Soul + Practice: Raw Conversations & Real Practices with Kathy Escobar & Phyllis Mathis

Our friend Lori Wilson embodies curiosity and questions that connect humans together in simple but profound ways! The art of presence and remaining in a posture of curiosity takes practice (and is really hard in this world that thrives on certainty, statements, and positions) and we loved learning from her in this episode. Learn more about her work and sign up to get awesome questions in your in-box each week at questionsthatconnect.com.

In this episode we process the angst of narcissists and how they are bald-face liars and what that does to our soul and our society. It sucks!

Trigger Warning: gun violence and traumatic mental illness story | In this episode we feel so grateful for the courage of our friend Heather Kopp to share her real and extremely vulnerable story as a mom of a son struggling with mental illness that contributed to a tragic shooting of 3 random people and his death by the police. The names of the victims are Andrew Alan Myers, 42, Jennifer Vasquez, 35, and Christina Galella-Baccus, 34. In the complexities of life and especially with the reality of the recent shooting at a Nashville school, we are aware of how tangled up all these issues are and how important it is to be able to hear real stories that help us become people who can hold the complicated together. Learn more about Heather at heatherkopp.com

Instead of trying to earn, find, or claw our way into a seat at the tables created by oppressive systems, what if we just built our own f'ing table?

Toxic skills--things we *can* do that are not life giving and we really shouldn't be doing. This idea of considering toxic skills was originally shared by our friend Deborah Loyd at a Refuge workshop a chunk of years ago and comes up a lot in our soul practice work. In this episode we explore how easy it is to default to toxic skills (and how we're often praised for them) instead of doing the hard work of staying in our lane of things we love (or even like!),

Living--not just surviving--this harsh world is no small thing and one of the most brave and beautiful things we can do is be open to joy in the midst of it. This conversation with our friend Krista O'Reilly-Davi-Digui, founder of A Life in Progress and a brave and beautiful community, is raw and real and exactly what Soul + Practice is all about. Joy is the most vulnerable emotion and oh, we are allowed to feel it but it sure can be scary. More on Krista's work at alifeinprogress.ca.

In this episode, we unpack some of our reflections after a Civil Rights Learning Trip and Community Pilgrimage to Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma Alabama with a group of 16 of us who are part of the 12 Steps for Anti-Racism group using Melvin Bray's 12 Steps Truth and Transformation Model centered on untangling from supremacist logic that's embedded in us, confronting the truth of our histories and its impact on us, and tangibly working toward change. This just scratches the surface but that's what this podcast is about--raw conversations and real practices. More on Melvin's work at collabryinthconsulting.com. More on the work of Equal Justice Initiative at eji.org

We had such a rich and soulful conversation with our friend Dr. Lisa Pettit on engaged Buddhism and how the teachings of Thich Nat Hanh in community can change us and the way we move together in the world. We wanted to keep talking for hours! More on Compassionate Dharma Cloud Monastery in Morrison at cdcmonastery.org.

Oh, the patriarchy. We could do entire seasons on it but for today, we're just happy to get to hang out with our amazing friend Kay Neuhausel, a therapist and kindred. The patriarchy doesn't just affect women; it messes with all of us and the long, slow work of healing start with honest conversations and creating a space where we can name some of the things that look invisible to many but affect everything. More on Kay's practice--Brave Therapy--at kayneuhausel.com

In today's episode we dive into a conversation with Tim H, co-author of "Adult Children of Manifest Destiny: A 12 Step Program for People Recovering from Settler Colonialism" with Alietta R. Untangling from our history and how it's impacted us and our culture is slow and long healing work meant to do together. You can learn more about their work and order the ACMD workbook at acmdonline.com