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Friday with Friends: Intentional Relating, Decolonized Love, and the Courage to Choose Yourself
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit desireebstephens.substack.com
Some conversations don’t follow an outline… they follow truth.
This week’s Friday with Friends episode with Chaneé Jackson Kendall is one of those. No rigid questions. No forced structure. Just two people who trust each other enough — and know the work deeply enough — to let the conversation go exactly where it needed to go.
What unfolded was a living, breathing exploration of intentional relating, community as foundation, and what it actually looks like to decolonize love, spirituality, and family… not as a concept, not as a trend, but as a way of living inside your body and your relationships.
And if you’ve ever felt like the way you love, connect, parent, or build community doesn’t quite fit the scripts you were handed… this conversation is for you.
Intentional Relating Is About Rejecting Scripts
Early in the conversation, Chaneé names something many people feel but don’t yet have language for:
Most of the relationship scripts we’re given were never designed for us to thrive.
They were designed to keep people small, compliant, and contained; particularly Black, queer, disabled, and non-normative folks whose lives have always existed outside the narrow definitions of “acceptable” love, family, and belonging.
Intentional relating asks a different — and far more dangerous (to the system) — question:
If you could design your relationships yourself, what would they actually feel like?- Chaneé Jackson-Kendall (Iya Eguntoyebi) @Chaneespeaks
Not what they should look like.Not what you were taught, they must be.Not what keeps other people comfortable.
But what would feel life-giving, grounded, and true.
That question doesn’t stop at romance. It reaches into friendships. Parenting. Community. Spiritual practice. Chosen family. The way you show up… and the way you’re allowed to be met.
And once you start asking it honestly, the old scripts begin to unravel.
The rest of this conversation goes much deeper — into community accountability, decolonized spirituality, sovereignty, and why centering choice changes everything.
👉 Become a paid subscriber to continue reading to access the full conversation and episode breakdown. $10 a month /$100 a year /$150 as an Equity Partner, and scholarships are always available at: [email protected]
View all episodes
By Desireé B StephensThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit desireebstephens.substack.com
Some conversations don’t follow an outline… they follow truth.
This week’s Friday with Friends episode with Chaneé Jackson Kendall is one of those. No rigid questions. No forced structure. Just two people who trust each other enough — and know the work deeply enough — to let the conversation go exactly where it needed to go.
What unfolded was a living, breathing exploration of intentional relating, community as foundation, and what it actually looks like to decolonize love, spirituality, and family… not as a concept, not as a trend, but as a way of living inside your body and your relationships.
And if you’ve ever felt like the way you love, connect, parent, or build community doesn’t quite fit the scripts you were handed… this conversation is for you.
Intentional Relating Is About Rejecting Scripts
Early in the conversation, Chaneé names something many people feel but don’t yet have language for:
Most of the relationship scripts we’re given were never designed for us to thrive.
They were designed to keep people small, compliant, and contained; particularly Black, queer, disabled, and non-normative folks whose lives have always existed outside the narrow definitions of “acceptable” love, family, and belonging.
Intentional relating asks a different — and far more dangerous (to the system) — question:
If you could design your relationships yourself, what would they actually feel like?- Chaneé Jackson-Kendall (Iya Eguntoyebi) @Chaneespeaks
Not what they should look like.Not what you were taught, they must be.Not what keeps other people comfortable.
But what would feel life-giving, grounded, and true.
That question doesn’t stop at romance. It reaches into friendships. Parenting. Community. Spiritual practice. Chosen family. The way you show up… and the way you’re allowed to be met.
And once you start asking it honestly, the old scripts begin to unravel.
The rest of this conversation goes much deeper — into community accountability, decolonized spirituality, sovereignty, and why centering choice changes everything.
👉 Become a paid subscriber to continue reading to access the full conversation and episode breakdown. $10 a month /$100 a year /$150 as an Equity Partner, and scholarships are always available at: [email protected]