From Abuse to Internalized Safety, a Conversation with James Deegan

This episode with Tricia Wilson, fellow facilitator of the Circle of Security Training, hits to the root of all we need to know as parents. Circle of Security is a simple, powerful way of understanding what children actually need from us. Essentially, it shows us that kids move out into the world to explore (the top of the circle), and then come back to us for comfort, connection, and regulation (the bottom of the circle). Our role is to be the “secure base” they can go out from, and the “safe haven” they can return to—watching over them, delighting in them, helping when needed, and welcoming them back when things feel hard. That’s it. Not perfection—just presence.I was introduced to this framework as a clinician when my children were small, and it organized my parenting and helped me streamline my energy to the place of the highest importance, I tell may anecdotes in the episode to illustrate what Circle of Security did for me (and my kids)!And this isn’t just a nice idea—it’s deeply rooted in decades of attachment research. From Bowlby’s early work on attachment, to Mary Ainsworth’s observations of how children organize around safety, to modern neuroscience showing how co-regulation literally shapes the developing nervous system—this model reflects what we know to be true: children thrive when they experience consistent, attuned, and repairing relationships. Security isn’t built through getting it right every time. It’s built through connection, rupture, and repair.Tricia is also a mother of 5, she birthed three boys who she parented the traditional high control/high punishment way, and then adopted two girls who had experiences attachment trauma, pushing her to find something that actually worked. Tricia is the author of the book "Adopting Grace; A Parenting Journey from Fear to Freedom," and she also has a prolific substack where she writes about family life, social justice and deconstructing from high control shame-based religion. You can find her work here: https://triciawilson.com/blog/Enjoy the episode!

What an important conversation with wise seasoned clinician, writer, and somatic couples therapist Jordan Dann we have for you today. Jordan illuminates how implicit attachment dynamics play out in couples (that alone is worth the listen!), we talk about the drama triangle (something that was so powerful for me to learn and work with in the last year), shifting from codependence to interdependence, and we really touch on and tackle this exact moment, where these dynamics are playing out on the national stage. She talks about "trauma porn," and this exact moment our society is in, witnessing heaps of harm without repair and what that does to our systems, and we both get teary talking about the human-to-human connection we can have in the streets, the post office, and how it feeds the field of humanity we're all swimming in. This was such an honor to speak with Jordan, and anyone struggling with their partner right now would so benefit from her work! She has a course for couples on her website here: https://jordandann.com/And her IG links all of her work, including her passionate wise Substack. Enjoy the episode!! 

Ready for to exhale? My goodness, my ancestral healer Kathryn Blau is here to groundedly expand our awareness into the ancestral support available to us all, and my Lord we need it more than ever down here on this motherloving earth plane. Kathryn is a mama herself, and was trained by Dr. Daniel Foor, one of the leading experts in ancestral healing for personal and cultural transformation. I wanted to wait until I finished working with Kathryn and all four of my faily lines (you'll understand what that means soon) before recording with her, and offering her up to you all. And I'm so glad to finall have the space to tell you the many many magical healing stories of my work with her, and how this aspect of healing has been essential in my healing process and navigation of very challenging logistics in my personal life, especially in the past year. In times like these, we need all the assistance we can get, and our ancestors are dying (I couldn't help myself) to help!Ancestral Intervention y'all, that's the AI we're into. You can connect with Kathryn and her work here. So many of my friends and clients have worked with her (she offers individual and group work online) cannot recommend her enough! https://www.regenerate-healing.com/

MN-born Kathleen Hoagland LPC has stepped in to meet the moment of the acute and collective trauma that is happening in Minnesota and to our country at the hands of ICE. In this conversation, Kathleen inspires and soothes us by explaining the therapeutic mutual-aid she has organized for the people of MN, she empowers and educates us on the various nervous system responses that are happening for all of us right now, and de-patholigizes all of it, she gives us micro-choices to land on in the midst of our stress responses to soothe our nervous systems and gradually start the process of moving us back into "Safe and Social," and we also talk about anger, agency and how to work with our body and old unconscious experiences in our own personal lives that might be coming up right now. We also talk about raising white boys at this moment, our own anger, our own complicity as white women, and what we are doing with those feelings as women. This is a good one y'all and I wanted to put it in your ear holes ASAP. Take care of yourselves, more soon. XOXO

This conversation with Kristina Kyser, PhD (brilliant brave neurodivergent mother of three, former psycho-therapist turned somatic-spiritual educator), came at a moment when all of our nervous systems are feeling deeply rocked by what is happening in our country. It feels (increasingly) impossible to talk about “mental health,” “normalcy,” or “healing” without naming the water we are all swimming in, so we won’t. In this conversations, we talked about late-in-life neurodivergence many women are waking up to in mid-life, about why so many women feel like something is wrong with them when, in truth, something is deeply wrong with the systems we’ve been shaped inside of.Her statement that will stick with me: “Normal is a colonial spell.” We explored how the idea of “normal” was built inside patriarchal, colonial, productivity-obsessed systems that require disconnection to function. How those systems pathologize attunement, they medicalize grief, how they call regulation “compliance” and call sensitivity “disorder.”We talked about what it costs women (especially neurodivergent women), to live inside that distortion. How many of us were trained to mistrust our perception, to override our bodies, and to take responsibility for everything and everyone, while staying endlessly stuck in a cycle of self-improvement. We talked about trauma, spirituality, the inner child, ancestral memory, midlife awakenings, and the strange moment many women reach where the old strategies simply stop working.And how at its core, healing is not about becoming more tolerable to broken systems. It’s about becoming more loyal to ourselves.I deeply feel the tides shifting and we’re needing to answer the call to the Collective Care we always needed and deserved. In a time when truth is being distorted, bodies are being policed, and entire communities are being dehumanized, reclaiming our inner authority is not self-indulgent, it’s resistance, protection, and how we stay human. Enjoy the episode, I love us all so much!!You can access Kristina's incredible work here, including her Neurodivergent Rising Course and Community: https://www.kristinakyser.com/

I loved this conversation with the wise James Deegan, Irish intuitive healer and inner child shaman. In a world where so many women and children are still living with the consequences of unsafe masculinity, we desperately need examples of men who are willing to face their own shadows, take responsibility for harm, and become emotionally safe. His story is massive, his determination unbelievable, it will stay with you. James shared parts of his childhood that shaped everything — the kind of early experiences that fracture your sense of safety and leave you feeling both too much and not enough. We talked about how his healing didn’t come from bypassing that pain, but from learning how to go back for the parts of himself that had to leave in order to survive: through inner child work, soul retrieval, and deep embodiment.We explored soul families, karma as balance (not punishment), and the idea that our relationships are sacred classrooms — places where old wounds surface so they can finally be met with awareness and compassion.This is a conversation about healing that doesn’t rush. About spirituality that stays rooted in real life. And about the courage it takes to become someone others can safely be with.I'm so grateful to have very serendipitously connected with James in this way, and I know you'll want to connect a man in your life with him. His IG is @james_deegan_healing and you can also access his offerings at his website: jamesdeeganhealing.com

In this conversation, I sit down with my friend, author and Declutter Coach Katy Joy Wells to talk about something that sounds simple on the surface (decluttering) but is actually deeply emotional, psychological, and relational. In a world of tips, tricks and hacks, Katy truly gets the internal obstacles to "just get rid of the things," and meets us right there. We explore what Katy calls our “stuff stories”: the invisible beliefs, memories, and protective strategies that shape how we relate to our belongings. Because clutter is rarely just about being messy or unmotivated. It’s often about safety, attachment, grief, identity, and the ways we’ve learned to cope in a world that hasn’t always felt supportive.We talk about how our culture shapes our relationship to stuff, why so many of us hold onto things long after they stop serving us, and how clutter can quietly act as a shield — protecting us from feelings we haven’t had space to feel yet. Katy shares how decluttering, when approached with compassion instead of pressure, can become a powerful doorway into self-understanding and emotional relief.This conversation isn’t about perfection or minimalism. It’s about learning how to listen to yourself, how to create a home that actually supports your nervous system, and how to approach change with curiosity instead of shame. We also talk through practical, gentle tools (like creating a donation station) that make movement possible without overwhelm.Katy also shares about her upcoming book, Making Home Your Happy Place, and her belief that decluttering works best when we focus not on “fixing” our homes, but on understanding the humans who live inside them.Enjoy the episode, and you can connect with Katy here!https://www.katyjoywells.com/

In this conversation, I sit down with intuitive astrologer Virginia Rosenberg to talk about the astrology we just passed through in 2025, and what's coming in for us in 2026. Lucky us, Virginia just wrote a whole book about the astrology of 2026 called "Convergence; the 2026 Cosmic Calendar." A long-trusted voice in the astrology space, Virginia brings astrology out of the abstract and into the body, reminding us that it’s not about prediction or perfection, but about remembering an ancient language that already lives inside us. We talk about 2025 as a year of reckoning and release, and 2026 as a threshold moment — one that invites more agency, more responsibility, and a deeper relationship with our own inner authority. Yes please!We explore why anger isn’t something to bypass or fix, but a vital signal that helps us understand our boundaries, our values, and our aliveness (and Virgnia named that we will be working with anger a lot in 2026). We talk about the return of healthy masculine energy, not dominance, but grounded presence, protection, and direction — and why this balance matters so much right now, both personally and collectively, individually and externally.We also name the strange tension of living in a hyper-technological world while longing for meaning, connection, and embodied wisdom. I love the way she looks at our current relationship with tech, and we both explore "how do we stay human in a time that keeps speeding up?"This conversation is an invitation to slow down, listen inward, and trust that you already carry more guidance than you’ve been taught to believe. It’s about community, intuition, emotional honesty, and remembering that we were never meant to navigate change alone.I loved this conversation and I am so grateful to have Virginia as such a grounded guide!And you can connect with her, book a atrology reading with her or her trusted roster of readers, become trained to interpret astrology yourself , or buy her book here! https://virginiarosenberg.com/

In this episode, I get to sit down with my friend and kindred spirit, Marisol Collette — the brilliant therapist-turned-style-coach who somehow manages to make fashion feel like a portal to healing instead of a performance we have to nail.Marisol and I talk about what really happens when the inside of you and the outside of you don’t quite match — when your body is changing, your identity is shifting, your confidence is wobbling, or when you’ve been told for too long that you’re “too much,” “not enough,” or “should dial it down a little.”This conversation is about clothing, yes… but it’s also about congruence. It’s about the courage it takes to show up in the world as the person you already are on the inside — before you feel ready, before your body cooperates, before the culture approves.Marisol shares how she blended therapy and fashion into a completely new kind of work — one that helps people reconnect with themselves through colors, textures, silhouettes, and sacred little choices that say: “I’m worth being seen.”We talk about body changes (because hello, life), the stories we’ve inherited about beauty and worth, the liberation that comes from dismantling those stories, and why doing this in community is so much more healing than doing it alone.If you’re in a season of becoming, shedding, stretching, or just trying to remember who the hell you are when you get dressed in the morning… this episode will breathe some fresh air into your closet and your spirit. If you're interested in connecting with Marisol and her massively important work, you can find her on IG: @solreflection and access her myriad of offerings. Enjoy the episode!

I got to sit down with the one and only Mary Van Geffen, the wise, hilarious, caring, OG spicy one here to help the moms raising the big-feeling, strong-willed, exquisitely sensitive children, to talk about her forthcoming book, "Parenting a Spicy One; A Compassionate Guide for Raising a Deep-Feeling and Wonderfully Strong-Willed Kid."We spent this episode wandering through the real terrain of parenting—the parts where your child’s emotions pull at every unhealed corner of your nervous system, the parts where you’re laughing because the alternative is crying on the kitchen floor, and the parts where you realize that raising a strong-willed kid is basically a heroine’s journey.Mary shared so beautifully (and hilariously) from her own life—what it means to parent neurodivergent and sensitive children, how to stay curious instead of controlling, and why community support is not optional but essential for cycle breakers. We talked about the essentialness of rest, the miracle of a parent who can hold space without collapsing, and the spiritual dimension of raising children who are wired for depth, intensity, honesty, and full-body aliveness.If you’re a parent who sometimes feels like your child is your greatest teacher and also your greatest trigger… if you’re trying to build a safe inner home for yourself so you can offer one to your kids… if you’re learning to laugh at the absurdity of raising humans in the age of overstimulation… this episode will feel like a gentle hand on your back. I love Mary, and I know you will too!Her book is available for pre-order, and comes out on Feb. 10th! Link here: https://www.maryvangeffen.com/parentingaspicyonebook