In this episode, freddie sits down with meital yaniv, an author, death worker, and energy work practitioner whose past as an former IOF soldier raised on occupied Palestine has led them to a healing path of transformation as an anti-Zionist seeking a loving death to the state of Israel and Israeli identity. 

The conversation explores the necessity of turning our lens inward to identify the ways we’ve participated and/or been complicit in oppression, without falling into shame or unhelpful self-policing. They also explore the importance of staying soft and embodied amidst burnout and oppression. meital shares a guided somatic practice centered on ancestral support.

Read the transcript

Resources 

• Sign up for meital’s newsletter.

• Read meital’s book bloodlines.

• Follow meital on instagram @bloodlines_book.

• Work 1-on-1 with meital: https://www.truenamecollective.com/

• Learn more about meital’s work: https://meitalyaniv.com/

I’m grateful to have this conversation with my friend Dean Spade, long-time organizer and author (Love in a F*cked Up World, Mutual Aid, Normal Life). In talking about how we show up for ourselves while also showing up for our movements, some of the key takeaways are:

• Collective liberation requires personal healing work: Ignoring our “baggage” and internalized oppression causes movements to fracture, making personal practices of healing a prerequisite for structural change.

• The Practice of “What Else Is True?”: When emotionally activated, Dean suggests pausing to challenge one’s inner monologue by asking what other realities exist to foster empathy and slow down reactivity/alienation.

• Accepting reality as it is: Acceptance in this context doesn’t mean being okay with oppression; it means acknowledging what’s really happening, and doing our best to experience the grief that comes up. 

Whether you’re feeling hopeless about the state of the world or struggling to keep your community together through difficult times, this episode offers a sobering yet hopeful roadmap for staying grounded, connected, and responsive to reality.

You can read the transcript here.

Resources:

• Dean’s books: Love in a F*cked up World, Mutual Aid, & Normal Life

• Dean’s podcast, Love in a F*cked up World (& the associated Patreon) 

• Follow Dean on Instagram

I’d never spoken face-to-virtual-face with E Oscar Maynard of Tenderheart Press until I invited them to chat with me for this series, and I’m so grateful they took a leap of faith to participate. Some of the themes of our conversation are:

Art as medicine, both personal and collective: Oscar’s letterpress practice began as their own emotional release and healing, and over time it became a vehicle for collective grief and joy too. The medicine they makes for themself is what others need as well. (I relate to this for my coaching practice, too!)

Protecting the medicine of creative practice from capitalism: Oscar sometimes struggles with self-doubt and worries that being a professional artist means the purpose of his work is subsumed by capitalism, and shares some of the ways he counteracts that.

Seeing adversaries as human doesn’t mean accepting harm. We touch on the spiritual challenge of finding the humanity in others, even our oppressors. The point isn’t to excuse or forgive: it’s that holding that perspective gives us more grounded power than dehumanizing them right back.

Permission to fail is permission to try. Oscar’s closing practice is simple: do the thing a lot, and fail a lot. Remember that what’s for you will find you.

Read show transcript.

Support Tenderheart Press:

* Browse the shop

* Follow @tenderheartpress on IG

I’m having a couple more conversations around the question: how do we show up for “the work” and for ourselves when the stakes are so high? Tune in live on IG:

* Wednesday, April 1 at 12pm PT with Dean Spade

* Wednesday, April 8 at 1pm PT with meital yaniv

Hello! Bit of fascism hit the fan since we last checked in, eh? Please enjoy this conversation between freddie blooms & Madison Abdallah of Radiant Somatics in March 2026 about the question: how do we show up for "the work" and for ourselves when the stakes are so high?

Madison Abdallah (she/they) has been a somatic trauma-resolution practitioner and creative coach for over a decade. Her work focuses on sensitive and ADHD creative beings cultivating embodied agency. Check out her work:

https://www.instagram.com/radiantsomatics

https://www.radiantsomatics.com/

freddie blooms (he/him-ish) is a healing-centered coach who works with queer & trans freedom fighters to align actions with values and step into their higher purpose.

https://www.bloomscoaching.org/

Check out freddie's upcoming convos & events:

https://www.bloomscoaching.org/events

Update: freddie launched a coaching practice! It's founded on the understanding that we can show up for everything we love only as much as we are willing to show up for our own healing. Follow @freddieblooms on IG to learn more, or book a free consult directly at bit.ly/bookblooms.

GOD IS THE GROUND originally aired on Adorning the Void.

Madison Abdallah (@radiantsomatics) and activist, writer, artist, coach freddie blooms get into the somatics of activism, embodiment in the recovery process, and writing as a way to heal.

In the final episode of this podcast you’ll hear Freddie on the other side of the interview process with his friend SK Kerastas. Freddie shares about the learning processes in bringing this podcast to life, which has a lot to do with taking up space, sonically and otherwise, and trying to hold all the things with levity and self-compassion. They reflect on the irony of Freddie doing the labor for this show, In It Together, all by their lonesome. What can we say, all things in process. 

SK Kerastas is an organizer producer facilitator artist jock spiritualist, newly based in Chicago after 8 years in the SF Bay Area. They love tennis, they love writing, they love dancing, they love trans people, and while they may not love meditation, they do it all the time.

Freddie Blooms lives in the woods in Sonoma County, California. Freddie is a person and an artist and an organizer and a lover and a fighter and recovery nerd and really grateful to be here! You can follow Freddie on instagram @freddieblooms and check out more of their offerings on http://freddieblooms.com.

Thanks for listening!
Theme music is "HEATWAVE HEARTBREAK" by freddie blooms.

https://freddieblooms.com/

In the second to last episode of this series, Jodie talks about her journey of transforming not-enough-ness to humble confidence. After sunsetting an organization she poured so much of herself into, she is taking risks to be more fully herself and follow her joy, taking guidance from the phrase, “What you yearn for, yearns for you, too.” Freddie resonates with this mentality and practices generally and is also personally terrified of the goal Jodie set for herself at the top of the year: receiving at least 30 rejections.

ABOUT OUR GUEST: Jodie Tonita is a coach, strategist and aspiring waterwoman. She partners with people who want to evolve themselves to transform the world – people who strive to be brave enough to shape the future. You can learn more about her at www.tonita.pro and @tonitaish on Instagram.

Theme music is "HEATWAVE HEARTBREAK" by freddie blooms.

https://freddieblooms.com/

As a couple of white transmasculine people in recovery, Mud (aka Dusty) and Freddie have a lot to talk about. Dusty shares about the process of finding balance between the beautiful intention to live a life of service, and the utmost importance of learning and leaning into our worth beyond what he offers to others. Dusty talks about his journey of embracing masculinity as a member of a queer culture where the verdict on masculinity is generally... not great! They also discuss limits versus boundaries, the false binary of choosing one’s relationship or oneself, and practicing compassion without self sacrifice.

ABOUT OUR GUEST: Mud (Dusty) Howard is a trans masc boxer, poet, and cultural alchemist. He is a writer & a fighter who builds worlds with words. He is following his dreams in Los Angeles, making perfume, and writing his first novel filled with lies. You can follow him on instagram at @transsexualdreamboat or find more of his writing at mudhoward.com. 

Theme music is "HEATWAVE HEARTBREAK" by freddie blooms.

https://freddieblooms.com/

My friend, abolitionist co-conspirator, and podcast guest (episode 4) April Grayson lost her home in a fire earlier this week. Please consider contributing to the mutual aid fund organized by the Sister Warriors Freedom Coalition:

https://gofund.me/71abef7c

None of us are free until all of us are free 🤍

Olivia talks about their shift from a life of learning through action and adventure, toward instead learning at a deeper level and slower pace, in large part influenced by their chronic illness and disability. She talks about the feeling of her life being stripped down to the bare essentials of being human, becoming more self reliant for better and for worse, and the interesting dynamics of gender and sexuality that have emerged in this shift. Freddie shares about how the wisdom in this interview supported him while recovering from covid.

ABOUT OUR GUEST: Olivia Pepper is a writer, theorist and nondenominational artist who currently resides in rural New Mexico. Olivia has dabbled abundantly in life and has been at times a film producer, a medicinal herb farmer, an astrologer, a journalist, a labor organizer, an experimental theatre maker, a line cook, and all kinds of other things. Mostly, though, Olivia is a collection of exhausted cells, weary bones, good stories, bad jokes and oddly sentimental pieces of pop culture trivia, mostly about Star Trek or queer poets of the 1920s.

Theme music is "HEATWAVE HEARTBREAK" by freddie blooms.

https://freddieblooms.com/