Friends, today’s episode is a powerhouse! We’re thrilled to have Sharon McMahon, known as “America’s Government Teacher,” joining us to share insights from her new book, Small and Mighty. Sharon dives deep into how twelve unsung heroes from American history played pivotal roles in shaping democracy—and what we can learn from their stories to impact our world today. This conversation is all about finding hope amid challenges and understanding that each of us, no matter our size or reach, can make a difference. So, buckle up for an inspiring episode that’ll remind you of your own power to effect change. Let’s dive in!
In this hope-filled chat:
Jen and Amy discuss which historical figures they’d most like to meet and share their election night routines.
Sharon walks us through her journey from award-winning yarn influencer to “America’s Government Teacher.”
We break down why factual information is so critical in today’s world of fake news and disinformation.
Sharon explains the importance of participating in state and local elections.
We explore ways to engage in democracy beyond voting.
It’s election season, and it’s been an interesting ride to this cycle’s moment of truth! Jen and Amy dive deep into the heart of the upcoming 2024 election with the insightful women from Pantsuit Politics–Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The conversation centers around the distinct dynamics shaping this election, along with insight as to why it’s vastly different from 2016; sparking a thought-provoking dialogue about the evolving political landscape.
With Vice President Kamala Harris potentially on the brink of breaking barriers as our first female president, the discussion also touches on the hopes and challenges ahead. Sarah and Beth were participants at the Democratic National Convention in August, and they share what that experience was like, and how it informed their views of the current political terrain. As we look to a potentially historic outcome, Beth and Sarah share practical ways we can engage in the process and build community as we navigate this pivotal moment together.
You also won’t want to miss a new GenXcellence segment where Jen and Amy reminisce about their first voting experiences.
True crime shows actually aren’t a new thing. They weren’t invented with podcasts. Who remembers being on the edge of our seats watching America’s Most Wanted back in the day or Dateline? Or there’s some newer, really amazing, true crime documentaries, like The Staircase or Making a Murderer–I mean who couldn’t tear their eyes away from Tiger King in 2020? There’s something compelling about the true crime genre and it’s not just the “we can’t look away from the car wreck” stereotype–it has a lot to do with how technology in crime solving has developed so rapidly in the last few decades and how fascinating it is that a single strand of hair or a carpet fiber, to say nothing of the digital maps that can be utilized now, like our cell phone records, our web history, can take us straight to the guilty party. It’s such an interesting, fascinating mix of science and sleuthing. True crime stories also highlight he best and the worst of human behavior. Plus, it puts us in the seat of being the detectives. Which one of us hasn’t yelled at a program or a podcast when we could see or hear who the perp obviously was (and yes, we now use terms like “perp,” like the true detectives we are). We’ve got an amazing guest who is here to talk about the true crime podcast phenom, and she’s one of the folks that really put it on the map. Ashley Flowers is the host of the wildly popular podcast, Crime Junkies. She and her co-host Brit have spent years researching, analyzing, and solving cases. And with over 1 billion downloads, it’s easy to say they are pretty good at what they do. So, you will not want to miss one second of this episode. Jen and Ashley get into how Crime Junkies got started, their thoughts on why the true crime genre is so popular and how Ashely’s using the platform to educate as well as entertain.
It’s been two years since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court. As the power to rule over women’s reproductive rights reverts to the states, we are seeing many move toward vast limitations of reproductive choices, including bans on terminating pregnancies, but also devastating impediments toward the processes that have helped those who are struggling with infertility have a chance to conceive. To open up this conversation and really delve into what this decision means, we have Jen’s longtime friend Amy Hardin joining the pod. As women who lived their childbearing years under the protections of Roe v. Wade, Jen and Amy discuss what the aftermath will look for the next generation of women.
Later on the show, we’ll feature an interview with Dr. Natalie Crawford, a Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility Specialist in Austin, TX who really helps us break down all the salient issues. Dr. Crawford sensitively approaches all the repercussions of not having a safe way for a woman to terminate a pregnancy that many of us may not have even considered. Wherever you stand on the issue of abortion, these conversations show the ripple effect this decision has had on women’s ability to make health choices for themselves and how it affects women who do wish to conceive and the hurdles they will now face.
Welcome to the For The Love of The Matriarchy series where we’ll explore all the different aspects of women working to embrace agency and celebrating their worth. As we celebrate the power of women and their accomplishments, we’ll also look at the challenges women have faced in a patriarchal society (and still face) and what that means for their bodies and autonomy.
Cait West is an author who grew up in an extreme patriarchal Christian community. She was taught from a young age that her sole purpose was to become a submissive wife and mother. This pervasive sense of having no agency or control over her own life, combined with the constant messaging that she was inherently sinful and unworthy, took a profound toll on Cait’s mental health, causing severe anxiety and depression from a very young age. Jen and Cait delve into how families can fall into toxic belief systems, and what recovery can look like.
Jen and Cait discuss:
The impact of being raised in a fundamentalist, patriarchal environment that severely restricts a woman’s autonomy, education, and life choices.
The healing power of finding community, sharing one’s story, and reclaiming agency after experiencing spiritual abuse and trauma.
The difficult but important choice of breaking free from oppressive systems, even when it means severing ties with your own family
If you’ve ever been a part of a toxic belief system, or felt the oppression of not having agency over your own life, Cait’s story will be a balm toward healing those wounds.
Hey everyone, Jen Hatmaker here, your host of the For The Love podcast. Welcome to the show. This series has been so good. We are in the Embracing Change series, and I can’t think of anybody in my entire life that this doesn’t apply to in some way. Whether you are in change that you are choosing or needing to choose or change has chosen you in some way, we’re all there. This episode, I think, is going to touch your soul in ways that you didn’t expect — including diving into the healing power of writing and reclaiming agency in the face of constant change and uncertainty. Our guest today is so remarkable.
Najwa Zebian is who we have today. She’s a poet, an author, and an advocate. Her words have been hope for literally millions of people around the world. She has millions of followers and you’ll see why. She has quite a story. We were just talking a second ago after we had finished recording, and she was like, “You’re such a good listener.” And I’m like, “You’re such a good storyteller. I just wanted you to tell me more and more and more.” I think you’re going to find a lot of points of connection. Even if we were raised in different cultures and with different circumstances, some of the themes of abandonment, a lack of care, uncertainty, and displacement are universal. She’s going to talk about what she learned, how she overcame, and how words were a part of that journey. Stay until the end, because we get to the crescendo at the very end of this interview, where she sort of steps into what felt like her life’s thesis.
So, let me tell you about her a little bit before we start hearing her story. Doctor Najwa Zebian is a Lebanese-Canadian actor, activist, author, speaker and educator. She’s got her doctorate in educational leadership. Najwa began to write to connect with and help heal her first students, which was a group of young refugees, which she understood. Then come to find out, she began writing to heal herself. She is the author of six books. She delivered the Ted Talk, “Finding Home Through Poetry.” She recently launched a digital school called Soul Academy and a podcast called “In the Clear.” Her latest book is called The Only Constant. It’s a powerful message of agency and autonomy and being able to trust ourselves as the primary leader of our own lives. You’re going to love this. You’re going to love her. Reminder, if you ever want to watch an interview, we video all of them over on my YouTube channel because, sometimes it’s just powerful to watch a guest tell her own story and Najwa is powerful to watch in addition to being spectacularly beautiful. So that’s over on YouTube if you’d like to watch it, in addition to listening to it. I am delighted that she was here and just moved by today’s conversation. So pour yourself a cup of tea and get ready to be inspired by the absolutely wonderful Najwa Zebian.
We’re wrapping up our series featuring Black Trailblazers, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to have another guest who has broken barriers and basically created their own space as part of the national conversation, becoming the first black woman to anchor a cable primetime show. You may know her from her seat as a political analyst on MSNBC, or as the host of her own show, The ReidOut. It’s the amazing Joy Reid, everyone! Joy is a Harvard grad with a degree in visual and environmental studies and a concentration in documentary film. She also worked on the Florida branch of the Obama campaign. Her political writing prowess has landed her columns and articles everywhere; The New York Times, The New Republic, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, and The New Yorker, to name a few. PLUS she has a new book coming out that she gives us a special peek into; it’s the important and moving story of slain Civil rights pioneer Medgar Evers and his wife Myrlie, also an activist. It’s not every day we get to talk to someone who brings the goods about so many profound topics—civil rights, the fight for reproductive rights, immigration issues, the sacrifice for equality—and she and Jen shy away from none of them here. Joy’s passion for calling out injustice and her unwavering belief that we all hold the keys to preserving our rights and our freedoms gives us a reason to believe that we all can be trailblazers toward sparking change in our world.
In this week’s episode in our Black Trailblazer’s series, Jen may have leveraged her connections, and we couldn’t be more thrilled that she did. We’re excited to have a wonderful sit down with the amazing Jerrie Merritt (who just happens to be Jen’s boyfriend Tyler’s mother–and a Black trailblazer in every sense of the word). In addition to being Tyler’s mom, Jerrie’s currently the Senior VP of Community Development at the Bank of Nevada in Las Vegas. Her banking career spans 40 plus years, where her job now is discerning funding for community development projects in the city of Las Vegas (as she puts it; “I’m the only person at the bank who’s actually giving money away!”). She’s been the board president of the Rape Crisis Center, The Urban Financial Services Coalition, and the Chamber of Commerce in Las Vegas. She even recently got to work with the NFL when the Super Bowl took place in Las Vegas to lead the dispersion of funds they made available to 14 worthy organizations, which she chose. In 2021, Jerrie received an actual Trailblazer Award, presented by the National Coalition of 100 Black Women from the Las Vegas Chapter. Jerrie takes us back to where it all began; in a tiny town called Eutaw, Alabama, where Jerrie didn’t see much modeled to her in the way of dreaming of who she could be, but through generosity of spirit and a willingness to take a chance, she started blazing her trail. It wasn’t without its challenges, coming up during a time where women–especially black women–were often shunned in business and leadership settings. Despite this, Jerrie paved a way, and in turn is paving a way for those coming up behind her. Her infectious courage, intertwined with a humility that hits you right in the feels—will incite a fire with all of us to leave our own indelible mark on this wild, beautiful world.
If you’ve listened long enough to our show and also follow Jen, you probably know that the conversations we invite come in many stripes—thoughtful, timely, fun, encouraging, helpful, educational and inclusive—plus, we’re not afraid to veer into some of the deeper stuff. Important stuff that is sometimes hard to wrap our heads around, but if we don’t, no change can occur. Whatever we think about gun rights, there are voices to consider who are doing hard work to create a future where kids can safely attend schools, where people won’t be shot just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, where mass shootings become a thing of the past. Wherever you stand on the spectrum of this issue, at the end of the day, many polls show that roughly 90% of us agree that we should have stricter gun laws. So we’re opening the For the Love Floor to someone who is seeing and hearing first hand from families affected by gun violence, who makes it her priority to educate the public, and puts the issue in front of legislators for increased gun safety. Gloria Pan is the VP of Moms Rising, a group of caring moms who take on the most critical issues facing women, mothers and families. She’s the head of their gun safety initiative and works with their membership to accelerate impact on Capitol Hill and state capitols to affect legislative change. She’s also been a trusted voice who’s spread the message on CNN, with The Los Angeles Times, NPR, and all kinds of media platforms.
Gloria and Jen have a discussion around:
+ The origins of the 2nd Amendment and how the narrative of guns rights proponents has been shaped over the last 50 years
+ Practical steps toward what we all can do if we want to make our voices heard about this issue and take action toward better gun safety
+ Hope toward a new generation of young people who are engaged in creating a better future and are paying attention in ways perhaps previous generations haven’t
This work is not glamorous and can be full of disappointment, as moving mountains can often be. We’re grateful to people like Gloria who give us a glimpse from inside the fight, and bring us hope that change can really happen.
We’re back for more of our Being Seen and Heard series! In a time where it feels like we are struggling to really see and hear one another, there are some bright lights who make it their mission to help one another understand each other a little better. Our guest today, Sara Cunningham, the founder of FreeMomHugs.org, is one amazing example of what can happen when we really see people for who they are and begin to hear their stories. Sara was on the show right at the beginning of her journey with Free Mom Hugs, and now the org—which started with the simple idea of attending Pride parades and holding up a sign that said “Free Mom Hugs,”—has become a national and world wide phenomenon. She uses her own experience as a guide to how she advocates, and is absolutely passionate about connecting with faith, civic, business, and government leaders in efforts to make the world a kinder safer place for our LGBTQIA+ family.
Sara and Jen touch on these topics:
Sara’s roots in conservative evangelicalism and how she found herself moving “from the church to the pride parade” after she reckoned with her son’s admission that he was gay and going to live in his identity
The stories of people who, after coming out, lost their families, were kicked out of their churches, and felt completely alone and found solace and comfort in the simple act of a mom extending a hug
Sara’s son Parker’s (as well as her own) journey of self-discovery and then coming to live authentically after seeing others, who had come out in faith environments, survive and thrive after loss
How we can affect change with our voices as it relates to legislation that targets the LGBTQIA+ community
Take a peek around
If you’re not sure where to begin, I got you, friend. I’m always bringing you something new to enjoy.
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