Stay

The first of a series of small episodes where I integrate the learnings from Season 2 and offer small practices. This first episode looks back on the Dean Spade episode and invites to see how conflict is a mirror into ourselves.

What does it mean to stay connected, to ourselves, to each other, and to our deepest values, when conflict, shame, and polarization threaten to pull us apart? In this conversation, I sit down with Wendy Elisheva Somerson (Wes), somatic healer, writer, organizer, and author of An Anti-Zionist Path to Embodied Jewish Healing . Together they explore how our responses to conflict are shaped by family...

In this deep and wide-ranging conversation, I speak with Susan Raffo, writer, community organizer . She invites us to reimagine conflict as a natural part of being in relationship rather than something to be feared or eliminated. Raffo argues that difference, tension, and change are essential features of life, but that systems of oppression, historical wounds, and our growing discomfort with uncer...

In this episode of Stay , I am joined by renowned trauma specialist, writer, and somatic abolitionist Dr. Resmaa Menakem for a deeply expansive conversation on conflict, embodiment, and liberation in a time of escalating social and political tension. Drawing from his groundbreaking work in My Grandmother’s Hands and The Quaking of America , Resmaa reframes conflict not as a breakdown of communicat...

I sit down with Dr. Anu Taranath, author of the book Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World and explore the complex ethics, emotions, and systemic issues of travel. We delve into how travel shapes identity, empathy, and responsibility in an unequal world and get into the inherent conflicts that are built into traveling. In this conversation, we discuss how travel can evoke feelings...

From Midwestern conflict-avoidance to speaking up in a high-stakes creative industry, this episode follows one voice actor’s journey of finding her voice, while questioning what happens when voices can be replicated, controlled, or replaced. We explore hidden conflicts within the voice acting industry, where art, identity, and business collide. Actor Christine Rose Schermerhorn shares her experien...

In this episode of Stay , I sit down with philosopher Bayo Akomolafé to rethink how we understand conflict in a deeply polarized world. Rather than seeing conflict as something to fix or avoid, Bayo invites us to see it as the very condition through which life unfolds. He challenges the binaries of right vs. wrong, suggesting that our obsession with resolution and righteousness may actually keep u...

In this episode I sit with Oren Slozberg, executive director of Commonweal and we discuss conflict, polarization, and cultural approaches to complex societal challenges. Oren reflected on how cultural backgrounds shape perspectives on conflict, drawing on his experiences in Israel and the United States. He unpacks the differences between conflict and polarization and discusses the difficulty of re...

In this wide-ranging conversation, Dean Spade, legal scholar, community organizer, author of Mutual Aid and Love in a F*cked Up World, and I unpack how conflict operates in both our personal relationships and political movements. We talk about how systems of oppression shape our responses to harm, accountability, and belonging and why rethinking conflict is essential for meaningful social change....

Welcome back to Season 2! I share where we are headed this season.

In this episode, I sit down with Dr Leticia Nieto . We have a tender conversation about how we inherit conflict, carry silence, and slowly remake ourselves through relationship. We talk about listening as a sacred act, disagreement as a doorway, and the quiet ways culture, family, and migration shape our capacity for connection. She helps me to understand what it means to face conflict with honest...

What if conflict could be an act of love? Join me as I chat with James Boutin, facilitator, educator and coach, as we explore a radical reframe of conflict, thinking of it not as something to avoid, or to win but as an energetic space that can either deplete or enable connection. Put another way, how we show matters as much as what we say. He unpacks the difference between generative and extractiv...

Join me in conversation with Dr. Ben Danielson, pediatrician and founder of ASHAY, a non-profit organization focused on reducing youth incarceration. Dr. Ben talks about how the geographies of his life shaped his understanding of conflict, the elements for doing conflict well, the critical role leaders play in shaping how a conflict is metabolized, including the ways we repair and forgive. He also...

In this episode I talk with visionary systems thinker Lindsey T.H. Jackson. She reflects on the messages she received as a Black woman about conflict, including suppressing anger. She shares the powerful experience of having her ancestor visit in her dreams and how that helped her to embrace the anger she was suppressing, which has lead to accessing greater joy as well increased discernment about...

I sit with my cousin, Dilip Ramachandran, former drummer for Parikrama to explore how early experiences of being othered shaped his relationship to conflict and how not knowing how to navigate that tension led him to leaving the band. He reflects on the weight of taking himself too seriously, the toll of unresolved stress, and the power of learning to really listen. Through time and reflection, he...

**Trigger warning-intimate partner violence** I speak with DEI leader Aparna Rae, who opens up about a pivotal moment in her professional journey. She shares the story of a colleague who abruptly ended their work partnership, an experience that mirrored her own long-standing pattern of leaving when conflict arises. Rather than repeating that cycle, she chose to pause and reflect—exploring what it...

Not all conflict is external. Sometimes we have to navigate the parts of us that are in disagreement. Join me as I sit with Meghna Jaradi, a writer, storyteller and creative, as we explore the question of what's next for her and how writing as a practice allows her to move through the complexity. Together, we talk about the power of the creative process, the pull of place, and what emerges whe...

I sit with award winning artist Jon Rubin to talk about what it means to be in conflict with an institution-particularly when that conflict is rooted in political conscience and solidarity. We talk about the sanctions he faced for publicly supporting Palestine, and how he navigated that by carving a third way- one rooted in the possibilities that art offers as a space for critical dialogue, imagin...

Learn about the origin story of Stay with mental health therapist Jaya Ramesh. Music by: @resetcubestudio Art by: Nivi Brett