Kindred World

Dr. Suzanne Zeedyk shares how Scotland is on track to become the world’s first ACES (Adverse Childhood Experiences) Aware nation. The country’s holistic approach to treating violence as a virus has led to a 50 percent reduction in violence in big cities like Glasgow. On this podcast we will hear Dr. Zeedyk share her experience of working with police departments, childcare centers and hosting an ACES conference of over 2500 attendees in 2019. As a dual citizen of America and Scotland, we will ask her for insights on the possibility of bringing this cultural transformation to the United States.

Dr. Zeedyk is a research scientist at the University of Dundee and began her academic career with a doctorate from Yale University. She is the creator of the film and educational project, The Connected Baby, and the author of multiple books on the science of human connection.

You can read this transcript on Kindred at www.KindredMedia.org

In this interview with Robin Grille, we learn why it is important for us to spend time growing up our inner child before becoming an activist. “The wounded children are driving the direction of the planet,” says Grille. “And we need adults to show up as activists to do the work that needs to be done to make real change.”

Grille and Lisa Reagan, Kindred’s editor, walk through the process of forgiveness, befriending your triggers, and creating community on a path to bringing out our adult selves to be the activists the world needs right now. “We make public policy based on our inner child’s needs, and the sooner we wake up to that fact, the sooner we’re out of this mess.”

Please don’t think that Inner Child Journeys is a parenting book. It’s not. But it will help you to understand, through a series of interactive exercises, how to identify your own inner child’s needs instead of projecting them onto your child or a corporation.

You can read excerpts of Robin’s books on Kindred here: www.kindredmedia.org/author/robin-grille/

READ THE SERIES: www.kindredmedia.org/2020/03/black-…ocial-justice/

Kindred listeners and readers are invited to our virtual campfire to hear the Wisdom Council members of Reaching Our Brothers Everywhere, ROBE, share their inspired personal stories and vision for their national nonprofit work.

In this series, Lisa Reagan is joined by Kindred’s social justice editor, Dave Metler, in Detroit, MI, and our Kindred Spirit Research Student, Reshma Grewal, from the University of California at Santa Barbara, who helped to expand our inquiry into our own personal experiences and perspectives.

In Part IV, you will meet Carl Route, Jr, and Greg Long, Wisdom Council members of Reaching Our Brothers Everywhere. Their personal stories share the insight of reaching and preparing fathers to help counter the race-driven epidemic of high infant and maternal mortality rates in the black community, as well as increase breastfeeding rates for lifelong wellness.

You can visit ROBE at www.breastfeedingROBE.org

Part III in Kindred’s Black Men, Breastfeeding and Social Justice Series

An Interview with Reaching Our Brother's Everywhere, ROBE's Wisdom Council Members, Calvin Williams and Kevin Sherman.

TRANSCRIPT HERE: www.kindredmedia.org/2020/06/black-…uncil-members/

About Kindred’s Black Men, Breastfeeding and Social Justice Series: In this series, Lisa Reagan talks with the Wisdom Council members of Reaching Our Brothers Everywhere, ROBE, Calvin Williams and Kevin Sherman, who share their extraordinary stories of forging a new “generative” path to fatherhood, one that prepares black fathers to become crucial advocates and supporters “to increase breastfeeding rates and decrease infant mortality rates within African-American communities.”

The maternal morbidity, infant death and low breastfeeding rates (a path to lifelong wellness) in African-American communities are the results of institutional and structural racism, gender inequality, and living in the one developed country on Earth that does not provide social support for families, such as paid family leave, healthcare, and worklife laws for fathers.

While ROBE’s wisdom council members seek to “educate, equip and empower” new fathers, they, and the fathers they serve face the persistent cultural myth of black fathers as absent fathers. A damaging mythology contradicted by CDC data that shows:

Most black fathers live with their children. There are about 2.5 million who live with their children, and 1.7 million who don’t, according to the CDC.

Black dads who live with their children are actually the most involved fathers of all, on average, a CDC study found.

For more academic insights into breaking stereotypes of black fathers, see Understanding the Positive Impacts of African American Fathers, or any work by Waldo E. Johnson, Jr., who has been deeply immersed in the study of black fathers and families for over two decades.

About Kindred’s Editor: Oral history has its roots in the sharing of stories throughout the centuries. It is a primary source of historical data, gathering information from living individuals via recorded interviews. Lisa Reagan’s interviews of thought-leaders, researchers, activists, parents and professionals serves as an oral history of the organic conscious parenting/family wellness movement in the United States and globally since 1999. Follow her podcasts, and this series, on Apple Music/iTunes, SoundCloud and here on Kindred.

In this interview with Lisa Reagan, Marilyn Mandala Schlitz, PhD, shares the inspiration for her documentary, Death Makes Life Possible, created with co-producer, Deepak Chopra. You can see the film's trailer, and read a feature article with Dr. Schlitz and Dr. Chopra on Kindred here: www.kindredmedia.org/2013/06/death-…-bridging-the/

Marilyn Mandala Schlitz, PhD, r. Schlitz is an acclaimed social scientist, award-winning author, and charismatic public speaker. She has conducted clinical, laboratory and field-based research into consciousness, human transformation, and healing. Her books include Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life; Consciousness and Healing: Integral Approaches to Mind Body Medicine; and Death Makes Life Possible (and companion film by same title). Having taught at Stanford, Harvard, and Trinity University, she is currently Chair of the doctoral program in Transpersonal Psychology at Sofia University, CEO/President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Schlitz has published hundreds of articles in scholarly journals and popular publications, and has lectured extensively in diverse venues, including the United Nations, Smithsonian Institution, Commonwealth Club, and community groups across the world.

A national treasure for her leadership in breastfeeding and equity education, in this Kindred interview, Kimarie Bugg, DNP, RN, MPH, IBCLC, shares her story of discovering her love for caring for babies and mothers as the granddaughter of a Southern lay midwife who cautioned her to become a “real nurse” when she grew up. Born in South Bend, Indiana, Kimarie’s childhood visits to her grandmother in Arkansas shaped her understanding of racism with first-hand experiences – like moving off of sidewalks with her grandmother to let white people pass – ­that she did not encounter in South Bend.

In 1978, Kimarie became a mother of twins and a registered nurse while living in the state of Texas. In her Kindred interview, she shares her experience of calling La Leche League for help with breastfeeding her twins as a young mother and discovering the organization’s leaders and local hospital, at that time, did not return calls to “people who lived in my area code.” Her challenging and isolating experience breastfeeding twins inspired her to help mothers until, as a nurse, she became known in her hospital as the “breast nurse.”

Her pursuit of a doctorate in nursing, 40 years of breastfeeding education, and integration of her early and ongoing awareness of racial disparities, led her to found Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere, ROSE, in 2011. A recipient of a million-dollar W. K. Kellogg Foundation grant, ROSE is tasked to “Address inequities in breastfeeding rates among African American women by creating communities across the United States who promote and support breastfeeding through culturally appropriate capacity building of community members, public health professionals and healthcare systems.”

In her 2020 letter to ROSE members and supporters, Kimarie shares, “Through our passion for eliminating the disproportionate negative impact of [Black] maternal and infant mortality, breastfeeding initiation and duration, and all the maternal, paternal and child health systematic injustices to which we have dedicated our lives, we are labeled hostile by some. To them, we say, “we are not hostile, we are passionate about disrupting the political determinates of health” in the communities where we live, work, play and worship.

“We will not be satisfied with just Black representation. We listen to Black mothers. And we will fight for their rights to have true power in the information, care and engagement they receive from institutions and systems. This is our calling and our covenant to you. We will continue to address the root cause of social injustice and make a culture shift towards an anti-oppressive culture. And we will actively engage it until we can run no more, at which point we will gladly pass this baton of passion, this birthright, this struggle, to the next-gen mothers, the next-gen servant leaders, who will carry our power further than I can imagine. Our magic is in our fears and tears, our sisterhoods and our LOVE.” (Read Kimarie’s letter from the president here.)

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW ON WWW.KINDREDMEDIA.ORG HERE:https://www.kindredmedia.org/2020/05/the-magic-of-fears-and-tears-an-interview-with-kimarie-bugg/

"Our children already know the truth.

We need to align ourselves with this truth,

tend to our Inner Climate Change,

so we can talk with them and prepare them

for the world that exists now."

– Stephanie Mines, PhD

Read the transcript of the interview here: www.kindredmedia.org/2020/05/buildi…nie-mines-phd/

Stephanie Mines, PhD, is the author of We Are All In Shock, and a dynamic neuroscientist integrating human consciousness, indigenous healing systems, and our planetary crisis of climate change and species extinction.

Dr. Mines offers her deep wisdom and sustainable healing systems for navigating our way out of an Old Story. Check out this post on Kindred to find a few handouts to go with it, and resources for healing practices.

Dr. Stephanie Mines is a psychologist whose unique understanding comes from her academic research as well as her extensive work in the field. Her stories of personal transformation have led many listeners to become deeply committed to the healing journey. Dr. Mines understands shock from every conceivable perspective. She has investigated it as a survivor, a professional, a healthcare provider, and as a trainer of staffs of institutions and agencies. Her blend of Western and Eastern modalities offers the best of both paradigms. She is devoted to ending the lineage of shock and trauma for individuals and the world.

Dr. Mines is the Program Director of the DOM Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing alternative health options for a broad spectrum of populations. As Director, she is responsible for disseminating information to communities in need, especially people suffering from illness that results from shock and trauma, survivors of domestic violence, families and children, and people living with neurodiversity including autism and other sensory integration challenges.

Dr. Mines’previous book, We Are All in Shock: How Overwhelming Experiences Shatter You and What You Can Do About It, (New Page Books, 2003), presents a comprehensive application of the healing system she has developed.

Kindred’s editor, Lisa Reagan, attended the University of California at Hastings’ Center for Worklife Law‘s Breastfeeding Policy Summit at Jones Day Law Firm in San Francisco on August 6, 2019. The summit’s purpose was to educate an invited group of activists from around the country on the insights gleaned from Joan Williams’ quarter century research into advancing women in the workplace, as well as the center’s new reports on discrimination against breastfeeding and pregnant mothers in the workplace. The summit trained activists in choosing politically-conscientious verbiage, becoming aware of values of their legislators and region, and using these insights to help create and pass legislation to promote and protect women’s reproductive rights in the workplace.

Joan C. Williams is a Distinguished Law Professor and Founding Director of the Center for WorkLife Law at UC Hastings. Her path-breaking work helped create modern workplace flexibility policies and the field of work-family studies. She has authored over 90 academic articles and 11 books, including White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America and What Works for Women at Work. One of her proudest accomplishments was winning the Betty Crocker Homemaker Award in high school.

READ THE TRANSCRIPT: https://www.kindredmedia.org/2020/01/class-conflict-breastfeeding-policy-and-creating-systemic-change%EF%BB%BF-an-interview-with-joan-c-williams/