Many things we once widely accepted as true and considered non-controversial galvanize intense debates.

Leaders are often advised to stay neutral, to not get political when these issues come up in their organizations.

Of course leaders should be mindful of what they discuss, how, and with whom. But that isn’t the same as being apolitical or neutral. In fact, our collective discomfort with being political often has less to do with neutrality and more to do with avoiding discomfort or even silencing conversations outright.

When leaders stifle discussions because they fear losing control, that’s not neutrality, that’s avoidance. And avoidance doesn’t make a space safe; it makes it fragile.

As leaders of teams from different backgrounds, lived experiences, and viewpoints, it is neither responsible nor possible to be truly neutral. But what we can do is create cultures of openness, generosity, and meaningful discussion. And in a time when science, health, food security, education, and mental well-being are being politicized, it’s essential.

In the second part of this series on science communication, my guest is an incredible leader, scientist, and science communicator. She shares critical reflections on what we can do to fight misinformation, regardless of our training and expertise.

Jessica Steier, DrPH, PMP is a public health scientist, advocate, science communicator, and Co-Founder and CEO of Unbiased Science. She is driven by a mission to bridge divides and foster trust through empathetic, evidence-based communication. As the founder of the Unbiased Science podcast and newsletter, she is committed to breaking free from echo chambers and tackling health and science literacy with clarity and compassion. Dr. Steier specializes in evaluation science, leveraging data and storytelling to inform health policy and program improvement. Her work focuses on building connections, encouraging dialogue, and making complex scientific concepts accessible to diverse audiences. 

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How pop understandings of science-related buzzwords make communication harder
• How Jessica works to account for her own biases when creating content
• Why connection and empathy are key to beginning to break down misinformation
• How connection without expertise, especially on social media, creates a flood of misinformation
• Why we have to address the roots of people’s mistrust of scientific institutions
• How Jessica and other science communicators are supporting each other through online abuse
• What to watch out for when influencers talk about health and wellness
• The real risks and impacts of some of the most common health misinformation

Learn more about Dr. Jessica Steier:

• Unbiased Science
• Unbiased Science Podcast
• Unbiased Science Newsletter
• Instagram: @unbiasedscipod

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• The Unburdened Leader on Substack
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

Resources:

• Politics, Andrew Heywood
• The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt
• Marking 50 Years in the Struggle for Democracy | Freedom House
• How Democracies Die, Daniel Ziblatt , Steven Levitsky
• ​​To combat misinformation, start with connection, not correction
• Booster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children's Health, Adam Ratner
• Kendrick Lamar - Not Like Us
• Fringe
• Weekend at Bernie's
• Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead

The issues at stake—our health, our rights, how we educate our kids—demand a lot from us. Yet, in today’s attention economy, leaders don’t always earn influence through integrity and truth. Instead, they master the art of capturing emotions, feeding fears, and speaking to lived experiences, often amplifying misinformation rather than challenging it.

When leaders step into the fight against misinformation, they take on enormous risks and the consequences are very real, from open hostility to verbal abuse to death threats.

Staying engaged in these difficult conversations requires more than just knowledge; it demands emotional regulation, capacity for conflict, and self-awareness. 

This is where unprocessed relational trauma can shape how a leader navigates conflict. But leaders who work through these wounds develop the ability to hold tension without collapsing or attacking. 

Developing this capacity for conflict is critical today. Because in an era when science is under siege, how we engage in conflict matters just as much as the facts themselves.

In the first of two conversations with leaders who model how to engage with critics without feeding the outrage machine, today’s guest shares his approach to tackling conflict and misinformation in science and health spaces, one where we engage with rigor and compassion without bending to the pressures of false equivalence. He understands that courage isn’t about shouting the loudest; it’s about staying grounded in your values, standing firm in the truth, and being authentic and creative in capturing much-coveted attention. 

Dr. Jonathan N. Stea is a full-time practicing clinical psychologist and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary. He’s a two-time winner of the University of Calgary’s Award for Excellence in Clinical Supervision and co-editor of the book Investigating Clinical Psychology: Pseudoscience, Fringe Science, and Controversies. Dr. Stea has published extensively, with regular contributions to Scientific American and Psychology Today, among other outlets, and has appeared on numerous mainstream television and radio shows, as well as podcasts. 

His book, Mind the Science: Saving Your Mental Health from the Wellness Industry, aims to educate and embolden those who wish to make informed decisions about their mental health, to improve science and mental health literacy, and to pull back the curtain on the devastating consequences of allowing pseudoscience promoters to target the vulnerable within our society. 

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How witnessing his mother’s health struggles as a child shaped both Jonathan’s career trajectory and his compassion for those who seek alternative treatments
• Why testimonials and other anecdotal evidence are actually warning signs of pseudoscience
• How the placebo effect impacts our perception of the effectiveness of alternative cures
• How not all grifters have malicious intent, though they can cause significant harm
• Breaking down common factors that make us susceptible to misinformation
• How Jonathan has learned to cope with trolls and challenge pseudoscience with humor

Learn more about Dr. Jonathan Stea:

• Website
• X: @jonathanstea
• Facebook: @drjonathanstea
• Instagram: @dr_jonathan_stea
• Threads: @dr_jonathan_stea
• Mind the Science Newsletter
• Mind the Science: Saving Your Mental Health from the Wellness Industry

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• The Unburdened Leader on Substack
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

Resources:

• Judith Lewis Herman
• The Developing Mind How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, Daniel J. Siegel 
• The Certainty Illusion, Timothy Caulfield
• Kyuss - Demon Cleaner
• Apple Cider Vinegar
• Spaceballs

Given our political situation in the United States, you may be hearing a lot of people–myself included–talk about living your values. Not just professing them, but really living them, even when it’s uncomfortable. It’s hard work that requires a lot of internal fortitude.

But we so often default to acting against our values in order to protect ourselves and those we love from real or perceived danger–to our jobs, our reputations, dignity, physical safety, and more. We try to protect ourselves with compliance, while our silence does real harm to others.

Those who have a history of relational trauma are especially likely to fear speaking up, even as they know their values and moral expectations are being violated. This collision of relational trauma with moral injury reinforces beliefs that the world is unsafe and that people in power cannot be trusted.

My guest today is a survivor of abuse and cultish communities. She leans on her experiences of relational trauma and moral injury in her writing, teaching, and advocacy. The ongoing healing of her relational and betrayal wounds allows her to lead with courage and clarity, especially when it is not easy or convenient.

Jamie Marich, Ph.D. (she/they) speaks internationally on EMDR therapy, trauma, addiction, dissociation, expressive arts, yoga, and mindfulness. They also run a private practice and online training network in their home base of Akron, OH. Marich has written numerous books, notably Trauma and the 12 Steps: An Inclusive Guide to Recovery and Dissociation Made Simple: A Stigma-Free Guide to Embracing Your Dissociative Mind and Navigating Life. She has won numerous awards for LGBT+ and mental health advocacy, specifically in reducing stigma around dissociative disorders through the sharing of her own lived experience.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How Jamie learned to have more compassion for her mother as the bystander in the course of writing her memoir
• How asking can I make a change here? can aid in deciding when and how to speak up
• How binary judgments of healthy or unhealthy, healed or unhealed devalue the lifelong journey and process of healing
• How to deflate your own judgments about where others are in their own journeys
• Why leaders in health and wellness spaces need to be wary of one true way thinking
• How Jamie unpacked the concept of forgiveness from her religious childhood and made space for compassion and letting go
• How growing up pretending everything was fine made Jamie value authenticity more fiercely as an adult

Learn more about Dr. Jamie Marich:

• Website
• Redefine Therapy
• The Institute for Creative Mindfulness
• Instagram: @drjamiem, @traumatherapistrants 
• TikTok: @traumatherapistrants
• YouTube: @DrJamieMM
• You Lied to Me About God

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• The Unburdened Leader on Substack
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

Resources:

• Hidden Brain | Marching to Your Own Drummer with Sunita Sah
• Jonathan Shay, MD, PhD
• Francine Shapiro
• No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model, Richard Schwartz Ph.D.
• The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World, Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu
• EMDR Made Simple: 4 Approaches to Using EMDR with Every Client, Jamie Marich
• Harvey Milk
• Parable of the Sower, Octavia E Butler
• I'm Not That Girl
• Wicked
• Rainbow Brite
• Cats

In Twelve Step programs, the first step, as I understand it, is recognizing that we are powerless to heal alone.

We cannot overcome addiction, trauma, or systemic oppression through sheer willpower or individual effort. Healing, recovery, and meaningful change require connection, support, and systems that foster growth.

All true! But we should not make a virtue out of being powerless.

Recognizing what is beyond your ability isn’t the same as accepting that you are powerless to change. Powerlessness is, in fact, a protective response that disconnects us from our personal power.

When we conflate protection with powerlessness, we risk internalizing the very dynamics that keep us trapped in authoritarian systems—whether in families, partnerships, workplaces, faith communities, or governments.

Power-over systems create environments where speaking up feels dangerous, where challenging authority risks humiliation or exile. But no matter the system or oppression, we always retain what Right Use of Power methodology calls our personal power. And that’s precisely why authoritarian structures work so hard to make us feel otherwise.

Owning your personal power in an authoritarian system requires deep, intentional work. And we cannot do it alone.

My guest today will introduce you to the types of power in the Right Use of Power framework and help you reconnect with your personal power so that you can stand firm and do hard, scary, necessary things.

Dr. Amanda Aguilera currently serves as the Executive Director of the Right Use of Power Institute and a Trusted Advisor at The Ally Co. She has dedicated most of her career to helping people and organizations understand systems, conflict, and social power dynamics to create right relationship and a sense of belonging. She has a knack for making difficult conversations easier, complex ideas more accessible, and resistance more workable. Integrating power, contemplative practices, neurobiology, and restorative practices, she works by finding a balance of head and heart and facilitating the co-creation of strategic maps that lead us forward in a more equitable way.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How the Right Use of Power framework gave Amanda language to understand and articulate power
• Why power itself is fundamentally neutral
• How Right Use of Power reframes power as a dynamic and not a possession
• Breaking down the six types of power from personal to universal
• Why direct challenges to status power are so often destabilizing 
• How undeveloped personal power leads people to do harm with their role and status power
• Why we have to become aware of how power exists in our relationships
• How developing our personal power helps us to participate in the collective power that can actually challenge systems
• How leaders can foster healthy power differential relationships

Learn more about Dr. Amanda Aguilera:

• Right Use of Power Institute
• Instagram: @rightuseofpowerinstitute

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• The Unburdened Leader on Substack
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

Resources:

• EP 88: Right-Use-of-Power: Navigating Leadership Dynamics with Dr. Cedar Barstow
• EP 14: Consenting to Grief as a Leadership Practice with Dean Nelson, PhD
• Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, Richard Rohr
• All About Love, bell hooks
• Marie Beecham
• Alt National Park Service
• Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls, Kai Cheng Thom
• Indigo Girls - Closer to Fine
• Pose
• The Karate Kid 
• Star Wars

Toxic leadership stems from the burdens of unresolved trauma and difficult life experiences. 

When you don’t do the work to regulate your nervous system, the parts of you that protect you through mico-managing, shaming, blaming, not trusting anyone, or worse will eventually wreak havoc on your career, those you lead, and your own capacity for discomfort.

So, what does it look like for you to commit to doing the work?

Maybe you go to therapy or coaching, or adopt practices to deepen your self-awareness and reflection. The trouble is, “doing the work” can easily turn into navel-gazing or intellectualizing. The same tools that might help you unburden can also be used to numb out. We so often are sold the idea that we will overcome and be done with it that we bypass doing the real, deep, lifelong work.

Today’s guest illustrates–literally–what it looks and feels like to commit to doing powerful work. Her gorgeous new graphic novel, Past Tense, shares her windy and beautiful journey of doing the work through the lens of Internal Family Systems.

Sacha Mardou was born in Macclesfield in 1975 and grew up in Manchester, England. She began making comics after getting her BA in English Literature from the University of Wales, Lampeter. Her critically acclaimed graphic novel series, Sky in Stereo, was named an outstanding comic of 2015 by the Village Voice and shortlisted for the 2016 Slate Studio Prize.

Since 2019 she has been making comics about therapy and healing. Her graphic memoir Past Tense: Facing Family Secrets and Finding Myself in Therapy is out now. Since 2005 she has lived in St Louis, Missouri with her cartoonist husband Ted May, their daughter and two disruptive cats.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How going to therapy for what she thought was just anxiety became a journey of unpacking her past 
• How her therapist helped her “correct the picture” she’d been holding of people and events of her childhood
• How Sacha adapted her private sketched therapy notes into the comics she shares publicly
• How working with IFS to process her childhood has impacted her present-day relationships
• How the IFS process has helped Sacha recast her difficult experiences as gifts and strengths and her story as valuable
• How Sacha approached writing her book wholeheartedly, while still protecting her boundaries

Learn more about Sacha Mardou:

• Website
• Past Tense: Facing Family Secrets and Finding Myself in Therapy
• Instagram: @mardou_draws
• Facebook: @sachamardou

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

Resources:

• Family Secrets with Dani Shapiro
• EP 72: Identifying and Addressing the Burdens of Individualism with Deran Young & Dick Schwartz
• EP 101: Transforming the Legacy Burdens from Relational Trauma with Deran Young
• Compassion Prison Project
• Cece Sykes LCSW
• Ralph De La Rosa, LCSW
• Doris Lessing
• Eric Maisel
• Elizabeth Gilbert
• Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body, Rebekah Taussig
• Love Is a Burning Thing, Nina St. Pierre
• Teenage Fanclub - Mellow Doubt
• The Franchise
• The Office

These days, the call for leaders to be adaptable, agile, flexible, clear, focused, and calm could lead many to think it's not okay to feel or that you need to be a robot.

We minimize our feelings and put on a brave face until we can no longer fake it, sometimes in the name of being “regulated.”

When there's a trend in language or an approach to healing, it can sometimes be reductive in how it's taught, explained, or understood. Concepts drawn from Polyvagal Theory, like regulation and activation, are no exception.

How some talk about regulation and dysregulation can create pressure to diminish our humanity so that we don't emote, and cause us to criticize someone if they're upset.

In reality, Polyvagal Theory offers a powerful addition to your toolbox for leading yourself and others well while staying aligned with your values. 

When we work towards helping our nervous systems become more agile and adaptable by putting in the reps and working to understand our systems and our stories, we can offer those we love and lead a greater sense of curiosity, compassion, and connection. And we will have enough boundaries and guardrails to know when to tap out, take a break, and ask for help.

Today’s guest teaches and discusses these topics so that we can learn to regulate our nervous systems better and connect better with others. 

Deb Dana, LCSW, is a clinician, consultant, author, and international lecturer on polyvagal theory-informed work with trauma survivors and is the leading translator of this scientific work to the public and mental health professionals. She's a founding member of the Polyvagal Institute and creator of the signature Rhythm of Regulation® clinical training series.

Deb's work shows us how understanding polyvagal theory applies across the board to relationships, mental health, and trauma. She delves into the intricacies of how we can all use and understand the organizing principles of polyvagal theory to change the ways we navigate our daily lives. 

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Why regulation is not a static state but an ongoing dynamic experience 
• How understanding the subconscious survival responses of the nervous system under stress can help us learn to regulate and repair
• Why we can’t discount or dismiss the messages our survival responses are trying to give us
• How even micro-moments of responding to our nervous systems’ needs can create change
• How building capacity to resourcing regulation increases our capacity to sit with discomfort and struggle in our lives and in the world
• How leaders can use Polyvagal Theory concepts to create connected, collaborative environments for themselves and those they lead

Learn more about Deb Dana:

• Rhythm of Regulation

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

Resources:

• Stephen Porges
• The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah
• Blue: The History of a Color, Michel Pastoureau
• Céline Dion, Andrea Bocelli - The Prayer
• Halloween Baking Championship
• Holiday Baking Championship
• The Great British Baking Show

I know I’m not alone in feeling like 2024 was a year. So many of us are still working through everything that happened as we wonder exactly what lies ahead.

As part of that reflection on the year past and preparing for the year ahead, long-time listeners may know that I am a big believer in debriefing. I debrief weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually, and each year, I share my annual debrief with you.

This debrief includes personal reflections about events in my life, how my words of the year brought some interesting data to light and guided my actions, and themes about what’s working and what’s not working as we begin the new year. 

Content note: Discussion of death by suicide

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How my words of the year–rhythm and reps–challenged some of my deeply engrained habits and unrealistic expectations
• How a series of events in my personal life led to shifts in my rhythms and reps and deeper healing
• What 35 tomato plants taught me about priorities and planning
• Wisdom that stuck with me from live talks by Elizabeth Gilbert and Anne Lamott
• Experiences that brought me joy last year and why joy is essential to doing the hard work ahead
• Managing anger and outrage in our political climate through curiosity and healing, unburdened leadership

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

Resources:

• Writer's Symposium by the Sea
• EP 14: Consenting to Grief as a Leadership Practice with Dean Nelson, PhD
• Elizabeth Gilbert
• Redwood
• Anne Lamott
• Conclave
• Rent
• tick, tick…BOOM!
• The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron
• Real Fun, Wow!
• Brené Brown
• Virgin River
• The Office
• Parks and Rec
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine
• Community
• The Diplomat
• Lioness
• Timothy Snyder
• EP 70: Getting out of Shame and Into Power with Kelly Diels
• Kelly Diels
• Finding Mercy in Impossible Times (Father Gregory Boyle) | Pulling the Thread with Elise Loehnen
• Father Gregory Boyle
• EP 117: Rethinking Resilience: Moving from Bouncing Back to Relational Resilience with Soraya Chemaly
• EP 96: Rage to Action: The Leading Power of Women’s Anger with Soraya Chemaly
• Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger, Soraya Chemaly
• The Resilience Myth: New Thinking on Grit, Strength, and Growth After Trauma, Soraya Chemaly
• EP 113:  Curiosity as a Bridge: Uncovering Fears and Building Connections with Scott Shigeoka
• EP 90: Engaged and Consistent Leadership: with Moms Demand Action Founder, Shannon Watts
• Moms Demand Action
• How Leadership Styles Will Change in 2025

As I’ve been reflecting on the past year, themes of relational trauma, betrayal trauma, and shame have come up again and again in our culture at large and in the work I do with leaders.

Relational and betrayal traumas disrupt our ability to trust—ourselves, others, and even the world around us. These wounds often linger in ways we don’t fully see. They impact how we navigate relationships, handle conflict, and lead ourselves and others.

And far, far too often, these unaddressed, unhealed traumas beget shame. Shame is one of the most destructive forces in leadership and relationships.

When leaders operate out of shame, it’s volatile and dangerous. It hurts both those who wield it and those who experience it. Healing shame requires sharing our pain with those who have earned the right to hear our stories—those who can hold space for us with compassion, accountability, and empathy.

Empathy is the antidote to shame, and it’s also what transforms leadership. Leaders who can navigate challenges with compassion, even under immense pressure, create trust, relational resilience, and growth environments.

In today’s replay of my conversation with Dr. Frank Anderson, he reminds us that healing isn’t just personal—it’s deeply relational. He also offers the provocative idea that we all have the capacity to be healers and the capacity to harm.

When we commit to healing, we reclaim our ability to lead with clarity, compassion, and courage.

Frank Anderson, MD, completed his residency and was a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is an author, psychiatrist, therapist, speaker, and trauma specialist who’s spent the past three decades studying neuroscience and trauma treatment. He is passionate about teaching brain-based psychotherapy and integrating current neuroscience knowledge with the IFS therapy model. His published work spans contributions to literature and training for a clinical audience and works accessible to the general public.

Content Warning: We cover some heavy topics around verbal and physical abuse, conversion therapy, and suicidal ideation. Please take care as you listen to this conversation.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Why it was so important for Frank to tell his story from a place of healing and love, even for the people who hurt him the most
• How releasing fear, anger, and shame makes space for forgiveness, healing, and love
• Why forgiveness and relational healing can only come after processing and releasing the trauma of what happened within yourself
• Why Frank says that healing is possible, but we’re never done healing
• How holding onto divisive binary thinking harms all of us and keeps our culture from healing
• How holding space with love and empathy can help people acknowledge what happened and accept accountability
• How unprocessed trauma causes us to repeat toxic patterns in our lives

Learn more about Frank Anderson, MD:

• Website
• Instagram: @frank_andersonmd
• Facebook: @mdfrankanderson
• Connect on LinkedIn
• To Be Loved: A Story of Truth, Trauma, and Transformation
• Transcending Trauma: Healing Complex Ptsd with Internal Family Systems

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

Resources:

• EP 117: Rethinking Resilience: Moving from Bouncing Back to Relational Resilience with Soraya Chemaly
• Open Monogamy: A Guide to Co-Creating Your Ideal Relationship Agreement, Tammy Nelson
• Conan Gray - Heather
• P!NK - TRUSTFALL
• Fellow Travelers

When was the last time you felt truly moved by something you saw or heard?

It could be a piece of art or music, a line from a book or poem, being with someone you love, or even a perfect bite of food, but those moments that stop us in our tracks are more than fleeting pleasures.

These “glimmers” create space for our bodies to exhale so that we can experience wonder, awe, and joy.

Learning to recognize and lean into these moments isn’t just about respite from the hard things; they help us navigate challenging times by reminding us that humans need connection, creativity, and hope. 

Today’s guest is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work invites us into a world of creativity and intention. It is a testament to the necessity of nurturing creativity and wonder, and what’s possible when we follow their pull as allies in our journey to love and lead with boldness and integrity.

Amanda Jones is an artist, poet, and filmmaker living and working in the northern beaches of Sydney Australia. Amanda studied ‘Contemporary dance and choreography’ at the School of Creative Arts and ‘Styling and creative direction’ at Whitehouse Fashion Institute. She founded her film production company One Minute Film in 2015 working with clients such as The Iconic, Nimble Activewear, and Barre Body. In 2021 Amanda published her first book Diary of a Freelancer, its success shifted her work into her full-time art practice. 

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How early experiences at the intersection of creativity and commerce shaped Amanda’s career trajectory
• How Amanda realized that some pieces of her journals were meant to be shared
• Why her journaling practice is vital to both her personal life and her work life
• How Amanda approached self-publishing her book to make it a piece of art and embrace its mistakes
• How balancing play and discipline as she takes on a new medium helps Amanda combat imposter syndrome
• How Amanda protects her creativity and imagination despite our challenging world

Learn more about Amanda Jones:

• Website
• Instagram: @amanda______jones
• Diary of a Freelancer

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

Resources:

• Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, Brené Brown
• The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron
• The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
• Bleachers - Tiny Moves
• Drops of God
• Seinfeld

Have you ever looked around and felt that the way you live and work isn’t sustainable? 

It’s hard to find anyone who hasn’t felt the weight of this relentless pace and the intense pressure to keep up as if this is just how modern life has to be.

But what if it doesn’t have to be this way? 

Our culture in the U.S. is burdened by pressures to keep up, excel, and do it all, often without the support systems to help us carry that load.

What if we paused to question the assumptions driving us to stay so busy and overextended? 

Today’s guest invites us to imagine stepping off the hamster wheel and envisioning what it would look like to challenge the norms we’ve been handed about work and life.

We can’t all pack up and move, but we can make small but powerful steps towards a more sustainable way of living, working, and leading.

Kirsten Powers is a New York Times bestselling author and writes the bestselling Substack publication Changing the Channel. Jon Meacham called her most recent book, Saving Grace: Speak Your Truth, Stay Centered and Learn to Coexist with People Who Drive You Nuts, "a great gift at an urgent hour.” 

Kirsten served as an on-air CNN senior political analyst for seven years. She has been a columnist for USA Today, the Daily Beast and the New York Post, and a political analyst at Fox News. Before her career in journalism, Kirsten was a political appointee in the Clinton Administration, worked in New York Democratic politics and was Vice President for International Communications at AOL, Inc.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Kirsten’s awakening to the fact that American culture is “not normal”
• How neoliberalism reshaped our relationship with work, class, and consumerism
• A reality check on what it takes to make radical changes in your life, at home or abroad
• How unpacking paradigms about work and being busy has led Kirsten to question so many other norms in American life
• The intense and long-term physical toll of our culture’s obsession with overwork
• What gives Kirsten hope that America can do and be better in the future 

Learn more about Kirsten Powers:

• Changing the Channel
• Instagram: @kirstenpowers
• Saving Grace: Speak Your Truth, Stay Centered and Learn to Coexist with People Who Drive You Nuts

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

Resources:

• The way we live in the United States is not normal
• The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era, Gary Gerstle
• Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic-And What We Can Do about It, Jennifer Breheny Wallace
• Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church, Eliza Griswold
• House of the Dragon
• Pretty in Pink