Dear White Women

You know how we both feel about the phrase “oh, stop being so political” for the simple reason that politics IS personal. 

Political choices impact most things you do on the daily, and often involve the things you care about the most for your community.

That’s why, today, we wanted to speak to someone who may not look like who you think of when you think “politician” - or at least, not until VP Harris stepped even further into the spotlight. 

We hope you hear what it takes to be a woman of color running for office, the importance of representation, and why it’s important that every single one of us vote in this upcoming election.

What to listen for: 

• What it’s like to run for - and win - office to be a state Senator as a woman of color

• The importance of electing diverse representation

• Multiple examples of how every vote counts, in elections she and her friends have run in!

About our guest:

Mona Das champions sustainable solutions, racial equity, and women's empowerment. Her lived experience as a daughter of Indian immigrants who came with $6 fuels her passion to dismantle barriers.

A Washington State Senator from 2018-2023, Das achieved victories like the single-use plastics ban by forging coalitions across divides. As a woman of color, she faced roadblocks, giving insights into challenges women leaders face. She is also the first person from the Indian State of Bihar to be elected to state or federal office in the US.

Through keynotes, Das shares strategies for overcoming obstacles, leveraging data/narratives, and translating visions into real-world solutions. Her dynamic presence and storytelling captivate.

An entrepreneur with an MBA in sustainability, and the Executive Producer of Bad Ass Women Doing Kick Ass Shit, an award-winning film about eight BIPOC women running for office in 2022, Das empowers audiences to embrace authenticity, overcome limiting beliefs, and unlock potential. badasswomencommunity.com 

Her mission: inspire transformative action towards an equitable world.

This episode is for all of you who may think: “My vote doesn’t matter.” “I don’t vote.” “I would get involved but I don’t know how or where to volunteer.” “I don’t have any special election-related skills.” Or anything along those lines. You may have even said this out loud, or you may have heard friends or family say this. Either way, this is for you.

We said in our email this week that we were getting ready to dive into Election 2024 - because “I’m not political” or “I don’t talk about politics” is NOT going to cut it; these days, politics is invading our libraries, schools, wallets and bodies and those of our children as well. 

So we bring you an incredible activist and supporter of activists, who will leave you with not only the best approach to engage people in your life who say they don’t do politics but also a bunch of organizations you can get involved with between now and November that we think will make a huge difference to the trajectory of our nation.

PS, if you aren’t yet on our email list, what are you thinking!?  Get on it!  Register at www.dearwhitewomen.com.

 What to listen for: 

• How do you respond when someone says they won’t be voting?  Ask lots more questions.

• Organizations to consider getting involved with: 

• Working Parties Family: https://workingfamilies.org/about/ 

• Swing Left: https://swingleft.org/ 

• Sister District for state races: https://sisterdistrict.com/ 

• Northeast Arizona Native Democrats: https://neaznativedemocrats.org/ 

• Vote Forward: https://votefwd.org/ 

• Your local state election office to volunteer to be poll workers

• Or check out https://866ourvote.org/ to find out more information about voting and to volunteer to protect the vote and the electoral process

• A free Social Media Care & Resilience Pocket Zine for you! 

• The margin of effort – i.e. just how close so many critical elections were, meaning that your effort can potentially make a TREMENDOUS difference to the outcome of an election.

• The post-election recovery session online that Sam will be co-hosting

About our guest:

Sam Chavez is a queer, Latine, New Mexican American activist who’s passionate about a livable planet, belonging, and equitable societies. She founded The Roots of Change Agency to harness her storytelling and decades of marketing experience to cultivate connections that lead to lasting social change. She does this through strategic coaching, workshops, podcasting, and writing. 

What comes to your mind when you picture someone who’s resilient?  Usually, we hear that it’s one person who’s faced a setback, and they remain hopeful and willing to work through the challenges to return to some sort of life they had before. Maybe you’ve heard the phrase “pick themselves up by their bootstraps” to describe this type of person. We know we have. But that doesn’t always work, as we continually say. 

We have a guest today who’s going to help us critically examine that image we have - and help us understand what we’re missing.  She’ll tell us we need to think critically about when it comes to glorifying resilience, especially if we’re doing it for individual gain or to showcase individual strength, without realizing that the opposite of resilience is loneliness – we have to remember the communal and community contribution to the ability to be resilient.

We’re at a time in history where it feels - no matter your perspective - like the world is burning down around us. We want to trust that we will still be standing. To do it, we need to know when to be optimistic and when to be strategically pessimistic, not beat ourselves up when we’re coming up against moral injury, embrace certain ways of thinking - cognitive flexibility, for those who want the big words - and hold onto hope for the collective, above all.

What to listen for:

• The inaccurate understanding Americans have of resilience – and how it needs to shift from an individual to a collective focus: the opposite of resilience is loneliness. 

• The mind-blowing study that shows us social status matter – and reexamining preconceptions and research in positive psychology, male-focused hardiness, and more.

• Rethinking popular portrayals of the upcoming generation – that, maybe, “younger people aren’t distressed because they lack the right mindset or don’t understand what is happening around them. They are distressed because the world is distressing, and adults have failed them.” 

• How do we find hope when it feels like the world is burning around us? Have openness to difference, openness to change, and acceptance of limits. 

About Soraya: 

Soraya Chemaly is an award-winning author and activist. As a cultural critic, she writes and speaks frequently about gender norms, social justice, free speech, sexualized violence, politics, and technology. The former Executive Director of The Representation Project and Director and co-founder of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project, she has long been committed to expanding women’s civic and political participation.

Soraya is also the author of The Resilience Myth: New Thinking on Grit, Strength, and Growth after Trauma, a thought-provoking exploration that challenges our most dearly held, common myths of resilience and urges us to shift our perspective from prioritizing individualized traits and skills to uplifting collective care and open-ended connections with our communities.

Her first book, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger, was recognized as a Best Book of 2018 by the Washington Post, Fast Company, Psychology Today, and NPR and has been translated into multiple languages. She is a contributor to several anthologies, most recently Free Speech in the Digital Age and Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change The World.  Soraya is also a co-producer of a WMC #NameItChangeIt PSA highlighting the effects of online harassment on women in politics in America.  Her work is featured widely in media, documentaries, books, and academic research.

As an activist, Ms. Chemaly also spearheaded several successful global campaigns challenging corporations to address online hate and harassment, restrictive content moderation and censorship, and institutional biases that undermine equity and negatively affect free speech.

Prior to 2010, Ms. Chemaly spent more than fifteen years as an executive and consultant in the media and data technology industries.

Most of us say we’d speak up and do the right thing - that we’d not conform to horrible societal standards.  We hear that, for example, when people speak about what happened during World War II in Europe. Would you have been part of the Resistance, knowing that the risk included not only social shunning but indeed death? But we also hear that so many of you have a hard time speaking up when it comes to interrupting moments of racism, sexism, misogyny, ageism, homophobia - I mean, it can be really intimidating to use your voice.  Like, you *want* to do the right thing, but feel like you don’t have all the information, don’t know what to say, what the repercussions might be, for example.

We’re here to say that if there ever was a time for us to use our voice - from interrupting with people who want to take away other people’s rights, to promoting equity, looking out for ourselves by getting what we need from relationships and communities, and using our right to vote in the voting booths this fall (because yes, a vote can be your voice as well) - now is the time. We’re so grateful we get to bring you a meaningful and practical conversation that can help you reframe your understanding of why we become silent - and how to unlearn all of that intentionally, so we can start using our powerful voices again.

What to listen for:

• Shocking stats: “Kids ask roughly 125 questions per day. Adults ask about 6 questions per day. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, we silence our curiosity.” What are the ramifications of becoming silent, especially with a 2024 lens?

• The three questions that each of us - intentionally or not - wrestle with around voice vs. silence: What are the costs of choosing voice? What are the benefits of staying silent? Given the costs and benefits of each, what makes sense to me?

• How being at a hyper-fast pace can not only lead us not to speak our minds, but lead us to silence others as well. 

• Tips around unlearning systemic silence, like asking who does this policy support and who does this policy silence or disadvantage? 

About Elaine:

Elaine Lin Hering is a facilitator, writer, and speaker. She works with organizations and individuals to build skills in communication, collaboration, and conflict management. She has worked on six continents and facilitated executive education at Harvard, Dartmouth, Tufts, UC Berkeley, and UCLA. She is the former Advanced Training Director for the Harvard Mediation Program and a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. She has worked with coal miners at BHP Billiton, micro-finance organizers in East Africa, mental health professionals in China, and senior leadership at the US Department of Commerce. Her clients include American Express, Chevron, Google, Nike, Novartis, PayPal, Pixar, and the Red Cross. She is the author of the USA Today Bestselling book Unlearning Silence: How to Speak Your Mind, Unleash Talent, and Live More Fully (Penguin, 2024).

We’re going to be sharing this episode today, which if you’re listening in real-time, is shortly after President Biden stepped aside, not accepting the Democratic nomination and instead, getting behind his VP Kamala Harris - our country’s first female VP, and first Asian and Black VP as well. 

Today’s episode is focused on acknowledging the contributions of people who came before Ruby Bridges, who we all think of when we think of school integration.  Little did we know that back in 1868 in Iowa, there was a young Black teen who was actually the first known person to integrate a school.  What would happen if we all read children books that included the story of Susan Clark?  How would knowing about our country’s real history, with all its nuances, false starts, hope, and persistence change our understanding of where we are as a country today - and what it really will take to move it forward into a more tolerant, accepting, integrated, supportive, community-driven nation? Maybe it would teach us that history isn’t linear, that backlashes do happen, but that the desire to fight is a sign that we all still hold onto hope, which is really what we need collectively now.

What to listen for:

• What’s so important about understanding real history - in particular, the contribution of girls and women

• What the story of Susan Clark tells us about how change does NOT come easily, does not come linearly, and that history repeats itself.

• Why this story was written as a children’s book

About Joshalyn:

Joshalyn Hickey-Johnson, aka Ms. Rocki, was born and raised in Waterloo, Iowa, and attended Waterloo public schools. She is the mother of two and grandmother of seven. Ms. Rocki took on the challenge of working a traditionally male job at Viking Pump in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and worked there for 30 years. She began writing books featuring real-life experiences from her children’s lives as they were growing up. Her debut book, “GOOD MORNING, LOVEY!” was published in 2005, followed by “Travis It’s NOT Your Birthday!” in 2008. She partnered with Chaveevah Ferguson, serving as a publicist with BaHar Publishing, the first African-American-owned book publishing company in Iowa. She co-authored “Ropes In The Kitchen” with her father, Naaman ‘Jock’ Hickey. Ms. Rocki started NORTH END UPDATE, a weekly live interactive show highlighting good things in her local community and featured on Iowa Public Television’s “Greetings from Iowa.” Since 2017, she has worked on the show with her best friend and co-host Chaveevah. Ms. Rocki recently hosted Iowa PBS’s “Juneteenth: THE MOVEMENT.”

So we’ve spoken inspirationally and aspirationally about wellbeing, the power of the pause, about spirituality.

But what if my brain is still going, but I can’t wrap my head around this all – I need some more structure, some more tools, some more intellectual perspective!?

We’ve got a book for you! 

And if you’ve been a longtime listener to the podcast, you know that we very rarely do repeat guests, unless we (a) love them and (b) feel like they’ve got another message to bring to our community. 

Dr. Sue Varma fits the bill for both, and so much more. We’re bringing her back to talk about her new book, Practical Optimism, with excellent frameworks around well-being, how to survive this rollercoaster of a year, and so much more.

What to listen for: 

• A three-point framework on how to make (tough) decisions

• The importance of balancing a life of purpose with a life of joy - yes, busy women, even us! That scale imagery got us… 

• Practical ways to challenge ourselves when we’re not seeing things clearly

• How culture plays into our lives and our sense of belonging

About Sue:

Dr. Sue Varma, one of the nation's foremost mental health authorities, is truly a multidimensional expert. Dr. Varma is an esteemed physician and board-certified psychiatrist practicing in Manhattan for over twenty years, specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy, psychopharmacology, and couples counseling. She is a nationally acclaimed medical commentator and has been at the forefront of some of the most important mental health conversations of the day. From breaking news and documentaries to primetime specials across the major networks, Dr. Varma has been a long-time contributor to the Today Show, CBS Mornings, Nightly News, GMA and has given over 2000 media interviews over the last two decades and has been featured in Washington Post, Time Magazine, NY Times, and numerous health and wellness magazines. Dr Varma is a media advisor and consultant to medical organizations and news groups,  and an internationally renowned keynote speaker across industries. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.  Dr. Varma’s dedication to mental health is underscored by her pioneering role as the inaugural medical director and psychiatrist of the esteemed 9/11 mental health program at NYU, for which she was awarded a Mayoral Proclamation. She is a two-time Sharecare Emmy Award recipient, the Ivan Goldberg Public Service Award and is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the highest distinction bestowed upon its members. Dr. Varma  was recognized as one of the world’s top five leading health experts by Global Citizen for her contributions during the pandemic. Her new book, Practical Optimism: The Art, Science and Practice of Exceptional Well Being, has not only been resonating with readers in the U.S with rave reviews- Publishers Weekly says "Readers don’t have to bury their heads in the sand to live 'fully and joyfully' in an imperfect world, promises psychiatrist Varma in her buoyant debut." and "Studded with catchy pearls of wisdom, this can-do guide uplifts. Practical Optimism, now available everywhere, was featured in the NY Times twice this year and is now being translated into more than nine languages worldwide.  

Website: www.doctorsuevarma.com, IG @doctorsuevarma, Book: Practical Optimism 

In the five-plus years of the podcast, I’d say that we have spent a LOT of time on various “hot button” issues - I mean, we live quite squarely in the ones that surround race and identity, wouldn’t you say? - but one of the facets of identity that we don’t often explore is that of religion. Not because we don’t want to talk about it, but a lot of times the opportunity doesn’t really present itself.

That’s why we were so excited to talk to one of the authors of Healing Our Way Home, a new book that addresses white supremacy and identity through the lens of Black Buddhist teachings. 

What started out as a series of conversations between three practitioners morphed into a whole book, focusing on self-care and Buddhist teachings with the goal of collective liberation in mind, but in a way that’s totally different than what we’ve seen out there thus far. 

Can’t wait for you all to listen and learn more.

What to listen for:

• A brief explanation of the Buddhist history and teachings

• What it was like knowing Zen Master Thich Nhat Han

• Three powerful questions we should all be asking ourselves, as we work to remain centered in our own selves while experiencing the world in its current poly-crisis state.

About the authors: 

KAIRA JEWEL LINGO is a Dharma teacher with a lifelong interest in spirituality and social justice. Her work continues the Engaged Buddhism developed by Thich Nhat Hanh, and she draws inspiration from her parents’ lives of service and her dad’s work with Martin Luther King, Jr. After living as an ordained nun for 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastic community, Kaira Jewel now teaches internationally in the Zen lineage and the Vipassana tradition, as well as in secular mindfulness, at the intersection of racial, climate and social justice with a focus on activists, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, artists, educators, families, and youth. Based in New York, she offers spiritual mentoring to groups and is the author of We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons in Moving through Change, Loss and Disruption and co-author of the forthcoming, Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy and Liberation (Feb 2024) from Parallax Press. Her teachings and writings can be found at www.kairajewel.com.

VALERIE BROWN, True Sangha Power (pronouns she/her), is a Dharma teacher in the Plum Village tradition, ordained in 2018, and a member of Religious Society of Friends. She transformed her twenty-year, high-pressure career as a lawyer-lobbyist into human-scale, social-equity-centered work, guiding leaders and organizations to foster greater understanding, authenticity, compassion, and trust.

MARISELA B. GOMEZ is a co-founder of Village of Love and Resistance in Baltimore Maryland, organizing for power, healing, and the reclamation of land. She is a meditation and Buddhist teacher, physician-scientist, and holistic health practitioner. She lives in the lands previously stewarded by the Piscataway, Lumbi, and other tribes, colonized as Baltimore Maryland in the USA. She is the author of Race, Class, Power, and Organizing in East Baltimore along with other scholarly, political, and spiritual writings.

For more information: https://www.parallax.org/product/healing-our-way-home/ 

This one goes out to all the busy women in our community.

Whether you’re a Type-A, a Recovering Type-A, a paid working mom or a working mom in the home - we hear it over and over again: we women are feeling stretched super thin, exhausted, and overwhelmed.

Enter a radical mindset shift: the power of rest.

We’re excited to bring you a conversation with Kibi Anderson, who drops brilliant reframing of what we think of as rest (it’s not always what we’ve been led to believe) and other life advice that helped us breathe a little better.  

What to listen for

• Kibi’s story to becoming the Rested Rebel!

• What is rest? Anything that gives you joy, moving from me-care to we-care. 

• Other life advice including not to take things personally, and not to make assumptions - from The Four Agreements. 

• All about the multi-author book, Point Taken, that Kibi was part of, and why you should buy a friend a copy.

About Kibi

Kibi Anderson is an author, coach, keynote speaker, and Emmy Award-winning content producer. She is a graduate of Harvard College and NYU Stern Business School, and the founder of Life Editor, a firm providing communications and leadership coaching to C-Suite & Senior Leaders. She has helped drive millions of dollars in annual revenue, created international content campaigns, and offered counsel to global Fortune 100 and startup clients. She has traversed an illustrious career in international management consulting, film production, and technology entrepreneurship while also managing a chronic auto-immune condition. She believes and teaches that the key to ultimate professional success is not through working harder, but embracing the power in the pause.

I don’t know that there’s a better book and conversation to kick off our summer author series with than this one.

We’ve said for a while now that there’s a benefit to applying a psychological, human-based lens to the social justice learning we’ve been sharing on this show for the last five years. 

This conversation shows us why we are spending our summer talking about that bridge, which over the course of the next few months will center discussions about wellbeing, about the power of the pause, practical optimism, meditation, and more. 

Because in the midst of such a turbulent, divided time, don’t you want to feel better? 

With social psychologist Dolly Chugh, we’ll get into some beautiful stories that let us all remember there are times we prioritize comfort over discomfort – but that not knowing facts creates its own sense of discomfort too.  Why not join us in the learning and unlearning?

What to listen for

• How unlearning is not just intellectual work, but emotional work too.

• The on-the-spot example that gamers might really relate to

• A brilliant takedown of nostalgia, which we all fall for, and the impact it can have 

• How to spot simplified fables (clear cause & effect, flawless heroes, good guys beating bad guys) to know when we need to be mindful when reflecting on history

• Apologies 

About Dolly

Dolly Chugh (she/her, hear my name) is an award-winning professor at the New York University Stern School of Business where she teaches MBA courses in leadership and management.  Her research focuses on “bounded ethicality”, which she describes as the “psychology of good people.”  She is the author of The Person You Mean to Be:  How Good People Fight Bias (HarperCollins, 2018), A More Just Future (Simon & Schuster, 2022), and the popular Dear Good People newsletter.  Dolly’s TED Talk was named one of the 25 Most Popular TED Talks of 2018 and currently has more than 5 million views. 

This episode is a continuation of last week’s episode, so if you haven’t already listened to that one (it should be right above this one in your podcast feed), stop and go listen now, as it will make the most sense when listened to in order. This week we pick up where we left off, with the remaining four independent dimensions of well-being: spiritual, vocational, financial, and environmental. Let’s just get right to it.

What to listen for?

• In today’s episode, we talk about the four remaining dimensions of wellness -  spiritual, vocational, financial and environmental;

• Trump’s support of extreme Christian viewpoints and his own view of himself as “The Chosen One” go against Constitutional and foundational principles of separation of church and state;

• Despite being the politician for “every man,” Trump dislikes unions (and the feeling is mutual) because he’s first and foremost his own supporter;

• Trump’s financial policies are aimed at making his own life (and those of the extremely wealthy) easier, whereas Biden’s economic policies helped all of us; 

• Trump is actively working to remove America from climate accords that will negatively impact our world and future generations (plus he doesn’t believe in climate change)

• How we can get involved to protect our own, and everyone else’s, wellbeing

Link to last week’s episode HERE.