Episode theme: growth
“To be sane means moving toward a more sustainable existence, and learning to balance progress with self-acceptance. It means doing the hard work of transformation out in the world even as you do it in yourself.” —Laura Joyce Davis
Episode 93: audacious
“We are the ecology of America, and everything that one of us does affects each of us.”
Edissa Nicolás-Huntsman calls herself an agitator, and activist, and an educator. In this riveting installment of our essays featuring the women of FIERCE: ESSAYS BY AND ABOUT AUDACIOUS WOMEN, Edissa tells us about the inspiration she found from a 19th-century Jewish feminist suffragist, and what she's doing to fight systemic oppression right now.
Episode 81: the reformer
“I tend to get my best ideas in community and in dialogue with other people. And I miss that profoundly.”
The Enneagram type 1, with their strong sense of ethics, integrity, and balance, see that things can always be better. Jana Riess is an author, editor, and scholar who sees a lot about our world that needs reforming. But what she needs most are the small moments of human connection that keep her going in the day to day.
Episode 72: a common memory
“On a reservation, the only non-natives you see are people who come to take your picture or give you charity; almost nobody comes to just build a relationship and get to know you.”
Presidential candidate Mark Charles shares why he thinks our country's struggles with racism have everything to do with our need to find a common memory of our history, and why eleven years of watching the sunrise on the Navaho Nation has given him hope for the future.
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Episode 58: type 2 fun
“For the sake of frugality and family togetherness, it was a job we were going to do ourselves.”
As we enter this pandemic summer, Laura recalls how sometimes our best memories aren't of the easy kind of fun, but the kind we had to work for.
Episode transcript
Episode 49: sanity
“And then there is my favorite kind of daily sanity. It’s the sanity of dreaming big, impossible dreams. I’m not talking about idealism, escapism, or fantasy. I’m talking about looking at life in the face, seeing all of its problems, and choosing to believe that it’s possible to do it another way.”
After writing daily episodes for eight weeks straight, Laura considers what it means to find daily sanity--and is surprised by the complexity of the answer to that question. If there were a first-draft Shelter in Place manifesto, this would be it. (See also follow-up episode “Redefining Sanity” here.)
Episode transcript
Episode 27: lessons from the trail
“By the time we were up over the pass, my foot was hurting. It was only day one and I couldn’t imagine five more days of the same.”
Last summer, Laura and a friend fulfilled a longstanding dream to unplug from their overfull lives and backpack a section of the John Muir Trail. The trip was ill-timed in many ways--but it ended up being exactly what they needed. Laura shares stories from the trail, wisdom from Cheryl Strayed, and what the experience taught her about living in quarantine now.
Episode transcript
Episode 87: untouched
“I like the uncooked texture of being real, but I also hate it. Real love, the kind that won't walk away when you're detestable, requires squeezing fingers through emotions like ground meat.”
Fifteen years ago, the first thing Laura ever published was a short piece of creative non-fiction called "Touched." Today, she responds to that younger version of herself with "Untouched," a reflection on life in a world where she no longer takes touch for granted.
Episode 70: redefining sanity
“We define our words, but they don’t define us.”
Tatiana Mac, an engineer, writer, and speaker who is thinking a lot about the weight words carry, prompts Laura to redefine the daily sanity she's seeking in each episode, and to explore how that pursuit is evolving.
Episode transcript
Episode 55: Solve for X
“The reason our current K-12 system looks the way it does has more to do with the military and outsourcing childcare than it does with learning. It’s a system that works like a factory designed to spit out 18-year-olds that all look pretty much the same.”
On her kids' last day of school, Laura draws from Susan Wise Bauer's research, writing, and experience on how we can rethink the way we approach our K-12 education system as our world begins to open up and we try to imagine post-pandemic living.
Episode transcript
Episode 44: the third way
“Even though we want this current way of living to end, most of us don’t want to go back to the way things were before, either.”
As difficult as life feels right now, this time of sheltering in place has revealed some important truths about how unsustainable our pre-COVID lives were. And yet what we're experiencing now is unsustainable in a totally different way. Laura looks to historian Rebecca L. Spang for what history can teach us as we imagine a third way of living, one that might be more revolutionary than we realize.
Episode transcript
Episode 26: one month later
“The quarantine seems a lot like fame. It doesn’t change who you are, it amplifies who you always were."
One month into sheltering in place, Laura reflects on some recent wisdom from writer Victor LaValle, and what his words and the past month have shown her about herself and her world.
Episode transcript
Episode 12: 10% happier
“There’s a ton of science that suggests that meditation can literally rewire your brain. The parts of the brain associated with stress, attention regulation. It’s been shown to lower your blood pressure, boost your immune system.”
Laura goes out of her home for the first time in two weeks, and shares what she's learned about meditation, prayer, and the importance of contemplative practices in a time when the chatter of our thoughts is constant.
Episode transcript
Episode 85: the individualist
“I remember friends saying things like, “yeah, but you're not like the others.” And by others they meant black people. and I stayed silent there too.”
Keith Watts can hush a room with the beauty and power of his singing voice--but he's spent a lifetime silencing himself. As an Enneagram four, Keith knows how complicated life--and his own feelings about it--can be. In this final installment on our Enneagram series, Keith talks about how he has navigated the beauty and complexity of being a biracial gay man in church leadership, and shares some of the music that has come out of his story.
Episode 69: the possibility of change
“It is a privilege to be able to live your life in a way that race is not a factor. And it is a privilege to be able to turn off your TV or close your computer and think that politics has no bearing on your life. That means that you feel safe, and it means that you’re not worrying about the people who aren’t.”
In her forward to The Best American Science and Nature Writing, editor Jaime Green pushes back on the idea that anything is outside of politics, and makes a case for choosing to engage in a more hopeful, just future.
Episode transcript
Episode 54: Mullethawk
“He put his arms around me and we shared the kind of airport kiss you find in romantic comedies--but I was distracted by his hair.”
What a decade-long fight taught Laura about relationships, laughter, and the grace we need to keep giving each other.
Episode transcript
Episode 42: tiny habits
"Behavior (B) happens when Motivation (M), Ability (A), and a Prompt (P) come together at the same moment."
In the face of feeling disappointed with herself for making the same parenting mistakes over and over again in this time of living in close quarters with her family, Laura turns to Stanford behavioral psychologist B.J. Fogg's work and writing, that shows us that the key to big long-term behavior change is forming tiny habits.
Episode 29: the entrepreneur in all of us
“That's ultimately what occupational therapists do: we help people create the lives that they want, by looking at all of the different factors in their lives.”
Laura talks with business owner, occupational therapist, business coach, and podcaster Laura Park Figueroa, whose experiences pivoting her business and restructuring her life gave her the skills she needed to respond to the current crisis of COVID-19.
Episode transcript
Episode 14: the “new normal”
"Where you put your attention is where your emotions will follow. Changing your focus can change your experience."
With the news that schools will not reopen for the rest of the year, Laura considers what it means for us to settle into a new normal that is uncertain and ever-changing, and where so many things are out of our control. She draws from a conversation with Dr. James Furrow to figure out how to become more resilient and adapt to this new normal.