I had the honor of speaking at Night of Ideas in Chiang Mai! This is the second time they’ve run this intimate little event. I had the pleasure of joining the first one too, and loved it!
It’s a simple format: four speakers, twelve minutes each, on a topic they’re genuinely passionate about, followed by a few questions from the group. Topics range from the weird to the wonderful to the irreverent to the sublime.
Being surrounded by super smart, wise, conscious, deep thinkers is like a nourishing meal for the soul!
UNHOOKED
F*ck the Rules & Live Your Life Unapologetically
with Willo Sana @ Night of Ideas
Sat, Aug 22, 2026 • Tea Tree Studio, Chiang Mai
For my talk, I shared my UNHOOKED framework. I’ve run this as a workshop twice before, first as part of my Monthly Live Workshops and again during the HerEra Festival for International Women’s Day. The challenge on this one was getting it down to the allotted 12 minutes, but I did it!
So what does it mean to be un/hooked?
If I could give everyone one gift, it would be to know how to liberate yourself, or what I call getting unhooked.
This is about clearing the fears and patterns that keep you hooked, so you can liberate your self-expression, expand your income, and live in true sovereignty.
Here are some of the ways being hooked shows up:
- Masking your true self
- Playing small, in business, in money, in expression
- Overworking and undercharging
- Abandoning your truth or your intuition
- Being afraid to be fully honest, or finding yourself telling little white lies
- Performing, proving, controlling
You can also explore from the other side and ask yourself:
- What feels hard?
- What feels like it’s missing in your life?
- What are you desiring to create, experience, or receive more of?
Whatever is holding you back from those could be because of one of these hooks.
That’s also why they’re so hard to catch in yourself. When we’re doing shadow work, or any kind of deconditioning work, what’s holding us back often doesn’t want to be spotted.
It’s a lifelong journey
I work with genuinely powerful, incredible, successful people who still have insecurity or outsource approval to others. But they come to me because they’re aware of it, and they want to feel more secure and confident, rooted in their own knowing.
I believe deconditioning and healing is a lifelong journey. As long as we’re in these bodies and on this earth, we will always have opportunities for growth.
Every time you unhook from a fear or a piece of conditioning, you expand further into who you truly are.
Questions from the room
What’s the first thing you do when you find a new hook?
Awareness. Naming it, seeing it. Because when we name it and see it, it can no longer drive unconsciously. And it will try to slip back out the door, the way a thought does in therapy when you suddenly can’t remember what you were about to say. It doesn’t want to be seen. It wants to operate in the shadows.
Where’s the middle ground between my authentic self and functioning in society?
This one I loved, because you can’t just say f*ck the rules, see you later. It isn’t an extreme, it’s integrative. There’s a somatic technique I was trained in called looping: I can take a few breaths and be with myself, and take a few breaths and be with you. It was never one or the other. It’s about not fully abandoning yourself just to fit in or be loved.
Night of Ideas is curated and hosted by Joe Lightfoot and his partner, Bo, whom I’m grateful to have been introduced to through our mutual friend Justin H. Lee. I was pleased to have my dear friends Elka and Rasika in the room too, who were just as nourished by the talks. There’s something rare about an evening where everyone came to think out loud, nobody’s performing, and four wildly different ideas get taken seriously in the same two hours.
UNHOOKED is coming!
If any of this landed for you, get on the waiting list for my upcoming book, UNHOOKED: F*ck the Rules & Live Your Life Unapologetically.
Thank you for having me, Joe & Bo. I’m looking forward to Night of Ideas 3!