November is Native American Heritage Month, and in the lead-in to this week’s convo, I speak about the whitewashing of U.S. history, not to be a Thanksgiving buzzkill (sorry, not sorry), but because truth matters. Then I invite listeners into a conversation that explores the critical differences between Western and Indigenous perspectives on leadership. My guest, Wyatt Kelly, is a young Apache leader, public policy manager, and self-described ‘yelder.’ Wyatt opens up about his experiences growing up as an urban Native, then shares about his work in public policy and community health. I ask him how his leadership style runs counter to conventional colonialist models, and he shares stories about uplifting Native communities, sponsoring youth initiatives, and fostering meaningful everyday connections. Our conversation highlights the significance of storytelling, intergenerational knowledge, and empathy in leadership. We wrap with a call to action to support Native organizations, uplift Indigenous voices, and make way for leadership approaches that have cross-cultural well-being in mind. 

Wyatt Kelly is a young Apache man, a dedicated advocate, creative, and organizer deeply rooted in community health and well-being. His efforts span across urban and rural Indian Country, where he focuses on equity, healing, and Indigenous self-determination. Whether leading statewide public health initiatives, advising on policy, or contributing to research, Wyatt weaves together traditional knowledge and modern innovation to uplift Native communities. He currently serves as a statewide manager, trusted advisor to the State of California, and collaborator on numerous Native-led projects and initiatives. Guided by the principle of acting for the next seven generations, Wyatt is committed to transforming systems, centering Native voices, and helping build a future rooted in sovereignty, strength, and community well-being.

Referenced In This Episode:

• Yavapai-Apache Nation Remembers Exodus Day (article)
• Dr. Bernard Navarro — The 7th Generation Podcast
• CCUIH — California Consortium on Urban Indian Health
• Sage LaPena — Traditional Native Herbalist

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Is embodiment a tool in the ongoing fight for collective justice? In the intro, I share how the wellness world shaped my understanding of embodiment (why it matters and what it is for) and share how two decades of navel-gazing conditioned me to be complacent in the face of injustice. I catch us up on some current events, then share a riveting interview with Dr. Lesa Clark, a strategic leader in intercultural engagement and equity. Lesa shares personal stories from her family's history and how they shaped a lifelong commitment to social justice. She and I discuss embodied leadership, the importance of integrity (vs. performativity) in DEI initiatives, and the need for collective action and courage to confront oppressive systems. Lesa speaks to the complex interplay between leadership and followership, inviting us to break free from groupthink and to embody values that foster societal change. The discussion concludes with reflections on resilience, allyship, and the pursuit of justice.

Dr. Lesa C. Clark is a strategic leader with expertise in intercultural engagement, leadership development, and equity. With over 20 years of experience, she empowers organizations and individuals to cultivate inclusive cultures that prioritize diversity and facilitate authentic cross-cultural engagement. As the former Executive Director for Intercultural Relations and Women's and Gender Equity Centers at Old Dominion University, Dr. Clark spearheaded collaborative campus-wide DEI initiatives. She developed and instructed courses centered on cultural humility, connecting this framework to cultural competency and emotional intelligence. She recently completed a three-year research project that foregrounds the leadership of Black birth workers, a designation frequently overlooked in both academic literature and professional settings. Dr. Lesa Clark demonstrates how culturally grounded ancestral practices challenge and dismantle harmful practices, advancing more responsive and equitable maternal healthcare. Additionally, her work explores the leadership of Black women in Kenya, South Africa, and the United States, offering a comprehensive, global, and historical analysis of intersectional leadership and advocacy. Dr. Clark has advanced intersectional leadership paradigms that promote inclusion, respect, and equity, envisioning and enabling the development of systems and communities in which all members are empowered to flourish, thrive, and lead effectively.

Referenced In This Episode:

• How To Stand Up to a Dictator, by Maria Ressa
• ACLU - Neglect & Abuse in ICE Detention
• Anthony Boyd - Equal Justice Initiative
• Dr. Resmaa Menakem - Somatic Abolitionism
• To Stop a Tyrant, by Ira Chaleff 
• Donna Ladkin - On Embodiment

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Kicking off a new short-form series on reinventing leadership, I sit down with Dr. Suze Wilson, an associate professor at Massey University in New Zealand. She and I discuss the history and significance of critical theory as a tool in understanding and transforming leadership dynamics to foster greater inclusivity and equity. Suze shares a bit about her background and then summarizes her doctoral work on the evolution of leadership theories from trait theory to transformational leadership. She critiques the magical and often unrealistic expectations placed on leaders, particularly highlighting the danger of overlooking power dynamics in modern contexts. The conversation also explores the impact of political trends, particularly the rise of Trumpism, on global leadership norms. Toward the end of the episode, Suze emphasizes pragmatic approaches to fostering healthier leadership practices, referencing New Zealand’s former Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, as an illustrative example. The episode concludes with reflections on hope and collective agency in driving social change.

Dr. Suze Wilson is a leadership scholar and senior lecturer at Massey University, Auckland, Aotearoa, New Zealand. Her research examines issues of power, identity, gender, ethics, discourse, practice, context, and crisis in relation to leadership and its development. Her doctoral thesis won the 2014 Fredric M. Jablin Doctoral Dissertation Award, given by the ILA in partnership with the Jepson School of Leadership Studies; she has since become a Fellow and Board member of the ILA. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Business Ethics, Organization, Organizational Dynamics, Leadership and Culture, and Organization. Suze’s books are Thinking Differently About Leadership (2016), Revitalizing Leadership (2018), written in collaboration with Stephen Cummings, Brad Jackson, and Sarah Proctor-Thomson, and After Leadership, which she edited in collaboration with Brigid Carroll and Josh Firth. She is also editor of the Routledge Critical Companion to Leadership Studies along with David Knights, Owain Smolovic-Jones, and Helena Liu. She is an Associate Editor of the journal Leadership and also writes public commentary for The Conversation. Before entering academia, Suze held a range of senior leadership roles in several government agencies, the New Zealand postal service, a trade union, and the student union movement.

Referenced In This Episode:

• Letters From An American - Heather Cox Richardson
• Thinking Differently About Leadership, by Suze Wilson, PhD
• A Different Kind of Power: A Memoir, by Jacinda Ardern

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The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

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In the words of Timothy Snyder: “Do not obey in advance.” On October 18th, millions of Americans will gather across the nation to say ‘No’ to authoritarianism. This episode opens with audio from my solo experience at the first No Kings Protest in Downtown Los Angeles back in June. I share excerpts and offer a felt-sense of peaceful resistance and love in action. Then I take a critical look at 'followership' and at how complacency can be another form of compliance. I tell on myself in this regard; two decades of new age naval gazing taught me to prioritize peace within (aka my personal comfort) over principled insistence upon justice for all. As a lead-in to the next few episodes, I present evidence that debunks the myth of meritocracy, and I question the presumption that leadership is the source of unity and the answer to all of humanity's problems. The episode concludes with a few actions each of us can take to actively question the leader-follower dyad in our everyday lives in real time.

Referenced in this episode:

• On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder
• Janaya Future Khan on IG
• Find a No Kings Protest near you

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The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

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This episode is dedicated to American psychiatrist and author Robert Jay Lifton, who recently passed after decades of research into the psychology of totalism. “Doctrine over person” is one of Lifton’s eight criteria of thought reform; it’s widely considered to be a defining characteristic of the cultic headspace. But how exactly does it function? Meet T Brown. In 1997, T entered a Sufi group as a free-thinking, openly gay man. But he eventually discarded his personal eccentricities, married a woman, and became a public defender of the group’s apolitical, anti-vax ideology. In this episode, T shares how his life became “occupied” by the guru’s teachings. When the pandemic gave him the space he needed, T finally separated from the group after 23 years, and the journey of cult recovery began. Five years later, T is completing his doctoral dissertation and is debuting the performance of "A Cult Piece" at the Melbourne Fringe Festival. He tells us how the cult mindset impacted his choices, his family, and his sense of self. And he shares what it was like coming out of the cult (and to his wife) to re-enter the real world, free and disoriented. This episode is a deep dive into the paradox that often defines the journey of cult recovery. The end is just the beginning. Embodiment informs critical thinking. Art imitates life. And audacious self-acceptance slowly and steadily dispels a once all-consuming ideology.

Learn more about T Brown by visiting his QuitYourCult YouTube channel.

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The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

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Risk is relative, and fascism places everything in perspective. As such, this episode puts an end to ‘Org’ aliases (because, why not?) before reiterating the purpose that has been core since the 'cult'ure series inception. It was never about one specific brand or a few bad players. It's about every one of us owning up to our complicity and passive acceptance of cult-capitalistic norms. Did you know that the once-fringe Wellness Industry is now worth more than Big Pharma? So it's no surprise that the confluence of pseudoscience and capitalism has given birth to the MAHA movement, which relies heavily on reflexive denialism and a lack of evidential accountability. New-age wellness culture is at least in part to blame, particularly the way that high-vibe religious zeal and spiritual supremacy have become normalized. In this episode, I reflect on my past work as a wellness grifter, where I inadvertently perpetuated colonizer logic by creating top-down sales funnels that exploited people’s vulnerabilities for personal gain. I also speak explicitly about the launch of some former Nia (oops, there it is) influencers who are pitching a program of "liberation" in the aftermath of exiting high-demand influence and highlight six specific reasons why regular listeners of this podcast may want to be wary.

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The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

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It's time for another encore!

Ep.67 (originally released September 20, 2023) — Originally from Chile, Magdalena Weinstein spent the first 17 years of her life living under the rule of an authoritarian dictatorship. In this episode, she shares her childhood experiences, family life, and what motivated her to immigrate to the US in 2004. Magdalena speaks very candidly about the challenges of being in immigrant in America, and about time spent in a series of traumatizing and controlling environments - dictatorship in her formative years that stoked an early hunger for autonomy; years spent as an Iyengar yoga student and teacher striving for whitewashed dominion over her body; and a decade of investment in a coaching program where she experienced mind control and ongoing racial micro-aggressions. She generously shares each of these stories with us, poignantly illustrating what all of these seemingly unrelated experiences have in common. In 2019, Magdalena trained as a trauma specialist. In the final third of the episode, she helps us understand how trauma related to control is stored in the body and what, both individually and collectively, we can do about it. She describes the differences between control and personal agency, particularly in terms of owning and choosing psychological and somatic states. Then, Magdalena calls on wellness practitioners to trade Western idealism for a more realistic and collective approach to the growing challenges we now face as humans.

Magdalena Weinstein, SEP (she/her), is a Somatic Trauma Specialist who offers trauma recovery interventions utilizing Somatic Experiencing®, Touch Skills, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP), Parts Work, and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy perspectives. Blending the fields of Somatics, Neurology, and Social Justice, she is committed to helping individuals and groups transition towards personal, ancestral, and collective trauma healing. Her specialties are developmental and complex trauma, C-PTSD, PTSD, chronic conditions, domestic violence, and sexual assault trauma, and social justice dynamics, including racial trauma, immigration trauma, and war trauma. Originally from Chile, she was born and raised in a Dictatorship for her first 17 years of life and immigrated to the USA in 2004.

She lives in a rural home in Mendocino, Northern California (on unceded Pomo Territory), with her husband, their two children, dogs, cats, and snakes. She has a private practice in her home studio, is an assistant at SE trainings, and is a member of the DEI committee at Somatic Experiencing International. She is also finishing the first year of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy Training.

Referenced In This Episode:

• Heather Cox Richardson - September 11, 2023
• Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, by Naomi Klein
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari

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The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

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“My mouth is a fire escape. The words coming out don't care that they are naked. There is something burning in here.” ~ Andrea Gibson (RIP 🙏🏽💕)

It's time I spoke to the 'mean girl' label. It's been tossed around a bit too liberally for my taste, so I've decided to risk the high-road backlash and tell you what I’ve really been thinking and feeling. Am I a mean girl? I'll let you decide. I kick things off with an excerpt from a recent Patreon drop on parasocial influence — the one-sided connection we feel with a leader, influencer, or public figure who we’ve never met in person and/or have had only minimal contact with. From there, I discuss the sometimes imperceptible line folks draw between saying what’s real and mean-girling, and in doing so, I offer a critical heads up: Fawning isn’t friendship; it's high-vibe avoidance. Also, the postfeminist co-opting of 'cult'ure series content is something I saw coming, and alas, that day is here. I tell you why the recent launches of some high-profile Org apostates are about what I expected.

Referenced in this episode:

• The Madness Vase, by Andrea Gibson (book of poems)
• #84 - Q Her A (final episode of the ‘cult’ure series)
• STC #21 | Parasocial Relationships - Empathy & Influence In A Digital Age (full episode on Patreon)
• #59 - The Victim Label: Gaslighting, Victim Shaming, & Tone Policing for Social Control 

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The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

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This pic you see in the episode thumbnail was taken at an LA photo shoot back in 2002. I’m sharing it now because, in today’s pod release, I include personal stories that challenge the gender binary. And if your brain is suddenly scrambling to try and figure me out, that feeling you have is the entire point of this episode. Rather than jumping to conclusions, I hope you’ll listen in.

Today’s release takes a critical look at gender essentialism, the socially reinforced belief in a fixed gender binary. I kick things off with some personal stories, sharing why my girliest school photo is the cringiest, about the time I shaved my head in the early aughts, and the name of the book that had me performing "divine femininity" for over a decade. Newsflash: perimenopause can be a real bitch in the best possible way; I tell you how it’s helping me shed the she-shoulds and embrace fuller expression of my humanity. I define gender essentialism and the politics that drive it, speak to how the film industry fails women who are dog-tired of performing womanhood, and offer up a reminder that cis folks are the top consumers of gender-affirming care. I speak about how the most popular nonfiction book from the 90s repackaged and reified gender norms for decades to come, then offer a deep bow and wholehearted shout-out to trans folks who bear the weight of virulent projections because of our collective unwillingness to grapple with social conditioning. Challenging gender essentialism means braving cognitive dissonance and disrupting social norms; this episode may push some long-ago-installed buttons. Before you decide how you feel about it, I encourage you to listen to the entire episode AND explore every resource provided in the show notes (there are lots of folks expressing this stuff better than I can). You might be surprised where it lands you.

Referenced in this episode:

• The Cult of Gender w/ Maxx (TDP #70) w/ Maxx, Troy, & Lainie
• Elder Wisdom (TDP #23) w/ Katherine Howells
• Gender Trouble (Book), by Judith Butler
• If Books Could Kill (Podcast) - Men Are From Mars (Critique)
• ALOK: Biology! (YouTube) Comedy Special

Highly Recommended EXTRAS:

• Beyond XX & XY
• Mimi’s Story - Intersex
• In Defense of Misfits (more from Alok)

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The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

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Happy Pride month, y’all! Please help me to welcome lifelong activist and Arizona Drag Show organizer, Christopher Jay Hall, to the pod. Earlier this week, Christopher and his father were featured in a CNN article & this episode is a timely follow-up. Listen in as Christopher shares about his upbringing in rural Arizona, and how he & his dad have repaired their relationship in recent years. Despite his dad’s early-on rejection of his queerness, Christopher came out as a teen and fell heart-first into LGBTQ+ activism. He shares how working with countless nonprofits led to the emergence of his drag persona, Miss Nature. Miss Nature LLC travels regionally, working in collaboration with rural organizers to create inclusive spaces and provide information and resources to underserved communities. Arizona Drag Show performances are generally family-friendly events, which in recent years has led to some virulent pushback from the right, more specifically in the city I currently call home, Cottonwood, Arizona. Thankfully, Miss Nature and local organizers have refused to be bullied & this year the production is offering a larger-than-ever, sold-out performance. Christopher and I dig into some of the common misconceptions about drag (especially as it relates to children), and he shares why he remains steadfast when it comes to bringing LGBTQ+ support to rural areas similar to the one he grew up in. Miss Nature carries on, fierce and full of heart, even when she has to dance on culture-war eggshells to bring her and her glorious entourage on stage. I think my bestie said it best: "Drag Queens have always and will always exist & thank the gay gods for that!!!"

Christopher Jay Hall was born in Phoenix, AZ. He has lived all over the U.S. as a child, but spent much of his time growing up in Arizona. He has been in Tucson since 2013. He is a graduate of Northern Arizona University with a Bachelor’s in Public Administration. Christopher loves bringing people together from all walks of life to help support a common cause amongst groups that normally might not come together. He does this best as his persona, Miss Nature, whom he has been bringing to stages across the country for more than a decade. Miss Nature looks forward to bringing the art of drag to new communities that have yet to experience it. She produces the annual Arizona Pride Tour, which is set to expand into New Mexico in 2026. 

To learn more about her, visit ⁦MissNatureLLC.com.⁩

Referenced in this episode:

• Read the CNN article 
• Interview with David Gallegos-Roybal
• Free Held (Movie 2015)

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The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates.