To wrap up season 2 of the Own It All podcast, I’m sharing my conversation with the incredibly gifted, socially-conscious, driven, wise, and widely published Charlene Carruthers. She’s a Black queer feminist community organizer and writer with 15+ years of experience in racial justice, feminist and youth leadership development movement work. She’s also the author of the bestselling book Unapologetic: A Black, Queer and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements, and when we spoke, she had just begun serving as a board member for the Women’s March.

In discussing what it means to own your power in all aspects of your life, our conversation was both wide and deep. We covered everything from intersectional activism, to staying in integrity while maintaining your boundaries, to reframing the way we look at collective work for liberation.

“We shouldn’t see every single thing at every moment as the most urgent thing. Moving only in a spirit of urgency will lead us to only focus on one thing and picking away at ‘the wall’ in one area. But if we say, ‘Over my lifespan, there are so many different contributions that I can make,’ I believe that’s a much more fruitful pathway in doing this work. … There are so many different ways to contribute. It isn’t just about where you can physically put your body. What kind of a community you’re a part of, what are you reading, what are you teaching other people? All of those things go into transforming the world that we live in.”

Charlene also shared powerful insights into the importance of authentic relationships with people who are different from you, and how that ties into some of the work that white women need to do. For that, and for everything else she shared, I am so grateful to Charlene taking the time to come onto the show. We only just scratched the surface, so if you’d like to learn more about Charlene’s work and philosophies, check out her website to get started.

Thanks for tuning in for season 2 of Own It All! I’m so pleased that I could share these conversations with you over the past two months, and I’m so grateful to my guests, and all of you joined us.

Welcome back to the Own It All podcast! I’m thrilled this week to share my conversation with host of the top-rated and much-downloaded self help podcast Unf*ck Your Brain, Kara Loewentheil. Kara is a Master Certified Coach with a B.A. from Yale and J.D. from Harvard Law, and she has been featured in outlets like Marie Claire, Mind Body Green, MSN.com, and The Huffington Post. 

Kara and I talked a lot about perfectionism, thought work, and liberation from the inside out. If your brain could use a little bit of “unf*cking” right now, well, this is definitely the episode for you. Kara even shared a brief step-by-step process you can use right now if you’re trying to neutralize your thoughts.

1. Write down the thoughts — no editing or analyzing!
2. Pick 1 thought and come up with a neutral version of it. Example: transform the thought “My stomach is gross” to the neutral thought “A lot of people have a stomach like mine.”
3. Practice this thought! Repeat it, either aloud or in your head.
4. Make it a habit by using a reminder app, making it a password, or even putting post-it notes around your house.
5. Pay attention to how it feels different in your body over time.

“Women being able to think and feel how they want is what’s going to create everything else we want on the outside. It’s going to create women negotiating for better pay and family friendly leave, and loving their bodies, and enjoying fitness because it feels good. Whatever it is that we want on the outside, we have to do the inside work first. For me, this work is about freeing women to own their lives, but it has to start in our minds.”

Kara, thank you so much for coming onto the show and sharing your insights on thought work with all of us. And thank you to all of you out there listening and sharing the show! If you want to hear more from Kara, check out unfckyourbrain.com or follow her on Instagram. See you next week!

Well, it’s safe to say we’re living through a time of massive upheaval and dealing with all of the emotional turmoil that comes along with it. Days feel like weeks and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by fear, grief, and uncertainty in the face of this new normal.

With all that in mind, this felt like the right time to share my conversation with Ty Alexander. Ty is a best selling author, speaker, podcaster, and wellness blogger who blends radically honest stories with actionable a-ha lessons. We talked about the new entrepreneurial journey and her work with Destination Heal, as well as what it means to choose gratitude over grief and how to set boundaries around the way we communicate our feelings to others.

While [our feelings] should have a place in our lives, it doesn’t need to be a place every day, all day. A lot of times what happens in trauma is, we allow those feelings to take over our lives all day. Feeling doesn’t make any changes. Acknowledge your feelings, write them down, journal. But then what’s the steps to get out of that feeling? It’s about doing those actionable steps to move yourself out and past that moment.

Ty, thank you so much for coming onto the show! I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed connecting with you. For those of you out there who want to learn more about Ty, head on over to Instagram and check out @tyalexander and @selfcareirl. Thanks so much for listening and for sharing the show with your friends. See you next week!