The Unburdened Leader

Do you have thoughts about how the word “trauma” and other therapy-speak terms have bled into our day-to-day conversations in person, at work, and on social media?

Do you feel pressure to perform being “okay,” even when you’re anything but?

Have you ever pursued a project or career milestone only to realize, once you achieved it, that it no longer fits your life, values, or interests?

Today’s guest is a long-time, respected colleague who joins me for a profound and thought-provoking conversation about all of the above and then some. It’s a privilege to have people with whom we can engage in deep conversations without hesitation or self-editing; this chat is no exception.

Our guest, Sarah Buino, is a renowned speaker, educator, and therapist. She is the founder of Head/Heart Therapy, Inc. and Head/Heart Business Therapy, and a member of the adjunct faculty at Loyola University Chicago. Sarah is also a podcast host, known for her series, ‘Conversations With a Wounded Healer' and 'The Burnt Out Practice Owner.’ Her work focuses on the role of personal healing in caregiving and the challenges of group therapy practice ownership.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How the concept of ordinary trauma helped Sarah recognize what was and wasn’t her responsibility as she healed
• The essential difference between discomfort and trauma and how it relates to our relationship with agency
• Why being “okay” is just a data point, not a destination
• How mindful awareness sets the stage for healing, regardless of modality
• Why Sarah maintains that therapy is political and that we have to lead through values and relationships
• How Sarah and her colleagues brought their values into their group practice
• How Sarah came to realize that she was done owning her practice and ready to move on

Learn more about Sarah Buino:

• Head/Heart Business Therapy
• Instagram: @HeadHeartBizTherapy
• Conversations with a Wounded Healer Podcast
• The Sarahs

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• How trauma became the word of the decade — and the Covid-19 pandemic - Vox
• What is NARM?
• Farewell, Strategic Accommodation, An Elegy to White Supremacy by Sarah Suzuki
• Decolonizing Therapy for Black Folk 2024
• Politicizing Your Practice
• Living In The Tension: The Quest for a Spiritualized Racial Justice, Shelley Tochluk
• Olivia Rodrigo - vampire
• The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch
• Saved by the Bell

What does healing mean to you? 

What expectations do you hold around how we heal and how quickly we heal?

Meeting our basic human need to be loved and experience belonging can be the root of many things we do, say, and want–for better or for worse.

Many of us have experienced relationships that shape how we pursue love and belonging, how we respond to folks who are different or have differences, how we handle conflict, and how we navigate not being perfect and not knowing all the answers.

So, how we seek love and belonging and perceive and pursue healing are inextricably connected.

Under those circumstances, we want to rush our healing process, achieve our desired changes, and be fixed as soon as possible. The stakes are high!

But we do not arrive at “healed” and coast for the rest of our lives. There is no three-step plan to change, heal, and thrive ever after.

Healing is a lifelong process that must be pursued and revisited with the ebbs and flows of our lives. Sometimes, those ebbs and flows feel like tsunamis, forcing us to revisit old wounds or discover new spaces in our stories that require our care and attention so that we can find love and belonging within, first and foremost.

Frank Anderson, MD, returns to the show to discuss his beautiful new book, To Be Loved: A Story of Truth, Trauma, and Transformation.

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:

• How the process of writing his memoir caused Frank to interact with his past in ways that surprised him
• The tricky balance of telling stories honestly but from a loving place, especially with his family
• How releasing his anger and coming to forgive and love people who harmed him gave Frank space and freedom to forgive himself for the harm he has done
• Why Frank says healing happens first emotionally and somatically within yourself, and then you can work towards relational healing and forgiveness
• How different phases of Frank’s life have influenced what and how trauma he unpacked and released
• Why do we have to stop clinging to divisive polarities and recognize the good and bad in ourselves and each other 

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:

• Open Monogamy: A Guide to Co-Creating Your Ideal Relationship Agreement, Tammy Nelson
• Conan Gray - Heather
• P!NK - TRUSTFALL
• Fellow Travelers

If you love, you experience loss. 

Looking back over the last few years, who or what have you lost? A loved one, a friendship, a relationship, a pet, a job, your health, your community? Something else? 

Have you had time to reflect on and grieve your losses and find meaning and sense in all you experienced? 

And how do you talk about your losses with those around you, if at all?

We cannot engineer the experience of grief out of our lives, but many try, at a significant cost, to their well-being, their relationships, and their ability to function, connect, and lead.

Grief will always do its job regardless of our response to grief’s presence. And the more we try to avoid the heartbreak, mess, awkwardness, outrage, and vulnerability, the more we disconnect from our humanity and those around us.  

So, the question for us is: How will we respond when grief comes knocking in our personal lives, work, and world? 

Joon ‘J.S.’ Park is a hospital chaplain, former atheist/agnostic, sixth-degree black belt, suicide survivor, and Korean-American, a person of faith and valuer of all. 

He is the author of As Long As You Need: Permission to Grieve, part hospital chaplain experience and memoir, and The Voices We Carry: Finding Your One True Voice in a World of Clamor and Noise.

J.S. currently serves at a top-ranked, 1,000+ bed hospital and was a chaplain for three years at one of the largest nonprofit charities for the unhoused on the East Coast.

Content note: This conversation covers topics around sexual abuse, suicide, and experiences of racism. Joon’s message and heart feel healing and gracious as he shares some tender issues. But please take care of yourself as you move through this beautiful conversation.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• The physical toll of unacknowledged accumulated grief that J.S. took on through his chaplaincy training
• How contending with pervasive and severe suffering daily challenged and reshaped J.S.’s faith
• How he began to grapple with his experiences of abuse, racism and internalized shame
• Why we need to learn to engage with a range of grief and validate our responses to it to heal
• What we can learn about others when they use clichés and platitudes in response to grief
• How working closely with grief has changed J.S.’s concept of what it means to be successful 

Learn more about J.S. Park:

• Instagram: @jspark3000
• Facebook: @jspark3000
• As Long As You Need: Permission to Grieve
• The Voices We Carry: Finding Your One True Voice in a World of Clamor and Noise

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• Meditations of the Heart, Howard Thurman
• What We Kept to Ourselves, Nancy Jooyoun Kim
• The Last Story of Mina Lee, Nancy Jooyoun Kim
• Departures
• Andor
• Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes

Are you aware of all the expectations you hold yourself to?

The day-to-day buzzing of our inner life can feel relentless, can't it? We're all too familiar with the bombardment of 'shoulds' about how we should act, dress, talk, move, etc. It's a struggle that resonates with each one of us, making us feel understood in our shared experiences. 

We carry so many shoulds from our family of origin, culture, difficult life experiences, work experiences,  people we respect, and people who we want to respect us. 

But the shoulds that mess with us the most and lead to the heaviest burdens are the stealth shoulds around what we should and should not feel.

Today’s guest, Dr. Alison Cook, returns for the third time to share her transformative new book. This isn't just a guide that addresses these 'shoulds ', it's an empowering invitation to unpack our stealth expectations of ourselves and our world. It's an invitation to approach the 'shoulds' that show up in our lives with curiosity and compassion, paving the way for personal growth and self-improvement.

Dr. Alison Cook is a psychologist and teacher who has spent two decades helping individuals name what's hard and take brave steps to transform their lives. She is also a best-selling author, teacher, and host of The Best of You podcast. She co-authored Boundaries for Your Soul and is the author of The Best of You, and I Shouldn’t Feel This Way. Alison is also a certified Internal Family Systems therapist, a dear friend, and a trusted colleague.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• The internal tension and disorientation Alison experienced when she couldn’t accomplish what she “should” have
• How following her system’s lead led Alison to make a surprising connection to another pivotal transition in her life
• Unpacking the familial and cultural origins of our shoulds around work and success
• The high personal and social stakes of not making space to name what we’re feeling 
• Why it’s vital to be able to discern who can best support you in processing what you’re going through
• How to cultivate space for yourself to witness the hard things, rather than bypassing from naming to fixing 

Learn more about Alison Cook, PhD:

• Website
• The Best of You Podcast
• Instagram: @dralisoncook
• I Shouldn’t Feel This Way

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• Ep 50: Embracing the Hot Mess: A Special Anniversary Episode with Alison Cook, PhD
• EP 25: The Boundary Barriers of Leadership with Psychologist and Author Alison Cook, PhD
• Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person, Hugh Prather
• Daily Affirmation: Valentine's Day - Saturday Night Live
• Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons, Jan Richardson
• Bob Marley & The Wailers - Redemption Song
• Bob Marley: One Love
• Friends
• Pretty in Pink

Many of us are familiar with the kind of person who easily earns the moniker ‘toxic’ and instills fear, rage, and frustration in those around them.

What do you do when you work with a toxic leader?

How do you feel when toxic leaders continue to get promoted and receive accolades?

And what do you do when others make excuses for these toxic leaders, like saying their skill set or network is too important to the organization and you have to “take the good with the bad?”

Toxic leaders and cultures take a toll on you, especially when you have your own relational wounding history. You may try to speak up or feel shut down, but there’s another common theme: How betrayed you feel when your experiences are met with silence, inaction, or retribution.

We're at a critical moment regarding leading, accountability, and culture. But one thing that still feels constant is the impact of our history with relational wounding and relational trauma, and how that impacts how, or if, we speak up in the face of injustices from toxic leaders and toxic work culture.

Today’s guest wrote a book on the impact of toxic leaders and cultures, including how we often protect toxic leaders at great expense to the staff and the business. As someone who was bullied both as a child and in the workplace, she has some very special insight into this all-too-common experience.

Mita Mallick is a corporate change-maker with a track record of transforming businesses. She has had an extensive career as a marketer in the beauty and consumer product goods space, fiercely advocating for the inclusion and representation of Black and Brown communities. Her book, Reimagine Inclusion: Debunking 13 Myths to Transform Your Workplace, is a Wall Street Journal and USA Today Best Seller.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• The practical toll on the business of enabling toxic leaders to continue to manage teams
• The psychological and physical impact of the workplace trauma created by working under toxic leaders
• How people end up in environments that recreate the harmful relational patterns of their past
• Why those with more power in the workplace need to speak up on behalf of others
• How executive coaching can be used as a Band-Aid to cover toxic behavior
• How guilt and empathy for the teammates we’d leave behind can keep us stuck in toxic environments

Learn more about Mita Mallick:

• Connect with Mita on LinkedIn
• Brown Table Talk Podcast
• Reimagine Inclusion: Debunking 13 Myths to Transform Your Workplace

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier, Marisa Meltzer
• Sia - Unstoppable
• Breaking Bad

Do you feel frustrated by recurring struggles with self-doubt, hypervigilance, and overwhelm?

Behind many of your inner doubts, self-judgements, fears, and insecurities lie echoes from old betrayals or relational hurts.

These breaches of trust in important relationships don’t necessarily lose their impact on how you lead and work just because they happened a long time ago.

So when you're doing something new or high stakes, or there's an experience in a relationship at work or in your personal life, or you respond to a collective trauma that taps the echoes of your old wound, it can bring up old ways of responding or old patterns that impact how you honor your boundaries and values. 

And the expectation that you should ‘be over this by now’ when you are human and working with others adds to your stress and frustration.

But the reality is that healing from relational wounds and betrayal traumas often comes in stages and seasons, and you may need support along the way.

Deran Young is a licensed therapist, New York Times Best-Selling Author, former military mental health officer, and the founder of Black Therapists Rock. This nonprofit organization mobilizes over 30,000 mental health professionals committed to reducing the psychological impact of systemic oppression and intergenerational trauma.

She obtained her social work degree from the University of Texas, where she studied abroad in Ghana, West Africa for two semesters, creating a high school counseling center for under-resourced students. She is a highly sought-after diversity and inclusion consultant working with companies like Facebook, Linked In, Field Trip Health, and YWCA. Deran has become a leading influencer and public figure committed to spreading mental health awareness and improving health equity.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• The importance of learning to recognize the cultural and familial legacy burdens that impact us
• How shame and an inability to be vulnerable shut down speaking the truth about cultural and personal histories
• How early relational trauma can lead people to feeling out of place, not just at home, but in the world at large
• Why our earliest experiences with our caregivers have such a deep impact on our relationships later in life
• The lasting impact of the roles we take on as children in dysfunctional families in how we lead ourselves and others
• How cultural expectations and perfectionism can dehumanize mothers and leaders
• The potential for psychedelic-assisted therapy to change our relationships with our burdens

Learn more about Deran Young:

• Black Therapists Rock
• Instagram: @blacktherapistsrock
• TikTok: @blacktherapistsrock
• Black Therapists Rock Facebook Group
• Follow Deran on Facebook

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families
• The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer, Harvey Karp
• The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown
• Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, Brené Brown
• Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger, Soraya Chemaly
• EP 73: The Potential of Psychedelics to Help and Heal with Victor Cabral
• Whole Brain Living: The Anatomy of Choice and the Four Characters That Drive Our Life, Jill Bolte Taylor
• Beyoncé - COZY
• Elemental

Have you ever done something steadily, week in and week out, for a period of time?

What did you learn about yourself and the world around you in the process? Was there anything that came up that surprised you?

Putting in consistent reps and hundreds of hours towards something inevitably shapes and changes you, and producing this show has been no different for me.

Today I’m celebrating the 100th episode of The Unburdened Leader by sharing some behind-the-scenes stories, learnings, and reflections from starting a podcast in a pandemic to the pillars and themes of the show that have stood out over time.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How unburdened leaders shape healing and growth through vulnerability and a willingness to be uncomfortable
• How wrestling with perfectionism in the beginning has eased into taking actual pleasure in the process of working on the show
• The positive impact of finding certainty anchors in the rhythms of production
• How good questions beget good questions, and how that guides who I want to have on the show

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• Yellow House Media
• Internal Family Systems
• Glass Onion

Have you ended a relationship to get relief from tension and conflict?

Do you struggle with developing a clear sense of boundaries around what’s your responsibility and what’s not, especially when feeling responsible for how others think and feel?

When relationships are toxic, abusive, and oppressive and the other person does not have the interest or capacity to work on the relationship, ending the relationship can bring grief but also relief, emotional healing, and health.

But when you regularly use emotional cutoffs to protect yourself from hurt and discomfort, you create a world that feels dangerous and small when the slightest sense of conflict or overwhelm arises. 

But if two people can come together with clear boundaries, shared values, compassion, curiosity, humility, and support to work through conflict and disagreement, an emotional cut-off may become unnecessary.

My guest today returns to the podcast to share his experience of an incident that could have ended his relationship with his father, and how they both committed to working through the conflict to maintain their connection, even through their differences.

Jonathan Merritt is a prolific and trusted writer on faith, culture, and politics whose articles have appeared regularly in outlets such as The Atlantic, The New York Times, USA Today, Christianity Today, and The Washington Post. He is the author of numerous critically acclaimed books, including Learning to Speak God from Scratch: Why Sacred Words are Vanishing and How We Can Revive Them, which was named Book of the Year by Englewood Review of Books. He is also author of the forthcoming children’s book, My Guncle and Me, releasing in May 2024.

Jonathan has become a popular speaker at conferences, colleges, and churches and guest commentary on CNN, Fox News, CNN, NPR, PBS, and ABC World News. He holds graduate degrees from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and Emory University's Candler School of Theology.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How being publicly outed forced Jonathan into a reckoning with his faith, his identity, and his family and community
• The role that dreams and expectations play in the way both parents and children respond to fundamental differences between them
• Why an expectation of change cannot be a prerequisite for a relationship
• Why Jonathan says he and his father fight with each other in private and for each other in public
• Why finding healthy surrogates or outlets for processing is vital for healing when we truly can’t continue the relationship
• Navigating past avoidance and confrontation to renegotiating the relationship with necessary boundaries and guardrails
• How “flash-card faith” stifles the questioning and openness to possibilities that underpin trust and faith and breeds binary divisiveness

Learn more about Jonathan Merritt:

• Website
• Facebook: @JonathanMerrittWriter
• Instagram: @jonathan_merritt
• Twitter: @JonathanMerritt
• Learning to Speak God from Scratch: Why Sacred Words Are Vanishing–and How We Can Revive Them
• Preorder My Guncle and Me

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• Bowen Family Systems
• Faith does not live by answers alone, Jonathan Merritt
• The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron
• Write for Life: Creative Tools for Every Writer, Julia Cameron
• Mother, Nature: A 5,000-Mile Journey to Discover If a Mother and Son Can Survive Their Differences, Jedidiah Jenkins
• Darlin' (Christmas is Coming), Over the Rhine
• If We Make It Through December, Phoebe Bridgers
• If We Make It Through December, Merle Haggard
• Julia

What is your relationship with conflict and disagreement?

Do you see conflict as bad or dangerous or simply a natural part of relationships and being in a group or on a team?

What helps you move through conflict and differences of opinion when things are heavy and charged? 

Do you avoid it at all costs? Or do you try to be a peacemaker and help everyone feel heard? Or do you dive right into the arena and take a stand for what you believe? 

You probably vacillate between all of these depending on the topic, the people you are around, how you experienced conflict growing up, and the combination of your unique personality, temperament, gender, race, class, etc.

Today’s guest shares a framework that offers a way to contain our overwhelm into some actionable practices that can help you connect to your purpose and your values while navigating the discomfort of disagreement, high-stakes decisions, and deep exhaustion.

Deepa Iyer is a South Asian American writer, strategist, and lawyer. Deepa leads projects on solidarity and social movements at the Building Movement Project, a national nonprofit organization. She conducts workshops and trainings, uplifts narratives through the Solidarity Is This podcast, and facilitates solidarity strategy for cohorts and networks.

Deepa’s first book, We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future, chronicles community-based histories in the wake of 9/11 and received a 2016 American Book Award. Deepa’s most recent book, a guide based on the social change ecosystem map that she created, is called Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• The three main components of an ecosystem-based approach to social change
• How an ecosystem creates a container where we can have uncomfortable conversations around our values
• Why a clash in values isn’t an indicator of an unhealthy ecosystem
• How ecosystems for social justice allow us to play to our strengths even in urgent times sustainably
• Questions to ask and red flags of an unhealthy ecosystem
• Why finding joy in the midst of heartbreak is essential to sustainable movements
• Why it’s key to consider who holds power inside and outside an ecosystem when calling out bad behavior or policy

Learn more about Deepa Iyer:

• Website
• Solidarity Is This Podcast
• We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future
• Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection
• Instagram: @deepaviyer
• X: @dviyer

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• (Un)known Project Trail
• Solidarity Is This: Truth Telling From The Banks of the Ohio River with Hannah Drake and Josh Miller
• Meena Alexander
• Honor, Thrity Umrigar
• The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017, Rashid Khalidi
• The Mountain Goats - This Year
• Borgen
• The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton
• Nothing Gold Can Stay, Robert Frost
• The Social Change Map
• Building Movement Project

Do you find yourself in a constant state of proving? Proving that you are a good enough leader, parent, partner, fill in the blank? 

Do you know what drives your need to prove to others and yourself? 

When does the need to prove you are good enough and worthy enough show up the most? At work, in your relationships with others, or maybe in your relationship with yourself?

When you fall into a constant state of proving your worthiness and value, your unaddressed relational wounds fuel an excessive need for validation and recognition from those around you that exhausts and leaves you in an excessive loop of hustling, anxiety, and doubt. 

But when you commit to doing the work to understand your underlying motivations to constantly prove yourself, you can release these burdens and develop a more secure, confident approach to leadership, relationships, and conflict resolution in all areas of your life.

Arielle ​Estoria (she/her) is a poet, author, actor, and model. Her motto, "Words not for the ears but for the soul" stems from her dedication to remind anyone who encounters her work that words are meant to be felt and experienced not just heard, with a specific heart in empowering, encouraging and making space for audiences of women to feel free and at home in their own bodies.

Arielle has shared her work through custom spoken word pieces, workshops and themed keynote talks with companies such as Google, Sofar Sounds, Lululemon, Dressember, Tedx, the SKIMS campaign by Kim Kardashian and more. She has consecutively emceed annual conferences and has led various writing, embodiment and self-acceptance workshops in various settings ranging from students to professional development spaces.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How Arielle has worked to cut ties with people pleasing and learned not to constantly explain herself
• How Arielle defines “secure proving” versus “insecure proving” in her life
• How we can try so hard to prove ourselves that we forget the self we’re trying to prove
• Balancing performance and authenticity online, and how social media makes it hard to show up as your full self
• How Arielle defines success for herself, outside of the linear path through life that she was taught

Learn more about Arielle Estoria:

• Website
• Instagram: @arielleestoria
• Vagabonds and Zealots
• Write Bloody, Spill Pretty
• The Unfolding

Learn more about Rebecca:

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

Resources:

• Thicker Than Water: A Memoir, Kerry Washington
• Cleo Wade
• Sula, Toni Morrison
• Jamila Woods
• Maddie Zahm
• Reservation Dogs
• Only Murders in the Building