Love as Liberation: Unpacking bell hooks (with Heather Vickery)

✍️ This week’s essay:
“Love as the Practice of Freedom” by bell hooks

🎙 This week’s guest:
Heather Vickery is a coach, speaker, podcast host, and joy-bringer. Her work centers around intentional living, courageous leadership, and aligning action with values. Heather brings radical honesty and warmth to everything she does—even when it’s tough love.

Find Heather:
🌐 vickeryandco.com
🎧 Was it Chance?
📷 @vickeryandco

Discussed in this episode:

• What “love as liberation” really means in the context of political and personal resistance
• The difference between kindness and niceness—and why love is often neither
• How to balance boundaries with compassion without playing the “both sides” game
• Love as an ethic, a choice, and a verb—not a passive feeling
• How domination, control, and toxic positivity masquerade as “love”
• Heather’s personal experience with self-love, queerness, and choosing relationships with intention
• Parenting through a feminist love ethic: Holding boundaries as an act of care
• Navigating the guilt of not doing “enough” while doing what’s possible with what you’ve got
• Why white women talking about love must include interrogating privilege and practicing collective accountability

Resources mentioned:

• “All About Love” by bell hooks
• “The Road Less Traveled” by M. Scott Peck

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