Women Walking

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In this episode, Debbie sits down with her longtime friend and writing companion, Tej Rae, whose debut novel Salaula Sisters has just been released by Catalyst Press. Debbie and Tej met more than twenty years ago in Lusaka, Zambia, in a tiny writers’ group that became a lifeline through drafts, doubts, motherhood, marriage, and the daily untangling of creative life.

Together they revisit those early years—baby group, cross‑cultural friendships, the fear and vulnerability of finishing a book, and the voice notes that still anchor their friendship across continents. Tej shares how Salaula Sisters took shape over two decades (and why it took so long), how women’s alliances shaped her writing, and what it means to finally bring Mara’s story into the world.

Salaula Sisters is out now from Catalyst Press. 

Find out more about Tej @ tejraeauthor.com

Facebook: facebook.com/tej.rae

Instagram: instagram.com/tejraeauthor/

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/tejraeauthor

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Bethany Handley, author of My Body is a Meadow, award-winning poet, and disability activist joins Women Walking from her tiny home beside a meadow she helped regenerate in South Wales. In this tender and often funny conversation, Bethany shares how becoming a full‑time wheelchair user reshaped her pace, her access to nature, and her understanding of grief, anger, joy, and interdependence. 

She talks about returning to the mountains that raised her and relearning movement through presence — and through the landscapes she once ran, climbed, kayaked, and wild‑swam with ease. Her swims look different now, her access routes are sometimes absurdly complicated, but her relationship with nature is deeper, wilder, and more imaginative than ever. 

This episode invites listeners to rethink what movement really means, and how belonging to a landscape can happen through the body you have.

To find out more about Bethany Handley, check out the following:

Website: https://bethanyhandley.com

Instagram: @bethanyhandley

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethany-handley-4594961a1/

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In this episode, I sit down with Sonya Laurence Green, an international journalist who spent 15 years overseas as a reporter, editor, and information officer before returning to the U.S. to manage news about Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Eastern Europe.  After decades covering political transitions, conflict zones, and everyday human stories, Sonya's career was abruptly cut short when her news agency underwent major changes, leading to a sudden early retirement that reshaped her path and opened space for reflection.  

Together, we revisit the years we spent raising children far from home, building community in unfamiliar places, and navigating the constant transitions that define global living. Sonya shares vivid stories from her time in East Africa, the women who helped hold her family together, and the deep imprint those years left on her children.  She also offers grounded, practical guidance on how to find reliable news in a world overflowing with opinion, noise, and misinformation, wisdom shaped by decades of reporting where accurate information can be a lifeline.

Warm, honest, and deeply human, this conversation is a walk through global motherhood, identity shifts, and the enduring value of clear, trustworthy storytelling.

To connect with Sonya, you can find her here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonya-laurence-green/

Sonya lists the following outlets as solid, factual news:

• Associated Press (AP): a wire service known for straight, fact-based reporting with no commentary. Sonya recommends the AP Morning Wire, which is delivered each day via email for a roundup of national and international news.
  https://apnews.com/newsletters
• Reuters: another global wire service that prioritizes accuracy, speed, and neutrality.

An App she recommends:

• https://ground.news/about is a platform that makes it easy to compare news sources, read between the lines of media bias and break free from algorithms.

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Retired Navy Vice Admiral Nancy LaCore joins me for a conversation about the chapters that shape us, the ones we choose and the ones that arrive without warning. After 35 years of service—including deployments to Afghanistan and Djibouti, raising six children in a dual‑military family, and ultimately serving as Chief of Navy Reserve—Nancy’s career ended abruptly in August 2025 when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth removed her from her post without cause as part of a broader purge of senior military leaders.

Today, she’s walking through a very different chapter: she recently won the Democratic primary in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District and is now running for Congress. But this episode isn’t about politics—it’s about what happens inside a woman when the life she’s built suddenly breaks open.

Nancy talks about the shock of that day in the Pentagon, the quiet aftermath, and the older memories that resurfaced—deployments, fear, resilience, and the moments that tested her as both a leader and a mother. We explore the endurance women build over decades of caregiving, responsibility, grief, and reinvention. She shares how she and her husband navigated long separations, how her sense of service began, what Afghanistan taught her about women, and how running—literally running—became a way she carried the names and stories of other women who served.

This is a conversation about rebuilding, about finding steadiness after loss, and about discovering who you are without the uniform, the title, or the life you thought you’d still be living. It’s also about hope—where Nancy finds it now, and what she wants young women and men entering service to know.

A deeply human chapter from a woman who has lived many.

For more information on Nancy Lacore, please visit Nancy's website: https://www.nancylacore.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Nancylacore

Instagram: @nancylacore

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This week on Women Walking, I’m talking with Mara Bolis — a Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center, where she studies how AI is reshaping women’s lives — about the unexpected pivot that brought her into this work, and why women’s voices matter so much in this moment.

I first met Mara during a season when my own life felt like it had cracked open — grief, job loss, and the strange quiet of figuring out who I was again. Then I walked into a room full of women leaders sharing their “biggest, fattest fails,” and something shifted. That’s also where I first heard Mara talk about women and AI in a way that felt human, accessible, and honestly… hopeful.

In this conversation, Mara shares the story of how she went from global development and women’s economic empowerment into AI, not because she was chasing the tech, but because she saw what was at stake for women. She talks about the gender lens she’s carried her whole career, the women she’s learned from around the world, and the moment she realized that women are using AI 20% less than men — a gap with real consequences.

We talk about courage in seasons when your footing isn’t steady, how gender work survives, and what happens when women finally get hands‑on with AI and feel that spark of confidence. 

If you’ve ever felt intimidated by AI, unsure where you fit, or curious about how these tools might actually support your work and your life, this episode is for you. It’s warm, honest, and full of the kind of clarity women need right now. 

For more information on Mara, check out the links below: 

https://cyber.harvard.edu/people/mara-boli

https://womansplainingai.com

https://www.firstprompt.net

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mara-bolis-z123/

https://marabolis.substack.com/

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Amber Kelly, a craniosacral therapist based in England, joins me for a conversation about what our bodies hold — tension, old experiences, stress we didn’t realize we were carrying. Amber works with gentle, hands‑on approaches to the nervous system, and she has that steady presence you can feel even through a screen.

I recently tried her embodied energy healing offering — and as someone who usually thinks this kind of thing is a little woo‑woo, I was surprised by how it shifted things in me. Small, quiet changes, but real ones.

This episode is about the stories our bodies keep, what softens when we pay attention, and how support can show up in ways that are subtle and human.

Amber is offering Women Walking listeners a special rate for the embodied energy healing session we talk about. Book a session with her here: https://amberkelly.co.uk/event/embodied-energy-healing. You can use the code WomenWalking26 for the discount.

Check out Amber's other offerings on her website: www.amberkelly.co.uk 

Follow Amber on Instagram: @amberkellytherapy

If you're interested in reading more on craniosacral therapy, check out these articles:

Perspetives on the effects and mechanisms of craniosacral therapy: A qualitative study of users' views - from the European Journal of Integrative Medicine: 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1876382014003060

Craniosacral therapy for chronic pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials -from the National Library of Medicine: 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6937867/

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In this conversation, we explore Forest Therapy as a research-supported practice that helps regulate the body, quiet the mind, and create room for reflection. My guests, Darlene Rooney-Keller and Lori Ventimiglia, both certified guides, talk about what a walk actually looks like, how it supports people in times of transition, and why this slow, intentional time outdoors can shift how we move through our lives.

Darlene Rooney-Keller: https://www.naturehealsforestbathing.com/

Lori Ventimiglia: https://www.heartsongnaturetherapy.com/

If you want to explore the peer-reviewed studies on the health benefits of Forest Therapy, or find a certified guide through the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy check out these links:

🌿 Peer‑reviewed Research on Forest Therapy

• IJERPH – forest bathing studies — https://www.mdpi.com/search?q=forest+bathing
• Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine — https://ehpm.karger.com/
• Nippon Medical School – Forest Medicine — https://www.nms.ac.jp/english/department/forest-medicine.html
• Nature – nature & health research — https://www.nature.com/search?q=nature+exposure+health
• Frontiers in Psychology — https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology

🌎 Find a Certified Forest Therapy Guide Near You

• ANFT guide directory — https://www.anft.earth/guide-directory

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Today, we're joined by Robyn Hubbard, a grief therapist whose work feels like an exhale. Robyn meets grief in the body, in the nervous system, in the places we tighten and brace, in the places that long for softening. She reminds us that grief isn't something to push past, it's something we walk with, slowly, honestly, at the pace our bodies can hold.

This episode is a gift for anyone feeling stretched thin or overwhelmed. Robyn helps us understand why transitions stir up old grief, how to come back to ourselves when everything feels like too much, and what it means to "companion" ourselves and each other with gentleness instead of fixing.  

She also offers a short grounding practice at the end, something you can return to whenever you need a moment of steadiness.

If you've been carrying a lot lately, this one is for you.  Pass this one onto a woman in your circle who could use it.

See the link to Robyn's beautiful website here: https://robynhubbard.com/  where you will find more information about her offerings, including:

•  A Grief Retreat in Murrieta, Southern California
  October 11-18, 2026
•  A link to a FREE Grief Guide 

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In this episode of Women Walking, we speak with my longtime friend and global health colleague, Saiqa Panjsheri, about walking through some difficult life transitions. Saiqa shares her family's extraordinary story of fleeing Afghanistan, growing up with a visible physical difference, and the resilience woven through generations of her family. She also speaks with honesty and grace about the loss of her husband, John, to suicide three years ago--what happened that day, how she and her son survived the unimaginable, and what it means to rebuild a life in the aftermath. This conversation is tender, raw, and full of the kind of truth that helps us feel less alone.  

If you're not in a place to hear someone speak openly about suicide today, please take care of yourself and come back when you're ready. 

And listen in to a bonus "Thank You" at the end where Saiqa describes how the women in her "tribe" continue to walk with her.

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After months of talking with women navigating transitions, Courtney and I decided it was time to get back to what started Women Walking in the first place: actually walking.

In Episode 17, Courtney and I take on the NYC  Tip-to-Tip Challenge—a 15-mile walk  from Inwood Hill Park to Battery Park, inspired by the Broad City route. One day. One power bar. Park to park, river to river, rediscovering the rhythm, clarity, and connection that only shows up when your feet are tired.

If you've ever wanted to see NYC in a completely new way, this walk will do it!!