Becoming/Unstuck

Becoming/Unstuck will cease being hosted on January 13th. Please download any of you favorite episodes before that point in time so you can listen to them whenever you want. I hope to continue offering audio versions of my essays via Substack. Please find me there (info below) and in other social media channels. Substack: https://wheresandmeetssky.substack.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-sojorne-libere-0781b4338Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_____page/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/youaretheblankpage/

This piece is dedicated to the memory of a client of mine who passed a few weeks back.  She was a bright light, aiming to be a beacon on the path for other pilgrims. I will dearly miss our work together and our connection.

Without you inhabiting every cell of your unique human offering, there is a hole in the whole and it hurts us all.  In order to become who we really are, we have to surface and break the secret agreements we have been handed down about how the world works. This is the way we save ourselves, and each other. You can find a hard copy of this essay here on my website. 

When we make the mistake of believing we live in a static, black-and-white universe we will hit up against a self-imposed glass ceiling. We will not be able to make vertical, second-order change that is called transformation. This kind of change is real, possible, and how the system is built to work, when we take up the charge of getting out of our own way. This essay was written in January 2022 and you can find a static copy here on my website.

We have a culture-wide myth that we can "fix" disregulation and that we will know that we are doing a good job at healing when we stop being disregulated. Healing is not about not being disregulated. Healing starts with disregulation, and if we want to keep healing, then we need to learn to love disregulation. You can find a written version of this essay here on my website. 

Trauma is not the only thing we pass on to each other. Without each other, we would never be able to heal because we cannot see our chains alone. It only together that we can break free from what binds us. 

If we don't understand the rebound phase of growth, we can get a little pummeled by it. This essay explains more about the rebound, so that you can notice it, name it, and get yourself to the other side more quickly and smoothly. You can find a written version of this essay on my website, here.  

Sometimes Life moves very slowly, and sometimes it moves far too fast. It forces evolution and transformation when we're not ready. There is an antidote to the resistance. Want to know what it is? 

When we let tourists set the cultural imagery for psychedelic medicine, it creates fantastical scenarios -- both dreamy and nightmarish -- that get in the way of our ability to tune into our own experience. You can find a hard copy of this essay on my website here.

Many people who show up at my door believe they have come to train their ability to not get caught. This is an audio version of the essay I wrote conveying why this is the wrong way to understand the work. You can find the written version here on my website.

Cooper describes himself as a "washed up politico", and when I met him, he told me that if he were able to accomplish all the things he dreamed of in this lifetime, he was pretty sure he would not be allowed to die of natural causes. He says all this in a. joking tone, while cracking his knuckles and laughing awkwardly - because we both know there is more truth to that than humor, and that the path still has to be walked. In this episode, Cooper describes a more personal journey of how  he is learning to feel feelings, and how that isn't always the most comfortable thing. How he's learned to ask for help from others to help him gain perspective because he can't "see the back of his head" and how he's asking questions that take us from strict binaries into beautiful spectrums. Join us to hear him tell his story in his owns words. 

Charley Wang's name had crossed my path in several different circles before I actually met him. He has been involved in some really intriguing community projects that are pushing the needle on shifting paradigms here in Oakland. Eventually we wound up at a gathering together where I got to learn more about Charley, who says he has spent the last several years "unlearning lots". I couldn't resist a chance to talk to someone about unlearning for a project about unsticking!  Please join us for an episode of life lessons from someone who has beautiful curiosity about the inner workings of humans, the inner workings of the world,  how we do this thing together, and how we do this thing better -- a story of leaning into maximalism, leaning away from ego, and the pendulum that swings between them. 

This week, we revisit and update the story I began to outline in Episode 4: Being the Role Models We Wish We Had.  At that point I was deep in a valley I couldn't see out of. A couple months have passed, a lot has changed, and I've finally been able to sit down and consolidate some of the process so it can be shared. Join me for the next chapter of the story and a living example that illustrates how we can become unstuck around the concept of manifestatation.  

Shawna Reilly has always been somewhat at the opposite end of me, energetically. As teens we lovingly called her "slow waters" and at a friend's wedding, in our 20s, she responded, "You think too much" when I asked her, "How are we getting home tonight?"  For me, that was emblematic of her ability to go with the flow. She just had this easy way of being in the world that was so far out of reach for me. I desperately wanted it to be effortless, and for her it really was.   Of course we later came to learn that both of the places we inhabited were a function of childhood wounding, and as we have healed, we have both come away from those poles. Me, practicing loosening my grip on the metaphorical wheel, and she, learning that it's possible to steer. One of the ways that Shawna has been presented with this journey of healing is through being a mom. Shawna has a daughter, now 8, who is absolutely Her Own Human. In fact, her daughter is energetically a lot more like me.  I have always been enamored with Shawna's parenting journey because it's very courageous, and thoughtful and loving. It's full of breaking open, and evolving into something even more magical for the benefit of not only herself, but her family. We don't have a good understanding in this culture about parenthood as a spiritual journey, but it absolutely can be. Please join us for a tender look at being a parent, being a child, and becoming unstuck around both. 

Content warning for this episode: Sexual AssaultSteph was in a tiny apartment with other people when she recorded, and there is some audio interference that I am not skilled enough to edit out. It's relatively short, and I apologize. The content will make up for it, I promise. The two times Steph and I have been in person together, we have connected with such heart, around really big concepts. Steph talks about Radical Imagination in the last part of her interview, and that's what I feel when I'm around her. I feel possibility, I feel excitement, I feel power between us - like we both know limitlessness, and we can feel it in the other, and there's no telling how far we could go.   We both also see something that is invisible to a lot of people, and was once invisible to us, and it's our true love and calling to steward, and caretake others in the unveiling. This episode is a journey of understanding into that True Love, and into True Power - and how they might just be the same thing.  In this episode, Step shares her journey from writing papers in Middle School to alert adults about climate change, to working in politics, to becoming a scientist, to understanding power not as an entity, but as a cultural phenomena that exists everywhere as part of a system. Join us and hear her story of becoming unstuck around power,  and how she realized where true power lies: In the People. 

Kris Harmelink, I think you'll find, is disarming in the sweetest way with her steady openness and transparency. She has been so committed to thinning the façade between her and the world that at this point, it's almost nonexistent. When you ask Kris a question, she will give you as honest an answer as is possible for her at that moment. I find this a true gift to the world. A lot of problems arise from the dissonance between what we say is true versus what is actually true. We are notoriously terrible self-reporters... this is why everyone's dating app profile is whack. This episode is the very opposite of that. I have admired Kris, and the way she interacts with the world, since the very day we met. The way she shares her values with the world - whether through facilitating group process for adults, or fostering children in the pursuit of trusting themselves - is such a gift.  In this episode she takes us on a journey from "not mattering" as a child, to hating herself as a young adult, to fostering secure attachment in her 20s. In this episode, hear her talk about the unschooling has happened for her, as well as the unschooling adventure on which she about to take off. 

Dr. Blake Brandes is so good at what he does because he is not afraid to let himself unabashedly love what he loves. That is what guides him. Contrary to new age thought, when you let what you love by your guide, you can wind up in some heartbreaking situations! This is part and parcel of loving what you love, and becoming strong enough to validate that to yourself and to others -- even if the world doesn't. Lucky for us, the world does validate Dr. Blake Brandes in that he has been able to found his own company called Motivational Millenial, and share his message with over 350,000 students using his "Remix Your Reality" assemblies on Growth Mindset and Grit. He teaches on the practice of Becoming Unstuck around the idea that the way things are are the way things have to be. He teaches and supports students into new worlds full of possibilities. This is just the latest iteration of the life of Dr. Blake, so please join us to hear the full story in the episode!  As a SPECIAL BONUS for this episode, we've had Blake play us out with an original improvised song, which we've turned into a video! Please FIND IT HERE ON YOUTUBE. You can get all of Blake's music, and info at BlakeSpeaks.com, and you can find him on Spotify, Apple Music, or any other streaming service. If you are old school like him, and you want a dropbox full of .mp3s, he's got you covered! Head over to BlakeSpeaks.com for more

This week I'll be answering a question submitted from a listener who has been considering medicine work with me. Working with entheogenic medicine can be a very big leap of faith for folks, considering how different the methodology is from the way we generally treat the healing process. As is often the case when we are heading into the unknown - this listener has questions about what the process is like. Like many of us, they are terrified of the process of letting go. They have been concerned about what effect the work might have on their daily life if some of their armor were to be removed. In this episode we go further into why we do want to remove the armor, how skepticism can keep it there, and what would be a more helpful focus. If you have questions, or doubts, that you'd like me to address in an episode, please email me at hello@youaretheblankpage.comTW: Sexual Assault - Here is the link to Navreet Chawla's Moth story that I mentioned in the episode. See if you can hear when her intuition takes over. 

Magic Nocks is a good friend, an accountability partner, and in deep relationship with the natural world. They didn't turn to plants because they thought it would be a great job, or because they thought they could make a lot of money or because they didn't know what else to do. They did it out of true love - and that is the thing that is just so evident in talking to them.  In this episode, Magic relates how they came to work with plants, and how they learned to resource themself through the natural world when they found themself in a scary and tumultuous time in their life. It's a beautiful story of awakening to paradigms that don't serve us, and learning to lean on the ones that do, so we can create something kinder for ourselves and each other, moving forward. This episode is such a delight - please join us this week, as Magic tells the story in their own words.

Carissa Singh is a sounding board for me. There aren't many folks at the intersection of mental health, collective liberation, and what I would call spirituality, but has many other names. Carissa is a therapist based in Seattle, and one of my favorite practitioners. Carissa is also a bridge. She is three-heritages-in-one-body, and had to learn how to navigate being many-things-at-once from childhood. Since 2017, she has had a chronic invisible illness. She stands with one foot on either side of the chasm of an unfair system of labor, and in general thinks boxes are just too small for us. Not fitting in one place, specifically since her illness, has provided her with a wealth of discomfort that she has been able to use to liberate herself.  She says: "Although I never would have asked for this experience, and, I don't know if I would have done things differently if I never could have had my [illness], it is a gift in that sense." In this episode, she talks about how these experiences helped her validate herself, and that to gain more self trust, she had to accept that we aren't ever going to be the same person we are before our wounds. She says "I had to accept, to be more liberated, to be where I am now. We can accept and still keep fighting".  

This week my podcast guest was dealing with a recurring illness and was not able to OK our episode. Instead I'm sharing the Teacher's Corner segment of my Newsletter - short and sweet, and we will be back to our regular episode drop next week!

Wangũi Hymes is an embodied flow state. She is a wise being, a teacher and student of liberation, and she is a holder.  But she always "thought [she] was too heavy to be held".  This week she talks to us about learning how to be held in community, learning how to feel buoyant, and how things get easier when you have the privilege of being connected to "some of the most wondrous beings this world has to offer". Wangũi and I met as working residents at a Buddhist Center in Berkeley, CA, which is where she learned to be still, and find her breath. She describes the awakening that happened for her when she "uncovered and discovered that the  thing [she] was trying to run from was the very thing she was trying to run towards, and the only thing standing in her way was [herself]."  She wants you to "allow yourself to be heavy. To lay on the Earth, put your cheek against it, and just allow yourself to be held, and know that you are never too heavy."

This week's episode is a little different from the ones preceding it, in that it's a little shorter, and it's just my voice. In part, I needed a break from editing, in part, my guest for the next week was too ill to record (so I had an empty slot to fill), and in part, I have been wanting to figure out how to intersperse guests with teachings, or social commentary. All of these things came together this week to allow me some space to play! As I was walking in the woods thinking about how to craft an episode about "Being the Role Models We Wish We Had", I started to get this little feeling in my lower abdomen (sacral chakra for folks who use that language) and what began to creep up into my heart was the knowledge that this episode would make a lot of sense as an intro to sharing my own, unique, voice. The only way I would do an episode on role models without intertwining it with my own story would be if I blocked how much sense it would make, out of fear. If there's something that gets my attention, it's a chance to dance with my fears. I have always been fascinated by exploration, which is a dance with the unknown, which is a dance with fear. Through this lifelong fascination, I have come to understand that when we turn towards fear, we turn fear to love. Et voila, here we are with an episode that has been a loving gesture for me to record, and which I hope is a loving gesture for people to receive. 

Justin Hoch has grown to orient himself toward leaving things better than he found them. One major way he has access to systemically living out this tenet on the level of society, is by sharing the experience of wrestling.Justin started wrestling at 4 years old, and continued for 18 years, through a Division 1 program in College, after which  he had a falling out with the sport.  "Wrestling found [him] again" after a six year hiatus, through an NYC-based non-profit called Beat The Streets, which uses wrestling as a vehicle for change with struggling youth.  Through that experience, Justin came to understand how wrestling supported his "development, worldview, ability and capability to exist as a human being" and how wrestling helped him with the process of becoming unstuck. He realized "if other people can have that experience too, then it would be good for them, and if they're then in society, then it's good for society."Justin now uses photography journalistically and artistically on a micro level to "tell the story and the power of wrestling" and to "spread the good that wrestling can do". On a macro level, Justin uses his work to "pull people back to the middle" and to "find balance" within and across cultures. He wants his work to exhibit this statement: "If you think we're all different, let me show you the ways we're the same. If you think we're the same, let me show you the beautiful ways that we're different." You can find all of Justin's work on his website: https://www.jhoch.com and you can find his love letter to wrestling, The Fire Inside on its own domain: https://fireinsideproject.com where I thought this profile was incredibly fitting for this episode: Alexandria Glaude

Sibel Güner wants to make sure you know that your life and your joy matter! No one told her that; she had to figure it out on her own. But once she did, she didn't waste one second of time not investing in them. A 1st generation Turkish-American and closely watching her parents' relationship with work, for 25 years Sibel thought work and money were the two halves of life.  When she left the USA to do her first Masters she had no work visa. For the first time in her memorable life she couldn't work, and what she found in the space left behind, was joy. Since then she has dedicated and rededicated herself to love, joy, and relationships to deepen meaning, and as a safety net that cannot be taken away. Join us as we talk about balancing dedication to values alongside living in the world of systems and capital and how "those things we cultivate in our relational time will be the things that save us when things get dark." Hear her tell the story of Becoming Unstuck in her own words.As promised, here is the link to Sibel's Life Games, which she developed to help her stabilize in crises and which she has shared with us to be a life raft for anyone else for  whom this resonates. It is currently filled out as a demo to help you understand how it works, but Sibel would like you to *make a copy* and reconfigure it however it works for you!

On the inaugural episode of Becoming/Unstuck, our guest tells the story of moving to her mother's childhood home in very rural Louisiana, when her life felt so stuck that she needed "to change everything". The "Little House" provided her with a way to remove herself from any kind of distraction that would prevent her from getting more intimate with her traumas, and through a challenging process she started to begin again to ground in her body and remember who she really was. Join us as she tells the full story in her own words.