when you're not, when you actually allow shame
[3:31]to try to overtake your life and when you feel you're alone. And for me, the dream of this book was
[3:38]to totally shatter all these notions and actually what we do to ourselves whenever, you know,
[3:47]when we fester by ourselves with just all of our suffering and to understand the beauty
[3:54]of what happens when we can reconnect with others, especially when we are willing to just hear each
[4:00]other out, support each other, the community that we can create. And even when we are able to be
[4:07]out in nature, just a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful gifts of transformation that can happen.
[4:14]And so it is this really role, vulnerable, very human story. And it's a story of all of us,
[4:21]especially what we have gone over the last couple of years. You know, who hasn't dealt with
[4:26]shame, addiction, loss, and one way or another, not particularly maybe affecting your, you know,
[4:32]to you. But yeah, I mean, to me, this was my only way to, I think this was the biggest gift I
[4:40]was able to give myself to allow for once and for a little rate myself. And I went at it with
[4:46]everything, never not holding anything back. Well, the response as a reader who didn't know you
[4:53]before now feels like, you know, I'm like, so invested in your life. And like, I, I was like,
[4:59]I want to hug this woman. Oh my gosh. The starting with what you went through as a child,
[5:04]and the way you wrote about Jay and all of the sick stuff that you didn't even realize. And the,
[5:13]the, the remembering the hopes that you had that like, it would all make sense at some point,
[5:19]and that you could even remember and then articulated so well that like, this is how you made
[5:25]sense of it at the time. And all of that is a child and the way that you tell it. I mean,
[5:31]you were like his age. I mean, my son is here in the background. You were like a little,
[5:36]the, the innocence met with what happened. I don't know if you feel comfortable even discussing it.
[5:42]I mean, I know you wrote about it. It's, it's out, it's out there. Absolutely. That's,
[5:49]that's been the purpose of it. And I know it's made many people uncomfortable, but, but to me,
[5:54]the, the aspect of it is to be able to bring it out, because I think it was so tough to even for me.
[6:01]I, I was thinking, this is, this, this whole writing of this book has been possibly the hardest
[6:09]mountain I have ever had to climb in my life. And I, and you know, now I've been four years
[6:14]sober. So I had to do it. You know, I really was embracing all these emotions were very first time
[6:20]in my life, but I really needed to do it. And, and I mean, it was heartbreaking to be able to go
[6:26]back to that innocence. And, I mean, and I think I just know that I am not alone. And I know
[6:34]these resonates with a lot of people and just, you know, and the way that even, even we're making
[6:41]so many strides by now, society in general is still there is still so much stigma to it.
[6:49]Many families, even in my own community, many, many families even from my own family was even
[6:54]hard. And they, it's almost like, you don't want to touch. You want to be able to face
[6:59]that, you know, things like this can happen and how can it affect. And so for me, and
[7:04]I will just say, see, we right now, my whole dream. And I felt like put myself out there. And,
[7:12]and, you know, to get the sweet reaction that you've gotten as if, like, you want to give me a hug,
[7:16]that is how I am, I'm, I'm, I'm receiving this book. And it's, it's such a beautiful gift. So,
[7:23]I mean, it's, this is more than a dream come true for me.
[7:26]Oh, well, I'm, I'm sure it couldn't have been easy. I mean, if I were writing these stories,
[7:31]I don't even know. I think I would just have tears like, I feel like my keys on my, on my computer would
[7:37]just be drenched going through it. But especially the loss. My gosh, the part about the,
[7:43]the scene, I don't want to give things away. But the bridge that day, the way you told the
[7:48]little story, oh my gosh, I mean, I could, I could literally cry just thinking about it again. It
[7:52]was like so emotional. Oh my gosh. And I said, and I, what I was doing a lot is, and I love it
[7:58]because that is, I kept having to take my own medicine while writing it. I remember, and, and
[8:04]luckily for me, one of the most beautiful, I guess, tools that I have learned that helped me
[8:10]stay strong and sober through this experience was to develop a lot of compassion meditation.
[8:17]I was able to learn that way ahead of writing the book. And a lot of it is, you know, to have to give
[8:24]yourself that space if, if things are getting really hard and, and, you know, and I would,
[8:30]that times, I mean, I don't know if it was kind of, I hope people don't take it the wrong
[8:34]way. But the pandemic on that degree was a blessing in these guys for me because I really needed to
[8:40]be alone and center and just simply focus. And there'll be times when, you know, getting through
[8:46]the scenes would be so hard. And I would be crying my eyes out. And I simply would be practicing
[8:53]self-compassion. And I would be putting my, my hands on, on my heart. Wow. And speaking of love,
[8:59]we have your love. Yes. You can call her. I have all the colored pencils right there.
[9:03]This is so sweet. It's so sweet. He wasn't the other. The other, but I just felt like he was
[9:11]so lonely in there. Anyway, this is so, it is so sweet. At the end, you know, I mean, we're talking about
[9:17]community. We're talking about family. And this is what really matters. I mean, this is, yeah,
[9:22]well, my, my whole show is monster and have time. It's like my whole brand. And it's like, it's very
[9:26]on brand for me. I guess what? And here right now, this is, I mean, this is, this conversation
[9:31]couldn't be any perfect. No, I'm serious. I mean, as we're connecting and as we're talking about,
[9:37]I mean, like the hardest thing for me as an adult, and this has been the gift liberating myself,
[9:43]you know, I had the shadow of, of just that pain, you know, I mean, of that little innocence
[9:49]has been stolen and really rekindling with, you know, my, you know, just kind of my own little girl
[9:57]and actually it is something that-
[10:00]You know, as we grow older, especially when things get on our way live, I think we sometimes
[10:06]tend to, tend to undermine just that importance. I mean, what can make us happy? What is, you know,
[10:12]goes back to that essence. At the end of the day, doesn't matter how old we are, we still all have
[10:17]that little child inside of us. And so, you know, if some of us had to do some things, it's
[10:24]matter of bringing it, you know, kind of living with it together and reconnecting to all of it.
[10:31]So true. I have to say, I mean, I love memoir, like memoir is by far my favorite genre to read,
[10:36]and I can read memoirs all day. Oh my gosh, I could just, but I've started to, you know,
[10:43]I feel like I went into this, there are so many stories, not to the extent necessarily of yours,
[10:52]not to compare, but just similar stories of child abuse, child molestation, child, you know, all of this
[10:59]that I'm actually feeling more distrustful of men. I'm like, how can there be so many men who
[11:08]have done this? Like for every writer who shares, there are so many stories of they're unspoken
[11:15]to anyone or certainly publicly. And it's just the magnification of that when you think about
[11:22]a society in which this has happened to so many young people. What does that do when people grow up?
[11:27]And I mean, you've overcome this in such an amazing way, and you can see the emotional work that
[11:32]you've done. And you're very open about the times when you weren't handling it and, you know, that
[11:38]your life was sort of falling apart, not because necessarily of this, but just as life can do. But
[11:44]I don't know. Sometimes I'm just like, oh my gosh, how could there be so many awful, awful men out
[11:50]there? So many to do this to kids, it blows my mind. And I feel that is one of the other dreams for
[11:59]me with this book is to bring shame out of the forefront. So just keep bringing it out of the shadows,
[12:04]keep bringing the this notion that yeah, maybe we no longer have this kind of issue. And I think
[12:11]more than anything is to be able to give power to other survivors, not just women, a lot of
[12:17]a lot of men as well. That's true. It's true. I mean, it's just children. I mean, just in general,
[12:24]I mean, being able to bring it out in the forefront, being able to to cross through that stigma.
[12:29]And the more that we can share those stories, those hard journeys, that is what creates a change
[12:36]within even, I mean, especially me being a Latina within my community. It's a lot of like, and the
[12:42]number of sweet, you know, notes and reaches out that I've got a received of people telling me like,
[12:48]God, is this happening to me? I couldn't tell my family, you know, or my mom doesn't want me to
[12:53]say anything. We just need to break through that. And that to me is part of a bigger conversation.
[12:59]I mean, the dream is like, we can end this as a society, as a global society. I am so grateful as
[13:05]well of all the work that we have done from even from the time that I had to endure through this
[13:10]to now. And that is still, you know, we can't stay this content. We have to continue further.
[13:17]And so that's something that excites me about being able to bring. I mean, for me, for example,
[13:22]when I'm bringing the book down to Peru, I mean, we're translating into Spanish.
[13:27]That's great. Yes, we are. And, you know, we, this stigma, we have to work, I mean, like,
[13:33]I'm going to Peru when we're translating the book in Spanish, which is for me, it's a gift,
[13:38]and we'll have it here in the Spanish world in the US. But in Peru, particularly the way that
[13:44]it's been received, at least this whole idea, we're going to be able to develop almost
[13:49]this workshop to be able to bring this around when we do a little book tour in the country and
[13:55]be able to work with because with actually how to break and overcoming the shame and the stigma.
[14:01]I mean, the percentage is even though here, we've made so many strides in so many places,
[14:06]still, it is forbidden. And so this is to me, you know, part of my work for the rest of my life,
[14:13]I mean, being able to continue bringing this journey. And I think, you know, the first
[14:17]brave step for me was to totally be as wrong, as vulnerable, as open, and being able to invite
[14:24]others and tell them, you know, we're not alone. And, you know, we still are intact. We're still
[14:29]a beautiful, we still are whole. Well, I hope this wins all sorts of awards and all of that.
[14:36]I'm serious because it's so, I mean, I don't like using the word brave because everybody
[14:42]always talks about memoirs being so brave, but it is brave, but it's also just such a generous act.
[14:49]It's just so generous of you to share this much of yourself with the world and also to
[14:54]write in such a beautiful way. I mean, it's not just, this is not like a diary just thrown down here.
[14:59]I mean, it's literary, right? Your sentences are really well crafted. And I just, anyway,
[15:07]I don't know what to say. I'm a fan. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say.
[15:11]I don't know. I mean, I listen. Tell me a little more about the writing, like, as a craft for you.
[15:19]And so how you honed that skill. And if there were books that you feel like we're really
[15:25]instrumental in your journey or other huge influences on your writing.
[15:31]I feel that for me, I, my agent disagrees, but I tell everyone we all have a bookiness.
[15:39]We all have our own stories. I mean, and that is true. We all have our own journeys. And just
[15:46]as you, as you were mentioning, to me memoirs are my favorite read. There's something really
[15:52]presented. And I grew up. I remember as a kid, I, I always was drawn. I mean, they wouldn't,
[15:59]we didn't have a lot of the genera from the more in Peru and even some of the traditional fiction
[16:04]stories would be nice. But I wasn't ever really drawn to it. I almost wanted
[16:09]something that, you know, the facts and just stories. And I was a huge fan of readers I just
[16:15]they used to be huge down there. And just overall stories that to me just felt like, wow,
[16:21]these worlds that people are taking. And so I think it's, I've always been very moved by,
[16:28]by people, you know, kind of being able to, to be open and sharing. I mean, especially some
[16:33]other historical memoirs of just journeys that people have gone through. And I love that aspect of
[16:38]the reinvention. And, and especially when I was struggling, even with my drinking and with my
[16:44]addiction, I kept always looking for the light. And so in terms of those, I mean memoirs have
[16:50]always been my biggest inspirations and, and just going through them. It's been very sweet.
[16:55]Over the last several years, I think I've done a lot of, you know, self-examination work.
[17:00]The body keeps score was pivotal because I had to realize so much on my own body to remember. And
[17:09]so, you know, for me, particularly this book was very structured, you know, coming through through
[17:15]the memoir aspect of things. We had a lot, you know, it almost felt us a business project. It was
[17:22]very much. I knew it was going to be the very beginning. What was going to be the very end?
[17:27]Why would be the chapter's old structure? So I kind of had the opportunity to explore through
[17:33]almost as in particular chapter, all the different scenes. So it gave me the opportunity to just
[17:40]dive deeper into trying to bring all the elements. And especially for me, the very, the hardest chapters
[17:47]were the early ones, as if trying to reconnect to, to sew much information that I hadn't even
[17:54]faced in decades. And that was just really hard. And, and I had a lot of therapy help for that.
[18:02]I think that was really pivotal. I mean, being able to kind of, you know, being held back. So,
[18:08]so these are through this whole journey just because it was so hard to put it out. I was lucky that
[18:13]I wasn't just alone on that sense. I had a lot of support, a lot of handholding that would be
[18:19]able to allow me to get out a lot of those emotions. Luckily, for the mountain parts, I've always
[18:26]kept the journal. I've always kept and just the sides of all these different expeditions. I was
[18:32]something that was always so spectacular. And I remember just to take as much information. So,
[18:38]so in a way, I mean, I never imagined when I was climbing. Oh, this is one of the books, but it was just
[18:43]for me. I remember eventually I felt well, you know, hopefully, if I'm old, I could be able to re
[18:49]open this and remember hahah! Just in this particular side. And just as a motion that you were feeling,
[18:56]but it was definitely a whole combination of being able to reawaken. And I know, and that's
[19:03]one for anybody who gets into a block. Just trust that the information is inside of us. I mean,
[19:09]we are just these walk-in and cycle periods that just we just simply have to know how to reactivate
[19:16]this information and trust that what comes out is our own truths. And then, you know, being able to
[19:23]play around with it and just being inspired by everything and, you know, being able to bring it forward.
[19:29]I love it. It's awesome. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for discussing
[19:36]your book for being so open for just letting me rave about it to you directly. I'm for
[19:42]dealing with my son behind me the whole time. It is part of the everyday. I mean, it's been such an
[19:51]an honor. I mean, you just had, you've said exactly what it's been possibly the most special
[20:00]back or just a reaction of the journey. I mean, I want people to know that they're not alone.
[20:05]I want people to know just the beauty that we have in all of us. And especially, you know,
[20:11]when there's your opportunity of going out, I mean, I'm sure with your family, it's sometimes for,
[20:19]I mean, you know, we've been locked in and I can only imagine the last two years how they were for
[20:23]you, especially, but when things get back to normal, I feel nature can give us so much and it's
[20:32]almost like this love story to nature too. It's so true. I actually, I started a publishing company
[20:37]myself and we have one book that I feel like you would respond really well too. It hasn't even
[20:42]been edited yet, but I feel like I want to send it to you just to, please, I feel like you would
[20:47]really get a lot out of it and I'd love to introduce you to the author who's very young and I just think
[20:51]you guys should talk. So maybe I can get your... This is actually, this is part of, I mean,
[20:57]if anything, to me, this is, you know, this is a community effort. This is, this is almost
[21:03]being my introduction. I mean, that deadline of, hello, I'm Sylvia from Paris. I absolutely
[21:08]ruined the shadow of the mountain. So I am, you know, this is, we need to keep bringing stories
[21:16]and this is, you know, we need to continue. I mean, I think this is what creates a change and this
[21:22]is what we're over here, you know what I mean? Amazing. Okay. Thank you. Big hug. And who knows,
[21:31]maybe we'll meet back along with you. I would love to meet you in real life. So where are you?
[21:37]I'm in New York. Where are you? Cool. I'm not sure you said, Mrs. Gabor, I'm just doing a quick
[21:41]vision. I'm gonna come back in August. So maybe we'll coordinate, but he will. Okay. That would be
[21:46]great. I'm in LA a lot too. So, you know, maybe one of these times. We will stay. Okay. Okay. Thank you.
[21:57]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't
[22:01]forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[22:06]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet
[22:11]lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan,
[22:14]in fact, Texture Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for
[22:19]providing this fantastic intro and outro music.