The Unburdened Leader

Some words and experiences come with a lot of baggage, conjuring up fear, stigma, and shame.

But being afraid or ashamed doesn’t protect us from those experiences or those words. It just keeps us from really understanding them or being able to talk about them. And what we can’t process for ourselves, we can’t help those we love and lead with either.

In the clinical space, dissociation is one of those words and experiences that is met with a lot of discomfort. How people were taught and trained to address dissociation often perpetuates shame and stigma, and its pop culture depictions and usage haven’t helped either.

But my guest today has spent her career making the case that dissociation isn’t rare, or even necessarily pathological; it’s actually a common and deeply human experience that ranges from everyday zoning out to more complex presentations that do need support.

And as you’ll hear, Dr. Jamie Marich believes understanding this spectrum isn’t just a matter of clinical education, but is vital for our own self-knowledge and how we lead others.

Dr. Jamie Marich, PhD, LPCC-S, REAT (she/they) began her career as a humanitarian aid worker in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 2000-2003, primarily teaching English and music. Jamie travels internationally teaching on topics related to trauma, EMDR therapy, expressive arts, mindfulness, and yoga, while maintaining a private practice and online education operations in her home base of Akron, OH. Marich is the founder of the Institute for Creative Mindfulness and the developer of the Dancing Mindfulness approach to expressive arts therapy, and the author of several books on EMDR, dissociation, mindfulness, recovery, and more.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• The stakes of identifying as having a dissociative disorder, and why Jamie felt it was vital for them speak up anyway
• How no longer being “zipped in” has given Jamie access to true authenticity and flow in her personal and professional lives
• Defining dissociation at its most basic, and how and why it shows up in everyday situations
• Why having parts is not necessarily pathological and why for some people those entities become so distinct
• The most persistent and harmful myths about dissociative disorders, for both patients and providers
• Why Jamie starts trainings with having people learn to recognize their own dissociative tendencies
• Why DID is not a TikTok fad, and why more recognition and discussion is better than ignorance

Learn more about Dr. Jamie Marich:

• Website
• Redefine Therapy
• The Institute for Creative Mindfulness
• Instagram: @drjamiem, @traumatherapistrants 
• TikTok: @traumatherapistrants
• YouTube: @DrJamieMM
• Dissociation Made Simple: A Stigma-Free Guide to Embracing Your Dissociative Mind and Navigating Daily Life

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• Coming Out As Plural - Psychotherapy Networker
• Fighting Dissociation Phobia and Coming Out as a Professional with a Dissociative Disorder
• Am I In A Therapy Cult?
• Decolonizing Therapy: Oppression, Historical Trauma, and Politicizing Your Practice, Jennifer Mullan, PsyD
• Jasmine Adams, LCSW, PMH-C - The Institute for Creative Mindfulness
• Plural Pride Meets LGBTQ+ Pride: Webinar Replay
• Plural Pride Meets LGBTQ+ Pride: Katie Keech and Dr. Jamie Marich
• Healing Dissociative Identity Disorder - Psychotherapy Networker
• Truth Demands: A Memoir of Murder, Oil Wars, and the Rise of Climate Justice, Abby Reyes
• "Your Heart Knows the Way Home," Te Martin
• The Testaments
• The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
• John R. Mabry

Chapters:

• (03:57) - Welcome Dr. Jamie Marich

Every system we move through runs on norms: rules and agreements that are both explicit and implicit. And nowhere are they more powerful–or more invisible–than in how we lead and how we build our businesses. 

In fact, sociologists have consistently found that norms don’t announce themselves. 

They travel through families, schools, workplaces, and entire cultures through repetition and imitation, often persisting long after the conditions that created them have changed. We absorb them before we can name them. And once they are inside us, they feel like “just the way things are.”

In leadership development the norms run so deep we have mistaken them for truth. As a result, the model leader–despite decades of language to the contrary–still looks and sounds like a very particular kind of person.

My guest today offers that leadership development has been trying to make better leaders for a broken system, rather than questioning whether the system itself needs to change. 

Nilofer Merchant has spent her career making the invisible visible–naming the norms, the systems, the daily routines that keep us collectively stuck. In this conversation, we go deep on the difference between caring and caretaking, what it means to trust yourself when the ground keeps disappearing, and what it actually takes to stop trying to fix what is not working and become someone who builds what is needed, right where you are.

Nilofer Merchant is the co-founder of Intangible Labs. She spent over 25 years leading technology companies (Apple, Autodesk, GoLive/Adobe) and personally launched over 100 products and services, netting $18 billion in revenues. She is ranked among the top 50 influential management thinkers in the world (one of her TED Talks has been referenced 300 million times). Our Best Work is her 4th book.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Why accepting our current norms won’t get leaders where they want to go
• How what we call personal agency is in reality socially constructed and driven
• Why we need more real care and less caretaking in our relationships at work and in life
• How teams can shift towards situational leadership and recentering how we think about the unique value and capabilities individuals bring
• How ownership, shared purpose, and co-creation help us build new systems, unstuck from the status quo
• Nilofer’s lessons about self-trust, taking risks, and approaching the future of work with hope

Learn more about Nilofer Merchant:

• Website
• The Intangible Labs
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nilofer/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nilofer.merchant
• Connect on LinkedIn
• Our Best Work: Break Free from the 24 Invisible Norms That Limit Us

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• The Power of Onlyness: Make Your Wild Ideas Mighty Enough to Dent the World
• Mary Parker Follett
• Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy
• The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
• Prizefighter - Mumford & Sons
• Law & Order
• Dire Straits - Money For Nothing
• Duran Duran - Hungry like the Wolf
• The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant

Chapters:

• (00:07) - Introduction

It is hard to be human. And right now, it is even harder to be humane, to ourselves and to others.

And so many high-achieving, deeply caring leaders are under pressure to stay regulated, calm, and adaptable, no matter what they’re facing. They look serene on the outside, but internally? They feel like a hot mess. 

They mask what they’re feeling and push through so they can try to be the person, friend, leader they want to be. They fake regulation at the expense of their actual wellbeing.

As the language of modalities like IFS and polyvagal theory has spread into the culture, the concepts have been distorted and even weaponized to police others and encourage self-editing, silencing, and hypervigilance. The exact opposite of cultivating the safety, connection, and practices that support a resilient nervous system.

Today, polyvagal-theory expert Deb Dana is back to talk with me about what the culture so often gets wrong about nervous system regulation, why we need to plan for how to approach repair and reconnection when we inevitably make mistakes, and how to protect our compassion and curiosity about all the other kinds of nervous systems we encounter out in the world.

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 we can’t ignore our fundamental need for connection and co-regulation
• How leaders can take steps to acknowledge and normalize the diversity of nervous systems and needs on their teams
• How to plan ahead for moments when you feel disconnected or dysregulated
• Why the goal is not to be regulated at all times and shifting states is just data
• Why identifying the worries underlying our patterns of states and behaviors is the first step to shifting them
• Why leaders need to tend to their own systems, both for their wellbeing and to model safety for others

Learn more about Deb Dana:

• Rhythm of Regulation

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth, Amy C. Edmondson
• Stephen Porges
• Polyvagal-Informed Restorative Movement: Psychotherapy Roots, Rhythm, and Reciprocity, Amber Elizabeth Gray
• Project Hail Mary
• Field of Dreams

Chapters:

• (00:07) - Introduction

The way you relate to power is the way you relate to everything around and within you–your work, your people, your sense of what's possible. And most of us have never actually examined that relationship.

And in this season we are in, when everything is changing so quickly, any unexamined beliefs we hold will quietly run the show. They will shape the risks we take, the rooms we walk into, and the moments we either step up or shrink back. 

If we don’t have something to ground us internally to our values, our body, our nervous system, and our beliefs, we run the risk of looking to external validation and trying to control everyone and everything around us. We do damage control and play nice at the expense of real connection and progress.

Which is why I am thrilled to welcome back Dr. Amanda Aguilera to talk more about the Right Use of Power framework for personal power and her new book, Shaping Power for Good: Wayfinding to Right Relationship. She reminds us that staying rooted and using our personal power for good isn’t a box to be checked, but a continuous practice and commitment to ourselves and our relationships. 

Dr. Amanda Aguilera currently serves as the Executive Director of the Right Use of Power Institute and co-leader of Sacred Wayfinding. She has dedicated most of her career to helping people and organizations understand systems, conflict, and social power dynamics to create right relationships 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:

• Defining the six core types of power through the lens of relationships to others, ourselves, and the collective
• How four essential aspects of being in right relationship show up in us and others
• Why checking in on power and relationships starts with connecting to our bodies 
• How committing to being in right relationship helps us overcome how we’ve been socialized to access power and belonging
• Why right relationship fundamentally starts with ourselves, our boundaries, and our values
• How each of us can use our power for good, conscientiously and in alignment with our values

Learn more about Dr. Amanda Aguilera:

• Right Use of Power Institute
• Instagram: @rightuseofpowerinstitute
• Shaping Power for Good: Wayfinding to Right Relationship

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• Parenthood
• EP 88: Right-Use-of-Power: Navigating Leadership Dynamics with Dr. Cedar Barstow
• EP 125: Power, Regulation, and Leadership: Connecting to Your Personal Power with Dr. Amanda Aguilera
• Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides, Geoffrey L. Cohen
• EP 149: Interrupting the Fawning Trauma Response: Leadership, Safety, and Self-Trust with Dr. Ingrid Clayton
• Maya Angelou's 1992 Commencement Address at Spelman College
• In the Absence of the Ordinary Soul Work for Times of Uncertainty, Francis Weller
• Chico Gospel - ma muse
• Hannah Gadsby

Chapters:

• (00:00) - Introduction

You have probably heard of the concept of psychological safety and what it takes to foster it on your team and in spaces you lead.

Maybe you’ve read books or taken trainings. 

Here’s the tricky thing: psychological safety is an emergent quality of the group environment, shaped by leadership behaviors and team norms. You, as the leader, are a key variable. 

So when you walk into a high-stakes meeting, and your self-protective parts are running the show? It impacts everyone around you and whether they can experience psychological safety.

The only way that we can cultivate psychological safety outside of us, is to cultivate self-leadership within. When we can move from a place of authenticity and courage, rather than discomfort or fear, the people around us feel seen, heard, and connected. They have trust. They feel safe.

Today my guest and I are talking about what it actually takes to lead groups and teams well, and the hard, necessary work of leading yourself first. 

Chris Burris, M.Ed., LCMHCS, LMFT, is a Senior Lead Trainer for the Internal Family Systems Institute. He has spent decades bringing the IFS model into groups and teams,  not just the therapy room. He has trained close to 200 facilitators across 18 group facilitator trainings worldwide. He is the author of Creating Healing Circles: Using the Internal Family Systems Model in Facilitating Groups. 

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How empathy, tempered with understanding our purpose and boundaries, helps us lead better
• Why recognizing and acknowledging others’ emotions is not the same as taking responsibility for them
• What changes when leaders make an effort to understand the deeper origins of behaviors
• How IFS provides a model for addressing conflict in groups 
• The importance of learning to recognize when you’re activated and suggestions for approaching repair with others when needed
• How team leaders can shape dynamics that are clear, purposeful, and supportive, even through disagreements and differences

Learn more about Chris Burris:

• Website

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth, Amy C Edmondson
• Carl Rogers
• Intraconnected: Mwe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity, and Belonging, Daniel J. Siegel MD
• Billie Eilish - ocean eyes
• Avatar

When you think of networking, do you feel discomfort or even dread?

Most of us learned that “networking” is fundamentally transactional, asking for and doling out favors in order to further our aims. Maybe you or someone you know is the type to be constantly trying to connect people to prove their own worth, or counting themselves out because they feel like they have nothing to offer. That’s the kind of networking that makes us go, “Ugh, I’d rather stay home.”

But networking can be about building real, powerful connections. And we need relationships, networks, and communities more than ever. 

And you don’t have to be a dedicated extrovert. You can cultivate a way of building connections and community that works for your nervous system and your lifestyle. The goal is discernment–knowing when to give, when to receive, and trusting that you have something worth bringing.

As my guest today shares, if we want to redefine networking, it starts with checking our biases and our burdens about what and who networking is and who it’s for. 

Monique Kelley is a trusted, purpose-driven professor at Boston University, a consultant and published author who serves in a fractional capacity for Fortune 50 and global biopharmaceutical companies seeking a strategic corporate, product or executive communications head who advances business objectives and alleviates their headaches. Professor Kelley wrote the book (literally) on effective networking, Redefining Networking: How to Lead with Your Unique Value. She is also a Boston Founding Member of women C-suite and executive community CHIEF.

Monique has built a strong network that she taps into for her consulting, referrals for her former coworkers and opportunities for her students and industry peers. At BU, she teaches the first and only Career Readiness course within the College of Communication. She teaches students and professionals alike her approach to effective networking and has facilitated “lead with your value” workshops for corporations and professional organizations, including Johnson & Johnson's Global Commercial Strategy Organization and Ticket to Biotech.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How to reach out without making it transactional
• Why networking should start with people you already know, not strangers
• Simple steps for connecting and communicating your unique value
• Why you have to take the time to build equity and trust before making an ask
• Why reciprocity and long-term relationships are the real goals of networking
• How thinking about what you can contribute in return can take the pressure off asking for help

Learn more about Monique Kelley:

• Redefining Networking
• Connect on LinkedIn
• Redefining Networking; How to Lead with Your Unique Value

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• My journey to find friends helped me find community instead | Shannon Watts
• Dorie Clark
• Adam Grant
• The Devil Emails at Midnight: What Good Leaders Can Learn from Bad Bosses, Mita Mallick
• EP 139: Bad Bosses Aren’t Born, They’re Made: Breaking Toxic Leadership Cycles with Mita Mallick
• The Roots
• John Candy: I Like Me

Story is our brain’s first language.

And our minds fill in a story’s blanks long before the facts catch up.

Before we consciously interpret an event, our nervous system has already scanned for threat and sent that information to our brains, which in turn builds a narrative about what it means. We’re constantly interpreting events, and not always accurately. 

Research has shown that negative information carries more psychological weight than positive information. That bias isn’t a flaw–it’s survival wiring. 

But what protects us biologically can distort us relationally.

Unexamined stories shape our leadership. They shape how we interpret feedback. They shape how we respond to conflict. They shape culture. They shape trust.

Which is why reclaiming “storyteller” as a skill set matters.

Good storytelling connects to our capacity for joy, along with our ability to connect to what is truly authentic for us, which plays a role in the stories we tell ourselves and others. 

Today’s guest digs into how to become a better storyteller—with yourself and with others—why joy is a skill that helps regulate our state and expand capacity, and how connecting to our authenticity is essential to telling good stories. 

Shabnam Mogharabi is an entertainment executive, producer, and New York Times bestselling author with 20 years of experience in mission-driven media. She is currently the founder of The Joy Brigade, a boutique production company, and also serves as Executive Director at Soul Boom, which creates media to ignite a spiritual revolution. Prior to that, Shabnam was an EVP at film company Participant and also co-founded the uplifting content studio SoulPancake with actor Rainn Wilson, which she ran as CEO for nearly a decade, amassing one billion video views. She has a certificate in positive psychology and believes joy is transformational.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Why joy is not about bypassing, but actually helps us navigate and weather our hardest days
• The difference between experiencing the emotion of happiness and cultivating the tools and practices of joy
• Three tools Shabnam returns to over and over in her own life to reset her perspective
• Why we have to play the long game with joy practices through consistency and time
• Key elements that make for an impactful story, and why you don’t need to be an artist or writer to hone your storytelling skills
• How Shabnam built and sustains the trust at the foundation of her 17-year creative partnership with Rainn Wilson

Learn more about Shabnam Mogharabi:

• Website
• The Joy Brigade
• Soul Boom
• Connect on LinkedIn

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• Soul Boom Workbook: Spiritual Tools for Modern Living
• The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett
• Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl
• The Goonies
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• When Harry Met Sally
• Spaceballs

Most of us know about the “fight, flight, freeze” responses to trauma. But there is another concept that has been steadily gaining awareness over the last several years, in large part due to pop psychology on social media: Fawning.

You might have heard it described as akin to extreme people-pleasing, over-accommodating, over-functioning, and fundamentally a problem in the person doing the fawning. But as my guest today illuminates for us, it’s not a personal failing, or even always a conscious choice. 

It is human nature to prioritize safety and connection, and fawning is a means of keeping ourselves safe. But when fawning runs the show, self-leadership diminishes and quietly drifts toward conflict-avoiding, blurred boundaries, and self-abandonment.

Waking up to your fawning response takes courage. You will meet resistance from some as you shift the dynamics of your relationships. But it also unlocks deeper intimacy, more honest connection, and the joy that comes from trusting yourself and letting others meet the real you.

This conversation invites you to consider where and with whom you fawn, and how you might want to respond in the future. Fawning has a real purpose when safety is on the line, but the more we are aware of it, the more we can be intentional about how we show up in our relationships.

Ingrid Clayton is a licensed clinical psychologist with a master’s degree in transpersonal psychology and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. In her private practice in Los Angeles she supports individuals in healing trauma, reclaiming agency, and reconnecting to their authentic selves.

She is a regular contributor to Psychology Today, and her work has been featured in Oprah Daily, The New York Times, Women’s Health, Forbes, 10% Happier with Dan Harris, Girls Gotta Eat, and NPR’s On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti. Ingrid’s latest book, Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves and How to Find Our Way Back, explores the often-overlooked fawn response to trauma.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Why fawning shows up as an unconscious response to ongoing relational trauma
• How understanding fawning helped Ingrid understand and heal from her own complex trauma
• How our culture demands and reinforces fawning for women and marginalized people
• The often very real bind of choosing safety over self and the feedback loop it creates
• Accessible practices to build a sense of internal safety and self-trust
• How chronic fawning and self-abandonment contribute to burnout

Learn more about Ingrid Clayton, PhD:

• Website
• Instagram: @ingridclaytonphd
• Facebook: @ingridclaytonphd
• YouTube: @ingridclaytonphd
• Unfawning on Substack
• Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves–and How to Find Our Way Back
• Believing Me: Healing from Narcissistic Abuse and Complex Trauma

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• What Is the Fawning Trauma Response? | Psychology Today
• Peter Levine
• The Greatest Showman Cast - This Is Me
• The Traitors

There is a well-known cognitive phenomenon that we are all susceptible to, and even more so when we’re stressed. And we’re all at least a little stressed and overwhelmed right now.

The illusory truth effect catches us when we repeatedly hear statements and begin to assume they are true through repetition and familiarity. Things feel true, even if they couldn’t be further from it. Research has shown that sheer repetition can even override facts when we know better.

Naming–systems, feelings, what we’re witnessing, what’s missing, what’s wrong–is a powerful antidote to the illusory truth effect. Naming forces us to slow down. It interrupts the repetition. We can’t meaningfully talk about integrity, values, courage, or innovation if we refuse to look directly at what is.

My guest today reminds us that we can’t disrupt what we can’t name. And we can’t heal what stays vague.

Soraya Chemaly is an award-winning author and activist. As a cultural critic, she writes and speaks frequently about gender norms, social justice, free speech, sexualized violence, politics, and technology. The former Executive Director of The Representation Project and Director and co-founder of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project, she has long been committed to expanding women’s civic and political participation.

Her most recent book, All We Want is Everything: How We Dismantle Male Supremacy, has been called “a potent rallying cry for a beleaguered feminist movement.”  In it, she challenges dearly held beliefs about gender and equality today, drawing clear lines between the dynamics of intimate inequality and global anti-feminist, anti-democratic backlash and machofascism.

Content warning: Discussion of details of the video footage leading up to Renee Good’s murder, less-detailed discussion of sexual and gender-based violence and harassment

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Why we need to name systems clearly and specifically in order to challenge them
• How male supremacy encompasses concepts of sexism, misogyny, and patriarchy and frames them as part of a larger hierarchical system
• How we’re witnessing DARVO play out at scale in our government and media, as well as in personal interactions
• How deepfakes use the pervasive threat of sexual violence against women to dehumanize and enforce subjugation
• How women play roles in passing on and enforcing male supremacy
• How “the boy crisis” reinforces norms of masculinity at the expense of girls and women
• Why big tent politics that asks everyone but cis, straight men to give up fundamental rights cannot be a yardstick of success

Learn more about Soraya Chemaly:

• Website
• Instagram: @sorayachemaly
• All We Want is Everything: How We Dismantle Male Supremacy
• Subscribe to Unmanned

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• Dechêne, A., Stahl, C., Hansen, J., & Wänke, M.. The Truth About the Truth: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Truth Effect. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(2), 238-257
• Pennycook, G., Cannon, T. D., & Rand, D. G. (2018). Prior exposure increases perceived accuracy of fake news. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 147(12), 1865–1880
• Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman
• Fazio, L. K., Brashier, N. M., Payne, B. K., & Marsh, E. J. (2015). Knowledge does not protect against illusory truth. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(5), 993–1002.
• EP 96: Rage to Action: The Leading Power of Women’s Anger with Soraya Chemaly
• EP 117: Rethinking Resilience: Moving from Bouncing Back to Relational Resilience with Soraya Chemaly
• Jennifer Joy Freyd, PhD.
• What is DARVO ? | Jennifer Joy Freyd, PhD.
• 11. Boy Crisis Asides and the Invisible People and Power Living in Them | Unmanned
• Afterlives, Abdulrazak Gurnah
• Radiohead - Creep
• I'd Love to Change the World - Ten Years After
• Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
• Blondie

The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change, Rebecca Solnit

If it feels like you’ve lived a year inside of a month right now, you’re not alone. The cycle of our times is relentless and demands more of our attention and emotional capacity than we were ever meant to carry.

This disorientation makes us more prone to disengagement, burnout, cynicism, and the lure of certainty. We also risk what social psychologists call moral narrowing, where our moral attention and empathy constrict to a smaller set of people or issues—often those we identify with directly—while excluding or devaluing others outside that circle. We can become more rigid, less able to tolerate complexity, and more likely to simplify moral dilemmas into “us versus them.” 

Even the most caring people are susceptible to moral narrowing when they’re constantly overwhelmed. But we can build skills that help us move through grief, tolerate uncertainty, and stay engaged without losing ourselves.

We need to train for these times, not just intellectually, but relationally and somatically. We need to be able to stay in the room long enough to build lasting connections and coalitions.

My guest today models what it looks like to think and lead with the long game in mind while also tending to present-day relationships and her own well-being. She reminds us that despair is not a strategy and that steady, relational, local action is how we keep the future from being decided by the loudest and most reckless forces in the room.

A’shanti F. Gholar is the President & CEO of Emerge, the nation’s largest network of women elected officials and candidates. A’shanti co-founded Emerge Nevada in 2006, was named Emerge’s national policy director in 2016, and became the first Black woman to lead Emerge in February 2020. Under A’shanti’s leadership, Emerge has experienced unprecedented growth and success. With affiliates in over two dozen states, more than 1,200 alums in office, and over 6,500 Democratic women trained to run for office and win, Emerge has become a force to be reckoned with in the political landscape. 

She is also the founder of The Brown Girls Guide to Politics and its award-winning podcast, which The Guardian recognized as a “practical guide to progressive activism.” 

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How A’shanti learned early on the power of getting involved at the local level
• How Emerge helps women recognize the value of their skills and lived experiences in holding political positions
• How centering the “why” helps Emerge candidates get elected, fight through the hard days, and get re-elected at high rates
• Why servant leadership is at the core of how Emerge trains candidates to lead
• How every day micro engagements in your community add up to make a difference and keep hope alive for the long haul
• Why representation, visibility, and mentorship are vital to changing the narrative of who can run for and hold office

Learn more about A’shanti Gholar:

• Emerge
• The Brown Girls Guide to Politics Podcast
• Instagram: @ashantigholar

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• Fired Up: How to Turn Your Spark into a Flame and Come Alive at Any Age, Shannon Watts
• Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President, E. Jean Carroll 
• Stone Temple Pilots - Interstate Love Song
• Stranger Things