Narrative Dignity with Sejal Shah

The Dignity Lab

Join the dialogue - text your questions, insights, and feedback to The Dignity Lab podcast.

In this episode of The Dignity Lab, Dr. Jennifer Griggs interviews Sejal Shah, author of This is One Way to Dance and How to Make Your Mother Cry.
Sejal and Jennifer discuss the concept of dignity and its importance in storytelling and personal healing. Sejal shares her experiences of reclaiming dignity after professional setbacks and how writing has been a pivotal tool in her journey. They also explore themes of invisibility, hypervisibility, and the healing power of dance.

Sejal reads passages from her new book, providing insight into her writing process and the personal experiences that shape her work. The conversation touches on the impact of community support, the challenges of navigating identity, and the power of personal expression.

Guest Contact

• Website

Episode Resources

• How to Make Your Mother Cry: Fictions by Sejal Shah
• This Is One Way to Dance: Essays by Sejal Shah
• Even If You Can't See It: Invisible Disability and Neurodiversity (The Kenyon Review) by Sejal Shah
• Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity by Devon Price

Key Takeaways

• Sejal Shah shares her journey of reclaiming dignity after a professional setback.
• Sejal's essay on invisible disability resonated widely and allowed her to move from an “object” position to a “subject” position.
• Invisibility and hypervisibility, common experiences for minoritized people, further violate dignity.
• Dance serves as a powerful means of reclaiming body dignity for Sejal.
• Sejal reads passages from her book, How to Make Your Mother Cry.
• Storytelling is crucial for reclaiming dignity and becoming the subject of one's narrative.
• Sejal shares her wish that our listeners dance and live boldly.

Exploring what it means to live and lead with dignity at work, in our families, in our communities, and in the world. What is dignity? How can we honor the dignity of others? And how can we repair and reclaim our dignity after harm? Tune in to hear stories about violations of dignity and ways in which we heal, forgive, and make choices about how we show up in a chaotic and fractured world. Hosted by physician and coach Jennifer Griggs.
For more information on the podcast, please visit www.thedignitylab.com.
For more information on podcast host Dr. Jennifer Griggs, please visit https://jennifergriggs.com/.
For additional free resources, including the periodic table of dignity elements, please visit https://jennifergriggs.com/resources/.
The Dignity Lab is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and will receive 10% of the purchase price when you click through and make a purchase. This supports our production and hosting costs. Bookshop.org doesn’t earn money off bookstore sales, all profits go to independent bookstores. We encourage our listeners to purchase books through Bookshop.org for this reason.