All the Forbidden Things

For many people in the disabled community, placing faith in able-bodied people is not easy. People with disabilities are often overlooked and under-served, and their needs are regularly misunderstood. Elisa Neven-Pugh, a member of the community, firmly holds that minorities are missing out on connection and support if they push the majority away. In this episode, we talk about how challenging it i...

Clifford Brown helped manage USAID efforts across coups, revolutions, and the falls of multiple administrations across the world. He has seen firsthand the forces that lead to a nation’s collapse and its fallout. In this episode, we discuss the link between social consensus and national stability and consider how fragile the U.S. actually is, and what can be done about it now.  You can read more a...

Tegan Miller founded Spectra, an all women’s choir, on the premise that choral music should be available to all voices, especially those who have not felt empowered to be vocal. The choral and classic music world — as with many high-brow art communities — is plagued with elitism and run by (typically male) dictatorial characters. Tegan runs her choir with a more loving and encouraging ethos, while...

Trey and Rebecca both entered college as conservative Christians, but almost 20 years apart. In 2007, Rebecca faced a wildly different political landscape and culture of Christianity than Trey experiences in 2026. And for many reasons, their outcomes were different. Rebecca walked away from the church while Trey continues on. Conservatism is a growing trend among GenZ, but universities remain larg...

Have you ever been annoyed by people who call themselves life coaches? Rebecca has often judged "self-help" practitioners and program facilitators who claim to help you level up in life. They can sometimes ego trip, or give you advice that's not suited to you, make you dependent on them, or take advantage of your money. Carmen Gerlach works as an engineer by day, but she's starti...

Lyonel Laverde and Rebecca are conservative and liberal, respectively, but they agree on the need for integrity, discernment, openness, and respect when it comes to navigating politics. In this episode of The Minefield, they discuss how they each stand by their values, what it means for voters and political leaders to have integrity, and the idea of the "mushy middle". They offer an exam...

Many women are raised to believe that men are meant to have more power than them, and some women continue to hold onto this in various contexts, especially when it comes to voicing their opinions. For a lot of us, this has created patterns that have undermined our own power and self esteem, and sometimes caused us to end up in dangerous situations. In this episode, Rebecca and her close friend Nic...

Religions often ask for people to believe in what they cannot see, and many argue that science and faith are not compatible. But what if you are committed to both, and which wins out in the end if there's a conflict? In this episode, Rebecca interviews her father, an engineer, on how he came to his Christian faith, how he understands his faith through logic and science, and how he handles discrepa...

Comedians have been telling political jokes for centuries, but in today's landscape, political comedy threatens to limit a comic's audience or livelihood. Where do you draw the line in order to keep getting booked and how do you maintain a reputation that people will pay for? Comedian Harrison Friedman and Rebecca talk about his political journey from Zionism to democratic socialism and his stance...

In our first political episode, Rebecca, a liberal, meets with Tim and his sister Kristin to talk about the hate they get for being Christian conservatives. We get into perceptions, fear, power, and the importance of context to achieve understanding.

Bonnie is the owner and director of a theater company in Savannah, Performers for Social Justice Awareness. Her productions span topics from race inequality to religious fervor to female relationships. Needless to say, it's an interesting time and place to produce this kind of work, and not without its challenges. Bonnie and Rebecca were first introduced when they were placed next to each othe...

Lavon and Rebecca met through their shared love for performance. When they met, Rebecca didn’t know one of Lavon’s most pronounced challenges: that he has a stutter. In this episode, Lavon opens about what it’s meant for him to stutter as a child and as an adult, how it manifests, and how it affects his relationship to other people and opportunities. They discuss how just one affectation can chang...

Nichelle and Rebecca met once at a networking event and ended up in a conversation about the forbidden nature of death. Nichelle shared that she'd recently experienced a sudden loss in her family that brought her closer to the realities of death, even beyond grief. It also made her more aware of how little we talk about death and end-of-life planning in our culture. In this episode, Rebecca an...

When Ant and Rebecca met, Ant was a flight attendant who liked acting. He’d was taking classes and was involved with a local improv group. Rebecca had noticed he enjoyed it, and that he was talented, but he told her it was too late for it be a serious pursuit.  Years later, when Rebecca and Ant catch up, she finds out he’s performed in three productions within one year and just wrapped a commercia...

Mallury and Rebecca were "color-blind" friends for over three years until a vulnerable admission opened the door to a frank and sometimes shocking dialogue about our races. These conversations became a primary inspiration for All the Forbidden Things, as we found that the more forbidden the dialogue became, the more powerfully we understood each other. We discovered that there were problems that w...

Armando is a Pagan priest. What on earth is that? In this episode, Rebecca finds out what Paganism is, how it relates to the Occult, and whether or not it's a religion. Armando asks what she thinks pagan priesthood might mean, and Rebecca takes a guess based off an earlier "session". Rebecca realizes she has some experience in new age things, but she didn't know much about the old gods, and what s...

Emily has a very personal relationship with psychedelics, including Ayahuasca. In this episode, Rebecca investigates how Emily finds herself in Ayahuasca, as well as what—and who—she knows Ayahuasca to be. We find out what Rebecca thinks Emily's physical experiences are like and reveal what's really going on inside Emily's trips. Rebecca touches on fears people have about losing their minds, and o...

Roberto is a first-generation Mexican-American. Rebecca always perceived that Roberto lives within these two worlds with pride and ease. But she finds out it isn’t accidental, nor is it exactly right. In this episode, we explore who Roberto really is and how he relates to both Mexicans and Americans in terms of appearance, relationships, culture, language, and family expectations. Roberto reveals...

Laurie is 23, Rebecca is 35. We are friends—which feels rare between women of our ages. In this episode, we explore the differences in our experiences of life and the world at large. We discuss lives lived online and off, the origins of self-esteem, new and alternative relationship models, and how each generation is managing projections of a dark future. You can find Laurie's "entire life online"...

Juleigh is intersex, Rebecca is cis. We think we know each other's relationship to our genders, but in this episode we find out the reality. Find out more about Intersex here: unfe.org/know-the-facts/challenges-solutions/intersexCheck out Juleigh's YT channel Just Juleigh for our live show "Optimistic in Orlando" every Sunday at 7pm ET. You can also see more from Juleigh at justjuleigh.com.