Safe Space Convos Carleigh and Cacey Madden

We’re back for part 2 with the man of the hour, Jared Villery! If you missed part 1, Jared was our brother’s best friend in prison who also helped litigate his case from behind prison walls. He was recently released from custody after serving 21 years, and has come to lovingly share his story with us! On today’s episode, we talk all about his release from prison, what he learned about humanity from his time incarcerated, and what his plans are moving forward in his newfound freedom! We’re so grateful to him for being here and hope you enjoy :)

Safe Space is growing up, people! We have our first guest! In today’s episode, we speak to our chosen brother and friend, Jared Villery. Jared was our (real) brother Ryan’s best friend and lawyer while incarcerated! After spending 21 years in prison for something he also did not do, Jared is finally free and has come to tell us all about his experience in the system, how he started practicing the law while incarcerated, and of course share some sweet memories of him and Ryan :) He’s a very bright mind with an absolutely wild life story and we really think you’re going to love him just as much as we do. Thank you Jared for sharing with us!!



*Disclaimer: this episode includes conversations about violence, crime and some graphic language. If that will upset or trigger you, you may want to skip this one and come back next week!

I think we all know there’s a lot going on with the collective right now! So in response to that, today’s episode is a short and sweet life update, briefly filling you in on our New York trip and talking about how wild it is to be a human in this world. We discuss the idea of “sonder”, how pulling on your own thread can help to unravel the collective cloth of suffering in the world, and also have a ton of goofy moments. Cacey is getting a cold so everyone please pray for her.

Happy Thursday, beautiful people! Sharing Ryan's story last episode was so cathartic and important, but like with any long story, we felt like there were a few things we missed that matter to mention. Consider this a little follow up, if you will! In this week's episode, we continue the conversation around him and his journey incarcerated. We also dive deeper into some of the current advocacy work we are doing and where we hope to head with it.

If you’ve followed us on Instagram for even just a few days, chances are you’ve seen our brother Ryan posted somewhere along the way. We've shared bits and pieces about Ryan's wrongful conviction, his death, and our grief journey as a family, but we haven't felt ready to dive deep into what happened until now. It wouldn't be possible to explain his whole life or the extent of our brother's vibrance or importance to us in one podcast episode. Rather, our hope for today’s episode is to further contextualize not only the work we do in justice reform, but why we are so passionate about sharing Ryan and his beautiful humanity with the world the way that we do. We couldn’t be more proud to be your baby sisters, Ryry. You’ll live through us forever. We miss you. We love you.

Spirituality can be an uncomfortable subject to speak openly about! Everyone has their own belief systems, as they should, and we hope our take encourages open mindedness and tolerance of others - whether you have zero connection to spirituality or you are heavily invested in your faith journey. We talk about some of our personal sticking points with religion, what opened us up to the concept of spirituality, and where we're at with it today - including things we haven't fully decided on where we stand! We hope regardless of your beliefs that you feel safe in this conversation. Love you