We’ve all had a moment where we aren’t just reminded of our parents; we’ve become them. Maybe it’s a certain gesture, speaking in a certain way, when a particular phrase comes flying–involuntarily–out of your mouth, but we’ve all been there. The inevitable has happened. You’ve become your mother. Or your father. Or another influential caregiver from your childhood. Since this episode is scheduled to air on Mother’s Day, I’m thinking about parents and parenting. How much of who we are do we owe t...
May 08, 2022•10 min•Season 2Ep. 5
We all love a Personality Quiz, right? You get to see yourself through a lens you may never have considered looking through, and discover things about yourself you never thought about before, and who doesn’t love an excuse to think and to talk about themselves for a few minutes? There has been a boom of Personality Quizzes and Typology Assessments over the last 10 years, and even more so since the pandemic. And it makes sense why. In particularly chaotic and challenging times, we tend to look fo...
May 01, 2022•24 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Who are we really? Are we the roles that we play? The work that we do? Are we defined by our relationships? Is that who we are? If I asked you if it was possible for anyone else to tell you who you are, you’d probably say absolutely not! Because you define who you are, right? Which is true. But it’s also not the whole story. We all tell others who they are all the time. And accepting or rejecting what other people tell us about ourselves isn’t as simple or straightforward as we might like it to ...
Apr 24, 2022•28 min•Season 2Ep. 3
With the emergence of the Body Positivity movement onto the global stage via social media in the last 10 years, I’m thinking about our bodies. More and more (mostly female) public figures are actively celebrating their bodies, or are simply showing up fully with neither explanation nor apology. There is also more and more vocal backlash when they do. How and why do we identify with our bodies? How much meaning and importance do we place on that identity? And what are the implications for the liv...
Apr 17, 2022•30 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Welcome back for Season Two of We’re All Alright. This season, I’m exploring questions of identity and otherness. The big question: Can we allow others–and be okay with others–finding themselves and being themselves when who they are is entirely different from who we are, what we prefer, and what we expect? And where better to start that discussion than with political identity?! Political identity encompasses how and why we choose to define ourselves as members of, in alignment with, or in relat...
Apr 10, 2022•26 min•Season 2Ep. 1
One of my biggest intentions with this first season of We’re All Alright–and really, this podcast’s reason for being–was to explore our relationships with the collective–meaning all of us, all of humanity–and to do that through the lens of stories, headlines, issues, and questions that affect all of us. And in that exploration, my hope was to remind us all of that connection we have, each of us, with all of us. One of my other intentions was to help us make sense of the confusion, chaos, and tur...
Jan 30, 2022•21 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Has there ever really been such a thing as a reliable news source? The absence of clear communication–or even, it seems, any kind of strategy–is now frequently cited as the biggest failure and missed opportunity of the pandemic response, in the US and around the world. That lack, along with the absolute explosion of misinformation on social media–to the point that for many, it’s nearly indistinguishable from facts–has me thinking about the media. What do we even mean when we say “the media?” And...
Jan 23, 2022•25 min•Season 1Ep. 8
The injustices done to people inside cults are very real. And yet the perpetrators of those injustices are rarely brought to justice, largely because the boundaries of personal responsibility are fuzzy at best in these cases. That does seem to be changing though–certainly in the court of public opinion–which we can see in the growing numbers of documentaries, series and podcasts on cults, their abuses, their money-making endeavors, their exoduses and escapes and everything in between. The popula...
Jan 16, 2022•26 min•Season 1Ep. 7
If you live in the US and pay even a little attention to the news, you’ll know that Haiti and its people have been in the news a lot in recent months. And unfortunately, none of it’s been good. From the devastating 2010 earthquake, up to 2021’s presidential assassination and horrific violence faced by Haitian refugees at the US border following another earthquake in August, it may seem like Haiti is in constant strife and turmoil. As a follow-up to the last episode about immigration, migration a...
Jan 09, 2022•39 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Years of continuous news of crisis after crisis at the southern border of the US have highlighted the stark realities of immigration and migration. The lingering–and still raging–pandemic has claimed the lives of over 5 million people worldwide, and has laid bare the incredible disparities in wealth, education, access to basic medicine, shelter, food and clean water among every nation on the planet. In this context, I’m thinking about borders, about immigration and migration, national identity a...
Jan 02, 2022•31 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Being hopeful is a practice. Maintaining the perspective that we’re all, each of us, doing the best we can, that there is reason to be hopeful about our world and joyful about the human experience can be empowering, both for ourselves and for others. But it’s a practice I remind myself of daily, even moment to moment. Especially in the presence of people with whom I deeply disagree. I still get angry. I feel rage. But I’m practicing and maybe you will (maybe you do!) too. Today, I’m joined by my...
Dec 12, 2021•35 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Freedom of “personal choice” (and speech, and truth) is the Great Justifier on social media today, which for all intents and purposes means the world since so many of us by choice or necessity spend so much of our lives online. Personal choice–in schooling, in restorative justice–has been a theme of this podcast so far. Thinking about restorative justice especially, in this climate of “personal choice” raises more questions than it answers. It seems almost preposterous to consider whether restor...
Dec 05, 2021•19 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Criminal justice, prison and police reform have become regular parts of our national conversation, especially since George Floyd’s murder and the pandemic continues to hit prisons hard. But what does justice mean? What does it mean in theory? And what has it meant in practice? Justice is a uniquely human experience and concept. And it’s also one we haven’t quite put our finger on defining, let alone enacting. Undertaking reform is a complex, epic challenge that requires us to answer the question...
Nov 28, 2021•25 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Ninety percent of the school-age population attend public schools. What would happen to these institutions if that number plunged significantly? Homeschooling, home-school collectives, free schoolers, unschoolers–alternatives to traditional public school models have been increasing in popularity over the last two decades, and the pandemic has seen even more families opt to school their children at home in some fashion. Education is a mirror for the concept of personal freedom and choice as a mat...
Nov 28, 2021•27 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Every morning brings a new headline: violence, injustice, disease, suffering. It's a lot to take in, and if you're like me, you've probably started to dread the daily routine of scrolling through the news. I want to stay informed, engaged and present with the realities of our world today, but all of those headlines had me questioning just how much good was really left in humanity. Over the last year, I started to wonder what it would be like to live in a world where I didn't dread the day's news...
Sep 28, 2021•3 min
