Join Lesley as she walks and chats with friend and colleague Burgandy Holiday, LCSW. They talk about what it is to show up fully and how shame might prevent us from doing so. Burgandy is a therapist and equity consultant who encourages identity- and faith-based reconciliation through healing. She discusses what it is to support people in all their methods of healing, including unexpected or taboo ones, like choosing not to have relationships with certain people in our lives.

Join Robyn and Lesley in sunny (and windy) south Philadelphia for a conversation about how saying no can creative positive results. They discuss what it takes to identify and set boundaries from a place of non-activation and how we can trust that things will work out, even and especially when we let go of the idea it’s our responsibility to fix them.

Join Robyn and Lesley for a chat about progress and flow. We talk about how much people tend to plan for the future by assuming what progress looks like. The truth is that progress is bumpy and unpredictable. Forcing what we think it should be can actually slow it down. Learning to be with emotion and developing our capacity to identify what we can and can’t control are useful skills. These can also help us reduce fear in a time of chaotic change.

Join Sagely co-owners Lesley Curtis and Cord Whitaker in a conversation about balance and focus. Cord shares about his recent experience of vertigo. Noticing so intently what we are focused on helps us reconsider what’s possible. They conclude that when it’s impossible to do anything but accept imbalance, we often find new forms of stability.

Join Sagely consultants, Robyn Smith, LCSW and Lesley Curtis, Ph.D., on another walk in Philadelphia, this time starting in the Italian Market. In this conversation, we take a serious and yet still hopeful look at what it is to find stability even when what we’re facing is awful. What works for helping people through disaster, loss, and personal trauma, also works for finding ground through political instability, too.

(The Italian market is where Sylvester Stallone (Rocky 1976) starts his run to the Museum of Art stairs, still known as the Rocky Steps. If you know the scene, you’ve already started humming the theme song.)

Robyn and Lesley discuss trust on their latest walk in Philadelphia. If we observe that a lack of trust seems to be influencing our organizations, then what is it to make ourselves a source of trust? In this episode, we talk about applying a radical focus on our own experience so that we trust that recovery is possible. From this perspective, we emanate trust and start to make change through our own belief in peaceful collaboration.

Join Lesley and Robyn on a winter walk in Philadelphia while they discuss the me/not me. Robyn invites us to go deeper into the investigation of what belongs to us and what doesn’t. Patterns that seem really subtle can start in the earliest years of our lives, so looking at our relationship with our mothers is a good place to see how we can make change. We can learn to be present, truly present, by not fighting what was. This is a more powerful place to make equitable change in the world and—as you’ll hear, even the streets of Philadelphia agree.

Join Cord and Lesley in a conversation about punishment. We often learn to punish ourselves as a way of staying safe. This voice continues, sometimes for generations, even when the danger is gone. Once we become aware of our inner critic, then we can do something about it. It’s actually possible to give ourselves compassion instead, which is the start of a new way of being in the world.

In this episode, Lesley interviews her former student and colleague, Alex Rose, who teaches conflict transformation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Alex talks about the powerful work of the Duke-UNC Rotary Peace Center and what it feels like to move toward peace with people from all over the world at this time in the United States. Her story is one of hope and determination, demonstrating that peaceful collaboration begins within.

In this episode, Cord and Lesley speak with their friend and colleague, Robyn Smith, LCSW, who specializes in somatic coaching and trauma healing. They talk about how important it is to know what belongs to you and what doesn’t. Robyn shares some examples of how people can release shame and guilt associated with not being able to fix what isn’t ours. This makes it easier to show up and respond with your fullest talents in the current moment.