This week’s essay:
“Love as the Practice of Freedom” by bell hooks
This week’s guest:
Heather Vickery is a coach, speaker, podcast host, and joy-bringer. Her work centers around intentional living, courageous leadership, and aligning action with values. Heather brings radical honesty and warmth to everything she does—even when it’s tough love.
vickeryandco.com
Podcast: Was it Chance?
Instagram: @vickeryandco
Discussed in this episode:
- What “love as liberation” really means in the context of political and personal resistance
- The difference between kindness and niceness—and why love is often neither
- How to balance boundaries with compassion without playing the “both sides” game
- Love as an ethic, a choice, and a verb—not a passive feeling
- How domination, control, and toxic positivity masquerade as “love”
- Heather’s personal experience with self-love, queerness, and choosing relationships with intention
- Parenting through a feminist love ethic: Holding boundaries as an act of care
- Navigating the guilt of not doing “enough” while doing what’s possible with what you’ve got
- Why white women talking about love must include interrogating privilege and practicing collective accountability
Resources mentioned:
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This week’s text:
“What No One Else Will Tell You About Feminism” by Lindy West
This week’s guest:
Paige Worthy (she/her) is a writer, editor, and brand messaging strategist for progressive entrepreneurs. Known for her spicy takes, thoughtful wordcraft, and zero tolerance for misogynist bullshit, Paige shows up in business and life as a truth-teller and cat-loving rage queen. She’s currently on sabbatical—joyfully making pottery, resisting capitalist productivity, and embracing rest as rebellion.
paigeworthy.com
Discussed in this episode:
- What this essay gets right—and all the ways it misses the mark
- Rage, burnout, and taking sabbaticals in a broken world
- White feminism, exclusion, and the danger of ignoring intersectionality
- Why catty jokes and sarcasm aren’t the revolution
- How our feminism has evolved since “girl power” and Jezebel days
- Why trying to “educate men” isn’t the job of feminists
- The difference between calling in vs calling out—and when each makes sense
- How to keep growing, even when learning out loud is scary
- Substack, internet rage, and nostalgia for the blog era
Resources mentioned:
This week’s text:
“Speaking of Nature” by Robin Wall Kimmerer
This week’s guest:
Nancy Harris is a leadership coach, forest therapy guide, and host of the Speaking of Nature podcast. She brings decades of experience in HR, inclusion work, and healing practices to her thoughtful and grounded conversations.
Discussed in this episode:
- What it means to center animacy in how we talk about the natural world
- How objectifying language disconnects us from nature—and from each other
- The ties between language, colonization, and capitalist extraction
- Forest therapy as an antidote to burnout and disconnection
- The grief of climate collapse and finding hope through interconnection
- How nature models feminist values of reciprocity, humility, and care
Resources mentioned:
This week’s text:
“Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” by Adrienne Rich
This week’s guest:
Lindsay Johnson, aka The Radical Connector, is a sales & visibility coach for misfit entrepreneurs building their businesses to the beat of their own drums.
Discussed in this episode:
- What to do when important ideas come from problematic people
- Cancel culture, nuance, and evolving past rigid thinking
- The roots of compulsory heterosexuality in capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy
- Lindsay’s journey to understanding their non-binary identity
- How proximity to power complicates identity and solidarity
- The dangers of the incel pipeline and raising feminist boys
- Queerness, gender, and neurodivergence as natural human expressions
- The power and politics of the “lesbian continuum”
- Choosing labels vs. living beyond them
Resources mentioned:
This week’s text:
“Joy” by Zadie Smith
Guest bio:
Jordan Maney is the Radical Joy Coach helping Black, brown, and queer folks reclaim their joy and rest without guilt.
Discussed in this episode:
- Why Zadie Smith’s essay is “close but no cigar”
- The bittersweet intersection of joy and grief
- Is joy a struggle, a surrender, or a risk?
- What ecstasy (the drug and the feeling) says about manufactured joy
- The difference between pleasure, contentment, happiness, and JOY
- Black Southern church traditions as containers for joy
- The power of presence, noticing, and choosing joy in dark times
- Why resisting despair is a revolutionary act of self-love
- Concerts, croissants, and the art of letting yourself become joy
Resources mentioned:
This week’s text:
“Abolition Can Mend Our Democracy” by Angela Y. Davis
This week’s guest:
Amelia Hruby is a feminist writer, podcaster, and producer. She’s the founder of Softer Sounds and host of Off the Grid.
Discussed in this episode:
- Why prisons exist—and what they really teach us about “freedom”
- Angela Davis’s vision of abolition beyond incarceration
- Carceral logic in our schools, healthcare, diet culture, and even how we treat ourselves
- Why spirituality, somatic healing, and forgiveness are necessary for abolition
- Amelia’s personal journey with abolition, including becoming a prison pen pal
- The myth of inherently “bad” people—and why we must believe in love after harm
- How a society built on punishment requires us to reimagine democracy
- What abolitionist practice can look like in our daily lives
Resources mentioned:
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