Podcast appearances and mentions of melinda alexander

Today we share a pre-existing episode of one of our favorite podcasts: Fare of The Free Child: “Raider as Ritual” Episode 172, posted originally May 27, 2020! Fare of the Free Child is a lifestyle and parenting podcast about the connection between liberation, learning, and parenting-- particularly among BIPOC communities. In this episode, Akilah speaks with LA-based mother, activist, and entrepreneur Melinda Alexander. They talk about the questions that drive them in the direction of commiting to raising free people and how deschooling and unlearning show up in that experience. In her own experience as a former school teacher, Melinda shares some insights on how a scoolish structure can limit the children in certain contexts. They conclude that partnership and listening are what facilitate an emergent structure. The child is the curriculum and the parents are the facilitators, both are students and teachers! Parents, educators, unschoolers and entrepreneurs tune in weekly to FOTFC to connect about unschooling, deschooling, conscious parenting, and self-directedness. We imagine that Fare of the Free Child will resonate as much as it educates, and we hope that featuring Akilah’s work here will also encourage you to expand and diversify your own reading and podcast queues around parenting and motherhood, sharing her work and others you follow with your communities. We’re excited to chat with host Akilah Richards in an upcoming podcast season when we resume our conversations with artists, activists, writers and beyond. In the meantime, our goal today is to center Akilah's brilliant work and encourage you to follow, listen, learn and support her podcast and upcoming book: Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work. Relevant Links WEBSITE- www.raisingfreepeople.com INSTAGRAM- @fareofthefreechild MELINDA ALEXANDER ON INSTAGRAM @mumumansion PRE-ORDER RAISING FREE PEOPLE- www.pmpress.org UNSCHOOL COURSES- www.rfpunschool.com PATREON- www.patreon.com/akilah TEDX TALK- www.raisingfreepeople.com/speaking Fare of the Free Child’s Shownotes Welcome to the fourth Deschooling Release Party (DRP) session, a celebration of our commitment to unlearning oppression in our relationships with children and Self. Volume I was about self-care and this one (Volume II) is about pivoting from fear and panic over into what we’re being guided to do. Melinda Alexander will be joining us to talk about the role in ritual in her mothering. More recently, she and her son Raider, started transitioning from schoolishness to unschooling. “If you travel down a long ass road and find the intersection— of art, feminism, fashion, Buddhism, social justice and motherhood— you’ll find me standing there in a MuMu, having a yard sale, raising money for Black Lives Matter.” – Melinda Alexander Melinda is an LA-based mother, activist, and entrepreneur. Influenced by her parents work as longtime anti-racist, civil rights organizers, both art and social justice kept at her center. After having her baby in a tumultuous transition/divorce, her life changed. The work she does now, which she calls Women’s Work, helps other women find their voice as part of a liberation and unlearning process, “Getting Free”. Melinda is raising Raider, her Black son in an anti-Black power structure, with a feminist, social justice-oriented focus. WHAT WE DISCUSS Akilah and Melinda talk about the questions that are driving us in the direction of commiting to raising free people and how deschooling and unlearning show up in that experience. Raider was depressed and did not get used to the school structure. Melinda saw this and advocated for her son by emailing the teachers, it ultimately ended up in them transitioning to unschooling. In her own experience as a former school teacher, Melinda shares some insights on how a scoolish structure can limit the children in certain contexts. Intrinsic value is not possible in a school setting, unless you are completely self-directed. Based on the pursuit of validation (did I do well?), the children have never been given a choice and always have been told what to do, and how to do it. By the time they finish school, they don’t know anything about themselves. They conclude that partnership and listening are what facilitate an emergent structure. The child is the curriculum and the parents are the facilitators, both are students and teachers. Thank you so much for your feedback on episode 170, we are always happy to hear from all of you! We were honoring mothering in its various forms and also launching our family of podcasts.LIBERATION WALK In order to continue through this journey of healing and self awareness process we invite you to subscribe to all five podcasts on Raising Free People Network, our liberation work platform. Be sure to join our Facebook group. Head over to Melinda’s website and instagram for more musings on love and liberation. Pre-order Akilah’s book, Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work! Organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing collective help for Atlanta’s BIPOC families affected by COVID-19 – Please donate. Support the show at patreon.com/akilah

Welcome to the fourth Deschooling Release Party (DRP) session, a celebration of our commitment to unlearning oppression in our relationships with children and Self. Volume I was about self-care and this one (Volume II) is about pivoting from fear and panic over into what we're being guided to do. Melinda Alexander will be joining us to talk about the role in ritual in her mothering. More recently, she and her son Raider, started transitioning from schoolishness to unschooling.“If you travel down a long ass road and find the intersection— of art, feminism, fashion, Buddhism, social justice and motherhood— you’ll find me standing there in a MuMu, having a yard sale, raising money for Black Lives Matter.” - Melinda AlexanderMelinda is an LA-based mother, activist, and entrepreneur. Influenced by her parents work as longtime anti-racist, civil rights organizers, both art and social justice kept at her center. After having her baby in a tumultuous transition/divorce, her life changed. The work she does now, which she calls Women’s Work, helps other women find their voice as part of a liberation and unlearning process, “Getting Free”.Melinda is raising Raider, her Black son in an anti-Black power structure, with a feminist, social justice-oriented focus. WHAT WE DISCUSS Akilah and Melinda talk about the questions that are driving us in the direction of commiting to raising free people and how deschooling and unlearning show up in that experience. Raider was depressed and did not get used to the school structure. Melinda saw this and advocated for her son by emailing the teachers, it ultimately ended up in them transitioning to unschooling.In her own experience as a former school teacher, Melinda shares some insights on how a scoolish structure can limit the children in certain contexts. Intrinsic value is not possible in a school setting, unless you are completely self-directed. Based on the pursuit of validation (did I do well?), the children have never been given a choice and always have been told what to do, and how to do it. By the time they finish school, they don’t know anything about themselves. They conclude that partnership and listening are what facilitate an emergent structure. The child is the curriculum and the parents are the facilitators, both are students and teachers. Thank you for your feedback on episode 170, we are always happy to hear from all of you! We were honoring mothering in its various forms and also launching our family of podcasts.LIBERATION WALKIn order to continue through this journey of healing and self awareness process we invite you to subscribe to all five podcasts on Raising Free People Network, our liberation work platform.Join our Facebook group. Head over to Melinda’s website and instagram for more musings on love and liberation.Pre-order Akilah’s book, Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work!Organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing collective help for Atlanta’s BIPOC families affected by COVID-19Support the show at patreon.com/akilahSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/akilah)

Find your own meditation that works for you Rediscover what it means to care for yourself How to create boundaries that feel good to you Rewiring your relationship with your “triggers” Everyone’s on a similar journey, but no one’s paths will look the same. Today’s episode is all about rediscovering what it means to care for yourself. This is part 2 of our amazing interview with Melinda Alexander. Melinda knows the importance of finding the time to care for herself as she works on balancing her successful business with motherhood. She understands that not everyone shares the same journey and encourages others to find the form of self care that works best for them. Melinda Alexander is a writer, mother, workshop facilitator, and activist who does women’s work. She lives in LA with her 7 year old and partner. She focuses on doing women’s work and helps women reimagine themselves, their style, and their lives. Melinda takes time every day to do her form of meditation, where she looks at her judgement or uncomfortable feelings and dives inward to discover what is really wrong. In this episode, she walks us through the idea that meditation is different for everyone, and your breakthroughs won’t always come from sitting on the mat. Instead, she uses meditation as an exploration whenever she is able to find the time to do so. Melinda also speaks about the importance of creating boundaries that feel good to you, and aren’t just “necessary”. She believes that no one’s journey is not going to look like hers, and there is no blanket path that will work for each individual. There are layers of experience and privilege that are different for everyone, and it is important to find your truth and your boundaries that work with your journey. When you look at others and experience jealousy, you have to reel it back in and trust that you will find the things that are meant for you when it is the right time for you to do so. She believes there is a large importance in finding the balance between getting rid of toxic people and triggers, and rewiring your relationship with those triggers. More Radical Lessons in this Episode Use meditation as an exploration. You may have an epiphany in the grocery store but you don’t always have the time to deal with it and go deeper. Then later, you can meditate and figure out what is going on and just sit and be with it. Anytime you can just sit and be with however you are feeling and noticing your emotions is meditation. Take time to discover what you are actually pissed off about. It’s rarely ever about the thing someone just said, but instead what you internalize it as. How to create boundaries that feel good to you that aren’t just “necessary”. Try to create enough mental space and agility to create a pattern and notice how you react when certain things come up. When meditating, new information can come up that isn’t external, but instead is internal with yourself and how you process things. Melinda would rather spend money on self care that is proactive and energy shifting, something that gives her support in what she is already doing. Self care for Melinda is like going to the doctor and finding the underlying issue that is causing her distress, or working towards fixing what is wrong in her life. We need to balance how much time we spend on social media and how much we actually take looking at our own lives. There was a time where we didn’t have social media, we only had movies, and we knew to some degree that those people were actors.

In this episode, Melinda Alexander teaches us the importance of processing our emotions at our own time. She guides us through how to live without fear of judgement so we can live as our authentic selves.

In this week's rebroadcast of one of our most popular episodes, Alex sits down with mother, educator and social activist Melinda Alexander to discuss everything from self-healing and education to motherhood and activism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“I am always refining my truths, and my truths are always changing.” Melinda Alexander Melinda Alexander, aka Mumu Mansion, sat down with Samantha Paige to speak about love, self-healing, parenting and the gift of learning from life’s most challenging moments. Melinda is an all-around lover, mother, healer and social activist who does women’s work in many forms to heal herself and others. She is dedicated to learning from the internal and external conversation about life, vulnerably and boldly welcoming thousands on her own personal journey. Following the birth of her son and a painful divorce, she revolutionized her life and created a broad platform to show the possibilities born with the willingness to learn from what is not working. Melinda proved to herself that she had the power within to work through anything if she stayed open to extracting the information, and thereby evolution, found in even the most difficult moments. This candid conversation touches upon love, healing, parenthood, race, divorce, trauma, the beauty in the discomfort and the power of transforming pain.   For more information on Melinda Alexander’s powerful work, please visit melinda-alexander.com and @mumumansion on Instagram.

Alex sits down with mother, educator and social activist Melinda Alexander to discuss everything from self-healing and education to motherhood and activism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices