Currents: the Big Ocean Women Podcast

Carolina Allen shares the op-ed she wrote for the Deseret News, Published May 10, 2025. https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2025/05/10/what-is-maternal-feminism/ including some parts that were not included in the published article.   “Creating life is not only about giving birth, however miraculous that truly is. And when we say ‘maternal,' we are not only referring to women with children. We're also speaking of a maternal way of being — a capacity to see and fill needs, to nurture, and to lead with fierce compassion. This includes women who mother communities, mentor youth, and tend to their neighbors — all intentional women who shape our culture for the better.”   “When we lift mothers, we fortify the foundation of society itself, recognizing that nurturing the next generation is not just a personal role but a sacred, collective calling.”   “More than 500 million women and girls today suffer from period poverty because of the natural rhythms of their uniquely female bodies. Daughters are perceived as intrinsically inferior to sons and denied basic educational opportunities. Many are excluded from participation not only in public life, but are also found voiceless within the family context.”   “At the same time, the commodification of female bodies persists with seven out of 10 victims of sex trafficking being women and girls. The Women's Stats Project, which tracks over 350 variables related to women's lives, confirms a powerful truth. The security and behavior of places we live are directly linked to the situation and safety of women within them. These are not peripheral issues. Recognizing biological realities is key to creating real solutions. Solutions that uplift women and in turn strengthen entire societies.”   “This vision of feminism honors our differences without division; it honors our embodied reality as women, and embraces the spiritual depth that so often grounds our lives. No one is required to choose between public influence and private nurture. Rather, we can remain rooted in the belief that the home is the foundation of every society, and healing the world begins right there, around dinner tables and bedside prayers.”   Join with Big Ocean Women - the world's leading Maternal Feminist movement! www.bigoceanwomen.org Start or join a WAVE. Subscribe to our newsletter! Carolina Allen is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.

Carolina Allen discusses motherhood with Erica Komisar, LCSW and Madeline Wallin from FEFAF and Haro    “Free women. Free women from feeling terrorized and imprisoned by the narrative that unless they are a hard driving career woman, making lots of money competing with men out in the world, that they have no value. Free women, and give them permission to embrace instincts that they feel, but society doesn't give them permission to feel.” - Erica Komisar   “How can we talk about the future of the world if we can't talk about, and especially in a forum that's supposed to be for women, [if] we are not using the word ‘mother' or ‘family' and we're talking about the future?” - Carolina Allen   “We need to use the words more. We need to show motherhood. We need to talk about it so much more and use the correct words. … Nobody exists without the mother!” - Madeline Wallin   https://bigoceanwomen.org/our-work/subscribe/ A graduate of Georgetown and Columbia Universities and The New York Freudian Society, Erica is a psychological consultant bringing parenting and work/life workshops to clinics, schools, corporations, and childcare settings, including The Garden House School, Goldman Sachs, Shearman, and Sterling and SWFS Early Childhood Center.    Erica Komisar is a clinical social worker, psychoanalyst, parent coach, and author. With 40 years of experience in private practice,  she works to alleviate pain in individuals who suffer from depression, anxiety, eating, and other compulsive disorders. By helping them live better lives and have more prosperous, more satisfying relationships, she assists them in achieving their personal and professional goals and living up to their potential.    Erica is also the author of the book Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters and has appeared on major media networks such as CBS, ABC, FOX, and NPR. She regularly contributes to the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Daily News, and FOX 5 NY. She is a Contributing Editor to the Institute for Family Studies. Her second book, Chicken Little The Sky Isn't Falling: Raising Resilient Adolescents in the New Age of Anxiety was released in 2021.  Her upcoming book, guiding parents through divorcing healthily, will be released in 2025. She lives in New York City with her husband, optometrist, and social entrepreneur  Dr. Jordan Kassalow, with whom she has three teenage and young adult children.   Madeleine Wallin is General Secretary of the European Federation of Parents and Caregivers at Home (FEFAF) as well as the International Coordinator and Board Member for Haro: she previously served as President of both organizations. In her work at FEFAF and Haro, she advocates freedom of choice and equality for parents in Swedish family politics and wants to raise awareness about children's needs and the importance of motherhood. She has been interviewed by and written articles for many magazines, newspapers, and international media including the Wall Street Journal and the BBC. She is a mother of five children between 22 and 36 years of age. She lives in Hyssna, in the countryside close to Gothenburg in Sweden with her husband. Together they founded Malwa Forest AB, a business that manufactures and sells small forestry machines. Madeline is currently one of the owners and a member of the board.   Carolina Allen is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.

Shannon is joined by Big Ocean Women members Diane and Alina Fisher to discuss promoting life culture in the womb, the home, and our ecological environment. The WAVE that Diane and Alina run throws baby showers for women who have unplanned pregnancies. Connect with us at our Virtual Wave Meeting. Find out more at bigoceanwomen.org “Some people believe motherhood starts when you have the baby. Motherhood starts when you get pregnant.” - Shannon Russell “Something that I hope is something we give is no judgment and more love. I hope that's what they feel and that we can give to each other regardless. Whoever we are, wherever we are.” - Diane Fisher “I believe the genius and the secret of motherhood is other mothers. We need each other. Women need each other. And it's so important to both see and connect with those who are doing the same thing.” - Alina Fisher “Your ability to nurture life within you is something that should be honored in and of itself.” - Alina Fisher “As we reach out to each other and give support, we are enough. We are enough together. And the whole world, the planet, depends on mothers who understand who they are and are willing to support others, other mothers to become, and that's a powerful thing.” - Diane Fisher “Do we value that incredible power to create? Do we understand that motherhood is a unique and sacred place of power? And do we act like that ourselves? Do we treat other women that way? How do we treat other children? The biggest change comes in our hearts, that culture of how we talk and treat each other. And I think that would be the biggest difference.” - Diane Fisher “Motherhood is a sacred journey. It's a challenging journey. It's a journey full of joy. I wouldn't trade it for anything and I would encourage myself and each one of us to find ways to encourage, inspire, lift the mothers close to us and everywhere we find them, to make the world a better place.” - Diane Fisher Diane Fisher is a mother of 8 children, professional educator, studied in the Middle East and lived in South America. Passionate about motherhood and family. Currently seeking to share ways to pass on identity and belonging through family stories in a fledgling instagram @FamilyStoriesMatter. She loves nature, hiking, children's books, and dark chocolate. Alina Fisher is a lover of life and of Him who gives it. She has traveled and lived among many different cultures and enjoys discovering the similarities present in the hopes and hardships that we all face. Inspired by living in remote villages in India and Nepal, she aspires to be a traveling humanitarian nurse and is currently completing her Bachelor's in Nursing. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with her husband and is the happy mom of two kids and counting. She strives to fill her time with great literature, great music, and association with great women. Shannon Russell treasures her roles as a wife and mother, finding that the journey of learning and growing alongside her family is the most rewarding experience of her life. At her core, Shannon is passionate about helping others. Whether it be as a real estate agent guiding her clients to one of their most significant investments – their homes, or volunteering at the Columbus Center supporting refugees in learning English and become assimilated in the United States, or creating nonprofits focused on educating youth, she loves serving those around her and is committed to making a positive impact in her community and supporting human rights for all. Shannon loves connecting with women from diverse backgrounds and perspectives through Big Ocean Women where women are empowered to generate solutions that enable them to live a life of joy and abundance. Her favorite pastimes are playing pickleball, board games, hiking, anything that puts her in nature, and being a beach bum.

Carolina Allen is joined by Maddi Cheers to discuss Life Culture. *Trigger warnings for abortion and abuse.   “I'm a big proponent of the divine feminine and where that intersects with the divine masculine. And that. . . when you start, it doesn't matter what culture you're looking at, I do a lot of looking at Celtic culture, you can look at Native American culture, the Mother Earth, that the womb is the center of the woman's power.” - Maddi Cheers   “I think that what you said is so important, Maddie, and I'd love to revisit it. The womb is the center of the female power. And if you have a society that's kind of framed around obscuring that power, making it seem like it's actually your, your Achilles' heel, so to speak, and for you to be powerful, you have to negate that power. I mean, that's the ultimate lie. . . [H]ow different would the world look if we had this mass awakening within women? That we. . . took these scales from our eyes and we were able to see that truly this power to create life is the greatest power of all. And if we safeguarded it in ourselves and in each other, and that became the norm, everything would change.” - Carolina Allen   “Real men, men who are connected to the divine, men who are connected to the divine masculine, as they grow older, don't behave that way. They take responsibility for themselves and for others. And they're not in a 24/7 [search] for pleasure.” - Maddi Cheers “Ask yourself the questions, ‘Where am I heading? What am I doing?' And you have that power to carve out the future that you want. And I want to testify that if you can just stop for a minute and be self reflective, take a moment to center yourself and ask yourself those critical questions that you have the power. Carve out your own trajectory and take, to make that shift in your life. You can do that and you will find tremendous joy, tremendous peace, and harmony.” - Carolina Allen   Maddi Cheers is not just an interfaith minister and spiritual guide; she is a vessel for divine wisdom, a storyteller weaving the sacred thread of poetry and art through the tapestry of life's intricate moments. As an author and artist healer, her creative spirit has been nurtured by over 25 years of rich exploration into the vast landscape of the world's spiritual traditions, with a profound resonance with the indigenous practices from the Americas. https://www.maddicheers.com/   Her artistry in "The Mandala Meditations" encapsulates this harmonious blend of global wisdom and her own intuitive rituals, manifesting in poetic verses and mandalas that offer guidance and reflection for the soul's journey. https://www.amazon.com/Mandala-Meditations-Enhance-Spiritual-Journey/dp/B0CXP3NC5L   Carolina Allen is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.

Dana and Shannon are joined by Susana Lopes and Laura Uplinger from the Prenatal Alliance. They are preparing for their upcoming virtual summit on prenatal wellness, March 21-23, 2025 and the celebration of World Pregnancy Day March 22.   “There's no frontiers for what human beings can do when we are together and we value and cherish humankind.” - Susana Lopes   “Mothers are nurturers; they are teaching through love and care. Mothers are healers; they are soothing their babies with their voice, their presence. They are naturally intuitive, naturally knowing what feels right for their babies. And they are guides; they help their babies feel secure, feel loved through every beat of their hearts.” - Susana Lopes   The Gift of Giving Life - book that Dana read   “That's why we need the sisterhood, we need to know that we belong together . . . it's a divine polarity, we were made the ones that can deal with matter, and matter matters! My physical body matters, otherwise I won't be here, bridging heaven and earth. I need this body, it is my instrument! Please let's give better and better instruments to the newcomers on this planet. “ Laura Uplinger   https://prenatalalliance.org/ Register for free for the summit   https://worldpregnancyday.com/

  Dana Robb is joined by Proviah Tutoreinwe from Uganda as they discuss inherent worth, the value of loving and serving those around you, and the importance of education for mothers and empowering women.   “I am worthy of respect because of how unique I am with the gifts and the talents that Heavenly Father has given me. And this is the time to act.” - Proviah Tutoreinwe   “That was a time when I needed to kneel down in prayer, and through personal reflection the Holy Spirit helped me to realize that my worth was not tied to what I could achieve with my academic, quality credits, credentials, or family title, but what my efforts were to love and care for those I was going to meet.” - Proviah Tutoreinwe   “Remember your worth is inherent and not determined by circumstances. I would say take time to count your blessings, name them one by one, just like a song says. And similarly, reflect on your strengths, if they seem to be small or teeny, you can surround yourself with people who can uplift you… You can also try to seek spiritual guidance. Like I said, praying to reaffirm your value, like I had lost it, but through prayers I came back, I said, ‘No, I'm supposed to be this.' Because growth comes through challenges, … that's the time that you have to realize your worth.” - Proviah Tutoreinwe   “I love what you said at the beginning of that:  your worth is inherent. The root of that word is the same as the word inherited or inheritance. And that reminds me that, that's something that we come with. It's not something that can be taken away or changed or devalued no matter what we lack, no matter what we have, we don't get to change our worth. It is just inherent.” - Dana Robb   Proviah Winnie Tutoreinwe Katsigazi aka senga The Professional Nurturer Creative and innovative Passionate Farmer Rooted in Faith Honoring ancestral wisdom Guided by truth Thriving in purpose Cultivating strong families and holistic self reliance   Whenever presented with the opportunity for adventure, Dana Robb is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids. She is drawn to the opportunities being involved with Big Ocean Women provides. Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women's issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset.

Carolina Allen discusses Innate Worth with Jeremy Boberg, LCSW, who specializes in treating trauma and unmet needs and addictions.    *Trigger warning for discussion of suicide, domestic abuse, sexual abuse, and human trafficking.   Carolina and Jeremy discuss the value of seeking help if you've been the victim of abuse or trauma. Help is available in many forms. Everyone is of worth, regardless of what they've experienced in life. Domestic violence and abuse were exacerbated Covid as people had to shelter in place and women and children around the world have experienced the brunt of it. We need to start discussing these issues, break down barriers, and find ways to offer support and help.Abuse can happen on a large scale or small scale.    Jeremy cited that the biggest sexual trafficking busts happen around the Super Bowl every year. Then there is the small-scale ritualistic abuse happening in homes that often goes unnoticed and victims feel voiceless.    A good therapist can help you shift focus and work through the trauma and abuse. Our bodies store trauma and hold a record of our experiences. Jeremy shares some typical traumas held in different parts of the body, specifically throat and hips.    Jeremy has seen success with many clients willing to put in the work and shares a story of one specific woman who has come back from a meth addiction, risen from dissociative disorder, regained custody of her children and now works as a successful therapist.    QUOTES:   “People who've been hurt, betrayed and have unmet needs, are also the people who are desperate to be seen to be valued, to be nurtured and wanted.”  - Jeremy Boberg, LCSW   “Doing what we're supposed to do means we have to give a voice. We have to be willing to have the humility to do something different. And when we start to be willing to talk about it, when we're willing to share our story, by leaning into that vulnerability, life changes and it is an incredible journey, incredible experience.”  - Jeremy Boberg, LCSW   “I love that we're having this discussion. After previously talking about faith and the role that faith plays, because I think it's integral in this yearning for something better, you know and that we can't do it ourselves that we need help and help comes in the forms of therapists like you and a community, and family possibly, but definitely a higher power. Definitely, you know, God, I, I can't help but see the common thread between anyone that has survived something so, so horrific.”  - Carolina Allen “I really do because I want any listener out there feeling like they're broken or like, you know, they're reluctant about going into this new year after so many blows after so many hardships and heartbreaks that the future is bright and that there are so many people who are battling Life right alongside you that you're not alone and that you are completely unique, completely valuable and worthy.” - Carolina Allen   “It's okay to seek help. It's okay to find people you can share your story to. And as you do so that's where healing takes place. We are, we are a people that need one another, and loneliness is the darkest abyss of humanity. Don't be lonely. It's up to you to find and reach out.” - Jeremy Boberg, LCSW   With 24-years in behavioral health and dual diagnosis treatment, Jeremy founded and is CEO of the Utah Trauma and Addiction Centers. As a trauma-focused psychotherapist, he is trained in the Othmer method of neurofeedback and practices using a holistic person-centered treatment approach for mental health and addictions. He specializes in the treatment of substance abuse, sexual/pornography addiction, posttraumatic stress disorder, mood disorders, dissociative disorders, and borderline personality disorder (BPD). He completed his Master's in Social Work at the University of Utah and holds several specialty certifications. He is certified by the EMDR International Association (EMDRIA), is a National Interventionist II, National Chemical Addiction Counselor II, Equine Assisted Psychotherapist, and is a Certified Sex Addiction and Multiple Addiction Therapist (CSAT/CMAT) through the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals. He is a past president of the Association of Utah Substance Abuse Professionals and has served on multiple state and national boards for the treatment of mental health and substance abuse. In 1995, he married his high school sweetheart, Emily, and together they have four children. Cherished time with his family often includes outdoor activities including mountain biking, hiking, hunting, and travel.   Carolina Allen is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.

Dana and Shannon are joined by Karola de la Cuesta, whose story is told in the book, Faith, Love, and Human Trafficking: The Story of Karola de la Cuesta by Raquel Caspi. They discuss Karola's experiences and how faith has helped her to heal and become an advocate for survivors and human rights. Karola expresses that it is vital to be aware, as parents and friends, of signs of abuse, and to also be the safe place where our loved ones can turn to to be believed and helped, no matter what.   Links to purchase her book: https://a.co/d/19DdE2t https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/fait... To learn more about Big Ocean Women: https://bigoceanwomen.org/   Quotes from this episode: “When I was ready, I stopped being a victim and I became a survivor. Why? Because I was not blaming everybody for what had I suffered… First I was a victim, then I was a survivor, and then, God gave me a purpose.” - Karola de la Cuesta “But what I am 100%, 1000% sure, is that God is supporting me every minute, every second of my life on this earth so that gives a lot, that lot of faith and freedom and security.” - Karola de la Cuesta “I absolutely believe that. I know God supports those who are doing his work and helping his children.” - Dana Robb “I love that you made the point, both of you, that when you put your trust and your faith and turn it over to God, you will see the results. He will make miracles in your life, and not only will you recognize them, but others will recognize them because you carry that light with you, and they'll want that, they'll want to know how to make their suffering and their trauma and their, whatever it is that they're going through, their experiences be lighter.” - Shannon Russell  Karola de la Cuesta is a survivor of human trafficking from one of the most severe and high-profile cases in the entertainment industry in Mexico. Thanks to love, faith in God, and the support of her family, she gradually recovered from these terrible events. Now an activist, she shares her testimony with international media, government, churches and organizations to prevent and eradicate human trafficking worldwide. She is currently the CEO of Kaleido Org. Her brave and tireless work has been crucial in creating policies and programs aimed at eradicating human trafficking and offering new hope to those who have suffered these terrible experiences. Karola is an example of resilience and dedication, transforming her pain into a mission to protect and empower the most vulnerable. She continues her work directly at the shelter for trafficking victims in Cancun, Mexico, where she has lived with her family for over 20 years.   Whenever presented with the opportunity for adventure, Dana Robb is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids. She is drawn to the opportunities being involved with Big Ocean Women provides. Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women's issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset.

A Heart to Heart Conversation About Faith   “I think that my faith in my Savior, Jesus Christ, has really anchored me and given me hope amidst a lot of heartache and in navigating different relationships.” - Carolina Allen   “I'm really grateful that I can go to the Lord in prayer, and that I am loved unconditionally. You know, I think that that feeling of unconditional love sets me up for hope in the future.” - Carolina Allen   “When I think about faith in Jesus Christ, for me, it is a conviction. It is a trust that doesn't matter what comes in the future is going to be the best for me and for my family.” - Vilma Sagebin   “I felt better about myself, but it was because I understood who Jesus Christ is and what he was able to accomplish with me. It was faith, and like Vilma said, trust in Him that He'll get me there. It's not about me. It's about him. It's about what he's able to do, not what I'm able to do. That made a huge difference in my life.” - Elizabeth Ann Takasaki   “When my heart is filled with love, and I can let that pour out in service to others and my family,  I'm happier and I feel more fulfilled, and it's easier to do again.” - Carolina Allen   Carolina Allen is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.   Ann Takasaki and her husband, Roman are Japanese Americans with three adopted children, also Japanese Americans. This Japanese heritage is not the most important piece of Ann's identity, but it is valued and preserved. Ann also values faith, immediate and extended family relationships, and friendships. Big Ocean Women provides meaningful and important experiences for all of these. Ann strives to give her time to God's work, and sees Big Ocean Women as an important vehicle to do that work.

Carolina Allen interviews Dana Robb, our usual host, about her visit to the CESE summit to address ways to protect our children online.    We need to start and, and be very, very basic with parents. What is extortion? Because I think that sometimes we as parents, we just can't fathom that this is happening and that it's as prevalent as it is. —Carolina Allen   TikTok's safety investigation team actually has done some really remarkable things. So they now have at least 20,000 safety investigators that are full time looking for child sexual abuse material on TikTok or harmful, extorting images on TikTok. Compare that to Meta, they only have five individuals employed. —Dana Robb   What should we do? Yeah. First of all, the phrase that we kept talking about was delay is the way—delay, delay, delay, delay, giving your kids an iPhone or a smartphone. Delay giving them a smartphone as long as possible.   Practice recognizing content that's fed to you. , and tune your mind and take those things out.   In my opinion, I feel like we just need to step away from it, just reconnect to real life.   The biggest thing that we want mothers to know is that you are the greatest influential power for your Children. You need to be. For your families and for your communities, and assert ourselves and regain that kind of confidence in that position of leadership.   We're all pioneers in this, this age of technology, but we can take it as an opportunity and we can be inspired to know what to do for our families.   https://www.angelkids.ai/waitlist Freespoke web browser Delevit.com NCMEC takeitdown.ncmec.org endexploitation.org NCOSE

In this episode of Currents, special guest Grace Rajay, who heads up the global strategy committee at Big Ocean Women, discusses her experiences attending the UN hosted Nairobi Civil Society Conference and the upcoming Summit of the Future. The conversation delves into the true happenings at the UN, the relevance of grassroots perspectives, and the importance of self-reliance and family-oriented solutions. 00:00 Introduction of Grace Rajay and Her Role  01:20 Contrasts Between Textbook UN and Real UN 02:22 Youth Engagement and UN 2.0 04:34 Restructuring and Rebranding the UN 06:55 Documents and Compacts from the Summit 07:50 Experiences at the Nairobi Civil Society Conference 10:37 Emerging Themes and Debriefs 11:51 Concerns Over UN's One World Order Vision 15:18 Disconnect Between UN's Vision and Grassroots Realities 29:14 Pushing Digital Literacy Amidst Basic Challenges 35:21 Preparation for the Summit of the Future 37:00 Positive Feedback Loop of Effective Models 40:23 Successful Grassroots Projects 39:04 Upcoming Action Days Event 46:59 Call to Support Small NGOs   UN discussions with Carol on the Big Ocean Women youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@bigoceanwomen1489   A link to the summit of the future event! https://www.youtube.com/live/g5OXBNEpvsk?si=uYNNfO133L3qrm3D https://bigoceanwomen.org/ActionDays/

Exposing Social Engineering in Media and Protecting Family Values   In this episode of the Currents Podcast by Big Ocean Women, Carol delves into a conversation with Andrew Young about the troubling admissions from major animation studios like Disney that their storytelling has been tarnished by social engineering and political agendas. They discuss the widespread acknowledgment of this issue, peel the layers back to see where the issues originated, the societal impact, and the backlash from parents. The episode also explores global orchestration by organizations like the United Nations and their influence on social policies. Listeners are provided with strategies for protecting children and preserving family values amidst these challenges. Andrew shares insights on legislative efforts and personal initiatives aimed at countering these issues, including potential film projects highlighting these themes.   00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction 00:27 Disney and the Decline of Storytelling 01:56 Social Engineering and Public Awareness 05:19 Mothers' Outrage and the Power of Consumer Choice 08:17 Global Orchestration and the United Nations 12:55 Sexualization of Children and Alfred Kinsey 25:25 Parental Actions and Legislative Efforts 30:39 Screen Time and Family Dynamics 31:02 Maternal Feminism and Community Action 32:10 Challenges of Section 230 and Big Tech 33:15 The Dark Side of the Internet 37:13 Parental Vigilance and Child Safety 41:14 Hollywood Project on Exploitation 49:13 Cultural Preservation and Family Values 54:19 Conclusion and Call to Action   Find out more about NCOSE and get involved: https://endsexualexploitation.org/legislation/ https://endsexualexploitation.org/action-center/ “I think that … we need an education; all of us need to know what's going on and we can't just live blindly.” - Carolina Allen “Our love has to be bigger than our fear, and we need to know who we love. Who do we love? We love our children.” - Carolina Allen   “I think that as a humanity, we have to draw the line in the sand where if you have ill intentions towards children. I'm sorry, I can't negotiate with you.” - Carolina Allen   Carolina Allen is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.   Andrew Young has worked for XBox, DreamWorks, and other kids entertainment companies. He has seen firsthand how deliberate decisions to insert specific scenes and vocabulary take place. He talks about his experiences with what he found out about social engineering when he worked as an animator at DreamWorks, the effects we see in our society, and what we can do to counteract it as we stand for faith, family, and motherhood.  

The Importance of Fathers: A Conversation with Tim Rarick In this episode of Currents, hosts Dana and Shannon engage in a thought-provoking discussion with Tim Rarick,a professor at BYU Idaho specializing in marriage, family, and human development.    The conversation centers around the critical role of fathers in both parenting and society.  Tim discusses his experiences speaking at the United Nations on the importance of fatherhood,  addressing how societal and media influences often downplay the value of fathers.  He emphasizes that his primary identity is as a father and husband, despite his academic credentials.    The episode explores how fathers can combat toxic masculinity, contribute uniquely to their children's development,and strengthen family dynamics. Practical advice for fathers, whether married or estranged from their children's mothers,is also provided, along with insights on how to build interdependent relationships between men and women.  The discussion reveals that strengthening familial relationships is foundational to positively impacting society. “I just found that the better husband I am, I naturally become a better father, and if I'm doing well at those, and it's not just time allotment, it has more to do with focus and where my heart is.” Tim Rarick “I think if we recognize that role first, you as a father, me as a mother, then it does influence everything that we do, every decision we make and where we're going with our lives.” - Dana Robb “It's been said by Uri Bronfenbrenner, ‘The family is the most humane, the most economical, and by far the most powerful system known for building competence and character.' He said that in the mid 80s after researching this quite a bit… but I wonder what he would say now. I still believe that statement is true, that the family has that potential. Sadly, what we're seeing…is with the rise of screen media, we have now a competitor with parents.” - Tim Rarick “Research shows that fatherless boys have a greater tendency to become toxic males than boys who have involved fathers.” - Tim Rarick “It's the whole idea that power equates worth, and you'll get power any way you can get it, that's toxic masculinity. And fathers who are involved and loving are one of the best antidotes to that.” - Tim Rarick “Fatherless girls are more susceptible to believing that all men are toxic or allowing toxic men to use them.” - Tim Rarick “The family is never stronger than the marriage.” - Tim Rarick “What can I do to be intentional about my marriage rather than just being on autopilot? Because that will make you a much better father.” - Tim Rarick “Sure, have a big goal, but break it down to something bite sized and what's the next good thing that you can do, and make sure you're doing it with the right heart because if you're not, you're going to run into obstacles and you may quit early.” - Tim Rarick “I am hopeful that any person can change and anybody can improve their relationships.” - Tim Rarick “Changing the world begins with changing the home.” - Dana Robb “No matter where you're at, what you've experienced, we all can decide what we're going to do moving forward as husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, or sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, we're all a member of somebody's family, and we decide what we can do moving forward, if we get the right influences and we get the right information. Everyone can change, and there's always a brighter future ahead.” - Tim Rarick Tim Rarick is a husband and father first and foremost. He is also a professor at BYU-Idaho, a public speaker, writer, family advocate, and a Latter-Day Saint. Additional Resources:    Dad—A Girl's First and Most Influential Love   Fathers Be Good to your Daughters: The Link Between Fatherlessness and a Sexualized Cultureyoutube.com   Homefamilygoodthings.com   Raise - Confident Parenting in the Digital Agejoinraise.com National Fatherhood Initiative: Fatherhood.org   Keith Zafran, thegreatdadsproject.org Take Back Your Marriage, William Doherty Take Back Your Kids, William Doherty Books recommended: Girls on the Edge, Leonard Sax Improving Father Daughter Relationships, Linda Nielsen Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, Meg Meeker Families Without Fathers, David Pompenoe Man, Interrupted, Philip Zimbardp Of Boys and Men, Richard V. Reeves Why Gender Matters, Leonard Sax  

Dana and Shannon meet with Celeste Mergens, founder of Days for Girls and author of the book, The Power of Days to discuss how we are empowered by our feminine nature and honoring our procreative power. “Today, Days for Girls has reached 145 countries. . . including the USA. And in fact, I guarantee right where everyone listening to this is, it's happening in our backyard because anywhere where you have to choose between food and a pad, if you need a new job and you have to choose between fuel in the gas tank and pads, you're going to choose fuel to go get the next job, right?” - Celeste Mergens “It turns out that this small thing that I woke up with to astonishment is a big deal. And sometimes small things create tremendous change.” - Celeste Mergens “It's amazing what happens when we see each other, value each other, and listen to each other.” - Celeste Mergens   “We need to listen first, and then build a solution together and then enact it together with the power of we. . . it's pay attention, don't judge, keep working.” - Celeste Mergens   “We all have different experiences. We all came with different talents. And that means two really important things. One, we want to hear from the people that think differently than us. We don't have to be afraid of them. We can say, I don't understand. Help me see your mountains. And meet them halfway. And two, It means that the very things that we think are weaknesses, that we're mired in, we don't often see our genius. We don't often see our strengths . . . and we don't see the miracles sometimes because we're in our own path, but when you have that bigger perspective and you invite others in and you build together, amazing things happen. We are in a miracle. No matter what part of our life we're in, we are all part of miracles.” - Celeste Mergens   “Now I get to do the things I'm doing today, and I know there are nexts. And what happens when we're in the middle of our now, sometimes we feel like there is no more coming. Sometimes we feel like I have made my choices, and this is my limit. This is my limit. But in truth, God has so much in store when you say, ‘Yes.' When you say, ‘Whatever it is, yes. I will do the smallest thing, the biggest thing. It doesn't matter to me. Just tell me what the thing is and I'll lean all in.'”  - Celeste Mergens   “I am so glad I said yes to my family and, and that beautiful opportunity that is my greatest blessing, even today, because it didn't mean it was closing the door on the other opportunities to use my fullness of my intellect and capacity. Because honestly, a mother takes all the things, right? So it prepared me to be a global CEO.”  - Celeste Mergens   “Sometimes the hardest things turn out to be the thing we needed.” - Celeste Mergens   “We actually matter in every role we hold and each one of them is like a jewel. So live the jewel. Don't fight it. Don't feel like you aren't enough. There's no time for that or energy for that.” - Celeste Mergens   “Every woman's life is like a song, and we don't have to sing every verse at once.” - Shannon Russell “I just would like to encourage everyone to know that one pebble really can move a big ocean. One action, one day at a time really adds up to this amazing miracle. We're all part of: life.” - Celeste Mergens Celeste Mergens is an author and sought-after speaker. Founder of Days for Girls, a global award-winning organization that has reached over 3 million women and girls in 145 countries, she has filled three passports with global evidence that what connects us is far more than what divides us. A specialist in resilience, equity, building teams, and bridging cultural divides, she has been featured in Oprah's O Magazine and Forbes and been named Conscious Company Global Impact Entrepreneur Top Ten Women, and Women's Economic Forum's Woman of the Decade, to name a few. Her #1 bestselling book, The Power of Days–A Story of Resilience, Dignity, and The Fight for Women's Equity, shares inspiring proof that we can all make a difference.   Whenever presented with the opportunity for adventure, Dana Robb is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids. She is drawn to the opportunities being involved with Big Ocean Women provides. Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women's issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset.   Shannon Russell    

Andrew Young has worked for XBox, DreamWorks, and other kids entertainment companies. He has seen firsthand how deliberate decisions to insert specific scenes and vocabulary take place. He talks about his experiences with what he found out about social engineering when he worked as an animator at DreamWorks, the effects we see in our society, and what we can do to counteract it as we stand for faith, family, and motherhood.   Quotable quotes from Andrew Young during this discussion on social engineering in media, the devastating results of turning from traditional values, the power of families and audiences, and how to work toward a better future:   “If you are a church listening, if you are a tech company, if you are a media company, if you are a family, you have got to return to your anchored North Star vision of how you provide value.”   “The families have never had the opportunity to be explained, that, ‘By the way, we are providing you a movie… and it is laced with a political, anti-religious, anti-conservative, anti-male message.'”   “The reason I'm doing this is to try to help people understand what is happening.”   “This is why it's very difficult for a parent to work against a professional storyteller propagandizing… a parent doesn't know this technique, so let me explain it so you do.”   “If you want your kids to be able to weather everything that is going to hit them like a mountain and the winds just won't topple it, they have got to know their identity.”   “Let's do some deprogramming… I took all of these based on things we were socially engineering in movies, and I reversed them: Men and women, not in worth, but in design are not equal, meaning you can't trade one for the other. They are complimentary. They're not being told that. Take a man and a woman and join them together in marriage, and they become something greater than either could become alone.”   “A family - A man is designed to lead, provide, protect, and fill the need that a woman has: security. You want men to provide security… I'm talking about physically, I'm talking about emotionally, and I'm talking about financially.”   “So in turn, the woman does what no man can, and what even the world cannot do without her. And it's not succeeding in an amazing career. It is that she gives life… The world can't do it without her. And it has been socially engineered to be something that is negative and anyone who does it [is shown to be] someone who is frazzled, or doesn't have it together. And it is the most rewarding and most consequential and most powerful thing a woman could ever do.”   “We need, children need, to understand this transparently and have the choice to say I don't agree with that or agree with that. They are getting the opposite, non transparent, and not having the choice whether to agree with it or not.”   “Our culture is not prioritizing childbirth, families, marriages, it's prioritizing wealth, and everyone's in debt.”   “Number one: have kids. You can't train the next generation if you're not having one. Have kids, take care of them, and make them the priority. You can't have that successfully without marriage, ok, so you have to get married and you have to commit … You have got to commit to the marriage and then you will be able to commit to the children.”   “One of the social engineering things we have lied to everyone about is that children know best. They do not know best. They do not have experience. They do not have the guidance and they don't have the maturity that an adult has. An adult has to assume the role as leader and help rear them. In every single media we create, the adults are idiots. The tradition is worthless. The religion is not helpful.”   “If you want to let [your children] go and go on their hero's journey, prepare them through structure, through those one on one meetings weekly, through those family dinners, through those trips.”   “The next one is time. You have got to be the parent or the person, time, time , time, time, time, time, time, time. So that's your concrete thing.”   “You have got to start teaching your young boys, your young girls, that rebellion is okay if it's against something bad. We've taught them so well to follow the rules and to do what they're told, that now they're being told the wrong thing and they're doing it.”   “Let me read to you what a man is because most people don't understand what a man is. ‘Despite being shown as useless idiots, men, at their core, and how you should look at them and treat them, is this,' so I hope every time you see a man, you'll say this word: ‘aspiring greatness.'”   “Here's what a woman is: Even though we photo them, dress them, and package them as a product, a woman is a human that can bring something no other human can bring, life.”   “Men, if you're listening, every time you see a woman, your brain is literally going to fire off in the tool zone…You've got to say in your head to deprogram your mind… ‘human. That is a human. That is not a product.'”   Other interviews with Andrew Young:   Cwic Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvNZRUtqqa8   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FFgERZAR_M   The Raising Family Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai0YR5dZ2Ag Scripture Notes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDvqHbgDeAo&t=2s   Andrew Young, Into the Verse YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVw9kIhcj91SXhnXJMsT-MA

Danna Robb, Shelli Spotts, and Gloria Ezeonyeasi discuss being a woman of faith.   “Our faith tenet with Big Ocean really focuses on the fact that through our faith, we feel inspired to act in our communities and to be involved.” - Shelli Spotts   “That's how we grew up . . . knowing that our faith is everything that we have; God is everything. [My mother] taught us to depend on God completely.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi   “I can't imagine a life without faith. Because when you're faced with a challenge, where do you go for that … peace of mind?” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi   “I'm convinced that there's nothing better than my faith, so it's a treasure. It's something that I treasure so much.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi   “Faith should unify us, and not divide us really.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi   “I think God has a very wonderful way of leading us down the path that he wants us to go.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi   “I do think we grapple with those kinds of questions, of what are you willing to give up for your faith? … As I've gotten older, though, I've decided I actually think living with your faith is almost more of an ask for me as an adult, right? How am I living my faith in my everyday, and dedicating myself every day to this faith and to changing the world around me and trying to make it better and looking at the world with hope?” - Shelli Spotts   “If I'm a good mom and a good wife it is because of my faith, because my faith will remind me to forgive, to love without any reservation. So again, everything I am and I'm able to do in this relationship with my husband, with my children, is all deeply rooted in my faith.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi   “The faith aspect of the Big Ocean Women stood out, and I  liked how that was wrapped in with motherhood and family life and how with your faith as a woman, how you can actually challenge some of the thing that you see in your society, in your community and how you can stand in solidarity with other women of faith.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi   “Whenever I talk about the Big Ocean Women, the first I say to people that I'm trying to get to join, I say to them, this is a group about faith. It's a group about faith, about women and our faith. And the fact that it's not just the Christian faith is also very liberating. So I don't have to worry about somebody saying to me, ‘Oh, I want to join, but I don't, I'm not a Christian.' I'm free to say, ‘Oh, yes, of course you can join us. You don't have to be a Catholic or a Christian to be part of us.' But you need to be authentic in your faith.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi   “We may not have exactly the same faith, and we may practice our faith differently, but we are all drawn together by the fact that our faith tells us that we can act to strengthen our families, and we can act to strengthen our communities, and that globally we can change things by acting together, and that we make real change happen.” Shelli Spotts   “Let's use our faith to unite us and to work together. We can accomplish so much more when we are united. Even if we have differences, we find those commonalities and we work together.” - Dana Robb   Gloria Ezeonyeasi is 51 years old and married with daughters aged 23, 21, 20 and a 17 years old son. She has lived in London, UK since 1993. She has a Masters degree and presently works as a Social Worker with Children and Families. She is an active member of her Church and has the privilege of serving in different groups in the parish. She has an unwavering passion for education and lifelong learning. She has a special love for young people and the whole family. Her mission as a Big Ocean Women WAVE leader, is to empower women and girls to live their fullest potential as women. Her vision is to start a WAVE wherever she goes.   Whenever presented with the opportunity for adventure, Dana Robb is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids. She is drawn to the opportunities being involved with Big Ocean Women provides. Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women's issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset.   Shelli Spotts is an advocacy writer and creative writing teacher. She loves to spend time with her husband (usually in the garden) and their four almost adult children. She also loves to sew, to read, to write, and to drag her family outside to look at the sky. Shelli is passionate about poetry, Broadway show tunes, and telling stories—of ourselves, our families, and our communities.

In this archive episode from 2020, Carolina Allen and Shelli Spotts discuss the origin and roots of the gift economy, and the way maternal feminism rests on an alternative structure, a way of living that does not depend on getting ahead but the responsibility to lift everyone up.  "We are born into a gift economy, one that starts with our own mothers. It is a far more natural way of living that does not depend on the economy of exchange, but on trust and generosity." Genevieve Vaughn Genevieve Vaughan was born in Texas in 1939. She is an independent researcher. After finishing college in Pennsylvania in 1963 she married philosopher and semiotician Ferruccio Rossi-Landi and moved with him to Italy where they had three daughters. The couple participated in the beginnings of the Semiotics movement in Italy as well as in the Italian Left, where Genevieve got her political consciousness raised. After her divorce in 1978 Vaughan became a feminist, participating in the Italian and international feminist movements. She began to see the fact of women's free labor in the home as a gift economy, the unacknowledged free economy of women from which communication and community derive. Her two early essays ‘Communication and exchange' (Semiotica 1980) and ‘Saussure and Vigotsky via Marx'(1981) deal with language and economics, a theme introduced by her husband but which she elaborated in alternative directions, and which she has been working on throughout the rest of her life. In 1983, Vaughan returned to Texas where she started the Foundation for a Compassionate Society, a multicultural all-women activist foundation which initiated many innovative projects for social change based on the political use of ‘women's gifting values'. The Foundation closed its doors in 2005 after two final international conferences: A Radically Different Worldview is Possible: The Gift Economy Inside and Outside Patriarchal Capitalism, 2004 and Societies of Peace: the Second Congress of Matriarchal Studies (under the guidance of Heide Goettner Abendroth), 2005. Several other conferences have been held including one in Toronto in 2011 called A (M)otherworld is Possible in collaboration with Goettner-Abendroth and in conjunction with the Association for Research on Mothering.   Carolina is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player. ShelliRae Spotts is an essayist, advocacy writer, screenwriter, and sometime poet who teaches creative writing and composition at Brigham Young University. She is passionate about exploring the ways we use stories to build bridges within our communities and her essays delve into the connections we discover through languaging our lived experiences. Shelli has attended the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women as an advocacy writer for the last several years, and is dedicated to social justice and environmental causes. She was the co-director and writing mentor for "Words for Water: Dancing the Stories of our Home Waters," a collaborative writing/dance advocacy project focusing attention on the challenges facing our rural river watersheds.  She is the author of a forthcoming essay collection, "Radical Creativity: On a New Economy of Care." When she is not teaching, writing, or reading, Shelli loves to spend time with her husband and four adult children watching great movies, attending live theatre, or dragging everyone outside to “look at the sky.”

As Big Ocean women, we value our identities as women of faith. We represent 83% of women who identify with a faith tradition. This figure is considerably higher in women than in men, which might suggest that many of us are intrinsically connected with religion and naturally experience the world through a faith-filled lens. Of the many women of the world who carry children, families, communities, and nations upon their shoulders– and with such strength, courage, and grace– it can be said that they are each women of faith. The language of faith is intuitive to women. It's how we communicate and lift each other up. The faith-filled and religious voice is our voice. It is imperative then, that as women, we advocate for our freedom to live and worship as we see fit. Not only within the walls of our homes, but also in the public square. The freedom of conscience is inseparably connected to many other freedoms that will improve the lives of women, their families, and communities. Therefore, we must organize, speak up, and lead out on this critical social issue.   "Faith is integral to he way we seek to get involved in our communities and our neighborhoods, the way we serve our families."  Shelli Spotts   "Without faith we do not recognize our own power and our own sense of worth."  Carolina Allen   Carolina is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.   ShelliRae Spotts is an essayist, advocacy writer, screenwriter, and sometime poet who teaches creative writing and composition at Brigham Young University. She is passionate about exploring the ways we use stories to build bridges within our communities and her essays delve into the connections we discover through languaging our lived experiences. Shelli has attended the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women as an advocacy writer for the last several years, and is dedicated to social justice and environmental causes. She was the co-director and writing mentor for "Words for Water: Dancing the Stories of our Home Waters," a collaborative writing/dance advocacy project focusing attention on the challenges facing our rural river watersheds.  She is the author of a forthcoming essay collection, "Radical Creativity: On a New Economy of Care." When she is not teaching, writing, or reading, Shelli loves to spend time with her husband and four adult children watching great movies, attending live theatre, or dragging everyone outside to “look at the sky.”

“Epicurus said that it's not what we have, but what we enjoy constitutes abundance. And I really love that because it takes it out of the material realm. We're not talking about an abundance of money or an abundance of possessions or properties. We're talking about the things that make our life fulfilling and joyful and purposeful and bring light to us.” -Martha.   “If we can find a way to focus on what we can do and what we can control in our life right now, then that's where we can find that joy. So for me, last year during the holidays, I decided to stop using social media. Because I was feeling a lot of jealousy and contention in my life because of that. And so I cut it out for a year. And for me, that was one solution that fit really well with my needs so that I wasn't constantly bombarding myself with jealousy for things that other people had, but choosing to focus instead on my own family and the people around me and what I do have in my life right now.” -Vanessa   “Find meaningful things to do with the people I've got right here. That is what is going to help me feel abundance and what God has blessed me with and give me that sense of gratitude and joy and what he's given me.” -Vanessa   “The idea of abundance has to come within…it starts with yourself and then it extends to our families, whatever your family culture looks like, and then it extends to our communities and in doing that, we do have power to change the world. So many people in the world think they don't have the power to make a difference. But if you start with yourself, you can.” -Shannon   “Sometimes it's counterintuitive and we think that until we feel enough abundance in ourselves, then we can't go out and either help out, serve other people or encourage other people or anything, but in my life, most often, even when I feel like I am not enough, if I can look outward, there just seems to be abundance that flows back and forth from the people that I am associating with in my community back to me. So it becomes this multiplying effect that increases to everybody.” -Angela   “My mom when we were kids, if we were unhappy in some way, she would say, well, you need to serve someone else. So you can serve me and do the dishes, which sounds ridiculous, but it invariably changed our mindsets. It made us look outward and also affected how we felt inside.” -Angela   “For me being open to revelation that says something needs to change and following that did bring me greater abundance, even though it meant giving up something that I had really prized or enjoyed.” -Martha   “The culture of abundance is like that. It's something we foster within ourselves, but it never stays there. It is meant to radiate out to those around us, and then the idea for them to then radiate and the radiation to keep going so that we become bright and help one another in a way that is pleasing to our Higher Power.” -Shannon

“It's one of my son's birthdays today. And I was saying to my husband, I have never given him a present he actually likes. I don't know how to do that. And I felt kind of discouraged by that because I just can't figure it out. And he is old enough now. He has his own career. He doesn't really need something from me. But I realized as I was driving other kids around today that he gives him actually his love language. And so once I put that together, I realized, oh, I can give him the things that he needs or wants in some ways. There are other ways to give. He loves hearing how awesome he is. He calls us every week. And I make time for that. And so where I could focus on the scarcity mentality of I am never enough in this one area, I then, if I switch it around and think, Oh, there's another way to have abundance with him.” -Angela   “When I was a kid my [parents] had four of us and they quickly had another child in about nine months. And two years in, my dad was getting his PhD and my mom was getting her bachelor's degree. So there really wasn't any money. And we all talk about this one Christmas where our presents were, I got a jar of pickles, two of my siblings got ketchup, and one sibling got some cereal. It was all our own. And that is one of our favorite, favorite Christmases. We always talk about that. So out of this time when I'm sure my parents felt like we have nothing to give these kids. They actually turned it into this abundant experience that has lasted. Those memories have lasted almost 40 years now.” -Angela   “That's what abundance is. It's about expanding what you believe is possible. Right. And so when you're living in a constant state of scarcity, and we all get there sometimes, I feel like that's a natural feeling you've all expressed and maybe some doubts or thoughts or concerns you've had specifically during these holidays. And I think that's appropriate and normal. And there's nothing that makes you different from anyone else in that respect, but believing what is possible is a difference. If you're staying in that lane of I can't, I don't, I won't, I should not mentality versus shifting to what is possible, anything is possible if I believe it to be so.” -Shannon   “Many years ago, we were having kind of a rough time in our family, and I was praying a lot, so fervently, to know what our family needed, and specifically, specific children in my family needed. And I feel like I received very clear inspiration that our family should get involved in refugee work here in the United States. And so that is something that is really important in our family culture and that we've been doing over the years.” -Vanessa   “Last year we were having Christmas and I'm [had] the mindset: I'm going to completely rethink Christmas, like from the bottom up, what's really important for our family for Christmas this year. And I felt inspired that first we should do homemade Christmas. So everyone in the family was making, making gifts for everyone else in the family. I am not a crafty person. So this was like a huge goal for me to help all five of my children, 15 and under make crafts for each other, but we can do it. We can do it. And that was a really beautiful part of our Christmas.” -Vanessa   “The other idea that I felt that our family should do is we did a giving tree in years past, I've been involved in helping resettle refugees into apartments in our community. And when we, when they move into their apartment, there's so many things that they need. They need beds and pillows and blankets and pans and bowls and plates and deodorant and razors and just everything, everything. They need everything.    We got a Christmas tree and we got all these little ornaments and on every ornament, these little dollar tree ornaments, we wrote one thing that a refugee family would need to set up an apartment. A rice cooker or a rug or A vacuum, things like that.    And we put them on a tree and we took them to our neighborhood party. We were supposed to bring a snack or a crust, but instead we brought the giving tree and we set up our lousy little Walmart Christmas tree there in the neighborhood intersection and we invited people to take stuff off the tree. And we are very blessed to live in the most wonderful neighborhood full of the best people. And over the course of that day, we gave away all of our giving tree ornaments…   over the next two weeks we had a big bin on our front porch and it was like, Santa came every single day to our house because every time the kids would walk outside, there'd be something new in the bin on the porch. And so my kids were running out there checking like 400 times a day to see if something new was in the giving tree box. And then we bring it inside. And at first we started stacking it next to the door, but then the stack got so big that we couldn't fit it.    So finally we decided that we were just going to put all the refugee stuff under our Christmas tree, and our Christmas tree was completely subsumed under refugee donations, and it was the most magical Christmas we've ever had. And five days before Christmas, we got to take all of our donations... down to the warehouse where they collect refugee supplies. And when we came home, there was nothing under the Christmas tree. But it was the best Christmas ever. And pretty soon we had little tiny homemade crafts under the Christmas tree. And that was great too.    But having that perspective of all of a sudden my kids were no longer thinking about what am I getting for Christmas and all the things I want for Christmas but oh my gosh it's so exciting we're getting something else for someone for Christmas completely reframed our Christmas experience…And I just love that that is the focus of our Christmas now. The joy of giving.. So I just feel so blessed by that opportunity that we had last year.” -Vanessa   “We have listeners from all over the world who have different challenges than we do. Each of our situations are different in life. But the one thing that we all have in common is that we all need to have the hope that all things are possible if we have enough faith in [the concept of abundance.]” -Shannon   “If you can tap into that love, and if you can have the outlook of love, meaning I'm going to give good for good and good for evil in every area of my life. And that even has to do with my thinking. And so maybe I have not been as good at managing my money or whatever it is. I'm not going to say, Oh no, I'm not going to freak out and think I deserve what happens to me.This is going to be so bad. I'm going to think no. It's all going to work out as long as I'm tapping into that love. And as long as I'm willing to love others, no matter what, and to give of what I have, it's all going to manifest in every aspect of my life. One of my favorite scriptures in my book of beliefs is that God had not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” -Martha   “I can't be in Gaza and help all of the people that are suffering there, but I can be there for my child who I'm too busy for right now. I can choose to stop and be there for them. I can help. I can take hot bread to the neighbor across the street. And even though I can't help the people across the world, as long as I'm doing that, as long as all of us are doing that, abundance and love will abound no matter what. Because we choose to give love for love and love for evil. We break all the cycles of war and hate. And even the small things like depression and the feeling of not being worthy, I'm not enough, I'm ruining my children, you know, all those things that mothers feel, we break those cycles as well, all of it. It's all broken by this feeling of love and abundance. That's what I've been learning this year and hopefully will carry me through” -Martha   “We feel like there's not enough of us to go around. There's not enough. We are not enough. And I realized maybe just a few years ago, it took me a long time to learn this. But one of the miracles that we read about in the New Testament is, the fishes and the loaves, right? There's a few fish and a few loaves, and we feed, and he feeds 5, 000, and And when we were reading about that at Christmas time I realized that there was a new level to that miracle that I had not considered for myself. And that was that I could be made more through serving and loving other people, that what the gifts I had or even the lack that I had could be multiplied. And I think we see that especially when we talk about how we love other people. My ability to love other people actually gets multiplied as I love them.” -Angela     “I believe that God wants us to be happy, and He wants us to have abundant meaning and purpose in our lives. And I truly think that if we ask Him, And tell him we want to have an abundant life, he will reveal to us what we need individually. [Our] answers of what we need to see and do in our lives so that we can have joy and purpose pressed down overflowing in our lives, that he is intimately aware of us, and that he can answer our prayers and help us to find what we need.” -Vanessa   “Scarcity mentality limits our belief of joy and love, whatever success might look like whatever opportunities. It limits our ability to grow in our spiritual capacity. And sometimes it's hard to get out of that mindset. Everyone's situations are different. And some are dealing with much more complicated issues than others in the moment. And for some reason, at this time of year, it kind of can put a microscope on it. But  whether you're a mother or a caretaker, or whatever your capacity of leadership is in your community, if you're a woman, you're an influencer in some way.” -Shannon   “Having an abundance mentality doesn't mean that you'll never feel sad or that things are going to always go your way, but that you will overcome whatever it is that's standing in your way to fill that joy, to receive that inspiration from your higher power.” -Shannon My name is Vanessa Stanfill. I'm a noisy person who likes to have fun and eat good food. I homeschool my five kids. I am an avid cyclist, reader, Asian drama watcher, and socializer. I am an enthusiastic member of the Church of Jesus a Christ of Latter-day Saints. I volunteer teaching English through ENGin Ukraine and support a local humanitarian aid organization, Lifting Hands International. I lead a homeschool group for mothers, and teach geography, geopolitics and current events classes for high school kids. I enlist my darling husband Michael into all sorts of harebrained schemes that make him roll his eyes in love and adoration. We have a great life here in Orem, Utah Martha Levie Martha Levie lives in Salem Utah, she co-owns and operates a sourdough bakery called Abigail's Oven with her husband Allen. They have been married for 24 years and have 10 children and 1 grandson. Martha was homeschooled in the 80's and 90's by a public school teacher and my stay-at-home mom. She homeschools her children who range from 23-4 years old. She has a BA in Literature and Statesmanship from GWC. Martha loves to climb trees and read, the first book she remembers reading on her own was Mrs Pigglewiggle and she read it at the top of her grandmother's golden rain tree. Poetry and good books make her life feel rich. She is a girl of the mountains and loves flowers. Her children are her besties, most of the time. She loves to study the theology of her LDS religion. Martha is an extrovert and expresses her opinions freely, and she is working on listening and valuing all opinions. She loves mint and chocolate, preferably together. She can't stop reading about women's issues and The Barbie Movie is her current favorite. Feeding people nourishing food is an art that she wants to perfect. Martha loves to travel and have adventures. She has discovered that the greatest adventure is learning to love others.  

Dana Robb and Carolina Allen are joined by Sharon Slater to discuss the Model of Powerful Impact.   “If you have a willing heart, somehow God puts you at the right place at the right time with the right tools.” - Carolina Allen   “Just one individual can make such a difference when you … take opportunities and just think, ‘What if my gifts and my talents and my willingness were to be used for a greater purpose?'” - Carolina Allen   FamilyWatch.org   Stop Comprehensive Sexuality Education   “We've got to immunize our children against this by helping them understand the threats, understand who's behind it, understand where this goes.” - Sharon Slater “The number one defense is to find out what is happening at your school. And if you find something offensive, go to the Stop CSE website and go through the tools and start with a Stop CSE action plan. It will take you step by step. It even gives you talking points to use at a board meeting, at your school, or wherever you need to be.” - Sharon Slater   “Just be aware. Become aware. Educate yourself. Find all the information you can.” - Sharon Slater   “We can reframe those challenges, and we can use that knowledge and information to have heart to heart conversations in the sanctity and safety of our homes with our children. We can talk to them about their value that they have as [future] mothers and fathers. And we can talk about reproduction; we can talk about sex. We can talk about all of these things that other people would have us outsource to more professional people, but that we can share those things in a very personal way and in a way that really honors our value system, and that we can strengthen our children to be able to understand and then also stand for their values when they are faced with challenges.” - Carolina Allen   “There's a lot of things - just spending time with our children - that can immunize them, just our influence and our power and our love, like you said, which can continue through the generations.” - Sharon Slater   “It's worth it. Our children need us, they need our time, and that's my message.” - Sharon Slater Whenever presented with the opportunity for adventure, Dana Robb is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids. She is drawn to the opportunities being involved with Big Ocean Women provides. Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women's issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset.   Carolina Allen is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.   Sharon Slater is the president of Family Watch International (FamilyWatch.org), a nonprofit organization in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. She also chairs the UN Family Rights Caucus (UNFamilyRightsCaucus.org) and is a consultant to multiple UN Member States. Sharon writes a regular column for “The Family Watch,” an online publication read in over 170 countries, and she has authored numerous policy briefs on family issues. She also chairs the Global Family Policy Forum for UN ambassadors and delegates held annually. She her husband Greg are the parents of seven children, including three siblings from Mozambique orphaned by HIV/AIDS whom they adopted, and they have five grandchildren.

Dana and Gloria discuss the Model of Powerful Impact   “We do live in difficult times, and there's so much conflict in the world and there's a lot of divisiveness… there's never been a greater opportunity to do good, to influence others in a positive way across the globe.” - Dana Robb   “You think, well, there's 7 billion people. And who are you? You're just one little dust mote among that 7 billion. So it doesn't really matter what you do or don't do, but that's simply not the case. It's the wrong model because you're at the center of a network. You're a node in a network. Of course, that's even more true now that we have social media, you'll know 1000 people, at least over the course of your life, and they'll know 1000 people each, and that puts you one person away from a million. And two persons away from a billion. That's how you're connected. And the things you do, they're like dropping a stone in a pond. The ripples move outward and they affect things in ways that you can't fully comprehend. And it means that the things that you do and that you don't do are far more important than you think.” - Jordan Peterson   “I know that I've been a huge influence in the lives of my children because I see my role as a mother as a huge vocation and responsibility that I actually take quite seriously, but with a lot of joy, a lot of hope, um, a lot of dedication and consistency.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi   “When I see a person, I think of a family, I think of what they can bring to their family or even to the larger community, because even the community itself, we're one family, so that's who I am, really.”  - Gloria Ezeonyeasi   “And you strengthen a family and that will strengthen the community.” - Dana Robb   “We all have different time frames when we have the time and the ability to serve. And I think that's a beautiful thing [to] just present it and make it available. And I think that also plays into our impact that sometimes it takes time for our impact to be seen.” - Dana Robb   “I don't like the idea of holding everything onto myself and, and just think I can be the one and only source. No, I can actually fill up and make somebody else the reservoir and that person can fill up.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi   “You empower somebody else to be a leader in their community, and as they grow as a leader, then they're going to empower somebody else to be a leader. And that just ripples out, and the effect really becomes so much greater than if you tried to do it all yourself.” - Dana Robb   “Each one, teach one.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi   “Sometimes you might think you can't do something, but if somebody is there to sort of hold your hand, encourage you, and you can see other women and look up to them [and think] that they've done it. You'll be propelled, you'll be motivated and empowered to also step out and do something that you thought you could never do before.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi   “I find creating the time to do things for other people as a ‘me' time is a refreshing time. And I can only say that that's how I create the time; you have to create time for, for others.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi   “I don't want to ever be indispensable, and that's why I like empowering others. Any group I am in, and I see somebody trying to make themselves indispensable, I tell them, I tell them upfront, you know, you cannot be indispensable. Nobody should make anybody else less capable of doing things. Let's empower each other. Let's encourage each other…Empower each other, equip each other, encourage each other, so that if I'm not there, somebody else can step in and do even better than I could have done.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi   “I think there's a huge need, and it's crucial, crucially important that we empower each other, we equip each other so that we're all able and ready and available to serve the community really, you know, to serve wherever we are.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi   Gloria Ezeonyeasi is 51 years old and married with daughters aged 23, 21, 20 and a 17 year old son. She has lived in London, UK since 1993. She has a Masters degree and presently works as a Social Worker with Children and Families. She is an active member of her Church and has the privilege of serving in different groups in the parish. She has an unwavering passion for education and lifelong learning as well as a special love for young people and the whole family. Her mission as a Big Ocean Women WAVE leader, is to empower women and girls to live their fullest potential as women. Her vision is to start a WAVE wherever she goes.   Whenever presented with the opportunity for adventure, Dana Robb is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids. She is drawn to the opportunities being involved with Big Ocean Women provides. Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women's issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset.

Dana Robb and Carolina Allen discuss the Model of Powerful Impact with Karen Ashton.   “I really have a perspective that maybe a lot of people don't have, and the longer I live, the more I understand how rich our life is when we take care of that which is most important, which is our relationships within our very own families.” - Karen Ashton   “It is so difficult for us to make the changes that [coming into motherhood] requires that sometimes we can be a little bit resentful over that kind of sacrifice. I think it's an honest thing to openly say that. Because suddenly your life is not your own. Your body is not your own, and that's a significant thing, and someone else is depending on you totally and absolutely for their nourishment and for every blessing that they can have. So you really need the perspective that comes from somebody really old, the old woman in the tribe, the one that's sitting in her tent far away all by herself. She might have something really wonderful to tell you, mostly what I think she would tell you is, ‘Give some time, take some time to look at what you are really doing, and value it, because it is so glorious and so beautiful to welcome the soul, a soul from God into your home, and to watch the unfolding of a human soul is really a remarkable experience.'” - Karen Ashton   “I try to tell young women that this change from being a single woman to a kind of shared intimacy in marriage and then this shared intimacy with a child is a sacred and a holy thing. It might feel oppressive to you, but it's such a blessing in the end.” - Karen Ashton   “I decided every morning when I got up, and you do have to decide, that I was going to love someone that day. And I think when we express our love openly to our children, it gives them wings.” - Karen Ashton   “Don't ever give out participation awards for your children, because they know what participation awards are. What they want is for you to have noticed something beautiful and unique about them.” - Karen Ashton   “As mothers, we need to know how influential we are, and that maybe there's somebody at home who needs to know that we are cheering for them. It's such a powerful position to be in life, and you will give them the wings that they will carry with them, and use all of their life.” - Karen Ashton   “There have been many moments where I have healed myself by being generous to my children.” - Carolina Allen   “What is it that you would have wished someone had done for you as a child? Make sure it doesn't go undone for your children.” -  Karen Ashton   “When we talk about creating a home, it really has nothing to do with the sofas or the furniture we put in our house. A home is this feeling of safety some place, or encouragement, or praise.” - Karen Ashton “Love is an amazing thing. The more you express it, the more you give it away, the more it grows inside the walls of your own home.” - Karen Ashton   “You're a wise woman if you know what replenishes you yourself, what gives you back, but you've got to be so careful, because if you spend so much time with your friends away from home, you're going to start feeling worse, not better.” - Karen Ashton   “We need to trust that giving up something doesn't mean letting go, but it's actually opening the door for something different that might even be better than what we're currently experiencing.” - Dana Robb   “It is your intentional development of an atmosphere, that's what a home is.” - Karen Ashton   “The little child who can call out, “Mom!” and she answers, is the richest kid on the block.” - Karen Ashton   https://www.youtube.com/@MakingHomeWithGrammie Instagram: makinghomewithgrammie   Books by Karen Ashton: The Christmas That Changed Everything Growin' Christmas Eat Flies! Karen Ashton was born and raised in Salt Lake City. She met her future husband, Alan, on a blind date and they were married on March 15, 1968, in the Salt Lake City Temple. Karen is the mother of 11 children and the proud grandmother of 60 grandchildren. In 1997, Karen was awarded an honorary doctoral degree from Utah Valley State College. In 1998, she was recognized with Alan by the BYU Marriott School of Management as Utahns of the Year and, in 2012, they were recognized by the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce as the Pillars of the Valley. Karen has also received the Senator Arthur B. Watkins Award for Outstanding Contributions to Cultural Arts. Karen has spent many hours serving her community and church. In 1990, Karen accepted the challenge from the Orem City Council to raise funds to build a children's library. To help accomplish this goal, she established the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival. This fundraiser made it possible for the Friends of the Orem Public Library to achieve their goal, and the children's library was successfully completed in 1995. The Timpanogos Storytelling Festival continues to be a successful annual fund raiser. It provides additional books, a storytelling theater, and many other educational resources for children throughout the Utah County area. In 1995, Karen and Alan founded Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah as an expression of gratitude for all that they had received through the years with WordPerfect, the company that Alan co-founded. Despite her busy agenda, Karen makes sure that her husband and their children come first. According to Karen, family is her most important asset. Karen also enjoys quilting, knitting, photography, and working on her family history. Whenever presented with the opportunity for adventure, Dana Robb is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids. She is drawn to the opportunities being involved with Big Ocean Women provides. Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women's issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset.   Carolina Allen is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.

Carol and Kim discuss the Model of Powerful Impact.   Powerful Impact is the idea that we can make the greatest impact when we prioritize and allow for a natural flow of energy to do its thing, essentially. We have outlined three very key ways that we can do that and will discuss it through the month, “…but the very first one, the greatest and deepest and most profound kind of impact we can make is when we are filled, when we are impacted ourselves, by the source of all energy itself, which is God. So it's the idea that when we can reach out to God, or allow God to influence us, that that creates the very impetus for all other ways that we can impact.” - Carolina Allen   “...Mahatma Gandhi said you've got to be the change you want to see in the world, but it supersedes that … it's not just the individual and the power of the individual, which, it's clearly important, but it's the ability of the divine source to work within humanity on an individual level that then impacts the greater community…” - Kim Landeen   “When your family knows that you're prioritizing them, you have this inner confidence that things are in order, even though they're imperfect.” - Carolina Allen   “Things don't have to be perfect to be awesome.” - Carolina Allen   “When you prioritize that first impact that you have, everything else ripples out in a very orderly way - that's this energy flow - it is productive, and that's where the influence comes from.” - Carolina Allen   “It is important that people stand up. It is important that people that are centered are standing up. People that are centered in faith and family, and motherhood.” - Kim Landeen   “God wants to give me all within His power to allow me to succeed. And so even if I'm in a moment of drought or a moment of distance from God, God still loves me and wants me to succeed.” - Carolina Allen   “Gracefully Broken”   “As Big Ocean Women, we are women of faith, and that needs to be more than just a statement. That needs to be more than just a tenet that's on our walls. That needs to be the very core of who we are.” - Kim Landeen   “The big thing I think that we need to recognize in the world today that I see that could change everything is if women stepped into this power and because of who we are, we know the price of life. We know intimately how sacred it is, and we would move mountains to preserve peace on earth for all of our children.” Carolina Allen   “You don't need to feel worthy of your calling. In fact, it's often those that feel least worthy that are the most powerful in the way they interact.” - Kim Landeen If you are interested in being part of a WAVE, please reach out! www.BigOceanWomen.org   “I think Kim and I speak from just every fiber of our being that when we can align ourselves with this natural flow of energy, with the impact we have, it may take a little while for us to recognize the impact, but it transcends space and time. …there's no greater influence you can have than generational impact.” - Carolina Allen   Carolina is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.   Kim Landeen is a founding member and a Global Team Director of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Kim has a deep love for the natural world. She lives in Alaska with her family where she enjoys spending the slower paced life with her children combing the beach for treasures, gardening, picking wild berries, and spending rainy lazy days making bread, reading books, and watching movies. She is an ecotour captain in Glacier Bay National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site where she helps educate her clients on the relationship between humanity and the larger eco-environment. In addition to her love of nature, she also enjoys studying theology and the inner workings of the soul as well as tracking global political and social movements. Her love for God, people, and this world drives her to continually seek to improve her own circumstances and the circumstances of all those with whom she comes in contact. 

Margo Watson and Ann Takasaki are joined by Kathie Horman, LaReita Berky, and Dennis Lifferth to discuss the Model of Powerful Impact and the power of charitable giving.   “Charity, being charitable, is critical to our well being, our soul, who we are as people, and being part of the human race.” - Margo Watson   “I have MS, and I struggle with it, but I'm doing great. And I thought I can give what I can while I still can. And so it's been a real joy to me… I just love doing it, is what it boils down to.” - Kathie Horman   “When you meet these people who come in with different objectives, some are providing for others and some are picking them (computers) up, and you see the spark of hope and happiness in their lives, it just makes you want to do it again. … And so I'm grateful for this idea, that within each person is this spark of divinity. And if we can see that and help them feel better when they leave, with a little more confidence, it makes this effort well worthwhile.” - Dennis Lifferth   “I know we have a duty. That's true. We all have a duty to help one another. But there's more to it than just a duty. There's the feeling that comes when we're of service to somebody else.” - Dennis Lifferth   “It takes a lot of people to make a system work, and they all make a very important contribution.” - Dennis Lifferth   “This is an actual part of our family mode. This is what we do. We help. We help where we can help, when we can help, with what we can help with.” - LaReita Berky   “Some people are able to give large donations. Some give small, some just give monthly, and some just give frequent flier miles. I mean, there's all kinds of ways to donate.” - Margo Watson   “I've given a lot of time. And when I developed MS, I could no longer play my violin … so I donated it to a student who didn't have one. And she's been so thrilled. … There are definitely ways you can help. Sometimes it's just a pat on the back or a hug.” - Kathie Horman   “The main body of human beings on this earth are so grateful to be tied to each other through family.” - Ann Takasaki   “When people think, “donation,” the immediate thought is cash, right? Card, cash, check. But there's so many other types of donations. There's the in-kind donations, which is what Dennis is doing with the laptops. There's, for our organization, we receive book donations because our focus is literacy, because we believe that when a woman is empowered and knows how to read, then that changes her life and her family's trajectory, of what's going to become of them. You know, reading opens up a world of possibilities.” - LaReita Berky   “Receiving donations for what an organization is needing, not just cash, cash is always appreciated, but for what specifically an organization needs, not just what you think they need, but ask, “What do you need?” That's one of the greatest things.” - LaReita Berky   “Other ways that people can donate besides the money … is time. Is there something that you can do to help the organization with donating an hour or two a week or more if you are able?” - LaReita Berky   “I think one of the fears people have in donating their time is they don't feel like they're qualified, when in fact, the one on one is very simple, just to listen, just to help. Most people are grateful for any attention they may receive. … To volunteer doesn't take money, doesn't take thing, but sometimes it's just your time and your interest in that person.” - Dennis Lifferth   “It combats depression when you see that you can help somebody else. It combats self absorption. It just makes you a better person when you can help somebody else realize their dreams.” - Margo Watson   Margo Watson is the Director of Outreach Marketing and Fundraising for Big Ocean Women.  Her background is quite diverse. She has a Masters of Fine Arts Degree in Theatre and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communications and Music. Her dynamic talents led her first to critically acclaimed performances in countless Theater and Concert stages around the country as a soprano soloist and lead actress which included musicals, opera, operetta, orchestral works, comedies, movies, commercials and on-camera TV host. These experiences helped prepare her later as a young widow to work in the fields of in-house public relations and marketing for high tech, retail, medical industries and promotion for celebrities, so she could support her young family.  Margo has had extensive experience as an on-camera talent, marketing, advertising, public relations-internal and external, public speaking, production, diverse writing for magazines, commercials, press releases, infomercials, books, press kits, speeches and such. She hopes her skills will be useful to help Big Ocean Women spread their mission of empowering women worldwide, through education, training and support, to recognize their divine worth, abilities and capabilities to change their homes, their communities and the world.  Margo has six adult children and 9 grandchildren which are the most precious gifts to her.  She also loves her dear husband Jay D Blades, her dog Toby and two horses, Noche and Goldie.  Ann Takasaki and her husband, Roman are Japanese Americans with three adopted children, also Japanese Americans. This Japanese heritage is not the most important piece of Ann's identity, but it is valued and preserved. Ann also values faith, immediate and extended family relationships, and friendships. Big Ocean Women provides meaningful and important experiences for all of these. Ann strives to give her time to God's work, and sees Big Ocean Women as an important vehicle to do that work. Dennis Lifferth is a Co-founder of Applied Technology Foundation a non-profit doing business as TechCharities. He is the Former Managing Director of LDS Welfare and Humanitarian Services of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President of LDS Charities, and a former secretary to the LDS Presiding Bishopric. He has a PhD in Economics from Iowa State University and is an Assistant Professor at Cornell University.  He is married to Margaret R. Lifferth. They are parents of 7 children and 34 grandchildren. LaReita Berky, Vice President of Operations for Families Mentoring Families, is a wife of an entrepreneur, and mother of 6 sons. She graduated 22 years ago from San Francisco Conservatory of Music with a Bachelors of Music in Cello Performance. She had a private studio, performed as principal cellist with the Utah Valley Symphony, Utah Baroque Ensemble, and was the chair for the Utah Valley String Festival for 17 years. All of that changed when in 2016 she started talking with Becky Rogers about Africa and humanitarian work. LaReita has been to Ghana 9 times (as of 2023), each time taking some family members with her.  She recently sustained an irreversible ear injury which altered her life course. LaReita now has a Masters of Social Work. She is credentialed as a CSW and works in a clinical setting as a counselor/therapist to help clients embrace their strengths. Then utilizing various research-based methods, including EMDR, LaReita assists clients in moving through their trauma or other difficult life experiences. Her social work education, training, and hands-on experience bring a unique perspective to Families Mentoring Families to achieve their goals. Kathie K. Horman was raised in St. Louis, Missouri and is married to Charles H. Horman. They have four children and thirteen grandchildren. Kathie Graduated from University of Utah with a B.A. in Music with an emphasis in Piano Performance, she earned her teaching certificate in elementary education from the University of Utah and is a member of Chi Omega Sorority. Her life has been filled with public service as a president, chairman, board member, leader, or contributing member to over 40 organizations. She is a dedicated supporter of the arts and has performed in various capacities. Beyond the performing arts, she enjoys creating beauty in many mediums, experiencing life through travel and adventure, and reading. She has been honored by many organizations and received many awards including the Hands and Heart Award twice, Certificate of Recognition for Service and Volunteerism from the State of Utah, and the George Washington Medal of Honor from the Freedoms Foundation.

Christy by Catherine Marshall is a historical fiction book that follows the fictional character of Christy who decides to serve as a teacher in the Appalachian Mountains. It was based partially on reality and the experiences of Catherine Marshall's mother. She goes thinking she has so much to give and ends up finding there is so much more for her to learn.   “I love how she goes in with the intent of, ‘I'm going to help these people,' and ultimately, it's them helping her.” - Dana Robb   “It's one of the reasons I love this book because it's a really good look, and a really honest look at what richness and abundance people have within themselves and within their communities that people from the outside maybe don't recognize because it doesn't look like the richness and abundance that they have in their lives, and so because it's different and it's dissimilar, they assume that somehow these people are lacking, and that's not always the case, and it's not always true.” - Shelli Spotts   “Our journey is not always going to look like everyone else's.” - Shelli Spotts   “I love that it kind of tells you a little bit of the kind of feelings you might have with that internal compass, and that once she decides to go with it, she never wavers in that decision.” - Monica Anderson   “I really see this book as a journey that she goes on to connect with her inner compass, to connect with God.” - Dana Robb   “We have to allow love to guide our reactions to people, and then we don't see them as problems, and we don't see them as projects, and we don't see them as obstacles to be overcome, but we see them as they are: human!” - Shelli Spotts   “I love thinking about the multiplying power of love.” - Dana Robb   “And that's going to happen when you're inviting God into your life more, you're listening to your inner compass more, your love is growing, when you've got Him on your side, that power is immense.” - Monica Anderson   “I just love this idea that something very simple can make a huge difference.” - Shelli Spotts   “Frequently, what a community needs is not someone coming in from without to change them, but help to change themselves.” - Shelli Spotts   “This assumption that you're the one that has something to teach and that you don't have anything to learn, I think devalues great stores of wisdom and knowledge that other people have. We do have to go into situations where we're open to reciprocation, and we're open to learning just as much as we're hoping to teach others.” - Shelli Spotts   “Every interaction we have can be a type of ministry, and especially this theme of love. We can minister with love, we can minister love.” - Shelli Spotts   “By the end of the book, it just changed me. I felt like I walked there … seeing those delightful moments … I couldn't help but be affected by it.” - Monica Anderson   “I realized, by reading this book, that my imperfect effort is enough. What I have to offer, it's going to be enough, and that it's better to fumble on my way through, then to not offer anything at all.” - Dana Robb   Christy by Catherine Marshall   Multipliers by Liz Wiseman   Monica Anderson married her high school sweetheart. They have 3 children together, girl, boy, girl. She loves to spend time with her family and friends. She also loves working with animals, especially dogs and cats. She is continuing her education to gain more wisdom and knowledge so she can share that with others through teaching, mentoring, or discussions. This last passion is actually a new found love when she decided to invest in herself and took a Mission Driven Mom class. Monica is naturally happy, positive, courteous, and helpful. That being said, she also suffered greatly from victim mentality. She learned about many great tools to help her to be a better person for herself and those around her. Ironically enough one of the books required for the course was Christy. She fell in love with this book!   Whenever Dana Robb is presented with the opportunity for adventure, she is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids. She is drawn to the opportunities being involved with Big Ocean Women provides. Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women's issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset. Shelli Spotts is an advocacy writer and creative writing teacher. She loves to spend time with her husband (usually in the garden) and their four almost adult children. She also loves to sew, to read, to write, and to drag her family outside to look at the sky. Shelli is passionate about poetry, Broadway show tunes, and telling stories—of ourselves, our families, and our communities.

Margo Watson, Debbie Hart, and Dr. Tabitha Campbell discuss the tenet, “We seek after knowledge and wisdom.”    “Education is power, and it also helps us to overcome fear. Oftentimes we have fear of the unknown. So the more that we know, the better prepared we are.” - Debbie Hart   “You have to take care of your physical health in order to take care of your mental health and vice versa.” - Dr. Tabitha Campbell   “Education is truly a springboard for opportunity.” - Margo Watson   “Wisdom comes with experience. And as you have more experience, you gain wisdom. You can read about something and learn about it, but until you kind of experience it and go through it in your life, then I think that becomes wisdom. When you have knowledge, it leads to making choices that take you down a path in your life, often brings you personal success and personal fulfillment, and joy and happiness. With that, you gain the wisdom of those years of doing the things that you learned to do.” - Debbie Hart   “There is an infusion of problem solving that comes with self reliance.” - Margo Watson   “I think it is important that women recognize that you don't necessarily have to go to University to get an education. There are great programs and technical programs and other ways to gain education and to gain professional ability that you might use. … Look around and see where the opportunities are … to get an education.” - Debbie Hart   “Really find something that you may be passionate about, it may be something completely out of left field, but there is a way that you can gain knowledge and gain power and wisdom through that passion.” - Dr. Tabitha Campbell Debbie Hart is a devoted wife, mother and grandmother. She and her husband Keven have been married 47 years. They have 5 adult children plus their spouses and 11 grandchildren. She and her husband recently retired and are enjoying traveling to many countries around the world. They love seeing the UNESCO World Heritage sites and learning about world history, civilizations and religions. They enjoy meeting people of other cultures and diverse backgrounds. They feel like travel is another form of education and personal development. Debbie says that she has discovered that most people around the world have many of the same desires to find joy and happiness in their families.   Dr. Tabitha Campbell received her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Kansas City Medical and Biosciences School. She currently is working on her post doctoral education in Neuropsychology, testing the behaviors that result following traumas. Tabitha is an avid horse rider, outdoor enthusiast and traveler. She and her husband Jake are parents to their darling 2 1/2 year old son Matix.   Margo Watson is the Marketing Director for Big Ocean Women. With a Bachelors in Communications and a Masters in Fine Arts/Media, Margo hopes to expand this new division of Big Ocean Women with creative, resourceful individuals, coordinating with the Communications Division to give BOW more exposure.  A few goals include finding raving fans in businesses, media, fundraising donors that share similar values that society is better when safeguarding Faith, Family and Motherhood and empowering Men to protect those entities. Margo has worked for 35 years in Marketing, Public Relations, Advertising, Politics, Theater, Television, Production, Real Estate and the Arts.  She is a former soloist with national orchestras and musicals, pageant judge, and a former Mrs. Utah. She has five talented, married children and nine irresistible grandchildren. She passionately wants them to have a Great America like she had so volunteers in political outreach as well. Her husband Jay D. Blades is a constant support! 

Dana Robb, Shannon Russell, Andrea Garn, and Grace Raje discuss the tenet, “We recognize and follow our internal compass to speak and act with integrity.” “One thing is certain, [this internal compass] is like your own personal language, if you will. The more you learn to understand this language, speak it, and more importantly, act upon it, the better your choices become.” – Shannon Russell “Choosing to listen to your inner compass will help you to heal, and it will allow you to feel the most beautiful joy that there is to offer in your life.” – Shannon Russell “That's what we want most, isn't it? As moms is that our kids find their compass and find their connection with love.” –Andrea Garn “As we're talking about finding your inner compass and learning to listen to it, I thought it would be really important to bring that up for any listeners to maybe be able to identify times of dissociation in their life, especially if they've been through some trauma.” – Grace Raje “Grace and I felt like this really goes along with finding your inner compass because it's hard to listen to what your body is telling you when there's dissociation, when there's trauma. It takes more practice and more love to get those answers.” – Andrea Garn “In eating disorder recovery, even just with like basic anxiety management, understanding my body's cues has been one of the most helpful things.” – Grace Raje “Everything is a system. You know, the universe is a system, our society, our family, and inside of ourselves. We are the manager of our heart and of our emotions, and of the parts of us that are holding onto the trauma and the parts that are protecting ourselves by holding on in different ways. And so as we find that inner compass, we're able to create safety in all of the systems and creating safety in our internal system, can create it in our family and in the world.” – Andrea Garn “Sometimes we look to external sources, and those are important when you're trying to gather tools, right? But sometimes we put so much into the external sources that we deplete our own empowerment… we have that within us to heal.” – Shannon Russell “It's really the way we can heal. Nothing outside of us can do it for us. It's our work to do, and that's very empowering and beautiful.” – Andrea Garn “Take deep breaths, take time in nature, find out what things help you feel calm and help you feel better and feed you just like you would find out what your child likes or what your plant needs to grow” – Andrea Garn “When you take a walk to sort something out, that is literally therapy, because the movement of your feet back and forth is helping your mind untangle and process emotions and thoughts and feelings.” – Andrea Garn “As you listen to your inner compass and take action on that, the voices will get stronger. You'll start to notice and pay attention to when you're feeling calm, when you're feeling connected to nature, connected to your family, connected to your higher power.” – Andrea Garn “Surrounding yourself with people who are intentionally trying to tap into that inner compass is a huge support” – Grace Raje Andrea Garn, LCSW, has been a supporter and participant in Big Ocean Women for 7 years. She is trained in trauma and EMDR therapy, Internal Family Systems, and specializes in supporting periods of transition in hospice care and as a licensed birth doula. She believes finding our inner compass is the way to heal ourselves, our families, and the world. Grace Raje has been a leader with Big Ocean Women for 7 years occupying various roles along the way. She is passionate about the global sisterhood Big Ocean Women has built and loves nothing more than connecting with new women wherever and whenever she can. Whenever presented with the opportunity for adventure, Dana is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids. She is drawn to the opportunities being involved with Big Ocean Women provides. Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women's issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset.

We seek after wisdom, and we believe wisdom is the highest possible form of knowledge. Brittany Homer from the Raising Today's Kids podcast and Project Stand. “I remember when I was young, realizing the importance of giving children a good foundation, how if they are given a good foundation in their life, then there is no limit to their potential.” – Brittany Homer “Anytime you try to change the economy of God, you're doing it wrong.” – Haitian guide as remembered by Brittany Homer “In order to help children be successful, in order to help them reach their potential, parents have to do their job, and parents have to know how to do their job, and parents have to feel empowered.” – Brittany Homer “If I'm going to prevent human trafficking, I've got to address pornography exposure and help people prevent that or address that.” – Brittany Homer “We felt like, in order to keep kids safe from all of these forms of sexual exploitation that are out there, we've got to help them be safe online.” – Brittany Homer “Really the most important factor is that parent-child relationship.” – Brittany Homer Some organizations that Brittany mentioned include the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, Fight the New Drug, White Ribbon Week, Defend Young Minds, The Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation, the Utah Coalition Against Pornography, Utah PTA Digital Wellness Committee, and Safeguard Alliance. “I love how we are all in the business of trying to help children and strengthen families.” – Brittany Homer “I feel like God is at the core of everything that I do, and so I find a lot of strength in Him, and I feel like sometimes He guides me to spend some time learning, and sometimes He guides me to just slow down and focus on the people.” – Brittany Homer “Too much screen time can be related to sleep. Problems, aggression, desensitization, nightmares, fear, impulsivity, depression, low self-esteem, anxiety, low attention span. I mean, there's so, so many negative things that are associated with too much screen time.” – Brittany Homer “The more time someone uses social media, the more likely they are to be depressed. Social media increases the risk of bullying, clique forming, sexual experimentation. It leads to privacy issues, Internet addiction, sleep deprivation, anxiety, depression.” – Brittany Homer “Cyberbullying – One in four children has experienced cyberbullying, and cyberbullying victims are two times more likely to commit suicide.” – Brittany Homer “This statistic blew my mind: 27% of all video content online is pornographic.” – Brittany Homer “I'm very hopeful, because I know that children can be resilient.” – Brittany Homer “I believe that an educated parent can just be so powerful in the lives of their kids and protecting them.” – Brittany Homer “I'm just so glad that you followed up those statistics with hope and that idea that if we can teach them to use their screen time wisely, then there's nothing that they can't do. I think that's really encouraging and exciting. It puts a lot of pressure on us parents, but it's exciting. We can become educated.” – Dana Robb Healthy Technology Path “Take ‘Just a SEC' – Stop, Evaluate, Choose – whenever you're going to post or search or share something online.” – Brittany Homer “I love your approach to questions. It's not accusatory. It's not assuming that they're doing something bad or dumb, and you're allowing them to collaborate with you and to share their inner selves. And I love the section where you focus on values and helping them discover their own. I think, as parents so many times we assume that we're going to instill in them our values and what's important to us is going to be important to them, but it's so much more powerful to discover where they're at and help them decide on their values, and there's such a range of good values out there. We don't have to have all the same things.” – Dana Robb “Parents are the most important protective factor, and you are qualified to be the parent of your children. And not only are you qualified, but you're qualified today right now.” – Brittany Homer “Wisdom is achieved by uniting our internal compass or conscience with our life experiences.” – Dana Robb   Brittany has always believed that with the right tools and support there is no limit to a child's potential. She has a master's degree in Family and Human Development, is a Certified Family Life Educator, and is creator and host of the podcast, Raising Today's Kids where she shares her deep belief in the power of parents. Brittany has also served as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA), Sexual Assault (SANE) Advocate, and is actively involved in the Safeguard Alliance (a task force of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation). ​ Brittany has a bucket list the length of Montana. She would love to experience every adventure from learning to yodel, to running an ultra-marathon, to seeing the northern lights from a hot spring. She loves to travel and integrate with the locals wherever she goes and has had life-changing conversations in cultures from Israel to Haiti. The experience that trumps all others though, is that of being a mother. She and her husband feel so blessed to have four children who inspire her to fight to protect all children.

Dana Robb and Becky Rogers discussing the tenet, “We seek after knowledge and wisdom.”   Families Mentoring Families has educational tracks for teaching family life skills, basic literacy, academic, vocational skills, leadership, and agriculture. They have 110 literacy centers across Africa, in Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda, and are working to continue to expand. They also have an aftercare program for girls who have been trafficked as well as an education program to help girls avoid the lure of out of country work as domestic servants that actually end up being trafficked.   “When you're educating the current generation, they have that hope that they can make their situation better where they are at, rather than this false hope that something out there that's enticing them is going to solve their problem.” - Dana Robb   “[Education] doesn't just change that person's life, it changes the trajectory of their entire family for all the generations to come.” - Becky Rogers   “We walked away with nothing, and we showed up here with nothing. Nothing. No money, not knowing what we were going to do. And so if I told you about the miracles, like the growth in our faith — I don't even have words for it, I can't even describe it except to share stories of the ways that God has come through and provided.” - Becky Rogers   “Our perspective in that way, and what else is possible if you don't kill it yourself, let God do it, and just watch and show up, that is probably the biggest thing, that's the biggest way that I've grown.” - Becky Rogers   “God tailors things for us, and when He needs us to learn something, He's got a plan for it.” - Dana Robb   “At the end of the day, when we sit with women from all different cultures, we want the same things. We want a better life for our families and our children. We'll do whatever it takes to accomplish that, we're heavily invested in our families, but the powers that be that make policy don't value those same things. And so it's a very crucial and important part of Families Mentoring Families that we share with Big Ocean Women in gathering. . . gathering the women to support each other and to create our own voice around the things that we really and truly value.” - Becky Rogers   “At the end of the day, we're all sisters from all different cultures, and there are so many things that we have in common and so many values that we hold the same that we should gather and strengthen each other around that.” - Becky Rogers   “Don't be afraid. Fear takes a lot forms and it stops us from doing lots of things because when we second guess our own abilities we have so many voices trying to tell us we're not good enough or we can't fit in one more thing, but if you feel called, God has a purpose and a passion and a mission for you, don't put it off another minute because you have no idea what you're missing out on all of the ways that you'll be blessed, not just for you personally, but also in your family. The blessings that will come to you from following those inspirations and getting good at that practice of promptings, it's beyond your wildest imagination. So don't be afraid. Go. Jump in. Don't spend another minute second guessing yourself or second guessing the promptings. If that's what you're feeling called to do, do it.” - Becky Rogers   Becky Rogers is a wife and mother of 10 who is passionate about families and education. She is the Founder of Families Mentoring Families, as well as her own personal development company, LIFEstory Transformation. In 2014, she received a u201ccall of the heartu201d to become involved with humanitarian work in Africa. Though it was completely impossible at the time, she followed that inspiration and FMF was born. She is continually in awe of the miracles that show up to move FMF forward, and she is deeply grateful for the love and support of her family & friends who are the backbone of this work.   Familiesmentoringfamilies.org   Whenever presented with the opportunity for adventure, Dana Robb is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids. She is drawn to the opportunities being involved with Big Ocean Women provides. Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women's issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset.

We greatly value the unique and contributing role of families.   Margo Watson is joined by Gloria Boberg and Dr. Tres Tanner.   “Families are the unit in society which is especially comprised of a man and a woman who are husband and wife who are bonded so that they can meet each other's physical and emotional needs as well as to, among other things, have the opportunity to procreate and bring children into the world so they can then care for those children” - Dr. Tanner   “The family is the stability of life. When you count on one another, and you form the foundation to build upon and to trust each other and learn from each other. If someone tries to take that apart, to me it's like they're trying to pull the power from the family unit.” - Gloria Boberg   “When there is a family nucleus, there's always a strong foundation when we can support each other, love each other unconditionally.  We, then have, love and respect for each other.  Through communication, we learn how to make a healthy family.” - Gloria Boberg   “When a woman goes through nine months of carrying that fetus in her uterus and then birthing that child, that involves a high level of sacrifice and pain and commitment, which leads to the kind of motivation that [other people] will never have the same level of commitment as has a mother.” - Dr. Tanner   “One of the cool things about families is that we learn from one another. Parents learn from children as well as children from parents. So it's a really cool unit of society, where you live together, and you learn together, and you reinforce each other with that unconditional love.” - Dr. Tanner   “You have to understand that a human being is not disposable. You don't throw anyone away.” - Gloria Boberg   “One of the central reasons why there are so many problems is because of selfishness, and or, related to that is we live in a very much of an individually focused society and so it's not natural… for people to think in larger terms, and we need to do that.” - Dr. Tanner   “People can and do change, are capable of turning things around… so you need to make sure you always stay focused on the hope that people are capable of learning how to be really strong and effective people, because what happens is once they start to do that, it becomes self reinforcing and they love it and they want to learn more and more and do more things to stay that way.” - Dr Tanner   “For people that have no family, or they have dysfunctional families, that does not mean that you can't be healthy and build your own family, and that's really important to remember.” - Gloria Boberg   “Part of building yourself up is to teach and guide  other people to help them learn.  We can share these experiences by  what we know.” - Gloria Boberg   “Going back again to the family unit, it is so critical in the development of individuals, but also in the development of the community around us” - Margo Watson   “There are lots of people in this world that are quite alone, and they don't have these family networks that they can depend upon, nevertheless, even a person, or a single parent, trying to do their very best to work with a child, without any other family support, can learn to become a very effective family unit, just those two of them, and what happens is when they develop that, and the great feeling of relief and satisfaction that comes, because they're applying correct principles with one another, and they're getting tremendous satisfaction from that.” - Dr Tanner   “Anyone out there can realize there are wonderful things that they can do to make their lives better and really find great satisfaction even if they haven't had the advantage of having had an initial exposure to that.” - Dr. Tanner   “The husband-wife relationship is really the core relationship in life, because if that is going well, they're in a much better position, that couple, to do a much more effective job of parenting.” - Dr. Tanner   Dr. Tanner's 6 basic practices for a thriving relationship:  Share care Connect Confront Resolve Grow   “Learn how to talk and have respect for each other.” - Gloria Boberg   “Families have to understand there's give and take, and you have to learn, and you have to learn ways to communicate. I think having your own set of boundaries is important. You also have to understand the perspective of where other people are coming from.” - Gloria Boberg   “There is nothing that can even compare with the kind of benefit to society that happens when you are committed to your children as a mother or your spouse and you can just set the tone of having happy relationships functional people, there's nothing quite like that and you can feel proud and grateful for the opportunity you have.” - Dr. Tanner “Look for the good, because there's a lot of it!” - Dr. Tanner   Dr. Tres Tanner has dedicated his career to strengthening families. He has helped thousands of individuals, couples and families in over 25 years' experience as a Professional Relationships–Life Coach / Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist. He also has over 25 years' experience teaching and training people in Seminars, Workshops, Professional Speaking Engagements, and in undergraduate and graduate University Classes, Marriage Retreats, etc.   Margo Watson is the Director of Outreach Marketing and Fundraising for Big Ocean Women. She has a Masters of Fine Arts Degree in Theatre and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communications and Music. Her dynamic talents led her first to critically acclaimed performances in countless Theater and Concert stages around the country as a soprano soloist and lead actress which included musicals, opera, operetta, orchestral works, comedies, movies, commercials and on-camera TV host. These experiences helped prepare her later as a young widow to work in the fields of in-house public relations and marketing for high tech, retail, medical industries and promotion for celebrities, so she could support her young family. Margo has had extensive experience as an on-camera talent, marketing, advertising, public relations-internal and external, public speaking, production, diverse writing for magazines, commercials, press releases, infomercials, books, press kits, speeches and such. She hopes her skills will be useful to help Big Ocean Women spread their mission of empowering women worldwide. She has six adult children and 9 grandchildren which are the most precious gifts to her.

A discussion with Kimberly Ells The Invincible Family “Sexualizing children is not ok on any level, and the family destructive elements that are tied into the movement to sexualize children is especially concerning.” – Kimberly Ells “The family… is the place of greatest power.” – Kimberly Ells “The family is powerful for many reasons… When new people are born, they're born as babies, they're born to mothers in cooperation with fathers, and that matters a lot because then it is the mother and the father who get to impress upon the child what is true and what is right and what is not true and what is not right, and those lessons that are learned in the earliest days of life are crucial and they tend to matter for the rest of a person's life.” – Kimberly Ells “The task of loving and raising humanity has been given first and foremost, on purpose I believe, to mothers and fathers.” – Kimberly Ells “The fact is babies are born to mothers, and mothers are women, and that puts women in a prime position of power and influence.” – Kimberly Ells “When we cease to recognize that people are either male or female, which they inherently are, then it becomes difficult to recognize any realities that are based on maleness or femaleness which includes motherhood and fatherhood, because being a mother is a sex specific designation; being a father is a sex specific designation, so if sex specific designations don't matter anymore, how are you going to legally define, first, and then defend motherhood, fatherhood and parental rights?” – Kimberly Ells “I think if women are really introspective that there is a lot of meaning and purpose in family life.” – Carolina Allen “Families are meant to be permanent.” – Kimberly Ells “The solution to women's empowerment is to see that the family unit is that basic building block and to hold onto it as a society, and women have a central role in that, and we have a huge bargaining power, in a way, in how we want to be treated within the family context, and then socially that influence will impact socially and women will have a much better situation all over the world once we can elevate the matriarchy, once we can elevate the status of motherhood.” – Carolina Allen “The state cannot, and never will, care about a child in the way that a mother and father do.” – Kimberly Ells “Having the family is the best way of being able to ensure that children are going to learn what they need to be their best capable selves.” – Dana Robb “There is very little nobility in doing right because you're forced to… but there is nobility in greatness, in learning what is right and what is wrong and choosing the right way, choosing the good, the noble.” – Kimberly Ells “It seems very core and very important that people belong to each other.” – Kimberly Ells “There has to be middle ground solutions that protect our children and nurture them in responsible technology use.” – Kimberly Ells “When we hand our children a phone, we're handing them the device to orient them to somewhere other than us, and that's kind of the core of the problem.” – Kimberly Ells Kimberly Ells Substack – “We can be aware of global threats but still live joyfully in our families today.”

Carolina Allen and Susan Roylance discussing standing up for the family. “The family is that cellular level of society. And if we don't preserve it, if we don't look favorably upon it, it's really hard to move forward in every aspect of society, and so it's really critical that we talk about it in Big Ocean Women. It is central to who we are.” - Carolina Allen   “That's kind of been the thing that I contributed or tried to contribute, is bringing together the good language (in UN and Conference documents) and getting into the hands of the people who would do things about it.” - Susan Roylance   “I got so tired of talking about poverty and doing nothing, that actually, when I finished the negotiating guide in 2000, I said, ‘Ok, guys, you've got this. I'm going to try and do something about poverty, ' and that's when my husband and I went to Africa.” - Susan Roylance   “I thought that this is something that is really important to share with others: The feminization of poverty: what happens when fathers aren't present and aren't providing for their families in a way that supports the family. It turns into the feminization of poverty where it's women led households carrying the burden of everything on their shoulders, and we see this alot in the world.” - Carolina Allen   “I think that it's really important if we're even going to begin talking about poverty, and the feminization of poverty, we talk about the second half of our population which is men and fathers.” - Carolina Allen   “It's such a critical point to make that men are part of the solution as well: that men and women working together for the benefit of their children and their future posterity, how everyone has some kind of a contributing role, that they need to be present, that they need to be engaged, that they need to be aware that their absence is really felt, not just at the very local level, but at a national and international level what happens when the family unit breaks down.”  - Carolina Allen   “There's so much scientific research that shows that an intact family is the best thing for a child! There are so many measurements that show that the child does better if they are in a home with their biological parents, their father and their mother, and I think that because of the whole feminist movement we have devalued the value of fathers, and fathers are critical to a functioning family. If you care about poverty at all, fathers are the solution. We need to have fathers involved in helping to provide.” - Susan Roylance   “I think as pro-family people we need to be more armed with scientific information that shows, just ample data to show that without the biological mother and father in the family, the children are not going to receive the kind of help they need in their growing up process.” - Susan Roylance   “I see the value and the presence of good men in the lives of their children, and them striving to be good partners and husbands, and I think that is such a beautiful thing to witness generationally, that little boys can look up to their fathers and to see the things that they're doing well, and the things that they can then improve on into the future, and hopefully society just improves generation upon generation.” - Carolina Allen   “The family unit…as a functioning unit that is healthy and thriving, it is that protective layer that preserves free will, that preserves individuality, that preserves the innate dignity of children in their wholeness, and it can grow them into their most healthy self.” - Carolina Allen   “What else do we have? It's worth saving! The family unit is worth saving, it's worth investing in, it's worth talking about.” - Carolina Allen   “Creating human civilizations is the greatest power that exists. It's all centered around that, and we hold that power, and I don't think that very many women stop and recognize the depth and the magnitude of our power.” - Carolina Allen   “As mothers, when we fully embrace our motherhood, we get to influence that life, we get to pass along our values and our way of looking at the world… And if we do that jointly, yoked to a partner, a husband, a father that equally values our contribution, and that we can really value theirs, we've got something impenetrable.” - Carolina Allen   “I think that when we give each other grace and really try to listen, that there are many lived experiences that testify to the things that you're saying, that you've seen, that you've been involved in that it adds a whole other level of expertise that is worth our while to listen to.”  - Carolina Allen   “I think that it is really important that we're positive… My motto is, when I go to the UN, that I want to be a light on the hill… we need to be for something. We're mothers of boys as well as girls, and we have a real impact on raising the boys of the future. That whole idea that we need to be opposed to all of these things that are happening isn't going to get us anywhere. We need to be promoting the good things and we need to be an example.” - Susan Roylance   “As individuals, as human beings, we have God given gifts, talents, capacities, inclinations, skills,... whatever that is, it comes from within, and when we're able to fulfill that to bless other people, and the people that we can have the most impact with is in our families, and we all belong to a family, and when we can use those gifts and talents to bless others, then we find more meaning and purpose in life, and our leadership capacity grows, and our ability to add upon other gifts and talents, it amplifies and grows and the meaning and the purpose grows and so it becomes this beautiful feedback loop that the more you give, the more you receive!” - Carolina Allen   “I learned leadership through motherhood.” - Carolina Allen   “There is true partnership in creating a family.” - Carolina Allen   “No family is perfect, but truly, we shouldn't give up on families, we shouldn't give up on our families. We should always be seeking together with divinity in our lives how we can improve upon and strengthen the families that we have.” - Carolina Allen    “If you don't focus on your family, then you're likely to have problems. Families are fragile, they are also the greatest thing that can possibly happen to help us to be able to be a strong society, a strong nation, a strong world. That's the most important thing we can do, and as we recognize that and work towards it, that will make all the difference.” - Susan Roylance 2.18 

Native American Fatherhood & Families Association (NAFFA) began in 2002 with just one father and the mission of bringing men back to strengthening their families. Since then, NAFFA has successfully impacted thousands of lives and families.  Listen as Carolina and NAFFA Founder, Al Pooley, take an in-depth look at the challenges that fathers and families face, and the heart of the solution based on  NAFFA's great success! 

Kim Landeen and Carolina Allen discuss the tenet, “We value the irreplaceable role of fathers and build interdependent relationships with men.” “It gives us all the more authority to speak because it can be an interesting thing to be getting advice for the world from a group of people that have completely disavowed, or just said, ‘Hey we are not engaging with men anymore; we're completely writing them off from any sort of significant interaction.' That doesn't give you credibility in the world because the men still exist, and they're still a part of this world with us. To have a feminist voice that's saying, ‘I am in these messy trenches of a hard relationship, and I am making it work. We're working on it, that gives us way more authority to speak on behalf of feminism in general.” – Carolina Allen Partnership – “How much better off am I when I have a partner in the work equally yoked, so that I'm not feeling less than or being treated like an employee, or that my husband is my supervisor or my manager… my husband is equally yoked to do the work with me, where his contributions outside of the home and inside of the home are valued, and likewise with my contributions outside of the home and inside of the home, and where we can fill in for each other with our unique gifts and strengths and lighten the load wherever we are and see each other as teammates.” – Carolina Allen “People don't get through life unscathed, and as we are willing to invest in the healing of our spouses, in the healing of our partners, great things do come from that.” – Kim Landeen “We need fathers. They are truly key players in establishing our homes; they are key players in establishing communities that really respect women and respect girls. Without them, we lack so much.” – Kim Landeen “We need the men in our lives to show up… We don't need men just to be present, we need men to be actively engaged in the home.” – Kim Landeen “The idea of ‘fathers' and the idea of ‘fatherhood' implies a selflessness that's embedded in there: that you're living not just for yourself, but for someone else, and there's a maturity level there. We're inviting me to rise to that level of ‘father.'” – Carolina Allen “(Men), become better with us, rise to the occasion. Be partners in marriage, be partners in life, be partners in rearing children, and in society and all of the good things that come with that.” – Kim Landeen “Building takes effort and building takes time. Building takes forethought and planning, but it's worth it.” – Kim Landeen “Our call to women is to see this value in men. See the struggle, recognize the struggle, see that there is value in the struggle, there is value of partnering with these men in our lives, of surrounding these men with love, even when they're not necessarily exhibiting the best behaviors, because we see the value in these men, we see the potential in these men. And men, we ask you to partner with us. Truly partner with us. Step up. Yoke yourself beside us. Let's raise these families, let's raise society, let's raise each other in the process. Let's become the best us we can be by becoming the best we that we can be. Let's raise our families, let's strengthen our society. We need you!” – Kim Landeen Carolina is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.   Kim Landeen is a founding member and a Global Team Director of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Kim has a deep love for the natural world. She lives in Alaska with her family where she enjoys spending the slower paced life with her children combing the beach for treasures, gardening, picking wild berries, and spending rainy lazy days making bread, reading books, and watching movies. She is an ecotour captain in Glacier Bay National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site where she helps educate her clients on the relationship between humanity and the larger eco-environment. In addition to her love of nature, she also enjoys studying theology and the inner workings of the soul as well as tracking global political and social movements. Her love for God, people, and this world drives her to continually seek to improve her own circumstances and the circumstances of all those with whom she comes in contact. 

Kim Landeen and Carolina Allen discuss the tenet “We are empowered by our feminine nature and biology, and we honor our procreative power.” “I hope that this episode today can inspire and spark just gratitude for yourselves for anybody listening, any woman listening, that this is for you, and that you're included.” – Carolina Allen The Big Ocean Women definition of “mother” is: every woman who has the best interest of the rising generation at heart, and willingly gives of herself to nourish and protect the rising generation. “In today's standards, the word sacrifice, to put yourself kind of in the background so that something else can flourish and grow has become a really bad thing. But I want to highlight it as a really good and powerful thing.” – Carolina Allen “I want that [menstruation] to be a celebrated time of life [for my daughters] when they do recognize that they're coming into womanhood, a time when they're recognizing their ability to create, which is such a divine power… my definition of divinity is something of creation.” – Kim Landeen “I wish that everyone around the world, all young girls and women, had that kind of celebration and dignity in their menstruation.” – Carolina Allen The Power of Days: A Story of Resilience, Dignity, and the Fight for Women's Equity Days For Girls “One reason why I will never ever stop talking about biological reality is because women deal with it every single day, and it all starts with our menstruation. I refuse to be called a menstruator or a menstruating person. It's extremely, extremely offensive, and it's … psychologically gaslighting millions of women around the world. You can't pick up and just divorce yourself from your biological reality. It's just completely absurd.” – Carolina Allen “The biological evolution of life is you start with menstruation, and hopefully there's empowerment there. And when there's empowerment there then there's empowerment in other relationships that progress. So the relationship with intimacy and the beauty that can be had in our procreative power and … that we get to decide who is part of that process, that nothing is forced upon us, that we get to be very careful and meticulous gatekeepers of that power. … If there's empowerment there then it's built upon that foundation and then there's empowerment in birth.” – Carolina Allen “If women, if we step into that power and link arms as sisters, then the rest of society has to start shifting their perspective and worldview on who women are, and the power and strength that we have.” – Carolina Allen “The highest level of power is influence.” – Carolina Allen “The most generative and sustainable change happens generationally, and the gatekeepers of that generational change are mothers and women because of our sacrifice for the rising generation.” – Carolina Allen “I love this idea of linking arms together because through this struggle, through these joys, through this experience of motherhood, we have or should have sisters in our lives. We should have Aunties. We should have Grandmothers. There should be this intergenerational connection, and whether that occurs in a biological family … or you create that, I think it is of a vast importance to have multiple different ages of women leading and guiding and holding hands together as we raise these precious, precious children.” – Kim Landeen “We as individuals, as independent actors have the choice to be a victim and/or to grow from that experience. And to take that experience and say, you know what I am going to make it better; I'm going to make it better for me; I'm going to make it better for my kids.” – Kim Landeen “The word sacrifice really embodies that you're setting something aside for something greater in the future, and that's a hope driven thing. That's a faith-filled thing.” – Carolina Allen “Everything can be taken from a man [or woman] but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.” – Viktor Frankl “Your children will never get another childhood, and you are the one that can facilitate and create that for them, thus healing your past self.” – Carolina Allen   Carolina Allen is the founder and Exective Director of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player. Kim Landeen is a founding member and a Global Team Director of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Kim has a deep love for the natural world. She lives in Alaska with her family where she enjoys spending the slower paced life with her children combing the beach for treasures, gardening, picking wild berries, and spending rainy lazy days making bread, reading books, and watching movies. She is an ecotour captain in Glacier Bay National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site where she helps educate her clients on the relationship between humanity and the larger eco-environment. In addition to her love of nature, she also enjoys studying theology and the inner workings of the soul as well as tracking global political and social movements. Her love for God, people, and this world drives her to continually seek to improve her own circumstances and the circumstances of all those with whom she comes in contact.

One of the most important things we can do as communities is to create spaces for connection and creativity, places that nurture the bonds between community members that are not places of commerce. Spaces that serve multiple purposes. Gloria Boberg talks about how a few extra acres in her community became one of those places, offering the space for a community garden that has served to connect and foster the relationships between all the members of her small town.    Dana Robb loves adventure. Whenever presented with the opportunity, Dana is all in.  Currently this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids whom she's been homeschooling since 2009. Her other interest include health and wellness and humanitarian work. If given the choice between cleaning her house and reading, she will choose reading every time. Drawn to the opportunities Big Ocean provides, Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women's issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset. ShelliRae Spotts is an essayist, advocacy writer, screenwriter, and sometime poet who teaches creative writing and composition at Brigham Young University. She is passionate about exploring the ways we use stories to build bridges within our communities and her essays delve into the connections we discover through languaging our lived experiences. Shelli has attended the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women as an advocacy writer for the last several years, and is dedicated to social justice and environmental causes. She was the co-director and writing mentor for "Words for Water: Dancing the Stories of our Home Waters," a collaborative writing/dance advocacy project focusing attention on the challenges facing our rural river watersheds.  She is the author of a forthcoming essay collection, "Radical Creativity: On a New Economy of Care." When she is not teaching, writing, or reading, Shelli loves to spend time with her husband and four adult children watching great movies, attending live theatre, or dragging everyone outside to “look at the sky.”  

Carolina Allen and Maddi Cheers discuss environmental stewardship and earth stewardship and our tenet, “We live and promote a life-culture within the womb, the home, and our ecological environment.” “When we appreciate that we were given this great planet to look after for everybody, when we establish a relationship with her and with the Creator, then we are serving each other.” – Maddi Cheers “The biggest difference between the way native people work, the way we work, the way you work, and the way environmentalists work is that native people establish a relationship with the earth… There is no saving the earth without having a relationship with her. And that relationship is one of appreciation.”  – Maddie Cheers Original Instructions: to be grateful, to treat each other and all of nature with kindness and respect, to live in families/clans that create loving communities. “You can't be a steward of the earth if you are not a steward of human beings also. You're not being a steward if you are angry at everybody and all of your energy is directed at, ‘Oh, I'm worried about the earth because my generation may not survive.' That's selfishness… That's a way different attitude than waking up every morning giving thanks for all the people, giving thanks to mother earth and all of nature, and proceeding with your day from there.” – Maddi Cheers Blackfoot Physics by F. David Peat “I myself have no power. It's the people behind me who give me any power that I have. Real power comes only from the Creator. If you're asking about strength, then I can say that the greatest strength is gentleness.” To Become a Human Being by Steve Wall “The biggest problem with the environmental movement is that it's a disconnect from nature at the same time as they're saying, ‘We have to take care of nature,' you can't take care of something you're disconnected from.” – Maddi Cheers “The reason we are going through all of this turmoil on this earth … is because we are disconnecting from each other, and She is trying to wake us up.” – Maddi Cheers “We know from ice core samples out of Antarctica, and this is solid geological science, not greenhouse theory… that the earth goes through these cycles of cooling and warming ever since it has been the earth.” – Maddi Cheers “Just because we can, does it mean we should?” – Maddi Cheers “Spirituality, religion, these invisible, intangible things are real, and they're important. And I think that more and more people are feeling it, because it's a feeling, it's a gut, intuitive thing that they're recognizing that family is important, relationships are important, community is important, love, respect, gratitude, all of these things have a creative force, and they have a protective and a healing force.” – Carolina Allen “Sisters, cling to your children, cling to your families, bring your men with you, convince them; this isn't a battle against men, our maternal feminist identities are bigger than that. We're stewards of not only this planet, but of spirits, and this is our stewardship… claim it and step into that power.” – Carolina Allen “This is our work, to bring that kind of calling, to bring that to the women and to stand together.” – Carolina Allen “When you look at these great wisdom teachings all over the world, they have the same message, it is the same message of love one another. Don't lose your connection to the planet.” – Maddi Cheers The Good Mind and the Quick Mind: The Good Mind is slow to anger, slow to judge, quick to love. The Quick Mind is quick to anger, quick to judge, slow to love.  “When we are using that good mind, we are connected to everything and everyone, because our connection is through love, is through understanding that we are here for each other, and when we look at the natural world, that is what the natural world teaches us.” – Maddi Cheers The Women's Oneness Project Maddi Cheers is first and foremost a Wisdom Activist. She is a storyteller, ceremonialist, dancer, teacher, poet, and interfaith minister. She is also the founder of The Women's Oneness Project, dedicated to bringing women (and men) together to respectfully discuss and consider our differences. In 2019, at 65, Maddi dedicated her final chapter to passing on the knowledge and teachings she has gained from indigenous elders, spiritual leaders, and her own life experience. “In every decision we make we must consider how it will affect the next seven generations, based on the wisdom of the seven before.” - The Great Law of Peace of the Haudenosaunee “You know what the two most important words are?: Thank you.” Tom Porter, Bear Clan, Mohawk Iroquois Spiritual Leader   Carolina Allen is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.

One of the Big Ocean Women beliefs is that we live and promote a life culture in the womb, the home, and our ecological environment. These three environments form the basis of an ethical code of consistent life culture. Join Carol and Kim as they discuss these three environments.  “It's an idea that is really integral to Big Ocean Women and how we work… We promote life culture within the womb, which is our first environment, and then we promote that into our second environment which is our home, and then everything else, community, ecology, ecological environment, outside of those two environments is the third environment. It's the idea that if you can preserve peace and non-harm and abundance within those spheres that it just will naturally flow outward into the community or into the ecological environment because we're all integrated. We're all part of each other as human beings; we're all part of our greater ecosystems. It's important to look at the womb as an ecosystem. It's important to look at the home as an ecosystem, and then it just spills over all of the abundance created within those first two spheres, those first two environments, it will spill over to the third.” – Carolina Allen “This is a topic that we can address literally every single issue and/or problem and/or positivity in this world is through this lens of the three environments.” – Kim Landeen “Environmental activism, Environmentalism, it very much pits human beings as an enemy to the environment… Environmental stewardship, on the other hand, looks at human beings as an integral part of the ecosystem, that we're not apart from the environment at all, that we're completely integrated, and that we have a more protective stewardship responsibility with the environment.” – Carolina Allen “The abundance mindset that's just generated from gardening is unreal.” – Carolina Allen “The family system is an organic system.” – Carolina Allen Carolina refers to being inspired by the work of Vandana Shiva; read more here. “There truly is a cost to creation.” – Kim Landeen “Truly when you're caring for the earth, it feeds back into the family, it feeds back into the individual, and vice versa, when you as an individual feed into the earth obviously, it is improved, if done in organic, natural, and cyclical ways.” – Kim Landeen “Our faith should lead into our environmentalism, into our environmental stewardship.” – Kim Landeen “The word stewardship perfectly encapsulates what this is all about. It's not environmental authority over, it's environmental stewardship which means that you recognize that this doesn't belong to you, that it's just under your watchful care, and that as a steward you have the responsibility.” – Carolina Allen Carolina is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.   Kim Landeen is a founding member and a Global Team Director of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Kim has a deep love for the natural world. She lives in Alaska with her family where she enjoys spending the slower paced life with her children combing the beach for treasures, gardening, picking wild berries, and spending rainy lazy days making bread, reading books, and watching movies. She is an ecotour captain in Glacier Bay National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site where she helps educate her clients on the relationship between humanity and the larger eco-environment. In addition to her love of nature, she also enjoys studying theology and the inner workings of the soul as well as tracking global political and social movements. Her love for God, people, and this world drives her to continually seek to improve her own circumstances and the circumstances of all those with whom she comes in contact. 

Having your children attached to you is vital to being able to influence them. If you fear your kids are peer-attached, it's not too late. In this episode we will continue our discussion of Hold Onto Your Kids and share ideas about how to “collect” and “reclaim” your children. Join the discussion of parents working to collect and reclaim their children here: https://groupme.com/join_group/87684967/SOO68O2i   Dana Robb loves adventure. Whenever presented with the opportunity, Dana is all in.  Currently this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids whom she's been homeschooling since 2009. Her other interest include health and wellness and humanitarian work. If given the choice between cleaning her house and reading, she will choose reading every time. Drawn to the opportunities Big Ocean provides, Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women's issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset.   Emily Judd is the proud mother of 6 sons. Supporting her husband and boys is her greatest pleasure. They are an Army family, currently serving in Arizona. She loves her hands in the dirt, striving to create beautiful and delicious gardens. She looks everyday for a way to connect with God and mankind, longing to be his hands. If she isn't checking on someone then she is looking to learn something new. She is interested in nutrition, holistic medicine and photography, and loves spending time in the mountains, biking, skiing with her family.   Tricia Kelly is a small town girl who grew up in South Jordan when there was just one stoplight and lots of farms all around. She has been living in Payson,Utah for over 20 years. She has six children, most of whom are grown, her kids consist of 5 girls and 1 boy who just got married! She loves being a grandma to her beautiful granddaughter. She loves going on walks, taking in the beautiful sunshine, watching cheesy hallmark movies or cuddling up to a good book. When she can she loves to get away to her family's cabin up logan canyon.  

Why are kids pulling away from their parents? Why are they so easily influenced by their peers? Learn the science behind attachment and peer orientation as we discuss the book Hold Onto Your Kids, by Dr. Gordon Neufeld. Probably one of the most important books for parents to read this century. Referenced episodes: 1.4 and 1.10 Join the discussion of parents working to collect and reclaim their children here: https://groupme.com/join_group/87684967/SOO68O2i     Dana Robb loves adventure. Whenever presented with the opportunity, Dana is all in.  Currently this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids whom she's been homeschooling since 2009. Her other interest include health and wellness and humanitarian work. If given the choice between cleaning her house and reading, she will choose reading every time. Drawn to the opportunities Big Ocean provides, Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women's issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset.   Emily Judd is the proud mother of 6 sons. Supporting her husband and boys is her greatest pleasure. They are an Army family, currently serving in Arizona. She loves her hands in the dirt, striving to create beautiful and delicious gardens. She looks everyday for a way to connect with God and mankind, longing to be his hands. If she isn't checking on someone then she is looking to learn something new. She is interested in nutrition, holistic medicine and photography, and loves spending time in the mountains, biking, skiing with her family.   Tricia Kelly is a small town girl who grew up in South Jordan when there was just one stoplight and lots of farms all around. She has been living in Payson,Utah for over 20 years. She has six children, most of whom are grown, her kids consist of 5 girls and 1 boy who just got married! She loves being a grandma to her beautiful granddaughter. She loves going on walks, taking in the beautiful sunshine, watching cheesy hallmark movies or cuddling up to a good book. When she can she loves to get away to her family's cabin up logan canyon.

Hosts Kim Landeen and Carolina Allen discuss the tenet, “We work in partnership with our global sisters to create generative solutions.”   Big Ocean Women will be attending the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York City. We will be presenting a Parallel Event. Check out our social media for access to that.   “That's the beauty and the joy of Big Ocean … we truly are a global sisterhood.” - Kim Landeen   “... [E]veryone is feeling this burning passion to belong to an organization that doesn't just spew out a litany of problems, but that we're … super pumped about supporting one another and being the solution to those problems and creating … generative solutions. That means solutions aren't just band-aid approaches that they're going to get at the root of real issues and that … our children will benefit from what we're doing and that's the whole purpose…” - Carolina Allen   “... [A]ll it takes is a single woman that has an idea that wants to improve her own situation and the situation of those around her, and Big Ocean is here to help.” - Kim Landeen   “I think that's the beauty and kind of why we've been so successful at the United Nations is it is that pure feeling of love. There is a divine love that stands within us as women of faith, and we see and acknowledge that innate unique worth of individuals and we truly do desire to work in partnership with our global sisters from a very empowered place that creates those generative solutions for ourselves, for our communities, and ultimately for our children that stand at the center of everything we do.” - Kim Landeen   We believe that every woman who has the best interest of the rising generation at heart, and willingly gives herself to nourish and protect the rising generation, is a mother.   “To mother and to nurture, those are action words, … they carry with it a big responsibility, and so for those women in the world that are keyed into that responsibility and want to carry that with us, then we welcome you.” - Carolina Allen   “I want you to think about your strengths. What do you have to offer? What are you good at? … What's something that sparks your interest or that you gravitate towards? And then start exploring that and start finding ways in your community, in your family, within your extended family, within your work environment, ways that you can freely offer that like as a gift. And as you do that, it's going to make you feel so confident and so happy and fulfilled. Then the next step is just to keep expanding that and take something that you … may not be that proficient in … but you have interest in it, and then you keep developing that skill and over time, the more that you put that into practice by serving other people and by engaging and helping others around you, that skill and talent will get polished and will become really a huge asset. And we are inviting everyone to join us, because the more we collaborate together, the stronger we are.” - Carolina Allen   “It is fairly common that we are brought to tears because of the work that you guys are performing and the miracles and generative solutions that are changing our world every single day that is wrought by the leadership of our WAVEs.” - Kim Landeen   —-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Carolina is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.   Kim Landeen is a founding member and a Global Team Director of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Kim has a deep love for the natural world. She lives in Alaska with her family where she enjoys spending the slower paced life with her children combing the beach for treasures, gardening, picking wild berries, and spending rainy lazy days making bread, reading books, and watching movies. She is an ecotour captain in Glacier Bay National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site where she helps educate her clients on the relationship between humanity and the larger eco-environment. In addition to her love of nature, she also enjoys studying theology and the inner workings of the soul as well as tracking global political and social movements. Her love for God, people, and this world drives her to continually seek to improve her own circumstances and the circumstances of all those with whom she comes in contact. 

A conversation about the tenet, “We are each unique and innately worthy of respect,” with Kim Landeen, Lisa Bjornberg, and Margo Watson. “Mothers, when they understand their power, when they understand their divine nature, when they recognize the gifts that they are given, by God, … they'll do anything to make sure that their children and their family and those they love are protected and cared for and fed and nurtured, even at their own expense.” – Margo Watson “When women can truly understand that innate power that comes from within them, that intergenerational power that comes in families and family units, they are unstoppable. Like you cannot stop a mother, and there is not a stronger force in this world, political, social, or otherwise that could truly defend the family unit, that could truly lift up society than that of a challenged mother.” – Kim Landeen “We have to talk about things as they really are, but then we can always look for the positive, and the hope in that realness.” – Lisa Bjornberg “There is power in the masculine and the feminine coming together, … those energies of creation that occur - it is those lines that I've seen - when men truly become feminists that amazing things happen in the home. When women can honor the masculine and when the masculine can honor the feminine, there is power that resides in that relationship; there is power that permeates from that relationship that empowers and emboldens those that are surrounded by that power and that love.” – Kim Landeen “There is nothing that can replace a father.” – Margo Watson “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” – C.S. Lewis “When we think of the divine nature of people and respect that and help them get through those tough times, they're empowered then to pay it forward.” – Margo Watson “I want everybody to know that they are worthy of respect, and I feel like one of the ways that we can feel that in ourselves is by showing that to other people. The more I show love to other people, the more I can love myself. The more I respect other people, the more I can respect myself.” – Lisa Bjornberg “Now I know, and now I will act. I am going to choose to be that person over and over and over again.” – Kim Landeen “The words that we speak are so powerful. As we continue to speak the truth then it magnifies itself. It also works the other way though. As we tear ourselves down, as we tear other people down, then that becomes that reality, and so that's why it is so important that Big Ocean Women looks at what's going on in the world, and then we speak hope, and we speak truth, and we speak light with our reframing. … It's so important to remember that our words have power.” – Lisa Bjornberg “Regardless of what circumstances you are at in life, there is a choice there… This is probably going to be one of the themes of my life: You choose what you want to be and who you want to be and how you want to show up.” – Kim Landeen “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.” – Alice Walker “When a woman knows her rights, how to use them, and how to advocate for her rights, she is stronger.” – Amal Women for Women International Program Participant “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” – Marianne Williamson “We as women need to replace any negative thoughts … and remember our divine worth and what innately we are supposed to be doing! Recognize our light, our power, and once we do that, we liberate ourselves to liberate others and empower them to be their best selves.” – Margo Watson Kim Landeen is a founding member and a Global Team Director of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Kim has a deep love for the natural world. She lives in Alaska with her family where she enjoys spending the slower paced life with her children combing the beach for treasures, gardening, picking wild berries, and spending rainy lazy days making bread, reading books, and watching movies. She is an ecotour captain in Glacier Bay National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site where she helps educate her clients on the relationship between humanity and the larger eco-environment. In addition to her love of nature, she also enjoys studying theology and the inner workings of the soul as well as tracking global political and social movements. Her love for God, people, and this world drives her to continually seek to improve her own circumstances and the circumstances of all those with whom she comes in contact.    Margo Watson is the Marketing Director for Big Ocean Women. With a Bachelors in Communications and a Masters in Fine Arts/Media, Margo hopes to expand this new division of Big Ocean Women with creative, resourceful individuals, coordinating with the Communications Division to give BOW more exposure.  A few goals include finding raving fans in businesses, media, fundraising donors that share similar values that society is better when safeguarding Faith, Family and Motherhood and empowering Men to protect those entities. Margo has worked for 35 years in Marketing, Public Relations, Advertising, Politics, Theater, Television, Production, Real Estate and the Arts.  She is a former soloist with national orchestras and musicals, pageant judge, and a former Mrs. Utah. She has five talented, married children and nine irresistible grandchildren. She passionately wants them to have a Great America like she had so volunteers in political outreach as well. Her husband Jay D. Blades is a constant support!   Lisa Bjornberg is the Communications Team Director of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. She loves to look for the divine in everyone around her. Lisa is passionate about helping women share their stories and recognize their innate power. She loves to read, sing, and to be active and outdoors. She and her husband Chris are the parents to four children. Lisa loved the years she had homeschooling her children, and is adjusting to them becoming adults. She has come to recognize that life is a grand adventure and faith is essential.

In this episode, Kim Landeen and Carolina Allen discuss our tenet, “We are each unique and worthy of respect” with Valerie Hudson, a global expert on women's issues.   Women Stats Project   The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide   “National security is integrally linked to what's going on with women.” - Valerie Hudson    What is a woman? - A woman is an adult human female   “I certainly feel exactly the same way [outraged] about men, males, who feel that they can take on the identity of those that they have oppressed and maltreated, not just for centuries, but for millenia, and claim to speak for us. It is an absolute outrage, it is male imperialism of the worst sort and should be resisted by all women of goodwill.” - Valerie Hudson   “You cannot make progress for women, if ‘women' includes ‘men.'” - Valerie Hudson    “We can't even know who we are and what we do and what our threats are if we cannot name ourselves as a sex class that has been maltreated by the other sex class for millenia.” - Valerie Hudson    “They're fleeing womanhood as if it were a house on fire!” - Valerie Hudson    “Now, the overwhelming majority of people who are transitioning are adolescent girls who have seen the porn and have said, ‘There is no way on earth that I am going to be that woman. I want out of womanhood.'” - Valerie Hudson    “I demand, and I will continue to demand, that there is a healing that occurs in our society, and I am grateful for the men that do step up; at Big Ocean we believe in the interdependence of men and women, and we have seen the possibility of interdependence where men and women rise together, respecting each other's differences and the strength in those differences. That is the protection that children need to be raised in.” - Kim Landeen   “This change needs to happen, but this change needs to happen first and foremost in the home.” - Kim Landeen   “The strongest thing you can do to save the future is raise your children in a household where the mother and father respect each other as equals, where there is no maltreatment, where there is no porn use, where there is no financial abuse or emotional abuse, where you give them a vision of why there are men and women and how that can be a good thing and not a horrible thing … what you pass on is what you live.” - Valerie Hudson  Sex and World Peace   The Case Against the Sexual Revolution - Louise Perry    The Veil is Beginning to Burst    Valerie M. Hudson is a University Distinguished Professor and holds the George H. W. Bush Chair in the Department of International Affairs of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, where she directs the Program on Women, Peace, and Security. She is a coauthor of Sex and World Peace (Columbia, 2012), The Hillary Doctrine: Sex and American Foreign Policy (Columbia, 2015), and The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide, among others. She is the founder of The WomanStats Project and Database.   Carolina is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is just too a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.   Kim Landeen is a founding member and a Global Team Director of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Kim has a deep love for the natural world. She lives in Alaska with her family where she enjoys spending the slower paced life with her children combing the beach for treasures, gardening, picking wild berries, and spending rainy lazy days making bread, reading books, and watching movies. She is an ecotour captain in Glacier Bay National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site where she helps educate her clients on the relationship between humanity and the larger eco-environment. In addition to her love of nature, she also enjoys studying theology and the inner workings of the soul as well as tracking global political and social movements. Her love for God, people, and this world drives her to continually seek to improve her own circumstances and the circumstances of all those with whom she comes in contact.

Carolina Allen and Dana Robb visit with leaders from the Houston WAVE, Nikki Brown and America Ririe, discussing February's tenet, “We are each unique and innately worthy of respect” and their many impactful projects.   “If I had one goal in life, it would be to debunk this idea that you have to prove your worth, that you have to have more and be more or do more than someone else to be able to show your value, because that just really isn't true. We each have innate worth.” - Dana Robb   “…America had this idea, and had this unique perspective on it, and she was able to move it forward in a way that only she would have done and anyone else would have said, ‘Oh, gosh we can't do this right now,” but she understood the vision and she kind of allowed herself to be an instrument, to be a light for others because she was willing to move it forward.” - Nikki Brown   “I think that sometimes in our lives, like, the things that are our greatest hurdles become our greatest triumphs.” - Carolina Allen   “We always talk about good acts rippling outward, and I think this is such a great example of that.” - Carolina Allen   “I think you just take a step forward and the pieces come together … As we move forward, we've found everybody puts in a little drop and it really does collect and move forward.” - Nikki Brown   “With each of our unique backgrounds … just everyone's unique talents and abilities came together and made it happen.” - America Ririe   “We create so much more when we work together as a team and we all have something specific to contribute.” - Dana Robb   “The exciting thing to me is the fact that everywhere around the world there are women with unique talents and strengths and that the combination of all of those within, like, these local WAVEs all over the world creates something significant, and then all together, all of us are creating something really, really profound.” - Carolina Allen   “We've been given those talents for a reason, and if you're using them for what they're intended, you should never downplay them or apologize for them, you should use that strength to lift others up as well.” - America Ririe “I am becoming better at recognizing and using my strengths as I more proactively acknowledge and … support other people in their strengths.” - Nikki Brown   “I think in part when we are treating other people as though they are enough and acknowledging that, then we are literally changing those messages that we're sending ourselves … the way our brain operates, the more that we think certain messages, the more that we are believing it and kind of subscribing to that.” - Nikki Brown   “I think, to me, that's ultimately what we're trying to do, is allow others to share who they are, and we accept them as they are.” - Nikki Brown   Nikki Brown says her greatest joy comes from being a wife of 18 years and a mother of 6 kids! She also loves serving within her faith community. She works as a therapist and recently completed the process to become a Registered Play Therapist. She loves learning, running, yoga, and being outdoors. America Ririe is a stay at home mother of six. She lives with her family in Houston, Texas and has enjoyed being a part of the Big Ocean Women Houston WAVE. She works closely with Nikki Brown (President) and other local members, to raise awareness, advocate and bring change about various causes throughout the community. Big Ocean Women has become the catalyst in bribing about real change and a force for good. Carolina Allen is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.   Dana Robb: Whenever presented with the opportunity for adventure, Dana is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids. She is drawn to the opportunities being involved with Big Ocean Women provides. Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women's issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset.

Hosts Kim Landeen and Carolina Allen discuss this month's tenet: “We are each unique and innately worthy of respect.” “I feel as though the world would be completely different if everyone truly understood what this tenet really means.” – Carolina Allen “As we really focus on the uniqueness, our individual uniqueness, and the uniqueness of those around us, and we see the worth, the divine and inherent worth within that uniqueness, great things can happen.” – Kim Landeen “There's an Islamic proverb that I love that says, ‘A lot of different flowers make a bouquet.'” – Kim Landeen The Mother Tree: Discovering the Love and Wisdom of Our Divine Mother by Kathryn Knight Sonntag -          Set your roots, engage in the work of the root, discover who you are, do the hard work of soul engagement -          Grow, don't just stay in the root work and “self-discovery,” get out of yourself and serve others “The term ‘self-care' has been kind of co-opted to mean ‘self-indulgence' in a way.” – Carolina Allen “I know as moms we give a lot, … I get it, … we are stretched thin, but also like there's power in that, like we're actually building something, it's not for nothing, you know, and it's worth the effort, it's worth the work.” – Carolina Allen “You can gain internal peace without needing to gain justice.” – Kim Landeen “We get to really know what we're made out of and who we are when we're put to the test, like when we have to actually engage and apply these things in very real ways and the best way to do that literally is to be there for people and serve them.” – Carolina Allen “I believe we need to reclaim ourselves… as maternal feminists, the reclaiming of who we are, are divinely inspired, empowered women, that show up in our homes, our communities, and this world. We need those women.” – Kim Landeen “As we sacrifice for the rising generation because of our maternal identities and because of … know the sacrifice that our physical bodies go through just to even bring about life and nurture that life after that life has been born, because of that there is a very powerful thread that we hold as an authority to the rising generation by way of influence. Meaning, because I am a present loving selfless person within the walls of my home with my children, … all of that authority built from love and from sacrifice has a very unique influence over that child ... in a sense that ‘My mom has been there for me, … I'm going to listen to what she has to say.' And If you live in a selfish manner, it's not there, you don't have that sway, you don't have that pull, you don't have that influence. The influence, to me, in my book is the greatest power that exists on the planet which is why I think mothers and this maternal work has been so undermined and has been so devalued throughout time to kind of make us forget … what it is the power that we really have … the way to exercise that power, like that self-empowerment, is to lean into the selflessness not the selfishness. And I think that there are … contradicting messages in our society. I'd say there's a really strong message in our society to lean into the selfish component and I think that we need to be really careful with that.” – Carolina Allen “To be a mother is to hopefully have influence… The jobs that we do in our home influence not just today or not next week, it influences generations.” – Kim Landeen “It's easy to pit these two against each other. It's easy to say you can either be selfless or selfish, and by definition, that's correct… I think it goes back to the intention of what you're doing and why you're doing it. It is selfless for me to say I am going to have structure in my life so I can get up and I can get the things that I need to get done so I can be present with my children when they are awake. It is selfless for me to say I'm going to take care of my body and refuse the things that I want to indulge in so I can have the energy and the stability to show up in the world when I need to show up. It is selfless of me to say I am going to study and I'm going to develop these different qualities so that I can then engage in political and social conversations. All of those things, the waking up early, the eating what I want to eat, the exercising, all of those could be seen as selfish components of what I'm doing, but it's the intent of what I'm doing… That's what it comes down to is the intent… It ultimately comes down to why are you doing what you are doing? What is it doing for you? What is it doing for those around you?” – Kim Landeen “These identity markers are important; they are deeply important to who we are… but how am I going to show up as that person? And that is where uniqueness comes in. That is where those divine gifts start to really shine. And there are moments of reflection, there are moments of going down into the roots and those are so important, so don't lose those moments of reflection. Don't say I'm just going to sacrifice everything and just keep going and going because there is burnout, there is lack of focus, there is lack of intentionality, that's where those roots come… When you disengage from what you're doing, and you get on this superficial level and you're not truly becoming a better person and you're not truly rejuvenating, you're not truly feeding yourself in a way that your body needs.” – Kim Landeen “I really wish that for everyone in the world, number one that everyone can understand that they're innately worthy of respect, … and that they are valuable irrespective of external circumstances or validation, that there is something unique about each and every listener, everyone on this planet that that means that like you as a person are valuable ... My single wish is that we can feel that, you know, that we can really feel in in the most humble the most beautiful but the most confident way and that we can have … courage to go and share our talents and not hide our light under a bushel but to stand and have this confidence this kind of inner confidence and inner … peace about us that can really influence the world.” – Carolina Allen “Healing truly comes from connection… There is also deep connection and healing that comes from reaching outside of yourself having those that are dependent on you be able to trust you and depend on you.” – Kim Landeen “The way I think the world needs to change is unique to my experiences. I've seen things that I want to improve.” – Kim Landeen Call to action: Engage in a way that you feel like you need to engage in to make the world better because of your unique experience.    Carolina Allen is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.   Kim Landeen is a founding member and a Global Team Director of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Kim has a deep love for the natural world. She lives in Alaska with her family where she enjoys spending the slower paced life with her children combing the beach for treasures, gardening, picking wild berries, and spending rainy lazy days making bread, reading books, and watching movies. She is an ecotour captain in Glacier Bay National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site where she helps educate her clients on the relationship between humanity and the larger eco-environment. In addition to her love of nature, she also enjoys studying theology and the inner workings of the soul as well as tracking global political and social movements. Her love for God, people, and this world drives her to continually seek to improve her own circumstances and the circumstances of all those with whom she comes in contact. 

Members of Big Ocean Women discuss Faith and how it impacts their lives, their actions, and their wider beliefs.    As moms of faith It is one of our deepest desires that we can translate our value system to our children… the way to do that with children is to know and understand first what you believe in. Children can feel a sense of discrepancies between your ideas what you believe and what you do.  -Carolina  As a young mom, they were three ideas that I wanted to impart upon my children I wanted them to Love God, love for people, and love this world.  I decided that if they loved and understood those three things everything else would come naturally. -Kim When raised in faith We invariably reach a point in our lives, where our faith is challenged, but if you walk through that complexity,  and you ask questions, and research and dive into the complexity, you reach a place of simplicity on the other side of complexity that is a beautiful place to be, that is more valuable than staying in the original simplicity.  -Dana   Recently, I was having some personal trials, and I wanted answers, and I felt like the only answer I was getting was to be still and I felt like that was not the answer that I wanted because I wanted to know more about what the future would look like and all I kept getting this be still be still…and as I did that, I came in to that next simplicity again and I've had a lot more peace in my heart, and in my mind -Lisa I have gone through a number of faith crisis, and I have learned that I need to give myself the grace to step back when I need to step back into engage when I need to engage… when I need to step back what I personally focus on is eternal patterns its this meta this level above scripture in my mind less linguistic and more symbolic. -Grace 

In this third episode, Kim Landeen and Carolina Allen discuss the biodiversity of faith with Melissa Inouye. “If people have described religion as trying to keep lighting in a bottle, charisma is the lightning and organization is the bottle. Kind of a balance between the two: if you have too much bottle, you can't see the lightning, and if you have too much lightning you break the bottle.” – Melissa Inouye “I believe that God created the world, and I believe that … we can draw from the natural world, created by God, some principles, and just looking at the world it seems pretty significant that we have biodiversity that seems to be the key to making a lot of things work.” – Melissa Inouye “I believe that God has also created us with spiritual biodiversity.” – Melissa Inouye “One of the ways we start becoming better as people is … developing our understanding of our fellow beings and becoming a little more mature in being able to understand goodness in other people  and faith and to see that goodness and to learn from other people. I think that God has … nudged us toward that trajectory through creating a world with incredible spiritual and physical biodiversity.” – Melissa Inouye “Everyone has a lot to learn, and we can learn so much from people who teach us in different ways.” – Melissa Inouye “Lean in to the ways that religion holds together the fabric of societies.” – Melissa Inouye “Religion is a motive source in many ways for a lot of social change and social cohesion.” – Melissa Inouye The Way of Openness: https://civicfriendship.org/the-way-of-oppenness/ The Ten Conventions for Dialogue:       Be Honest       Be Kind       Listen Well       Share the Floor       Presume Goodwill       Acknowledge Differences       Answer the Tough Questions       Give Credit Where Credit is Due       Speak Only For Yourself   Keep Private Things Private “My faith has literally saved my life. I had a really scary diagnosis… I think one of the reasons why I've been able to beat really bad odds for such a long time is because even when I myself didn't have faith or hope in myself, there were other people that I could rely on who did and I think that the body responds to that.” – Melissa Inouye BioDiversity Presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QsPERjmBH0 Every needful Thing; Book preorder: https://deseretbook.com/p/every-needful-thing?variant_id=200906-paperback   Melissa Inouye works as a historian at the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She is also an honorary Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies at the University of Auckland. She is currently researching the life of Chieko Okazaki, a Japanese American Latter-day Saint who was the first person of color to hold a prominent general-level position in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.   Carolina Allen is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.   Kim Landeen is a founding member and a Global Team Director of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Kim has a deep love for the natural world. She lives in Alaska with her family where she enjoys spending the slower paced life with her children combing the beach for treasures, gardening, picking wild berries, and spending rainy lazy days making bread, reading books, and watching movies. She is an ecotour captain in Glacier Bay National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site where she helps educate her clients on the relationship between humanity and the larger eco-environment. In addition to her love of nature, she also enjoys studying theology and the inner workings of the soul as well as tracking global political and social movements. Her love for God, people, and this world drives her to continually seek to improve her own circumstances and the circumstances of all those with whom she comes in contact.   

In this episode, Carolina discusses religious liberty and persecution with Fatima Njoku, a WAVE leader from Jos, Nigeria. Fatima emphasizes that it is important for everyone to know their rights, be respectful, and hold everyone to the same rule of law which should protect everyone's rights of religion and expression.   In Fatima's advocacy she found that “most of the minority rights issues were linked to religious identities.”  She also said, “Freedom of religion and belief has a lot of connections into other things… When we talk about human rights, it links in many ways.” - Fatima Njoku   “We have to respect each other's religion and religious belief and objects of faith, right, but then there has to be clearly defined boundaries.” - Fatima Njoku   “We have to at some point recognize boundaries and recognize where your freedoms end and someone else's begins.” - Fatima Njoku   Why should the world care about this?   “Many lives are at stake… when it happens to one, it happens to all. How many countries can handle a refugee crisis from Nigeria?” - Fatima Njoku   What is the solution?   “We have started by talking about it. Keep talking about it and raising these issues and keep raising these issues. Secondly, is to educate people. We need to have workshops and educate people on their human rights and then victims of these types of things…. We have to care for them and support them. Keep denouncing these types of things.” - Fatima Njoku   “When we hear that something is happening to people, let's not feel that because it doesn't affect us directly that we don't care; we really need to care, and there's always something that we can do.” - Fatima Njoku   Fatima Njoku is a lawyer working in Nigeria and currently a doctorate candidate at the University of Jos. She has been a human rights advocate for over 11 years, in the course of her advocacy, she has been to the United Nations headquarters in New York and Geneva, she had meetings at Capitol Hill, House of Lords, Swiss Press Club and the like. She has been serving her community through Big Ocean Women in Nigeria where more than 50 women meet regularly for encouragement around the importance of faith, family, and motherhood. This group also carries out community development projects that have touched many lives.   Carolina Allen is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.

In this first episode of our new series focusing on our monthly tenets, Carolina Allen and Kim Landeen discuss the first tenet of Big Ocean Women “We believe in God and are women of faith.” “We are connected to divinity, we are divine and that power both outside and within us compels us to help mold our actions and it helps empower everything we do both internally and externally in changing our lives and shaping our lives and the lives of our family and the lives of our communities.” – Kim Landeen “Faith is power and when you can tap into this infinite source of power… it can compel you along… it can give you this strength to keep moving to keep planning to keep rising above whatever challenges are faced, or set before you, and it really drives our advocacy work and the humanitarian work that we do.” – Carol Allen   “I think there is some deep matriarchal wisdom in understanding that your example is first and foremost the thing that will change people's hearts.” – Kim Landeen “When something is done with a lot of intention, even though it's mundane, it becomes very beautiful and ritualistic in a way that invites this kind of abundance into your life. “When I can start the day in a prayerful mindset then all of these mundane things that I do that don't seem very important become ritualistic through the intention and the deliberateness that I put into them. “The cool thing is that I can pray anywhere. Like if I'm needing to recalibrate, if I'm needing to reconcile some kind of a negative feeling, I can just pray in my car, I can pray any time any place and connect with Divinity and tap into that infinite source again, and then my mundane actions become very holy and very sacred. “Every little thing I get to do is such a gift when I'm living in abundance.” –Carolina Allen Call to action: Wherever you are listening, and whatever faith tradition you subscribe to, or you don't, if you have a will and a desire to connect with the divine more intentionally this week, my invitation to all is to see ways in which you can connect with the divine this week. How can you bring in that divine grace to your life as you are going about these mundane things, and how have you seen that divinity make these mundane things more sacred? Carolina Allen is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player.   Kim Landeen is a founding member and a Global Team Director of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Kim has a deep love for the natural world. She lives in Alaska with her family where she enjoys spending the slower paced life with her children combing the beach for treasures, gardening, picking wild berries, and spending rainy lazy days making bread, reading books, and watching movies. She is an ecotour captain in Glacier Bay National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site where she helps educate her clients on the relationship between humanity and the larger eco-environment. In addition to her love of nature, she also enjoys studying theology and the inner workings of the soul as well as tracking global political and social movements. Her love for God, people, and this world drives her to continually seek to improve her own circumstances and the circumstances of all those with whom she comes in contact.

Erica Komisar talks to us about why being there for your children, especially in the first few years of life, is so important. Ms. Komisar is a clinical social worker, psychoanalyst, and parent guidance expert who has been in private practice in New York City for over 30 years. She strives to help parents live more satisfying lives and raise healthier children.    A graduate of Georgetown and Columbia Universities and The New York Freudian Society, Ms. Komisar is a psychological consultant bringing parenting and work/life workshops to clinics, schools, corporations, and childcare settings.  She is a contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The New York Daily News.  Erica is the author of Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters, and is currently finishing a second book on the topic of raising resilient, emotionally secure adolescents in an age of anxiety.