We Heal For All: The Collective Healing Podcast

Liz Moyer Benferhat
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You feel the world deeply — the pain, the injustice, the disorientation of living through so much change. But you also sense possibility. You're someone who cares about what's happening and knows that your inner life is connected to how you show up in the world.. and maybe even more. Maybe you're trying to bridge your spiritual practice with your political values. Maybe you're a helper or a healer. Maybe you don't call yourself a changemaker but the way you live your life says otherwise. If you're called to tend to the opportunity held in the mess then welcome. I'm so glad you're here. You've found yourself in We Heal For All. Hosted by me, Liz Moyer Benferhat — I'm a collective healing practitioner and author of When the World Hurts. With nearly 20 years in sustainable development, I know how much heart goes into caring about our world. That's why in each episode I go deep on topics tied to the emotional and spiritual dimensions of caring about our world. Through conversations, guided practices, and reflections you'll have space to explore your relationship with the world's pain these days, and better understand how what you're feeling is tied to this time of change and the unique role you're meant to play. Thank you, to you and your heart. Let's collectively heal.

  1. 2d ago

    What Comes After Religion? with Integral Coach Michael Stern

    You have one of those friends where as soon as you open your mouths or sit down with each other you just go deep? That, my friends, is Michael Stern for me. With this month’s theme being about integration and maturity — the evolutionary draw towards social-spiritual maturity, and how that naturally moves us away from black and white approaches to… everything, and towards a more integrated, integral view and approach to the world — I knew he was who I wanted to talk to. Michael Stern is on a mission to help humanity navigate The Great Transition and create The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible. He believes the key is to integrate evolutionary spirituality, relational coherence, and regenerative systems. He attempts to do that through being a father, partner, meditator, coach, facilitator, event organizer, and community builder. In this conversation, we explore what the Great Transition is — one of the many meta-narratives used to make sense of the times we live in — and what it asks of us, in practice, as everyday people. Michael shares his vision of a "trans-lineage planetary spirituality" — the possibility of weaving humanity's wisdom traditions into something genuinely new — and why re-centering the sacred is at the heart of the big challenges we face. We zoom out into big picture thinking, exploring things like healing collective bodies and why a transformation of consciousness may be our best chance to navigate all that’s going. And then we bring it down to Earth by getting personal: what does this initiatory threshold we're crossing as a species mean for the nuts and bolts of our daily lives? What does it mean for him, personally? Questions like: Where to live? How to invest? Healing childhood wounds? Raising a family?   Here are some quotes from our conversation: "If we think of religions like languages — one language is not better or worse than another, but languages reveal different things about what it means to be human. Now we're living at a time where all of those streams are converging." "I'm in a phase of strengthening the vessel — getting my home life in order, doing my therapy, healing those early childhood wounds, to be a channel for all of the goodness to come through me that I sense is possible." "How does leveraging or investing in a kind of transformation of consciousness give us the best chance to navigate this great transition skillfully and successfully — to steward that process in a positive direction?"   Timestamps: 00:00 — Welcome to this conversation with Michael Stern 01:02 - Defining the "Great Transition" and its various names 02:17 - The meta crisis and our unprecedented acceleration of change 05:12 — "The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed" — the spectrum from collapse to breakthrough 07:13 - Leveraging consciousness transformation to steward the transition 08:44 - The importance of inner practices for resilience and response 10:12 — Trans lineage planetary spirituality: religions as languages 14:45 - Re-centering the sacred: Post-secular spirituality and integrating diverse wisdom traditions 17:15 - The metaphor of spiritual and systemic birth and maturation 23:27 - The importance of collective, ritual spaces for grief and healing 25:04 — The expansive notion of social change work: breaking cycles, worldview shifts, inner work 29:28 — The nuts and bolts: where to live, how to invest, knowing your neighbors 32:08 — Finding the others: why community is non-negotiable 34:14 — Inside the Emerging Leaders Project: the three keys to intentional community 37:00 — Our relationship with the world as a living being; personal optimism vs. collective pessimism 48:58 — Hospicing the dying system while midwifing the new one 50:55 — Why collective experiences must be grieved in collectives: "It's too much for one body" 52:38 - Connecting with Michael and his current projects   Connect with Michael Stern: Website & one-to-one coaching: integralalignment.com Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence courses: danielgolemanemotionalintelligence.com For information on six-day Mahamudra meditation retreats (online and in person), reach out through Michael's website   Teachers & Resources Referenced: Duane Elgin (the great transition, the living universe) — https://duaneelgin.com and the Choosing Earth Project: https://choosingearth.org Charles Eisenstein (Mother Earth to Lover Earth, "the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible") — https://charleseisenstein.org Elisabet Sahtouris, evolutionary biologist — https://www.sahtouris.com Valarie Kaur ("sometimes it's time to push and sometimes it's time to breathe") — https://valariekaur.com bell hooks — https://bellhookscenter.berea.edu (the bell hooks center at Berea College) Otto Scharmer — https://ottoscharmer.com and the Presencing Institute: https://presencinginstitute.org Josh Schrei, The Emerald podcast ("everything that's alive is growing out of the decaying body of what came before") — https://www.themythicbody.com/podcast Our World in Data (surveys on personal vs. collective optimism) — https://ourworldindata.org/optimism-and-pessimism Subscribe to my Substack to get this directly in your inbox. Check out my new book, When the World Hurts   Website: www.wehealforall.com IG: @wehealforall Youtube: @wehealforall

    54 min

  2. Jun 3

    Would A Matriarchy Actually Be Better?

    These times we live in are awakening much-needed cultural conversations about what needs to change. Unfortunately, though, the loudest versions of these cultural conversations tend to be the oversimplified ones. There’s a tendency within the cultural dialogue that happens around social change to swing hard in the opposite direction of what we want to fix. To see a deficit within society, and to conclude that the solution is its mirror image. When I think about this pull - towards black and white thinking, towards clean solutions that are the opposite of the problem - it makes a lot of sense. It feels like a necessary step within a larger process. In this episode,  I unpack the opportunity that these times invite those of us who are called to help guide these cultural conversations and the social awakening that’s fueling them. To offer a spiritually mature lens that takes them out of the binary and towards something more whole and nuanced. I hope you enjoy, and would love to know what you think - what do you see as the evolution of these cultural conversations? Where are they now and where could they go? 00:00 Welcome + what's alive right now: social-spiritual maturity 02:23 - Post-awakening phenomenon: the stage of maturity 03:50 The heat wave and the matriarchy comment 05:00 Feeling the longing underneath — care, relationality, representation 06:50 "Would a matriarchy actually be better?" — when the opposite isn't the answer 08:30 Liz at nineteen: Marxist theory and black-and-white thinking 11:18 How a worldview gets humbled by real life 12:00 The body positivity movement and Gabriella Lascano's NYT piece 16:38 Why the loudest cultural takes are the simplest ones 19:25 Romanticizing what's in deficit 23:26 Humanizing rather than romanticizing Indigenous culture 24:00 Otto Scharmer: taking the best from all the timelines 26:21 Empaths, narcissists, and the savior complex 29:55 Bringing it home: inner worlds shape outer worlds 31:41 Closing reflection Subscribe to my Substack to get this directly in your inbox. Check out my new book, When the World Hurts   Website: www.wehealforall.com IG: @wehealforall Youtube: @wehealforall

    29 min
  3. Learning To Trust What's Ripening In You with Embodiment Teacher Rie Algeo Gilsdorf

    Jun 2

    Learning To Trust What's Ripening In You with Embodiment Teacher Rie Algeo Gilsdorf

    In this conversation, I sit down with Embody Equity founder Rie Algeo Gilsdorf  to explore what it actually means to be in a body, and why that matters for — for us personally and for the work of changemaking. We unpack what embodiment is, really, in a culture that's still new to using the word. And how it isn’t just a practice or tool you do once in a while — like breath work — but is more of a through-line that can inform your consciousness all the time. As I think about our conversation, and the themes that came up, the one that stands out to me is: trust. Trust in the body’s intelligence. Trust that we don’t have to do everything all the time; we don’t have to occupy every lane. Trust that what’s ripening in us is exactly what’s needed, and trust that what’s getting moldy is meant to be on its way out. And trust that what’s softening or becoming less rigid — like what “social change” looks like these days — is doing so for a reason. If you’ve been feeling your own version of that softening, or shifts of any kind, and are in a process of doing something with that — acting from those shifts, bringing them into your life — then this episode is for you. Rie is an embodiment practitioner and teacher, writer of A Compass for the Cultural Intermediary, and founder of Embody Equity. Learn more about her work here.  Subscribe to my Substack to get this directly in your inbox. Check out my new book, When the World Hurts   Website: www.wehealforall.com IG: @wehealforall Youtube: @wehealforall

    47 min

  4. May 6

    How Healing Brings Consciousness Shifts Down To Earth

    We are taking in more of the world right now than at any other point in history — and it's doing something to us. Not just overwhelm and fatigue, but something deeper and more alive. A new kind of social consciousness is bursting forward, trying to take root. What helps this new consciousness actually land, take form, and become something we can live from. In this episode, I explore how embodiment and healing are what bring consciousness shifts down to earth. How building our capacity to be with the heavy, complicated stuff that comes with having our eyes so open — the pain, the moral weight, the disorientation — is what helps this new consciousness actually stabilize and take form. I draw on Dr. Rae Johnson's reframe of embodiment as capacity rather than self-care, Dr. Renée Lertzman's work on the inner dimension of social change, and the parallels between personal awakening and what's happening at the collective level right now. Show notes: 0:00 — Welcome 1:45 — This month's theme: embodiment and consciousness shifts 2:19 — Why I'm doing this one differently 5:09 — What I mean by consciousness 9:22 — What's unique about our awareness right now 12:13 — Awakening comes with grief and cleanup 15:11 — The parallel at the collective level 18:50 — Where embodiment comes in 20:01 — The printing press, abolition, and media opening eyes in mass 24:56 — How many eyes need to open before things change? 26:40 — Dr. Renée Lertzman on the status quo approach to social change 28:46 — It's not about more seeing — it's about supporting what comes with seeing 33:34 — Defining embodiment — Dr. Rae Johnson's "Embodiment Is Not Self-Care" 36:34 — Why this feels like a modern need 38:12 — Bringing consciousness down to earth through healing 43:04 — Insights from trauma studies 44:36 — The aliveness and opportunity in all of this 46:07 — Why rushing to action misses the point 50:39 — Closing and invitation Subscribe to my Substack to get this directly in your inbox. Check out my new book, When the World Hurts   Website: www.wehealforall.com IG: @wehealforall Youtube: @wehealforall

    49 min
  5. From Certainty to Curiosity with Poet Fi Kahani

    Apr 15

    From Certainty to Curiosity with Poet Fi Kahani

    In this episode, I sit down with Fi Kahani — poet, digital nomad, and host of The Sound of Listening podcast — to talk about the practice of not knowing. Fi is someone whose worldview has been scrambled more than once, and instead of retreating, she's made that scramble a way of life. We get into what happened when people she respected came out as Trump voters, what it cost her when a close friendship couldn't survive their differences, and why she puts a disclaimer on her posts calling her own work "likely misinformation, propaganda, opinion, fluff and nonsense." This conversation covers a lot of terrain — from close relationships to the way we show up politically to pet hamsters. We talk about healing as what sustains activism, distress tolerance as a political skill, and what it actually takes to notice your own disgust toward an idea and get curious instead of shutting down. 0:00 Welcome   4:00 Fi's disclaimer: "This post is likely misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, opinion, fluff and nonsense"   6:30 The Yogananda quote — honoring and witnessing without judgment   9:00 Spiritual centrism and political nonduality   11:00 Fi's origin story and having her worldviews scrambled   14:30 Multiple realities and the limits of what we can actually know   15:00 A friendship that fell apart   17:00 Grief and letting things die so new things can come   21:00 Children are wired for justice   22:00 Healing sustains activism, not replaces it   25:00 Going within — the only landscape you can truly know   27:00 "You do not accept reality, so how could you ever accept love?"   31:00 Global shadow work   32:00 Helpful vs unhelpful thoughts   34:00 Noticing disgust toward an opposing idea and getting curious   36:00 Most people are walking the middle path of the extremes they know   39:00 Distress tolerance — from addiction therapy to politics   46:00 Unexpressed anger and the gift inside every emotion   49:00 The limitations of trying to change the world   51:30 Where to find Fi     Looking for community space for your practice of ‘not knowing?’ Join one of my upcoming collective healing Circles. Meditation, storytelling & resonance practice. Learn more here.   This episode is part of my April series on not knowing being a hallmark feature of our times. Subscribe to my Substack to get these directly in your inbox.   Connect with Fi Kahani: Instagram: @thesoundoflistening.podcast Substack: https://thesoundoflistening.substack.com/   Check out my book "When The World Hurts.”Read it here.   Connect with Liz: Substack: wehealforall.substack.com Website: www.wehealforall.com IG: @wehealforall FB: @wehealforall Youtube: @wehealforall Tiktok: @wehealforall Subscribe to my Substack to get this directly in your inbox. Check out my new book, When the World Hurts   Website: www.wehealforall.com IG: @wehealforall Youtube: @wehealforall

    53 min
  6. How to ground yourself in these shaky times

    Apr 8

    How to ground yourself in these shaky times

    Grounding… have you heard of it? My guess is that you have. Maybe in the form of a practice, like a grounding meditation. Or maybe more as a quality: being grounded in how you move about the world. Grounding is so important for the times we live in. But as much as I see it espoused and thrown around (including by yours truly), I don’t see a lot of deep dives breaking down exactly what it is and why it’s needed. So that’s what I’ll do here. Because this month’s theme — the one I’m meditating on and exploring all month — is about the lack of groundedness these times offer us. How the earth beneath our feet is shifting and sliding so much that the majority of us, especially those of us who are paying attention to what’s happening politically, socially, culturally, environmentally, genuinely find ourselves in some version of not knowing these days— what to fully think, who to completely trust, or where we totally fit in. And while that comes with real challenges, it is also laced with opportunity: to use the tide of confusion we’re swimming in to get clearer about what we can root down into, what is unshakable even when everything else trembles, and what we want to carry forward as we co-create the world around us. Below I dig into what grounding is and what we’re culturally up against that makes it so hard. I then offer tips and techniques for your personal practice organized into four buckets: Grounding practices for in the moment (times when you’re overwhelmed or disoriented), Practices that help you get to know what grounding feels like for you, Spiritual or energetic grounding practices, and Practices that support you to ground into your values.   This is a free preview of the guided meditation. To listen to the full thing, become a paid subscriber through my Substack. You can try out a free 7-day trial to get a taste of it. Substack: wehealforall.substack.com Website: www.wehealforall.com IG: @we_heal_for_all FB: @wehealforall Subscribe to my Substack to get this directly in your inbox. Check out my new book, When the World Hurts   Website: www.wehealforall.com IG: @wehealforall Youtube: @wehealforall

    5 min
  7. When Not Knowing Is the Most Honest Place To Be

    Apr 1

    When Not Knowing Is the Most Honest Place To Be

    Our fast-paced, ever-changing world can leave so many of us internally scrambled — without stable footing, unsure of where we stand or where we belong. Maybe that looks like pulling back because you don't think you know enough to participate. Or maybe it looks like the ground shifting under a worldview you've held for years, rocking your sense of self and who your people are. Either way, not knowing is an honest and intelligent response to what's going on these days. It doesn't disqualify you from participating. It means you actually already are. In this episode, I share the story of Ruby, an art teacher whose world got turned upside down when she first really opened her eyes to the reality of racism — and how she came looking for answers but found something much deeper. I explore why we cling to certainty (hint: it's not just about being right — it's about belonging), what grounded flexibility looks like in practice, and why what most of us need right now isn't more information — it's a container.   Timestamps: 0:00 – Welcome + what's coming this month on "not knowing" 3:30 – Ruby's story: wanting answers in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder 6:30 – Why not knowing leaves so many of us stuck 7:30 – Why we cling to certainty — and what it really gives us 9:00 – Not knowing as a hallmark feature of paying attention 10:00 – Grounded flexibility: staying rooted while open to change 11:30 – Living your principles in the gray areas 14:00 – Building our capacity for complexity 15:00 – Why we need containers, not more information 16:00 – What Ruby actually found   Links: Subscribe to my Substack to get this directly in your inbox. Collective Healing Circle — Sunday, April 19 at 6:30 PM ET Free 20-min Resiliency Boost session. Grab a spot here. My book, When the World Hurts   Substack: wehealforall.substack.com Website: www.wehealforall.com IG: @wehealforall Youtube: @wehealforall Tiktok: @wehealforall FB: @wehealforall Subscribe to my Substack to get this directly in your inbox. Check out my new book, When the World Hurts   Website: www.wehealforall.com IG: @wehealforall Youtube: @wehealforall

    18 min
  8. What We're Carrying: A Healing Conversation on Personal and Collective Pain with Ning Tendo

    Mar 18

    What We're Carrying: A Healing Conversation on Personal and Collective Pain with Ning Tendo

    In this episode, I sit down with my dear friend Ning Nintendo — grief specialist, dream yogi, and founder of Multidimensional Mama — whose work helps name deeper layers often held in pain that conventional ways of thinking about emotions often miss. Together we explore the ancestral, intergenerational, and historical dimensions of what so many of us are feeling from the world these days, and ways to work with those layers for our own spiritual health and roles we’re meant to play in the world. This is a conversation about collective grief and collective pain, yes, but it's also about what becomes possible when we stop trying to carry it all alone. Ning shares about how her work with bereaved mothers has taught her about the layers beneath our personal stories — archetypal, ancestral, spiritual. We get into what grounded spirituality looks like in practice; how to tell if what you're feeling is yours or something tied to the collective, how to sit with collective rage without being consumed by it, and why healing in community isn't just nice to have but necessary. If you've been looking for ways to better understand what you’re experiencing these days, grab a cup of tea and join us.   0:00 Welcome and introduction 3:50 The bigness of grief — beyond conventional frameworks 11:00 How collective fields amplify personal pain 17:00 The dark night of the soul at a national level 22:30 How to know when it's collective 32:00 Multidimensional Mama — reclaiming ancient wisdom 35:30 Holding both — opportunity and injustice 38:30 Grounded spirituality and working with rage 44:30 Compassion without erasing accountability 46:00 Why we need collective healing spaces right now 50:00 Spiritual boundaries in healing work 1:00:00 Finding where you fit 1:07:00 Invisible allies and the practice of surrender 1:09:30 Where to find Ning   Join me for community space to collectively heal. If you're looking for a community space to practice these tools in, I have an online collective healing Circle coming up this month. Join and learn more here.   This episode is part of my March series on how personal and collective pain get entangled. I have a guided meditation practice for paid subscribers, followed by more tools and conversations on this theme. Subscribe to my Substack to get these directly in your inbox.   Connect with Ning Tendo: Instagram: @multidimensional.mama Website: https://www.multidimensionalmama.com/   My book "When The World Hurts" is available on Kindle for free for the next month. Read it here.   Connect with Liz: Substack: wehealforall.substack.com Website: www.wehealforall.com IG: @wehealforall FB: @wehealforall Youtube: @wehealforall Subscribe to my Substack to get this directly in your inbox. Check out my new book, When the World Hurts   Website: www.wehealforall.com IG: @wehealforall Youtube: @wehealforall

    1h 12m
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You feel the world deeply — the pain, the injustice, the disorientation of living through so much change. But you also sense possibility. You're someone who cares about what's happening and knows that your inner life is connected to how you show up in the world.. and maybe even more. Maybe you're trying to bridge your spiritual practice with your political values. Maybe you're a helper or a healer. Maybe you don't call yourself a changemaker but the way you live your life says otherwise. If you're called to tend to the opportunity held in the mess then welcome. I'm so glad you're here. You've found yourself in We Heal For All. Hosted by me, Liz Moyer Benferhat — I'm a collective healing practitioner and author of When the World Hurts. With nearly 20 years in sustainable development, I know how much heart goes into caring about our world. That's why in each episode I go deep on topics tied to the emotional and spiritual dimensions of caring about our world. Through conversations, guided practices, and reflections you'll have space to explore your relationship with the world's pain these days, and better understand how what you're feeling is tied to this time of change and the unique role you're meant to play. Thank you, to you and your heart. Let's collectively heal.

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