Wonder Dome

Amy Elizabeth Fox is the CEO and co-founder of Mobius Executive Leadership. It's safe to say that the work I do in the world at KONU and my private coaching practice would not be as enriched and as robust if not for the work of Mobius.

Mobius weaves together an incredibly rich and deep intellectual spiritual heritage for how change happens in individuals, groups, and organizations. One of the biggest core insights that Mobius draws upon is the understanding that we live in a world that's hurting.

To lead ourselves and others in this world means we need to become trauma-informed. To understand the way that trauma lives in us, individually and collectively. To honor the protective mechanisms we all have to cope with trauma. To recognize that if we can't safely and patiently heal from our traumas, we are likely to end up hurting ourselves and others even more.

This wisdom comes to life in Mobius's latest offering, a trauma-informed coach training program. Our conversation opens a doorway to meet our trauma with compassion, heal it, and access the latent creativity and the aliveness that's present behind it. Because when trauma gets unfrozen, and healing starts to happen, that's when our greatest life energy starts to flow.

If you're a leader or a leadership development practitioner, please listen closely to this one. It is so essential to our work in this era of cultural, economic, and ecological disruption and destruction.

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Please note this conversation was recorded several months ago, and does not reflect current crises in Israel/Gaza, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Armenia, or Sudan. As always, The Wonder Dome stands for a world where humanity and its wonderful diversity of cultures can thrive and co-exist. If you'd like to join me in supporting displaced people around the globe, please consider making a donation to the UN Refugee Agency: unhcr.org/us.

Show Notes:
linkedin.com/in/amyelizabethfox
twitter.com/Amy_Mobius
mobiusleadership.com
traumainformedcertificateprogram.com
#83 Awake in a Hurting World (with Sam Chase)
#96 For All Beings (with Monique Schubert)

Connect with Andy:

• KONU // Leadership development for mission-driven change agents

• KONU Events // Open enrollment leadership development workshops

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjcahill/

• Instagram: instagram.com/wonderdomepodcast​

  The Wonder Dome is a listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Cheryl Ntumy is deeply committed to art as a vehicle for self-understanding and collective cultural growth. Her writing ranges widely, traversing everything from romance to speculative fiction. She speaks powerfully to writing as a journey into true empathy and understanding of yourself and others - across cultures, across identities, across time and space.

We have a rich conversation about the ways in which art is "a kind of religion" that has its roots in the beautiful diversity of human cultures, while also transcending them. Art points us towards the universal truths underlying existence. And accessing those truths is an act of monastic-like devotion: always returning to the page, to the canvas, to the studio, to the instrument.

If you long for a life with more meaning and creativity, then join us for this deep dive into the sacred practice of making art.

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Please note this was recorded several months ago, and does not reflect current crises in Israel/Gaza, Armenia, or Sudan. As always, The Wonder Dome stands for a world where humanity and its wonderful diversity of cultures can thrive and co-exist. If you'd like to join me in supporting displaced people around the globe, please consider making a donation to the UN Refugee Agency: unhcr.org/us.

Show Notes:
cherylsntumy.wordpress.com
facebook.com/cheryl.ntumy
instagram.com/litchickbw
Godmother by Cheryl Ntumy (via Apex Magazine)
Soap by Cheryl Ntumy (via Petlwana Journal of Creative Writing)
Hobbits and the Hard Right: How Fantasy Inspires Italy’s Potential New Leader (via NYT)

Connect with Andy:

• KONU // Leadership development for mission-driven change agents

• KONU Events // Open enrollment leadership development workshops

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjcahill/

• Instagram: instagram.com/wonderdomepodcast​

  The Wonder Dome is a listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This wonderful and inspiring conversation with Ray Martin has been a long time coming - and I'm so excited to finally share it with you!

Ray is the living embodiment of these powerful questions:

What would happen if you released your ties to your professional identity? How would you direct yourself through life without the steady paycheck, the usual comforts, the predictable conditions, and the familiar routines?

Ray's book, Life Without a Tie, beautifully explores how he came to his own answers when faced with a deeply disruptive personal circumstance that forced him to let go of his identity as a successful, award-winning business leader and entrepreneur. What he did next was a journey of openness, humility, surprising coincidences, and a newfound sense of self.

Ray is a born storyteller.  There were several moments during our conversation when I was moved to the edge of tears. Listen in to hear about the incredible, unbelievable opportunities that emerged as Ray navigated through depression and embraced the part of him that was ready to let go of old ways and explore something new.

If you find yourself in a similar moment of transition or disruption, I hope that this conversation and Ray's writings might inspire you to live your questions and find your own answers, even if it means letting go of much of who you thought you were.

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Please note that it was recorded several months ago, and does not reflect current crises in Israel/Gaza, Armenia, or Sudan. As always, The Wonder Dome stands for a world where humanity and its wonderful diversity of cultures can thrive and co-exist. If you'd like to join me in supporting displaced people around the globe, please consider making a donation to the UN Refugee Agency: unhcr.org/us. 

Show Notes:
lifewithoutatie.com
thedailyexplorer.com
The Calling All Angels Foundation
linkedin.com/in/raymartin
facebook.com/ray.martin.944 

Connect with Andy:

• KONU // Leadership development for mission-driven change agents

• KONU Events // Open enrollment leadership development workshops

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjcahill/

• Instagram: instagram.com/wonderdomepodcast​

  The Wonder Dome is a listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Jeff Lieberman is the co-founder of Sleepawake Camp. A play on the “sleep away camp,” Sleepawake is a boot camp for the body, heart, and mind. The summer program is geared towards people ages 18 to 27 who are ready to learn all of the things that are never taught in school: conflict resolution, emotional regulation, mindful communication, and so much more.

Jeff, along with his co-founder (and former Wonder Dome guest) Cat Tweedie have run the camp for a year, and it was amazingly successful in its first season. It is a powerful container for young people who carry a sense that something's missing from our culture, that are maybe looking around going, is this it?

Over the past 15 years, Jeff’s been training in meditation, personal development, and group dynamics for well-being. He creates spaces where others can tap into their own wisdom and insight, using art to inspire wonder and awe. He also beautifully and authentically speaks to the decade-plus he spent navigating deep depression despite seemingly having it all together from the outside.

This year, Sleepawake Camp runs from June 17 to July 16, 2023. If you’re between the ages of 18-27 and long for that kind of depth and connection to life, to your sense of purpose and well-being, submit an application online. There are many, many others who are asking the question, “Is this all there is?” and finding the answer to be no. There's so much more.

Episode Notes:
linkedin.com/in/jeff-lieberman-a00873
https://sleepawake.camp/apply
Ep #98 Camping in the Heartlands (with Cat Tweedie)
Learn more about Jeff’s art: https://bea.st

Connect with Us:​
twitter.com/cahillaguerilla
instagram.com/thewonderdomepod​
facebook.com/mindfulcreative.coach

Paul Dunion has been working for decades to help people of all ages - especially men - step more fully into their maturity, their identity, and their potential. And to do so in a way that engages, integrates, and heals the shadow sides of our lives: the parts of ourselves that we don't want people to see. The parts that others may have told us is unacceptable.

Paul writes and speaks beautifully about the nature of life and about the ways in which so much of our experience is outside the scope of our control. As Paul says, We're not here to get life “right.” But if we're open and willing to let it, life might get us “right.”

That idea sits at the heart of his book, Wisdom, a wonderful exploration of what it truly means to become wise. Paul is not only a wordsmith. He's also a heart- and soul-smith. Our conversation today explores these patterns of maturity, masculinity, shadow work, inviting us to be blessed by life; to be initiated into life's mysteries and humbling wonders; and, perhaps, to live into a world where we are, each of us, a blessing walking.

Connect with Paul:
pauldunion.com
facebook.com/pauldunionauthor
linkedin.com/pub/paul-dunion/33/ba0/609
pauldunion.com/books/my-days-with-emma
pauldunion.com/books/wisdom
amazon.com/Hazards-Being-Male-Surviving-Masculine/dp/0965762874
jameshollis.net

Connect with Us:​
twitter.com/cahillaguerilla
instagram.com/thewonderdomepod​
facebook.com/mindfulcreative.coach

My guest today is Reggie Mara, author of the new book Healing America's Narratives: The Feminine, The Masculine, and Our Collective National Shadow. It provides a deep look at how we could build a country actually rooted in wisdom, equality, and possibility as imagined in our founding documents.

Overall, Reggie’s work is about helping people become more fully human. He embodies the recognition that we’re no more and no less than the way we treat each other. And he shares the insight that by changing ourselves we become the possibility for changing our society.

In our conversation, we tap into what it might take for us to actually talk to our fellow Americans, breaking the downward spiral of zero sum competition, political polarization, burnout, and escapism that defines our current socio-political landscape.

So if you're here for an America that actually lives up to it's ideals, then listen in. Reggie's vision for Healing America's Narratives delves into the history that has shaped us and the path we might walk ahead.

Connect with Reggie:
reggiemarra.com
facebook.com/reggie.marra
linkedin.com/in/reggiemarra/
healingamericasnarratives.com
Enough with the… Talking Points by Reggie Marra
Killing America: Our United States of Ignorance, Fear, Bigotry, Violence and Greed by Reggie Marra
View all of Reggie’s books here
American Nations by Colin Woodard

Connect with Us:​
twitter.com/cahillaguerilla
instagram.com/thewonderdomepod​
facebook.com/mindfulcreative.coach

Tlotlo Tsamaase is a remarkably talented author of speculative fiction. Her novella The Slience of the Wilting Skin - a provocative, psychedelic, heartwrenching novella that explores the devastating impacts of colonialism - served as the centerpiece of our first conversation. Tragically, something went wrong with that recording and the audio was unlistenable. We had a great time, but we couldn't share it with you.

We decided to pick up where that conversation left off, exploring the ineffable nature of creativity. It’s hard to put into words, but you might imagine rather than saying “I am writing something,” you say instead, “something is writing me.” It’s an elusive and incredibly powerful state, one that infuses Tlotlo’s work with visceral and vital energy.

So we start there and wind our way into the ways in which the stories that repress us - colonialism, sexism, and systemic racism - have shaped so much of what’s written, and all the ways that Tlotlo’s working to unpack that, offering stories that might set us free. Stories that challenge us to see truths about our world that we may not be ready or willing to see.

Her debut novel Womb City comes out in the Fall of 2023, and I can promise you that it will be a potent one. Tlotlo also offers beautiful insights about how to make a space for your own singular artistic voice when you're repeatedly told by gatekeepers that there is not a seat at the table for you. She’s carved her own beautiful path. Perhaps it will inspire you to carve your own.

Connect with Tlotlo:
tlotlotsamaase.com
facebook.com/tlotlo.tsamaase
instagram.com/tlotlotsamaase
twitter.com/TlotloTsamaase
The Silence of the Wilting Skin by Tlotlo Tsamaase
Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

Connect with Us:​
twitter.com/cahillaguerilla
instagram.com/thewonderdomepod​
facebook.com/mindfulcreative.coach