Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen

Our guest today is Dr. Riane Eisler, social systems scientist, cultural historian, futurist, attorney and internationally bestselling author of many notable classics, including Sacred Pleasure and The Chalice and the Blade, which I read recently and LOVED—while it came out in the ‘80s, it is incredibly prescient—prophetic really—and more relevant than ever. In it, and all of her books, Riane explores the ways in which hierarchies of dominance—which are NOT our natural state—inform how we live now. “What we’ve been told is simply a false story of our past, of our present, and most importantly today, the possibilities for our future,” she explains. Dr. Eisler joins me today to discuss her newest work, Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future. In the book, Eisler implores us to awaken to the notion that injustice, inequality, violence, and domination do not tell the full story of human possibility. “We humans were really wired more for partnership than for domination,” she says. Guided by the ethos of partnership, Dr. Eisler’s work challenges each of us to play a role in the construction of a more equitable, more sustainable, and less violent world through investment in human infrastructure and a dedication to raising future generations by different scripts and constructs than those given to us. People’s minds can be changed, she reminds us, but a change in consciousness starts with the knowledge that there are different, better, possibilities. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Exploring caring economics, human infrastructure, and the alienation of caring labor (Approx. 5:09) The partnership model and the fight against sticky myths of domination (Approx. 11:00) Replumbing our dysfunctional operating system (Approx. 29:35) MORE FROM RIANE EISLER:Riane's WebsiteNurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and FutureThe Chalice & The Blade: Our History, Our FutureThe Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring EconomicsThe Power of Partnership: Sevens Relationships That Will Change Your LifeBreaking Out of the Domination Trance: Building Foundations for a Safe, Equitable, Caring WorldRIANE’S PICKS:My Octopus Teacher - Netflix, 2020Grandfather's Garden: Some Bedtime Stories for Little and Big Folk - David LoyeDIG DEEPERMore on Partnership Systems and the Partnerism MovementCourses in Partnership - Changing Our Story, Changing Our LivesSexual Dimorphism in European Upper Paleolithic Cave Art - Dean Snow, Society for American Archaeology, 2013 A World Without Women: The Christian Clerical Culture of Western Science - David Noble, 2013 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Before our boys have learned to read, they have already read the stoic code of masculinity and are conforming to it.” says Terry Real, world-renowned family therapist, speaker, best-selling author and founder of the Relational Life Institute, where he offers workshops for couples, individuals, parents and therapists. He is also a dear friend. While he’s best known for his couples work, decades ago, he wrote the landmark book on male depression, which I cannot recommend enough. It’s called, I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression, and with it, Real established himself as one of the most respected voices in the treatment of men and the healing of their relationships with the world. In this episode, we talk about why depression is “illegal” for men, the cultural programming of boys, and forced detachment in the name of autonomy. Our culture of individualism, Real says, has done as much damage as our culture of patriarchy—leaving men little room for the type of connection and relationality that we humans live for. He leaves us with the steps for deprogramming ourselves from patriarchal thinking and parenting as well as the ways in which we can support the men in our lives in service of deeper connection and the pursuit of greater relational joy. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Exploring Terry’s theory of male depression…(2:30) The cultural programming of boys…(12:50) Active trauma, passive trauma, and the severing of connection in the name of autonomy …(19:50) Icarus syndrome and learning to find relational joy…(37:08) MORE FROM TERRY REAL:Terry's WebsiteI Don't Want To Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male DepressionHow Can I Get Through To You?: Closing the Intimacy Gap Between Men and WomenThe New Rules Of Marriage: What You Need to Know to Make Love WorkTake Terry's Online Course - Staying in Love: The Art of Fierce IntimacyDIG DEEPER:Find an RLT Certified Therapist Near You Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our guest today is Dr. Sara Gottfried - a Harvard educated doctor, scientist, researcher, mother, and seeker with 25 years of experience practicing precision, functional, and integrative medicine. Gottfried specializes in root cause analysis, as she firmly believes that the greatest health transformations unfold when you address the root cause of illness, not simply the signs. She is the author of three New York Times best selling books focused on healing our cells, and our souls. Today we discuss her most recent book Women, Food, and Hormones. Yes, we talked about all of those things, but we also explored the culture of weight and wellness, and why the scale is not always a predictor of our health. She took us through the intricacies of our metabolic function, and we together questioned whether the “perfect” body we have in our head even matches the body that allows us to function at our best. As she explains: “I feel like women are stuck. They're stuck between diet culture, which I think many of us reject this idea that we're supposed to be thinner, obedient, smaller, take up less space and have these unrealistic standards for how we're supposed to look. And then we also have the fat acceptance movement. And what I like to do is to position myself in the middle where the focus is on metabolic health.” She walks us through her protocol for hormone balance, opening up detoxification pathways, and even gives us a script for talking to our doctors and regaining agency when it comes to our health. Gottfried implores us to remember that we are deserving of support at any age, and that righteous indignation when it comes to our health can move mountains. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:Discussion of Diet Culture & Body Positivity: Approx. 5:24Metabolic Health: Approx. 9:40Importance of Testosterone for Women: Approx. 19:31Wearables: Approx. 23:48The Ketogenic Diet for Women: Approx. 28:34Detox: Approx. 38:42Discussion of Courageous Conversations with Doctors: Approx. 49:54MORE FROM SARA GOTTFRIED, M.D.:Women, Food, and HormonesDr. Sara Gottfried’s WebsiteDutch Hormone Test Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“There's a fantasy in argument, in Lean In, or Girlboss style corporate feminism that says, once you have women in charge of your company, then your company is feminist, right. Your capitalist reforms can start and end with who has the corner offices. Right. Who's populating the executive suite. And so that's not even reforming capitalism, that's just trying to save it.”So says Kyla Schuller, Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Faculty Director of the Women’s Global Health Leadership Certificate Program at Rutgers University. Today we dive into her heady new book, The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism, which takes on the numerous ways in which feminism, so narrowly framed around the issues of white women, has in turn marginalized the experiences of women of color for hundreds of years. And the title has double-meaning: Because even though white feminism has been problematic, it’s also painted white women into a corner, left wondering how we got here.There have always been multiple kinds of feminism, Schuller says, a self-serving version dominated by white women, and an intersectional version dominated by women of color. White feminism, the mainstream feminist ideology, positions women as a redeemers, a salvific force whose mere presence in positions of power is enough to redeem that same power entirely. In sharp contrast, Schuller notes, intersectional feminism is an account of power, a place to interrogate the ways in which gender, sexuality, race, ability, and climate precarity coalesce to shape our lives. Only when we acknowledge these multiple, simultaneous identities, and come together across identity and power positions, will we form a strong enough political bloc to make enduring structural change. Episode Highlights Against the white woman as a civilizing force…(7:14) Harriet Beecher Stowe/Harriet Jacobs…(12:44) Alice Fletcher/Zitkala-sa…(27:07) Margaret Sanger, a eugenic feminist…(40:02) Betty Friedan/Pauli Murray…(49:28) Mainstream feminism and the optimization of women…(52:28) More from Kyla Schuller Kyla Schuller’s WebsiteBuy her new book, The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of FeminismRead her first book, The Biopolitics of Feeling: Race, Sex, and Science in the Nineteenth CenturyFollow Kyla on Twitter Dig DeeperIncidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Harriet JacobsAmerican Indian Stories - Zitkala-saWriting by Pauli MurrayEloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower - Brittney CooperIntersectionality - Brittney Cooper, The Oxford Handbook of Feminist TheoryThe Nap Ministry - Rest is Resistance Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jamie Wheal is the founder of the Flow Genome Project, a organization dedicated to the research and training of human performance, and most notably, he’s the author of Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death in a World That’s Lost its Mind. In his fascinating book, Wheal explores the perplexing intersection at which we find ourselves, each of us torn between the desire to save the world or to savor the world. “We as a generational cohort are coming of age where we simultaneously have more awareness of life...and at the same time understand our existential precariousness,” he says, “How on earth do we hold all this at the same time?” Our wide ranging discussion takes on the heady topics of healing, believing, and belonging and ends with Wheal sharing with us his ‘ten suggestions', a list of countermeasures to the fundamentalism, nihilism, and despair that threaten to swallow us whole. Episode Highlights To save the world or to savor the world…3:09 Nihilism, suspicion and our meaning crisis…6:48 Reclaiming our authority, healthy tribalism, and the ten suggestions…30:40 More from Jamie WhealRecapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death in a World That's Lost Its MindStealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and WorkJamie's Flow Genome Project - The Official Source for Peak Performance and CultureFollow Jamie on InstagramDig DeeperThe Dark Triad traits predict authoritarian political correctness and alt-right attitudes - Moss, O'Connor - Queensland University of Technology Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Do you want to continue to live out the patterns of your childhood? Or do you want to make different choices? Are you programmed or are you self-determining?” So says Loretta Ross, Professor at Smith College in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender, a founder of reproductive justice theory, and an expert on feminism, racism, and human rights. Loretta has co-written three books on reproductive justice and is the author of the forthcoming book, Calling In the Calling Out Culture. Loretta has been a leader in the human rights movement for decades—she worked with Reverend C.T. Vivian, one of Martin Luther King’s right hands, to rehabilitate former members of hate groups. As a rape and incest survivor herself, she taught Black feminism to incarcerated rapists. She has learned, throughout her career, to lift the hood on peoples’ lived experiences—the identity they project to the world—and determine, through courageous conversation, where their humanity lies, and where their values overlap. She believes with a certain fierceness that we have far more in common with each other—across the entire political spectrum—than not. In recent years, she has become a vocal opponent of cancel culture—ironically, people have attempted to cancel her for this—because, as she explains, she’s interested in being part of a movement and not a cult. She believes that political purity and the policing of other allies is...the opposite of helpful. And that in the process of building coalitions for sweeping social change and evolution, we alienate and lose people who would otherwise want the very same things as us.Today, she gives us a crash course in the practice of calling in - an alternative to calling out, or publicly shaming those whose behavior or beliefs we deem unacceptable. In a culture devoid of empathy and grace, Ross implores us to offer people a chance to change, to give them the opportunity to be as good on the outside as they think they are on the inside. For Ross, recognizing that how we do the work is just as important as the work we do, gives us the incredible opportunity to bring more people in, building the power base of the social justice movement. When we choose to use calling in practices, she says, we choose them because of who we are, not because of who the other person is, and when we affirm the humanity of others, we affirm our own humanity in turn. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS Identifying your circles of influence…(8:31) The Uncle Frank strategy…(21:14) Programming vs. self-determining…(27:29) Guidelines for the creation of a calling-in environment…(42:15) MORE FROM LORETTA ROSSLoretta Ross’ WebsitePreorder her book, Calling in the Calling Out Culture, by joining her mailing listTake the online course: Calling In the Calling Out Culture in the Age of TrumpFollow Loretta on Twitter READ HER WORKUndivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive JusticeReproductive Justice: an IntroductionRadical Reproductive Justice: Foundations, Theory, Practice, CritiqueReproductive Justice as Intersectional Feminist Activism DIG DEEPERI’m a Black Feminist. I Think Call-Out Culture Is Toxic. - Loretta Ross, NYT Op-Ed, August 2019Speaking Up Without Tearing Down - Loretta Ross, Spring 2019What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In? - Jessica Bennett, NY Times, November 2020Up From Hatred - Michael D'Antonio, LA Times, August 1997 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Humanity is messy, each of us starts with ourselves, it's horribly messy and then multiply that times millions. And that's an incredible, lovely mess.” So says Joy Harjo, the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, and the first Native American to hold that post. She is the author of nine books of poetry, several plays, and childrens books, and two memoirs—and is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee nation, with an innumerable number of prizes and fellowships at her back. Today, we sit down to discuss her second memoir, POET WARRIOR, which just came out. It is beautiful—not only the story of her life, but a vehicle for deep wisdom about language, metaphor, and ritual. We—as individuals, as communities, as nations, and as humankind—exist in a collective story field, Harjo tells us. Everyone’s story must have a place, a thread within the larger tapestry—and our story field must constantly shift to include even the most difficult stories, the ones we want to forget and repress. But, as she remarks, the hard stories provide the building blocks for our house of knowledge—we cannot evolve without them.To move forward, we must find ourselves in the messy story of humanity, assume our place as part of the earth in this time and in these challenges. For Harjo, it is when we turn to song, poetry, and the arts that we are able to re-root ourselves in the voice of inner truth, a knowing that has access to stories past, present, and future. And it is this wisdom of eternal knowledge that will help guide us forward—if we only stop to listen. Joy is also the winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the PEN USA Literary Award for Nonfiction, the Jackson Prize from the Poetry Society of America, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. Harjo is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Rasmuson United States Artist Fellowship. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Board of Directors Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and holds a Tulsa Artist Fellowship. In 2014 she was inducted into the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS Finding ourselves in the messy story of humanity…(6:33) Returning to rituals of becoming…(36:14) The story of mothers…(42:59) MORE FROM JOY HARJOJoy Harjo's WebsitePoet Warrior: A MemoirMore Books by Joy HarjoUpcoming Live EventsFollow Joy on Twitter and on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

45-minute conversations and investigations with today's leading thinkers, authors, experts, doctors, healers, scientists about life's biggest questions: Why do we do what we do? How can we come to know and love ourselves better? How can we come together to heal and build a better world? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.