Listening to our soul in all seasons, but especially those of restlessness, is hard, but rewarding work. In today’s episode, you get to hear Matt’s story of listening to the restlessness of his soul and pursuing a richer life through vulnerability. 

Matt and I discuss:

playing in community

navigating transitions in our identity

listening for restlessness of our souls

importance for vulnerability

the need for community 

Episode Notes:

For the episode transcript, click here. 

Learn More About Stoke: https://www.stokethefire.live/about

Learn More About the January 2024 Stoke Retreat: https://www.stokethefire.live/events

A More Beautiful Way is an exploration of what it takes to slow down, create sacred space, and bring healing hearts, minds & bodies to the work of social change. 

To learn more and read along, go to https://www.amorebeautifulway.co/. 

To keep up with us, you can follow us on Instagram: @amorebeautifulway –  https://www.instagram.com/amorebeautifulway/

Learning how to tell the truth about who we are is among the bravest and most challenging work we do. It is also essential for our growth and flourishing. In today’s podcast, you get to hear Danielle’s story of shedding old identities and stepping more fully into her sacred work and identity. 

Danielle and I discuss:

shedding layers of conditioning and expectations 

choosing to not become a biological mother

the liberating power of Black storytelling

making space for our healing and evolution

listening to and learning from our inner children

heartache’s ability to water the seeds of our growth

the nuances of intergenerational healing 

Episode Notes:

For the episode transcript, click here.

Learn more about Danielle here: https://bloomingallover.co/

The link to learn more about the retreat and receive The Re:naissance Within Reflection Guide:

https://bloomingallover.myflodesk.com/renaissancereflectionguide

A More Beautiful Way is an exploration of what it takes to slow down, create sacred space, and bring healing hearts, minds & bodies to the work of social change. 

To learn more and read along, go to https://www.amorebeautifulway.co/. 

To keep up with us, you can follow us on Instagram: @amorebeautifulway –  https://www.instagram.com/amorebeautifulway/

What does it look like to be connected to our minds and our bodies in today’s society? 

This A More Beautiful Way Conversation with Dr. Cherini Ghobrial is a thought provoking reflection on what it looks like to feel your feelings, come home to your body and live embodied. 

Cherini and I discuss:

being conditioned to be a high achiever 

chronic pain and fatigue 

living in the present, moment by moment 

coming home to yourself and somatic therapy 

feeling your feelings and coming back into your body

countercultural living focused on healing and liberation 

the rapture of being alive and aliveness as a human right 

Learn more about Dr. Cherini Ghobrial - Cherini’s website 

Episode Notes:

For the episode transcript, click here. 

A More Beautiful Way is an exploration of what it takes to slow down, create sacred space, and bring healing hearts, minds & bodies to the work of social change. 

To learn more and read along, go to https://www.amorebeautifulway.co/. 
To keep up with us, you can follow us on Instagram: @amorebeautifulway –  https://www.instagram.com/amorebeautifulway/

What does it look like to hold the nuances of resistance, decolonization, storytelling, and everyday flourishing in today’s world? 

This A More Beautiful Way Conversation with Kaitlin Curtice is a thoughtful, shared reflection on what it looks like to slow down, to tend to our wounds, to build connection through storytelling and to continue on the journey of healing and decolonization. 

Kaitlin and I discuss:

• 
  
• the daily habits that ground the morning and orient our days
  
  
• the need for grief and ritual as we move through life’s endings
  
  
• how the wisdom of children is vital in our creation of a more beautiful future and world
  
  
• the meaning of decolonization, both personally and collectively
  
  
• the complexity of indigeneity and the importance of learning from indigenous peoples around the world 
  
  
• rooting in gratitude as a spiritual practice 
  
  
• writing and creativity as a pathway home 
  
  

This conversation is delightful and my hope is that you find nourishment for your inner and outer journey through listening. 

About Kaitlin

Kaitlin Curtice is an award-winning author, poet-storyteller, and public speaker. As an enrolled citizen of the Potawatomi nation, Kaitlin writes on the intersections of spirituality and identity and how that shifts throughout our lives. She also speaks on these topics to diverse audiences who are interested in truth-telling and healing. 

As an inter-spiritual advocate, Kaitlin participates in conversations on topics such as colonialism in faith communities, and she has spoken at many conferences on the importance of inter-faith relationships. 

Her new book, Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day, examines the journey of resisting the status quo of hate by caring for ourselves, one another, and Mother Earth. 

Besides her books, Kaitlin has written online for Sojourners, Religion News Service, Apartment Therapy, On Being, SELF Magazine, Oprah Daily, and more. Her work has been featured on CBS and in USA Today. She also writes at The Liminality Journal. Kaitlin lives in Philadelphia with her family.

Subscribe to Kaitlin’s Substack - The Liminality Journal

Learn more about Kaitlin’s Work - Kaitlin’s Website

Buy Kaitlin’s Newest Book - Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Everyday

For the episode transcript, click here. 

A More Beautiful Way is an exploration of what it takes to slow down, create sacred space, and bring healing hearts, minds & bodies to the work of social change. 

To learn more and read along, go to https://www.amorebeautifulway.co/. 

To keep up with us, you can follow us on Instagram: @amorebeautifulway –  https://www.instagram.com/amorebeautifulway/

In this A More Beautiful Way Conversation, Hillarie Maddox and I have a warm, inviting dialogue on what it looks like to rewild our lives and create slower, more connected lives. 

Hillarie and I discuss:

identity and self discovery 

landscape, culture and sustainability in South Dakota 

homesteading 

land and healing for black women 

race, land ownership, and connection to the land 

rewilding and slowing down our lives

Connect with Hillarie: 

Apply for Rewilding Coaching w/ Hillarie: https://rewildingcoaching.lpages.co/fall2024/

Read Black Girl Country Living: https://bgcl.substack.com

Follow Hillarie on Instagram: @blackgirl.countryliving

Episode Notes:

For the episode transcript, click here. 

A More Beautiful Way is an exploration of what it takes to slow down, create sacred space, and bring healing hearts, minds & bodies to the work of social change. 

To learn more and read along, go to https://www.amorebeautifulway.co/. 

To keep up with us, you can follow us on Instagram: @amorebeautifulway –  https://www.instagram.com/amorebeautifulway/

If you're hoping to linger with the bigger questions of personal and collective healing, this conversation is for you.

Host, Bethaney Wilkinson, interviews Nina Simons about the role self-cultivation and personal healing plays in the work of addressing the many crises we're facing as a species.

Nina Simons is co-founder of Bioneers and serves as its Chief Relationship Strategist. She is a social entrepreneur who is passionate about the power of women to transform the world, reaching racial and gender justice, indigeneity and rekindling a sacred relationship to nature, while co-creating a just transition that’s regenerative, loving and peaceful.

She speaks internationally and co-facilitates transformative leadership offerings that integrate Relational Mindfulness, Restoring the Deep Feminine and The Work That Reconnects.

Nina co-edited Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart, and recently wrote the award-winning book Nature, Culture & the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership. She was named a recipient of the Goi Peace Award in recognition of her pioneering work through Bioneers to promote nature-inspired innovations for restoring (reciprocal relationships among) the Earth and our human community.

You can access our conversation transcript here.

Learn more about A More Beautiful Way at www.amorebeautifulway.co

What might it look like to find a more beautiful way to navigate the racial harm and disconnection of our time? What might it look like to find the healing pathways within our own family lineages and in the places we come from? What roles do repair and forgiveness play in cultivating a new world?

In today's conversation, we are joined by author, activist and storyteller Lisa Sharon Harper. Through the lens of her most recent book, "Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World and How to Repair It All," Lisa walks through how learning our family histories, and setting those histories within the context of the broader history of one's nation, opens up healing pathways to repair the harms of racial hierarchy in our world.

ABOUT LISA

Lisa Sharon Harper (LSMA, Columbia University; MFA, University of Southern California) is the founder of Freedom Road, a consulting group dedicated to shrinking the narrative gap. A sought-after speaker, trainer, and consultant with more than 100,000 social media followers, Harper has written several books, including the critically acclaimed The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right.

Her work has been featured in the New Yorker, Relevant, Essence, HuffPost, The National Civic Review, and CNN, and she has appeared on PBS's Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, TV One, Fox News, NPR, and Al Jazeera America. Harper previously served as chief church engagement officer at Sojourners, where she mobilized the church to engage campaigns on immigration reform and racial justice.

She has researched her family origins for three decades and presented on her ancestors achievements at the African American Civil War Museum. Harper lives in the same Philadelphia neighborhood where three generations of her ancestors lived.

LINKS:

Learn more about Freedom Road.

Learn more about Lisa Sharon Harper.

Purchase the book, Fortune.

Learn more about A More Beautiful Way.

Follow AMBW on Instagram.

In today’s episode of A More Beautiful Way, you get to hear from an AMBW Community Voice: Jordyn Robinson. Jordyn takes us on a journey into three powerful questions, giving voice to what it’s looking like for her to embody ~a more beautiful way~ in this season of her life.

You can learn more about A More Beautiful Way at www.amorebeautifulway.co and by following our work @amorebeautifulway.

In this soul-filling conversation, Leah and I discuss the importance of learning to be one another’s story-keepers. We talk about working with art and floral design to help a community remember and heal from the tragic Greenwood Massacre (also known as the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921.) We reflect on how working with plants and created-things sustains us. And Leah shares a gracious invitation for us to partner with her and The Wild Mother to raise awareness about missing and murdered Indigenous women. 

Leah Palmer (she/her) is an 8th generation Afro-Indigenous artist and anti-racism educator located in Oklahoma City. With her two sisters, she is a founder of The Wild Mother, a floral design studio based in the Arts District of Oklahoma city, on Kickapoo, Osage, Wichita and Comanche lands, which should be returned back to these sovereign nations.  In her work as Storyteller at The Wild Mother, Leah spearheads projects that marry art and activism, while engaging with fellow artists to help them discover a unique position in a world that requires art as medicine to educate, reflect truth, and issue healing for broken communities. 

She draws inspiration from Black and Brown women and femme voices, such as bell hooks, Toni Morrison, Zora Neal Hurston, Phillis Wheatley, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko, and others whose wisdom and life experiences act both as guidance and a mirror.   She is grateful to stand on and continue the work of her ancestors, E.W. Perry, Peter and Martha Holloway, Gladys Perry, Flordia Palmer, C.L. Stove, Sonny Hawkeye, Marthann, James and Elnora Boykin, and so many others whose lives taught her the ways of healing forwards and backwards through storytelling, truth telling, singing, advocacy, home cooking, and communal love. 

Leah’s recent work includes a floral installation called SendFlowersToGreenwood, which paid homage to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre; she is the production manager of Juneteenth on the East (2021-present); she is a founder and educator of Lay of the Land, an antiracism workshop for creative small businesses; she is a founder and facilitator of The Conversation Workshops, an antiracism workshop that teaches how to navigate interpersonal racism; she created the main logo for the Justice for Julius campaign and remains an advocate for abolition movements.   Leah received a Bachelors of Arts in English from Oklahoma Baptist University (2013) and a Master of Arts in English from Oklahoma State University (2015).

About the Wild Mother Creative Studio:

The Wild Mother Creative Studio is a studio florist owned by Afro-Indigenous sisters, Lauren Palmer and Leah Palmer, in the heart of Arts district, Downtown, OKC. Their love and honor of culture, storytelling, and their affinity for natural elements and color theory lend themselves to “Floral Stories” produced by the sisters. It’s an added bonus that they get to work alongside their younger sister, Callie, around the studio. TWM offerings include full service wedding and event floral, curbside carryout floral for large-scale events, and holiday floral offering.

Enroll in Lay of the Land, a DEI Course for Creative Entrepreneurs

https://www.thewildmother.com/workshops

Learn More and Contribute to the Send Flowers To MMIW Campaign

https://www.thewildmother.com/sendflowersto

Follow and Learn from The Conversations Workshop

https://www.conversationworkshopsok.com

Subscribe to A More Beautiful Way on Substack

https://www.amorebeautifulway.co/

Time Stamps:

0:00 Introduction 

6:52 Who is Leah Palmer?

9:23 The Wild Mother Origin 

16:59 Sending Flowers to Greenwood 

34:16 Send Flowers To Project 

Episode Notes:

For the episode transcript, click here.

In today’s episode, Bethaney Wilkinson continues her interview with Margaret Reynolds as they discuss Bethaney’s transitions within her work including how The Diversity Gap has moved into A More Beautiful Way. 

Time Stamps:

0:00 Introduction 

10:09 The Diversity Gap is Born

19:52 Summer 2020 and The Diversity Gap Transitions 

43:06 What is A More Beautiful Way?

59:44 How to Get Involved with A More Beautiful Way 

Episode Notes:

For more information and to register for the Contemplative Writing Circle and/or Seasonal Examen, click here.

For the episode transcript, click here. 

A More Beautiful Way is an exploration of what it takes to slow down, create sacred space, and bring healing hearts, minds & bodies to the work of social change. 

To learn more and read along, go to https://www.amorebeautifulway.co/. 

To keep up with us, you can follow us on Instagram: @amorebeautifulway

In today’s episode, Bethaney Wilkinson is interviewed by her dear friend, Margaret Reynolds. They discuss Bethaney’s story from childhood through college years and how these seasons impact her work.

Time stamps:

0:00 Welcome and Introduction 

13:05 Family of Origin 

28:04: Faith Origin

39:45 Bethaney’s College Journey and First Flight 

55:35 Episode Summary 

Episode Notes:

For more information and to register for the Contemplative Writing Circle and/or Seasonal Examen, click here.

For the episode transcript, click here. 

A More Beautiful Way is an exploration of what it takes to slow down, create sacred space, and bring healing hearts, minds & bodies to the work of social change. 

To learn more and read along, go to https://www.amorebeautifulway.co/. 

To keep up with us, you can follow us on Instagram: @amorebeautifulway