“So, no babies?”: Megan Flinn on survival and goodness Handle with Care: Empathy at Work

- Megan Flinn I have, I have faced my own deep, like I have survived the thing, I think a lot of people have the great wounding or the great pain point of their life. And for those of us who have faced and wrestled through it and acknowledge it changes us. We then can turn to others and kind of say, like, I've been to my deepest, darkest parts of myself and come out on the other side like. That's possible for you too, the hope of that is true for everybody,
  INTRO
  Today’s conversation is about grief and femininity and finding yourself in the midst of a hard loss.  When Megan Flinn went in for a straightforward surgery that yielded a devastating outcome, her life changed dramatically.  Her uterus was gone as was any dream of giving birth to a child of her own.  But before we jump into her story, a little bit more about Megan.  Megan is an old and dear friend.  We’ve shared so many conversations of the heart, she has spent the night by Moses (my son)’s side as he recovered from heart surgeries.  She has been there for birthday parties and was the one who originally rescued Tozer, a smart and loving mutt of a dog that became a part of my family. 
 
Megan is tough and warm and smart.  She is brave and confident and capable of doing her own electric wiring.  She has a penchant for stray dogs.  Megan is currently pursuing her a Ph.D., working as a school counselor, and is the founder of her own non-profit, Hamza International that combines embodied therapeutic approaches with a consultative framework that honors community workers while bringing forward the best of brain science.    
 
- Liesel Mertes Observing you over the years, you know, a key part of what you bring to so much of what you do in life is just a push for for justice and being a voice for those who have been marginalized. So I imagine that that is is a narrative thread that goes through your experiences that are leading you to where you are today.
 
- Megan Flinn Yeah, absolutely. And I think something. You know, just in recent events in our culture and our world, this idea of being a voice for the voiceless I kind of struggle with. That phrase not not because it's not a good phrase, but the fact that that phrase has to exist. Right. We remember even back when I was teaching, I was like, why is no one listening to these kids? Like, they're coming in every single day with the same story and no one is listening to them, so.
 
- Megan Flinn How do I. I how do I redirect people's attention to their voice and sometimes that does require me to use mine and so. I think that has been the thread of, OK, I'll use my voice to redirect, and then sometimes I have to use it longer because people really are willing to listen right to the mark to those who. We would classify as marginalized or not listened to.
 
 
Before founding her non-profit, Megan first worked as a teacher.  
 
- Megan Flinn So I had gotten an education degree. I had been trained. I was a licensed teacher. I had checked all the boxes to get certification to teach in the state of Pennsylvania. And then when I was put at twenty two years old, but into a middle school classroom in North Philly, I was very underprepared for what my day actually looked like.
 
- Megan Flinn And so it was a quick lesson. I always say that was the year I grew up because it was I had bills to pay, I had student loans to pay, and I had to figure it out. And my teaching training, my education training did not prepare me for what I needed to do in that classroom.
 
Megan was seeing the effects of trauma on the youth that she was serving.  And she knew she wanted to understand it better.  Megan moved from teaching to working with an Indianapolis non-profit called Outreach Inc, which serves homeless youth.  My husband, Luke, worked there as well and that is where our paths first crossed. 
 
 
- Liesel Mertes So as soon as I was meeting you, you were in this journey of really mo