See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love

by Valarie Kaur

the boa constrictor that squeezed the breath out of me, the voice in me that let it because I was not good enough, not strong enough, not beautiful enough, not suffering enough to be saved. No, I was finding a home in my body now, on this earth, in this timeline, as the skies circled around me humming: You are stardust. The world was good enough, strong enough, beautiful enough, and worthy enough to be saved, and my body was part of the body of the world. In order to love the world, I had to love myself.

Healing is the long journey of returning to our bodies. It is a kind of labor that requires breathing and pushing—resting and then going deeper. We must be willing to notice and befriend sensations, including pain and discomfort.

“This is a warrior’s body!”

It is time to demand the freedom and opportunity to heal our bodies as a human right. It is time to organize not just around our trauma but around our collective healing.

Healing did not mean the end to suffering: It meant the freedom to return home, again and again, to our bodies and to one another.

“It’s easy to love people who love you back,” she said. “When somebody gives you pain, how do you love that person? That’s the real test of love.”

Forgiveness was not a substitute for justice; it had energized us in the fight for justice. It reframed justice not as retribution but as cultural and institutional transformation.

wondering about one another’s stories, grieving together, and fighting alongside one another.

“Part of our work is teaching people how to dream about another world while actively being safe in this world.”

My healing did not depend on his accountability, nor did his healing depend on my forgiveness. But when he was ready to make a genuine apology, and I wanted to hear it, we had found a way into this reconciliation.

Those who have forsaken wrongdoing can become some of our greatest allies and accomplices in the work of social change.

We are released from our attachment to punishment. We evolve our pursuit of justice from retribution—an eye for an eye—to collective liberation.

Love is more than a rush of feeling. Love is sweet labor—fierce, bloody, imperfect, and life-giving. A choice we make over and over again.

Joy is the gift of love. Grief is the price of love. Anger protects that which is loved. And when we think we have reached our limit, wonder is the act that returns us to love.

After my labor, I began to think about transition as a metaphor for the most difficult fiery moments in our lives.*

“Oh, my love,” I whispered into his ear. “You are beloved in the world. You are strong and smart and loving and brave.” “Why don’t you speak to yourself that way?” Sharat asked me.

I believe that deep wisdom resides within each of us.

We cannot protect our children from white supremacist violence. We can only make them resilient enough to face it.

Joy returns us to everything that is good and beautiful and worth fighting for. In joy, we see even darkness with new eyes. I was not alone. I was one in millions. I was part of a movement, one in a constellation. I had to shine my light in my specific slice of sky. I could do that.

Is this the darkness of the tomb, or of the womb? I still ask myself this question every day.

The labor is ongoing, the injustice relentless. But each time people organized, each turn through the cycle opened a little more space for equality and justice.

Like the body in labor, we have gained more embodied knowledge about what to do when the crises come. Even when the crises are unprecedented, we can still turn to the wisdom of our ancestors for how to labor—to wonder, to grieve, to fight, to rage, to listen, to reimagine, to breathe and to push, and to find the bravery we need for transition. It is our task to innovate and apply these practices in the new reality we find ourselves in.

Transition is the most painful and dangerous stage, but it’s also where we begin to see what comes into the space we open up. Fresh horrors arrive daily, but our responses are smarter and our solidarity deeper than ever before.

reimagining systems that safeguard the most vulnerable among us. I don’t know how this will end or how much worse it will get. But in such moments, I see glimpses of a nation waiting to be born, the society we aspire to be—an

That means when a voice in us says “I can’t,” our most urgent task is to find the wisdom to stay in the fire.

We stood for Ardas, the prayer that is part of all Sikh services. Joy filled us: “I feel like I can fill up this whole room!” “I feel like I can mount a horse and go into battle!”

Meanwhile, we are reclaiming our sovereignty, not as victims in this story, but as what we have always been, agents of revolutionary love.

In my darkest moments, when I want to give up, I remember the darkness of the womb and turn to the practices of revolutionary love. I remember to measure my success as a person not by what I produce, but by my faithfulness to this labor. I want to last. I want you to last. I want to grow old. I want to grow old with you. I believe revolutionary love is our best chance as individuals and societies to stay in the fire long enough to deliver the world longing to be.

All I can do is hold on to the vision of the world longing to be—a world where every child feels found, and every person is beloved. A world where we can look upon any face—even those we might fear—and find recognition. A world where we beckon each other to return to love. This work belongs to all of us. Not just mothers. We all have the ability to participate in this great love story. Imagine the stories we will tell, the institutions we will build, and the lives we will lead when we affirm that every person is a person. Imagine the world we will birth when we see no stranger.

Each night, I die a kind of death. Each morning, I wake to the gift of a new lifetime. In between, I labor in love. It is enough.

You are beloved Just as you are. You are worthy Of this earth And its seas and skies And the gifts it has to offer Just as you are. And the earth will receive All the gifts you give it As long as the gifts that you give Are given in joy. Let joy in every day. Every day, my love. Let joy be your lifeblood.

Joy is possible even amid great labors—the labor of dying, the labor of birthing, and the labors between. We cannot force it. But when we create moments to breathe between labor pains, and surrender our senses to the present moment, notice the colors and light and feeling of being alive, here, together, joy comes more easily. It is a felt sense in our bodies. In the face of horrors visited upon our world daily, in the struggle to protect our loved ones, choosing to let in joy is a revolutionary act. Joy returns us to everything good and beautiful and worth fighting for. It gives us energy for the long labor.

I believe laboring in joy is the meaning of life. May we look up at that night sky. May we let joy in. For we will be someone’s ancestors one day. If we do this right, they will inherit not our fear but bravery born of joy.

When I worry that I’m not enough, I ask myself: What is my sword and shield? How will I fight? What will I risk? When I get overwhelmed, I ask: What is my role in this moment? I remember that I have only to shine my light in my corner of sky.

It becomes a kind of dance—to release raw rage in a safe container, in order to send divine rage into the world, like focused fury.

Tending wounds is the practice of a community, not the sacrifice of an individual.

May this book honor him and all who refuse to succumb to despair, who protect that still sacred place inside them and insist on “blinking twice.”