The Arise Podcast

In this episode, Danielle, Rebecca, and Jenny explore how political instability reaches far beyond elections—entering the body, the grocery store, the workplace, and the relationships people have with their neighbors. Jenny describes the physical relief she experienced crossing from the United States into Canada, revealing how much fear and vigilance her body had been carrying. Danielle brings the conversation into everyday economic life through rising food prices, unreliable food systems, and the growing need for neighborhood mutual-aid networks.

What happens when the systems we have been told provide opportunity—education, employment, healthcare, citizenship—begin narrowing the pathways through which people can actually participate? In this episode, Danielle, Rebecca, and Jenny begin with the growing precarity surrounding higher education, from financial aid restrictions and historically underfunded HBCUs to families discovering that even highly qualified students may no longer be able to afford college. What begins as a conversation about education quickly widens into something larger: the sense of a nationwide “squeeze,” where the rising costs of housing, healthcare, education, and basic life collide with increasingly restricted access to resources and freedom of movement. The conversation traces these pressures through the longer history of American empire and exploited labor. Together, they explore the ways systems of domination continually reinvent themselves, how racial division has historically prevented people with shared economic interests from recognizing one another as allies, and why vulnerability so often produces scapegoating instead of solidarity. When people are frightened by the precarity of their own lives, the person who visibly embodies vulnerability—the immigrant, the poor person, the marginalized neighbor—can become the target rather than the systems producing the insecurity in the first place. From there, the conversation turns toward power itself. What is the difference between power that emerges from an integrated sense of self and power that depends upon dominating someone else? Danielle, Rebecca, and Jenny examine the relationship between patriarchy, masculinity, whiteness, entitlement, competence, and the expectation that certain people should enter every room already assuming they belong there and are qualified to lead it. They also ask what these systems cost men themselves. What happens when boys who begin life tender, emotional, responsive to love, and deeply relational are taught that masculinity requires certainty, dominance, invulnerability, and control? And what possibilities emerge when men are allowed to say, “I don’t know,” to receive care, to remain sensitive, and to understand power as something other than control? Ultimately, this episode is a conversation about precarity and the stories we tell ourselves in response to it: whether fear pushes us toward domination and scapegoating, or whether we can recognize our shared vulnerability and build forms of power rooted in relationship, tenderness, competence, mutuality, and care.

In this episode, Danielle and Rebecca wrestle with the collapse of the illusion that American democracy was moving steadily toward repair. The conversation begins with Danielle naming the childhood belief that history was on a trajectory of getting better, while Rebecca challenges the idea that the gains of the Civil Rights era were ever as secure as many people assumed. From there, they explore how racism reinvents itself through new language, new targets, and new enforcement mechanisms while preserving the same underlying structure of othering, demonization, and dehumanization.

n this episode, Danielle, Jenny, and Rebecca explore the tangled relationship between white evangelicalism, missionary culture, adoption, and whiteness. Beginning with Jenny’s research on Uganda, purity culture, and the savior narratives surrounding white women missionaries, the conversation moves into the harms of transracial and international adoption, especially when children are severed from family, culture, land, and language under the banner of God’s calling. Rebecca brings a deeply personal and structural lens to adoption, naming how adoptive parents are often cast as heroes while the child’s story is flattened or rewritten. Danielle connects these patterns to white evangelical politics, immigration enforcement, and the theological contradictions that allow some children to be “saved” while others are abandoned, detained, or deported. Together, they examine how whiteness requires disconnection, how capitalism and scarcity reinforce racial allegiance, and how Christian theology has often been used to sanctify violence rather than confront it. The episode asks what it means to move beyond saviorism toward responsibility, coalition, and truth-telling about the systems that create harm in the first place.

Episode Summary In this episode, Danielle and Jenny begin with the joy, tension, and absurdity of international sports, especially soccer and the World Cup. Danielle reflects on watching Mexico and the United States play with Luis in Ciudad Juárez, her complicated love of competition, and the hope sports can offer in a time when the world feels increasingly unbearable. Jenny brings her own layered relationship to soccer, shaped by growing up with three older brothers who played seriously, and the two move between humor, memory, family, and the embodied experience of watching teams push themselves together. But the conversation quickly turns toward the contradiction of the United States hosting the world while treating the world as a threat. Danielle names the violence of border enforcement, denied entry for fans and referees, strip searches, racial profiling, ICE snatch-and-grabs in Kitsap County, and the expanding presence of GEO Group vans at the Northwest Detention Center. Jenny frames this contradiction through the question of hospitality: what does it mean to host the world while acting as though the world is dangerous, unwanted, or disposable?

Episode Summary In this episode, Danielle and Jenny explore dissociation, embodiment, privilege, and the possibility of building a more humane world from inside the body outward. Beginning with somatic experiencing, polyvagal theory, craniosacral work, hydration, sleep, movement, and the body’s basic needs, the conversation opens into a wider reflection on how people are trained to override their bodies in systems that demand productivity, disconnection, and survival at any cost.

In this episode of the ARISE podcast, Danielle, Rebecca, and Jenny are joined by Michael Thornhill, author of The First, The Few and The Only, for a powerful conversation about tokenism, racialized stress, embodiment, integration, and the cost of being “the only one with your face in the room.” Michael shares how the book emerged from years of writing, research, vocational rupture, and a profound bodily crisis that forced him to reckon with the toll of chronic racial stress in Black and Brown bodies. Together, the conversation moves through the meaning of “mirror memoir,” the quiet violence of tokenism, the limits of institutional belonging, and the painful question of whether integration has ever truly led to freedom. Michael names tokenism not as an accident, but as a structural imposition that keeps Black and Brown people carrying the cost of systems designed to consume them. The group also reflects on impossible choices facing marginalized communities—from civil rights struggles to current immigration cases—and considers whether liberation requires reform, revolution, departure, resistance, or all of the above. This episode is an invitation to tell the truth about what our bodies have known, to honor the stories buried beneath survival, and to ask what becomes possible when we stop mistaking endurance for freedom.

Podcast Episode Summary In this episode, Danielle and Rebecca process the renewed assault on voting rights, racial representation, citizenship, and the legal structures that once promised protection after the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. Their conversation moves between historical analysis and embodied grief, tracing how whiteness has always operated as an exchange: access to power in return for erasure, conformity, and the dehumanization of whoever is cast as “them.” Rebecca reflects on the painful realization that racism does not disappear but reinvents itself, often following moments of civil rights expansion with intense backlash. Danielle names the shock and dirtiness of watching political systems move quickly to strip Black representatives, threaten naturalized citizens, and protect whiteness under the guise of neutrality or law. The episode closes by returning to the body: the tight chest, heart pain, grief, fear, and the small practices of care needed to keep living, organizing, and staying human.

In this episode of ARISE: Conversations on Reality, Danielle, Rebecca, and Jenny explore how sexuality, gender, race, religion, and empire are shaped by colonial and Christian nationalist frameworks. The conversation begins with the limitations of purity culture and abstinence-only education, especially around consent, sexuality, gender expression, and the freedom young people need to explore identity safely. Jenny names the way settler Christianity imposed racial, sexual, and familial norms on Indigenous and colonized communities, while Danielle connects that history to Mexico’s racial caste system and the sexual violence embedded in colonization. The conversation then turns toward the contradictions of Christian nationalism: the public preaching of purity, monogamy, and morality while historically relying on domination, coercion, exploitation, and racial control. Rebecca pushes toward nuance, distinguishing authentic faith or monogamy from the ways empire hijacks sacred language. The episode also explores how whiteness trains perception itself—how people are seen, mis-seen, categorized, and flattened through racialized eyes. From there, the speakers move into a deeper theological reflection on the image of God, the danger of making God into a white, masculine, Western figure, and the possibility of encountering others through holy curiosity rather than control. The final part of the episode becomes more intimate and spiritual. The speakers discuss ancestors, the “cloud of witnesses,” afterlife, ritual, resistance, and small spaces of hospitality as acts against systems of domination. Even as the conversation holds grief, violence, and political urgency, it ends with humor, food, family, Mother’s Day, tortillas, beans and rice theology, and the ordinary practices that help people stay sane.

This episode is a sharp, passionate, and often humorous conversation about religion, power, and political corruption in the current American moment. Using recent controversies involving Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, and Pope Leo as a starting point, the three of us explore how Christianity is being manipulated for political gain and how sacred language is used to justify cruelty, nationalism, and violence. A central thread of the episode is grief and disbelief: How did so many faith communities get here? Rebecca especially wrestles with the collapse of theological integrity inside modern evangelicalism, while Jenny situates these distortions within a much longer historical pattern—empire repeatedly co-opting religion for domination. Danielle brings in race, imagery, and whiteness, asking how white depictions of Jesus shape public consciousness and who gets recognized as holy in the first place.

This episode explores the tension between advocating fiercely for others while experiencing shutdown when it comes to defending oneself. Through personal stories and cultural reflection, the conversation traces how gender and racial socialization shape who is permitted to speak, resist, and claim justice. The hosts examine how marginalized groups develop awareness of systemic dynamics as a matter of survival, while dominant groups may remain unaware of the very frameworks they inhabit. Parenting, power, and intergenerational transmission emerge as central concerns—how to raise children who can remain both safe and fully alive in systems that punish authenticity. Ultimately, the conversation reframes the question from how to escape complicity to how to consciously leverage power, reclaim narrative, and return to a more embodied, self-connected way of being.

Trigger Warning: We should mention that parts of this story might be disturbing for some of our listeners. In contrast, they reflect on community-based models of accountability, including restorative practices observed in Ugandan communities, where harm is understood as collective and healing involves ritual, reintegration, and shared responsibility. This raises a core tension between individual justice and communal repair—especially in cases of sexual violence, where harm is both deeply personal and socially embedded. The episode also highlights: The cost of silence for survivors, particularly when speaking out threatens community stability The lack of accountability for perpetrators, even when evidence is public (e.g., Epstein cases) The need to shift cultural responsibility from protecting victims to shaping the behavior and accountability of men The failure of communities to address early warning signs of harm

This episode traces the relationship between white womanhood, Christian nationalism, imperial power, and public sacrifice. Danielle, Jenny, and Rebecca ask what it means when unqualified white women are elevated into public roles, not as true agents of power, but as the acceptable face of it. From the Epstein files to apocalyptic theology, from empire to biblical interpretation, this conversation names the danger of spectacle, loyalty, and monolithic belief — and asks what kind of faith, politics, and community might still make room for truth.

"“it simply cannot be well for my community if it is not well for the community that is adjacent to us.” Welcome to the ARISE podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender in the church, and we're finding our way into reality. And as you know, times and events and things are changing rapidly in our world. And particularly our podcast is located in coming to you from a Washington state, Virginia, and Florida as we are in three different areas of the country and we're coming from the country of the United States of America. And as we do that, we're coming from this particular lens and this particular perspective of how we're trying to find reality, how we're trying to make sense of what's happening. And of course, we have what is happening in our world and we want to talk a little bit about that.

“I don't have personal ancestry of resistance. I have ancestry of complicity.” “What does it look like to draw from the past with white ancestors who chose to assimilate… rather than resist?” “When I say the word ancestor… I don't actually mean bloodline.”

Welcome to the Arise Podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender, spirituality. We're jumping here and talking about this current moment. We just can't get away from it. There's so much going on, protest kids, walking out of schools, navigating the moment of trauma. Is that really trauma? So I hope you enjoy this conversation with Danielle, Jenny and Rebecca

Danielle and Jenny reflect on how collective trauma is reshaping the way we connect, grieve, and show up in our bodies. We explore messiness, consent, and personal agency as forms of resistance to purity culture, individualism, and the disembodying forces of supremacy. Blending therapy, culture, and lived experience, this conversation invites listeners back into their humanity, relationships, and shared responsibility.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/21/ice-arrests-five-year-old-boy-minnesota US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained a five-year-old Minnesota boy on Tuesday as he returned home from school and transported him and his father to a Texas detention center, according to school officials. Liam Ramos, a preschooler, and his father were taken into custody while in their driveway, the superintendent of the school district in Columbia Heights, a Minneapolis suburb, said at a press conference on Wednesday. Liam, who had recently turned five, is one of four children in the school district who have been detained by federal immigration agents during the Trump administration’s enforcement surge in the region over the last two weeks, the district said. portrait of child wearing black polo

This Current Moment in January 2026: I think something I'm sitting with is the impossibility and the necessity of trying to metabolize what's going on in our bodies. Yeah, and it feels like this double bind where I feel like we need to do it. We need to feel rage and grief and fear and everything else that we feel, and I don't think our nervous systems have evolved to deal with this level of overwhelm and existential threat that we're experiencing, but I do believe our bodies, Yeah, need space to try to do that.

Welcome to the Arise podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender, the church, and what are we seeing in reality right now? So Jenny and I dive in a little bit about therapy. The holidays, I would don't say the words collective liberation, but it feels like that's what we're really touching on and what does that mean in this day and age? What are we finding with one another? How are we seeking help? What does it look like and what about healing? What does that mean to us? This isn't like a tell all or the answer to all the problems. We don't have any secret knowledge. Jenny and I are just talking out some of the thoughts and feeling and talking through what does it mean for us as we engage one another, engage healing spaces, what do we want for ourselves? And I think we're still figuring that out. You're just going to hear us going back and forth talking and thank you for joining.

The Continuum of Moral Awareness “It’s not enough to build a system and then exit stage left when you realize it’s broken. The ‘I’m sorry’ is not the work — it’s only the acknowledgment that work needs to be done. After the apology, you must actually do the repair. And what I see from her is the language of accountability without the actions that would demonstrate it. That’s insufficient for real change.” Speaker 1 (00:00): Welcome to the Arise Podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender, and spirituality. You're joining Jenny McGrath of Indwell Counseling and Rebecca Wheela Walston of Solid Foundation Story Coaching and Danielle s Reeb. And we're going to talk about Marjorie Taylor Green politics systems, and the moral continuum. Thanks for joining us.

Jenny and Danielle: The Arise Podcast Speaker 1 (00:00): Welcome to the Arise Podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender in the church, and how does that intersect with reality? Today, Jenny and I talk about the intersectionality of faith or spirituality and therapy and dominion and what does that look like. So go ahead and listen in. I think you'll find it interesting.

Welcome to the Arise Podcast. This time we are talking about mutual aid, Jenny and I, and how we see it, how we do it, and we're growing and learning. So I invite you on that journey with us.

today Jenny's going to read a part of a presentation she's giving in a week, and I hope you really listen in The political times are heavy and the news about Epstein has been triggering for so many, including Jenny and myself. I hope as you listen, you find yourself somewhere in the conversation and if you don't, I hope that you can find yourself with someone else in your close sphere of influence. These conversations aren't perfect. We can't resolve it at the end. We don't often know what we need, so I hope as you listen along that you join us, you join us and you reach out for connection in your community with friends, people that you trust, people that you know can hold your story. And if you don't have any of those people that maybe you can find the energy and the time and the internal resources to reach out. You also may find yourself activated during this conversation. You may find yourself triggered and so this is a notice that if you feel that that is a possibility and you need to take a break and not listen to this episode, that's okay. Be gentle and kind with yourself and if you feel like you want to keep listening, have some self-care and some ways of connecting with others in place, go ahead and listen in.

Welcome to the Arise podcast. This is episode 12, conversations on Reality. And today we're touching on organizing and what does it mean to organize? How do we organize? And we talk to a seasoned organizer, Mary Lavelle. And so Mary is a queer, grassroots organizer, visual artist and activist who has been fighting oil and gas infrastructure and fighting for social justice in their adult life. Living in the Kitsap Peninsula. They're working on their first book and love working with people to build power in their communities. Join us. I hope you stay curious and we continue the dialogue.

"The word resilience, saying Dia de Los Muertos, that's self-determination, something you practice to keep it going, to remember all those things. I was thinking through resilience feels like this vacillation between different levels, levels of the individual in relation to the community, how much do we participate in self discovery, self-determination, all those things, but then also connect it to community. How do we continue to do that as a community to stay resilient or keep practicing what we've been taught? But then also generationally too, I think that every generation has to figure out based on their experience in this modern world, what to do with the information and the knowledge that is given to us, and then how to kind of encourage the next generation too." --Renee Begay

I think we talk about what's happening in one sense, it seems like social media and other ways like Zoom, we're on a screen with Zoom and we're all in three different locations right now. We think of ourselves as really connected. But then when tragedy strikes or trauma or an invasion, for instance, strikes, we're connected, but it seems like we're also disconnected from one another and the practical needs and storytelling on the ground, and what does resilience look like for one person versus another? Or what does survival versus thriving look like for one person versus another? And how do we kind of join together and form a collective bond in that? Sandra Van Opstal joins us from Chicago and Chasing Justice, to discuss the practicality of being on the ground in the midst of an invasion

Good morning. I just had the privilege and honor of interviewing my colleague, another therapist and mental health counselor in Chicago, Vanessa Les, and she is located right in the midst of Chicago with an eye and a view out of her office towards what's happening with ICE and immigration raids. I want to encourage you to listen into this episode of the Arise Podcast, firsthand witness accounts and what is it actually like to try to engage in a healing process when the trauma may be committed right before someone comes in the office. We know that's a possibility and right after they leave the office, not suggesting that it's right outside the door, but essentially that the world in which we are living is not as hopeful and as merry as we would like to think, I am sad and deeply disturbed and also very hopeful that we share this power inside of ourselves.

With my buddy Jenny McGrath, and then a dear colleague and a new friend, Reverend Dr. Starlette Thomas. We're going to jump from history and Constantine and Faith and Christian nationalism, and then we're going to go into some current events. We're actually even going to talk a little bit about our families and our grandparents. I hope it sparks some interest for you around your own family history and ethnicity, and you stay curious. Here we go. The distinction between Christianity and Christian supremacy and Christian nationalism, and I have been researching Christian nationalism for probably about five or six years now. And one of my introductions to the concept of it was a book that's based on a documentary that's based on a book called Constantine Sword. And it talked about how prior to Constantine, Christians had the image of fish and life and fertility, and that is what they lived by. And then Constantine supposedly had this vision of a cross and it said, with this sign, you shall reign. And he married the church and the state. And ever since then, there's been this snowball effect of Christian empire through the Crusades, through manifest destiny, through all of these things that we're seeing play out in the United States now that aren't new.

Welcome to the Arise podcast, and as you know, we're continuing on the intersection of where our reality meets and today it's where our reality meets our resilience. And how do we define that? A lovely conversation. It's actually just part one. I'm thinking it's going to be multiple conversations. Jenny McGrath, LMHC, and Rebecca Wheeler, Walston. Join me again, look for their bios in the notes and tag along with us. I thought we could start by talking about what do we see as resilience in this moment and what do we see, maybe like I'm saying a lot now, what do we see as the ideal of that resilience and what is actually accessible to us? Because I think there's these great quotes from philosophers and our ancestors, but we don't know all their day-to-day life. What did it look like day to day? So I'm wondering, just kind of posing that for you all, what do you think about resilience? How does it intersect with this moment and how do we kind of ground ourselves in reality?

Welcome to the Arise Podcast - speaking with Sarah Van Gelder on Reality and Politics of our time Welcome to the Arise podcast, conversations about reality and talking a lot about what that means in the context of church, faith, race, justice, religion, all the things. Today, I'm so honored to have Sarah Van Gelder, a community leader, an example of working and continuing to work on building solidarity and networks and communication skills and settling into her lane. I hope you enjoy this conversation. Hey, Sarah, it's so good to be with you. And these are just casual conversations, and I do actual minimal editing, but they do get a pretty good reach, so that's exciting. I would love to hear you introduce yourself. How do you introduce yourself these days? Tell me a little bit about who you are. Okay.

Welcome to the Arise Podcast, conversations based in what our reality is, faith, race, justice, gender in the church, therapy, all matter of things considered just exploring this topic of reality. Hey, I'm having this regular podcast co-host. Her name is Jenny McGrath. She's an M-A-C-P-L-M-H-C. She's dope. She's a licensed mental health counselor, a somatic experiencing practitioner, certified yoga teacher, and an approved supervisor in the state of Washington. She spent over a decade researching the ways in which the body can heal from trauma through movement and connection. And she's come to see that bodies are so important and she believes that by approaching the body with curiosity, we can begin to listen to the innate wisdom our body has to teach us. And that is where the magic happens. So I hope you're as thrilled as me to have such an amazing co-host join me. Yeah, we're going to talk about reality and therapy. We're just jumping in. Jenny and I are both writing books.

Welcome to the Arise podcast, conversations in Reality centered on our same themes, faith, race, justice, gender in the church. So happy to welcome my buddy and a colleague, just a phenomenal human being. Dr. Phil Allen, Jr. He has a PhD. He's a theologian and an ethicist whose research and writings include intersections of social structure, race, culture, and theology, and the ethics of justice. He has also authored two books, open Wounds, A Story of Racial Tragedy, trauma and Redemption, and the Prophetic Lens, the Camera and the Black Moral Agency from MLK to Dan Darnell Frazier. He's an affiliate assistant professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, a poet and a documentary filmmaker. Dr. Allen is also founder of the nonprofit Racial Solidarity Project based in Pasadena, California as a former division one college basketball player. Yes, he has enjoyed opportunities as a guest chaplain for college and professional sports. Hey, you're not going to be disappointed. You're going to find questions, curiosity ways to interact with the material here. Please just open up your mindset and your heart to what is shared today, and I encourage you to share and spread the word. Hey, Phil. Here we find ourselves back again talking about similar subjects.

Welcome to the Arise podcast, conversations on Reality. This is season six. We're into episode three with my dear colleague, Rebecca Wheeler Walston, and she's going to be talking about her perceptions of reality and experiences was in the context of story work. She's an amazing lawyer, works for a nonprofit. Yeah, I think you're really going to love getting to know Rebecca and what she's about as a story worker, as a storyteller, as a human being moving through this world, and I'm personally hoping this isn't the last time she's on the podcast, and hopefully she listens to this. She hears me say that. Additionally, at the end of the podcast in the show notes, there are mental health resources. There's also a link to Rebecca's bio, link to how to get in touch with her if you want to work with her. I really encourage y'all to take care, find someone that helps you ground yourself in reality, put your feet in some dirt,

Reality and Faith The theme of the conversation and touch points that you may want to speak to: 1. What are the formations or structures for how you know you are in reality in regards to your faith? Do you have indicators? Internal senses? External resources? 2. Who are you in active dialogue with in regards to your faith? Who that is living and who that is passed on? 3. When you encounter dissonance with your reality of faith, how do you stay grounded in your experience?

Season 6: Episode 1 What is reality? How do we determine reality? What our the inputs? Who is in our circle? As it pertains to faith, race, gender, and the church - how do we find the reality and experience of this moment? This introduction was recorded over vastly changing reality and political violence and school violence. You will hear that shift in the recording. (It’s painful to be around people who think differently. The question is: how do we converse without devolving into hate or shouting? Today is September 11. Between Charlie Kirk’s assassination, yesterday’s school shooting, and attempted political killings, it’s clear our nation is split into competing realities that shape everything—from how we see safety to how we practice faith and empathy. This podcast is about examining those realities and how we process them.)

Spiritual Abuse, Christianity and the Election with Guest Host spiritual abuse, the election, and the role of Christianity in that.

Dr. PhilAllenJr.com, you can see that his quote is Justice Matters, my neighbors Matters, creation matters, faith Matters. And really in this conversation. Pay attention to those points that he makes in this quote from his website and how that filters through in the research he does in the point of view he's bringing to the table for this conversation on what are we doing. From understanding creates pathways towards action, towards organizing, towards being together with one another in community so that we can support justice, so that we can support our neighbors so that we have faith in creator. Go find his website, philallen jr.com. Look up this amazing man, this professor, he's got a podcast, he's got books, poetry speaking, a documentary. Don't hesitate to reach out, but as you listen, focusing on justice Neighbor and creation and Faith.

In the Words and Voice of Rebecca W. Walston: Anticipatory intelligence is a phrase that I heard at a seminar talking about racial trauma. The speaker whose name I can't remember, was talking about this idea of a kind of intelligence that is often developed by marginalized people. And because this was a seminar on racial trauma in the United States, her examples were all primarily around racialized experiences as the United States understand that sense of racialized society. And so the idea of anticipatory intelligence is the amount of effort or energy that we put in emotionally, mentally, psychologically, to anticipating how our bodies and the stories that they represent will be received in a space that we are in before we get there.

Election Conversations with two of my favorites: Matthias Roberts Danielle S. Rueb Castillejo We grapple with politics, humanity, faith, and where do we go from here?

A continued conversation Themes would be continuing political dialogue in our current climate, and what is at stake if we do not vote. I feel pressed to continue to keep our neighbors in mind. The following are questions to keep in mind as you listen. Questions: how do you vote when candidates support or do not support critical issues to your own conscience? Guests include Poulsbo For All's Pam Keely and Community Activist (Kitsap County) Sarah Van Gelder How do you see change happening in our society - both long term and short term? Context of keeping in mind the humanity of our neighbors. Are you a part of any social movements?

A Brief Recap of the past year, where we left off with the North Kitsap School District and then a variety of voice contribute to thoughts on these two questions: The mportance or how you see being human in the age of politics 1. How do you see your own humanity in the context of political dialogue. 2. How do you make space for folks in your proximity who do not share your political views

Justice for ALL Students Campaign, Part 4 In Their Own Voices - here first hand from those at the November 22, 2022 meeting, including other voices who spoke publicly in the past few months to the North Kitsap School Board, with no response to this date as to implementation of any of the (7) solutions presented to the Superintendent and School Board in February 2023.

In this Episode (of dealing with North Kitsap School District), I open up with some brief history, the basic law of Lau v. Nichols (1973-1974), and how that changed the English Language Access for students, an example of one complaint from our school district, as well as hearing from community members in their own voices, in their own words, both Allies, and personal examples of what they experienced, how they are involved with advocacy, and what, if anything has changed since last year (2022)

Conversations on faith, race, justice, gender healing in the church. This morning I'm coming at you with a throwback episode that I recorded, actually last year after working with Chasing Justice in Sandra Van Opstal, in Chicago, and things I learned about the Latinx collective experience. Looking forward to sharing this with you. I think it might be helpful to throw this in, in the middle of the series on what is going on with the school board and the Latino community here. And I know I'm focusing on Latino community, Latinx community, but really there's such a need for justice among all of our communities. But I cannot speak to everyone's experience. So as other people's voices come in, they will speak to their own experience. I hope to amplify that. So listen in.

During this episode, hear more of the history of racism and efforts to work with North Kitsap School District from community members, some names are shielded for safety reason. You will also have the opportunity to hear some of the details of the November timeline and be introduced to KAIRE (Kitsap Advocating for Immigrant Rights and Equality) and how they came into the picture.

After a few months hiatus, Partly that is due to me, Danielle Rueb - Castillejo, doing this on my own, and also just in February, having a town hall and gathering the Latino/a/x community together, and which this situation with the school board has not been resolved yet. This is the history of the "break" and what led to the Latino/a/x - Community Town Hall in February 2023. This has taken an honorable place of, of my time and I'm continuing to work towards that - toward justice in the North Kitsap school district, and equity. It might be helpful to tell a little bit of the history of how that got started and, what happened for me and why the meeting happened in November of 2022. If you're following along, I'll put some links to the Kitsap Sun articles, in the notes.

Listen to this fun conversation with @indwell_movement and @abbymwong and myself @artoflivingcounselingcenter as we talk about attachment, somatic body movement, and group work in the context of story. I love these fierce, brilliant and playful woman and we love doing our Trauma Focused Narrative Group Trainings and would love to have you join us for our upcoming spring cohort. Deadline for registration is Friday February 24th. So sign up today. You can find out more information and register when you click the link in my bio or visit artoflivingcounseling.com under Trainings. We would love to journey with you! The Teaching teach and coaches: @abbymwong @indwell_movement @luisdaniellecastillejo @rebecca.w.walston @artoflivingcounselingcenter #traumainformed #collectivetrauma #somaticmovement #attachment #inclusive #trainings #racialequity #continuingeducation

artoflivingcounselingcenter Listen to this fun conversation with @luisdaniellecastillejo @rebecca.w.walston as we talk about the power of engaging trauma and stories of harm. Danielle and Rebecca are part of our teaching and coaching team. We would love to have you join us for our Spring Training. Check out the link: https://artoflivingcounseling.com/professional-training/ teachers and coaches: @rebecca.w.wa ston @luisdaniellecastillejo @abbymwong @indwell movement @artoflivingcounselingcenter

Danielle S. Castillejo shares thoughts on the New Year (2023), Pandemic and Post Pandemic Life, Social Awkwardness, Tenderness, and engaging this year. It is the year 2023 and I don't know how many of you have actually looked at the date and been like, what happened to the time? I know. As 2023 started and the last year since 2020 arrived, I had some trepidation and I still have that trepidation.

Kitsap County Panel - to discuss declaring racism a public health crisis in Kitsap County The Public Health Department Jessica Guidry Maria Fergus Akuyea Karen Vargas Kali Jensen Danielle S. Castillejo Kitsap County - discussions of power, psychology, freedom and liberation in our community

Bethanee Randles of Elevate Strength and Conditioning talks with Danielle S. Castillejo about entrepreneurship, inclusivity, the pandemic and healing through movement. Bethanee's community-oriented business is located on Bainbridge Island and she and her time work to "build powerful humans."

I'm so honored to be joined by a therapist and a colleague, Jennifer Jordan. We talk a little bit about spiritual abuse, patriarchy, and mysogyny and its impacts, so, uh, link in notes to get ahold of her bio and find out how you can hear more from her. Just so honored to have this conversation.

Welcome To the Arise podcast with Alethea Lamberson, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender and healing. And just wanna welcome a colleague and a dear friend. She's located in the Atlanta area and I love who she is. She is about belonging, she is about being with others in their stories. She's about being authentic and true to what she believes. And I'm just so honored to have her with me today and it's election season. So we're gonna get into it and talk a little bit about that belonging Tiffany Cross from MSNBC whose contract wasn't renewed. And I encourage you to listen in and with curiosity and hold space for any kind of resistance you feel and just be curious about that and jump in with us.

This is an important time in the nation and it has been an important time for many years. I think back to 2016, 2018, 2020. And now we're in 2022 and we're still working through what does it mean to exercise this right to vote? What does it mean? What is impacting our communities? What things are important? And today I had a conversation with Karen Vargas of Kitsap County. She is an elder. She is on the Multicultural Advisory Committee for our county. She is living arts cultural heritage, founded the Living Arts Cultural Heritage Project and Living Life Leadership. She has taught cultural history and life skills to hundreds of youth throughout Kitsap County and including many of the young leaders who spoke at demonstrations in 2020. Ms. Vargas is concerned about the impact of what Covid did. She is deeply invested. And in 2021, the governor of Washington, Jay Insley, bestowed on Vargas an arts and heritage award in the category of luminaries honoring people who stood as shining lights for their community during the pandemic. And someone that commented on the award, Sheila Hughes, the executive director of the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, described Vargas as a trusted advisor as well as a great friend who has a genuine laugh and a huge hug for just when you need one. So as you think about listening tune in and hopefully keep an open mind to the conversation.

Guest, Misty Harper - Anderson gives voice to the following: Liminal Space, Calling, Patience and what it means to come out of a traumatic Church experience and work through faith. Misty Ann is truly the embodiment of hospitality, someone I trust, who's willing to have difficult conversations. Someone who's been in the liminal space before and has persisted in that space. She's an event planner, um, a pastor, a church planter, and someone that's hung onto her faith in very authentic in real ways.

Episode Summary - Part 2 Conversation It is Latinx Heritage Month, and it felt really important to have a diverse conversation around repair, because Latinx is, Asian, it's African, European, Indigenous. And in this conversation, what does repair look like for a Latinx person? And what, what does arriving, you know, to Heaven mean for all of us together?

It is Latinx Heritage Month, and it felt really important to have a diverse conversation around repair, because Latinx is, Asian, it's African, European, Indigenous. And in this conversation, what does repair look like for a Latinx person? And what, what does arriving, you know, to Heaven mean for all of us together?

And this week you're going to listen in on a conversation between myself, Rebecca Wheeler Walston, and TJ Poon. We're all part of a project we've been working on together for over a year now. And, and as part of that project, we're exploring the Latinx experience in, in this time. And so what, what we're doing in this conversation is kind of fleshing out, like, what does it mean to have an intercultural conversation in with the primary lens of Latinx culture?

I'm so excited for you to meet my friend and colleague, recent graduate, working in the therapeutic field, also a pastor. We're gonna touch on the fact that this is this stereotypical Latinx heritage month. It is really important for us to take up some space and to give voice, give opportunities to talk about what mental health means for our community, and really want to celebratie this all year round.

Hospitality, Advocacy, Education and Community (Belonging) with Latina Martha Little of Kitsap County - "Anytime we have a conversation with, with someone, it's like, um, you are part of our family. You are part of us. And so we want to impart that, that wisdom and that love, because we want to, um, we want to ensure that we're all a family and we're all, you know, um, benefiting from, from each other."

Latinx Heritage Month: Dr. Eliza Cortes Bast & Danielle S. Rueb Castillejo Dr. Eliza Cortes Bast is a fierce and honest follower of Jesus. She is a pastor and denominational executive, dedicated to helping churches think missionally. She lives into her passion by connecting people, advocating for the community, and helping organizations think strategically so they can be healthy, vibrant, and sustainable.

Danielle and Maggie chat about look back over season 3 conversations and look ahead to next season.

I woke up deeply saddened this morning. I found myself grieving my own lack of awareness of how destructive white systems both personally and professionally can be. We are witnessing these violent acts one after another as society implodes around racism, white supremacy and the violence that is enacted in our communities. Lord have mercy.

A candid and nuanced conversation with Angie Hong where we discuss therapeutic spaces to engage purity culture, race, sex, and the ongoing affects of purity culture in our society.

Jana Peterson, PhD student at NAIITS, talks with Danielle and Maggie on the harmful legacy of colonization in our theology and what it looks like to deconstruct and decolonize our theology.

Danielle and Maggie chat with Susan Cunningham on what it takes to listen well and how listening is an act of love.

Danielle and Maggie check in as we hit the two year mark of the global COVID-19 pandemic, as the world watches the war in Ukraine, how powerlessness and creativity are connected, and what it looks like to move forward in this next season.

Psychotherapist Rebekah Vickery joins Danielle and Maggie to talk about Quiver-full Theology and it's connection to Purity Culture.

Danielle chats with Somatic Psychotherapist Jenny McGrath and the Seattle School's Abby Wong-Heffter to talk about Purity Culture and its lasting impacts on individuals and the collective around sex, race and gender roles.

Restoration Counseling team Chris Bruno and Tracy Johnson join Danielle to share their wisdom, thoughts and resources on mental health care in the new year as we still find ourselves in a global pandemic.

Bonus Episode - A Collection of Stories and Laments as we come to the anniversary of the Jan 6th 2021 Insurrection at the US Capitol. Put together and collaborated while on Occupied Suquamish Territory: "We would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is within the aboriginal territory of the suq̀wabš “People of Clear Salt Water” (Suquamish People). Expert fisherman, canoe builders and basket weavers, the suq̀wabš live in harmony with the lands and waterways along Washington’s Central Salish Sea as they have for thousands of years. Here, the suq̀wabš live and protect the land and waters of their ancestors for future generations as promised by the Point Elliot Treaty of 1855."

This is a bonus episode of an Instagram Live Danielle hosted with attorney and pastor Rebecca Wheeler Watson around collective identity and advent.

Danielle and Maggie sit down to catch up with the current season of Advent, to look back at the impact of COVID over the last two years and talk about their year end practices.

Kali Jensen, LMHC discusses her leadership in different spaces, including Church, the therapeutic realm, and the dreams she has for the future. Join Kali and Danielle as they explore, through conversation what it means to be a woman in leadership. Kali is a mental health counselor in private practice. She worked for 10 years at a local church. She is using her leadership gifts through her private practice helping people work through issues from systemic racism, spiritual abuse, and sexual abuse. She hopes to connect with other leaders and use her speaking gifts more in the future.

Rachel Lewis, Author of Unexpecting: Real Talk on Pregnancy Loss , joins us for a conversation around grief and loss.

David Hayward, the NakedPastor, returns for a discussion on Spiritual Abuse with Danielle and Maggie.

Jen Oyama Murphy of Paper Crane Coaching talks with Maggie and Danielle about dreams and dream work.

Therapist and founder of Art of Living Counseling Center Cyndi Mesmer talked about trends in Mental Health since the pandemic started as well as the difference between therapy and story work.

In response to the sexual assaults both on campus and off campus in Kitsap County High Schools, we wanted to issue a statement and support for the students, families and community members who are working diligently to change the culture that accepts sexual assault and harm. Our county is known for turning a blind eye to sexual assault in many systemic contexts, including the following: faith communities, education systems, and more. We believe that the change of this culture starts in the home - where we teach our sons and daughters about consent, the right to say NO at any point in a sexual encounter, and the right to be believed when harm does occur.

Canadian based David Hayward, the artist behind the NakedPastor, joins us for a conversation about how he uses art to illustrate real honest truths about people's experience in the church with spiritual abuse, patriarchy, exclusion, deconstruction and reconstruction of faith.

A conversation with Phil Allen Jr author of Open Wounds, filmmaker, founder of Racial Solidarity Project and PhD Candidate about intergenerational trauma, the layers of racism, healing through story telling, and the difference between reconciliation and solidarity.

A conversation with Rev. Dr. Randy Woodley of Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice and Portland Seminary about how to make sense of the cultural shift we find ourselves in, why deconstruction is necessary and how the path forward is a return to hospitality.

This is a recast of an Instagram Live of Danielle speaking with Rebecca Wheeler Walston on Critical Race Theory 8/28/2021

Special episode: A collection of voices sharing why we love our neighbors

Continuing our conversation with Michael Chen of AAPI.Liturgy around collective trauma and collective healing with a shift towards what does collective liberation look like and with particular discussion around what is Asian American Theology.

Part One - Michael S. Chen of aapi.liturgy talks about collective trauma, marginalized groups, gender roles, and the AAPI experience.

A sacred conversation with Trauma Coach Marisa Wandeler on decolonizing healing practices, resilience and consent in trauma work.

This is a statement of our standing against anti-Asian Violence. It is not the only conversation we will have on this topic, but we felt we needed to say something.

Rev. Dr. Susie Beil of Summit Ave Presbyterian Church and Director of Community Development and Engagement Deanna Gemmer chat with Danielle and Maggie about Lent and the spiritual wilderness experience while also in this continued season of loss of covid.

Leticia Ochoa Adams, Hispanic speaker and writer, talks about reconciling the tension between having faith and going to therapy and how both work together in the process of healing.

Psychotherapist and Domestic Violence Advocate Yvette Stone of Whispering Tree Therapy talks about Narcissistic Abuse, how to recognize a narcissist and some hope for healing.

Tamara Woodruff joins us from the UK to chat about her work with Trades of Hope, an organization that works to empower victims of human trafficking and extreme poverty by providing meaningful fair wage employment.

Rev. Dr. Susie Beil and Deanna Gemmer, Director of Community Development and Engagement, of Summit Ave Presbyterian Church chat about how to engage conversations around the current political climate and the events of Wed Jan 6th, 2021,

In this episode Danielle and Maggie follow up their conversation from episode 10 on comfort v. distraction, then talk about traditions around the holidays and year-end.

Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton-Chen of the Allender Center join Danielle and Maggie to talk about the tension of the Advent season, both now in COVID and also two thousand years ago. How do we hold both grief and hope, despair and joy as we fight to maintain embodied presence this time of year?

Diana Frazier and Alex Jacobson return to the Arise Podcast to talk about our changing world, the disruption of our families, friends and systems, and the reshaping and internal growth that is happening in this season. They invite us to embrace the loss of some traditions and engage in new meaningful ways of looking at advent through lament.

Danielle and Maggie chat with Dr. Kimberly Riley and Dr. Jessica Guerrero on ambiguous loss, coping with grief, the heaviness that Mondays bring, the divisive political climate and how to find gratitude in the midst of it all.

A continuation of our conversation with Pastor Michael Walker on injustice, racial tensions and a reason for hope.