Ep. 4 - Bridging Healing and Activism (w/ Noëlle Janka)

Transcript

Noëlle Janka: And she was like, the river is filled drop by drop. Do not underestimate the power of doing individual work.

Jeremy Blanchard: Welcome to the Wider Roots podcast. A show about how we can use the power of coaching and personal transformation to help create the world. We most want to live in.

I'm your host, Jeremy Blanchard and today's episode is with my good friend Noëlle. Jenka. She's a politicized career and healing coach dedicated to supporting social change leaders. For the past decade, she has brought together her personal experience, navigating chronic illness with her passion for social justice and transforming systems of oppression. And she recently published her book, Rebel Healing: Transforming the Systems that Make Us Sick.

I had the privilege to be one of the people cheering her on over the last few years as she wrote this book. And one of the things I love about it is the way that she draws this connection between systemic healing and personal healing.

In this episode, Noelle talked about concrete ways coaches can support social change leaders to reconnect with their bodies, their intuition, and a sense of interconnectedness with the whole.

And one of my favorite parts was our conversation about how Noelle embraced her role as a healer within social movements and how she navigates the tension between focusing on one-on-one work versus large scale transformation.

This was actually the first conversation I recorded for the podcast back in November of last year.

I hope that what you get from this episode helps you in your work towards healing and justice. And if you'd like more resources at this intersection of personal and systemic transformation, you can head over to widerroots.com to sign up for the newsletter.

All right. Let's dive in.

[00:02:04] The Root Cause: What inspired you to write Rebel Healing?

Jeremy Blanchard: Well. Hi, Noëlle. Welcome to the podcast!

Noëlle Janka: Thanks Jeremy. It's so great to be glad to

Jeremy Blanchard: So we've been buds for a long time. For I think a decade now. And we've been conspirators on this intersection of coaching and social change, social justice work. And, I wanted to have you on the show because you're one of the thought partners that has been along my side that I've learned a lot from over this time. And, yeah, I just love the way that you bring together something that I'm always striving for in my life, which is that compassionate, heart forward way of being with people in relationship to your work. And also just this fierce dedication to there's a world that needs transforming. Like, there are systems that are not working for most people. And, uh, we gotta do something about it. And I find that those are the people I gravitate towards the most, and part of where our friendship has been for a long time, so.

That's why I'm so glad you're here.

Noëlle Janka: Yeah thank you jeremy, I wouldn't be here without you, so I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful that you made this and that we're still here.

Jeremy Blanchard: Thanks. So, um, can you introduce yourself just a little bit?

Noëlle Janka: Sure. so my name is Noelle Janka. I use she her pronouns. I, was born in Washington DC um, I now live in so called Western Massachusetts on Pocomtuc land, which is a part of the world that I really, really love. And, I have a background in grassroots and political organizing. And, about nine years ago, uh, needed to figure out something different. And with your help, Jeremy, became a coach. And so now I call myself a politicized career and healing coach for social change makers. Um, and I recently, became a published author,

Jeremy Blanchard: Yes, you did.

Noëlle Janka: Releasing my book called Rebel Healing: Transforming Ourselves and the Systems that Make Us Sick. It came out in September.

Jeremy Blanchard: Hell yeah. It's so, um, so exciting to see the book come out. Knowing how much you put into it for so many years and what a, like, true labor of love that this has been. it's like a marker on your journey, um, both as your own healing journey, but also as a coach and as a healer and as someone who's supporting changemakers.

So excited to dig into it more.

Can you share a little bit about what inspired you to write this? How did you know it was time to write a book about this?

Noëlle Janka: That's a good question.

I felt like I needed to write, like, I just needed to write my way out of where I was. And it started by writing, 52 blog posts that were related to healing and coaching. And I thought, Oh, I'll just make those into a book and that'll be easy. And that'll be fun. And then I can share this stuff with the world.

But then I came, became obsessed with this idea of the root cause and how, as somebody who had been sick since I was 15 and, and going to doctor after doctor after doctor for a really long time. Um, I became really frustrated that the doctors, never seemed to be interested in addressing the root cause.

And that just was infuriating. And I noticed like, growing up in DC and like being interested in politics and always thinking about like, what are the policy solutions for the things that people are struggling with in the collective, like, why aren't those addressing the root cause? And I was like, there's got to be some connection here between the root cause issue that I'm experiencing in the medical system or the medical industrial complex, and, you know, what we're experiencing at the policy level. And so. I read, like, a massive stack of books and kept writing about it until I wrote my way into something that turned into the book.

Jeremy Blanchard: Amazing.

Noëlle Janka: Yeah, and I wanted to actually give a shout out to Susan Rappo's book, Liberated to the Bone: History's Body's Futures, because I don't think, it came out in February, and I don't think it's gotten a lot of play, but she really looks at, in a deeper way than I do, and in a more somatic way, how everything is related to, the original genocide of indigenous people and slavery.

We can trace so many of our challenges back to that. And, that's what I was trying to get at a little bit in my book too. I think it's fun to see that there's like a lot of us being like, no, this, like, this is the root, like the root cause is important. We need to be thinking about the root cause. We need to be healing the root cause. So it's just refreshing.

[00:06:41] Doing work for justice with a more regulated nervous system

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah, I know that you have been coaching, changemakers, social change leaders, organizers, activists. You've also been coaching folks with chronic illness, and I know many of the folks you've coached are both right, they're changemakers who have chronic illness.

There's a bunch of quotes that I love from your book, but I want to read one of them. You wrote,

" Prioritizing personal healing supports the paradigm of healing centered change making. Rather than reinforcing the aggressive fight-fight-fight, us-versus-them, work as hard as you possibly can until you can't style of change making. In t_his paradigm, sometimes the change agents begin to resemble the very people and institutions they're fighting against."_

And so in that quote, you're doing this work that I'm super interested in, in this podcast of like, okay, where are these intersections and complementary parts where the personal and the systemic start to like meet each other and influence each other? And I know both of us see this all the time, right? We both know so many organizers who have chronic illness and/or are burnt out, which is related, but different.

I'm just curious how do you think about this? Like do you see this too, this high number of sort of social change oriented folks who get sick? And how do you make sense of that? How do you hold that?

Noëlle Janka: Yeah, I mean, yes, I do see that. That's a lot of times when people come my way, or people who have been in, toxic work environments that have just shredded them to the core. they're like, how do I even survive in this capitalist economy anymore? Because I don't want to work, I don't want to do anything, I don't want to participate in things that cause harm. I don't want to be harmed, you know, so yeah, it's a big thing. Not just the pace of it and the like, the way that it doesn't privilege our nervous systems, right?

Cause it's just like, we got to go, go, go. And there's not a lot of space, but it's like, um, white supremacy culture to the max, right? Like, and, and, but I think a lot of people are also coming from this place of like, I need to do something because of my privilege.

Like I was one of these people, like I need to use my privilege for good. And I don't really matter. And my needs don't really matter because I grew up with everything and I just need to like sacrifice it all For other people, and do think the nervous system thing, though, is one of the the biggest things. Like, it's something that's happening now with so many people protesting, um, cause it, as we're having this conversation. more than 10, 000 people have been killed in Gaza. There's organizing happening all over the world, People are going to protest. So sort of like going back to the original quote, right. I was saying that people can begin to mimic the people. That they're trying to fight against or the, the systems that they're trying to change. It's really hard to be constantly protesting and organizing and not be dysregulated the entire time. Right? And so we're trying to change these dysregulated systems. from a state of dysregulation. And

Jeremy Blanchard: That's right.

Noëlle Janka: so that's part of why I do what I do, because I try to give people the skills to do it from a different place. To do the work from a more regulated place.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah, that really resonates. Yeah, can you talk a little bit more about what that, uh, different place is?

Noëlle Janka: Yeah. I mean, I'm not the expert on like how to design a action that isn't dysregulating. Um, although in the chronic illness community, I've seen like, die ins and lie ins, which is an interesting take on it, right? Like you're literally in the reclined position, just taking up space with your body, um, which I think is different.

But, Yeah, I think it's, it's not that complicated. It's like helping folks be able to read their own systems and be able to notice like, Oh, like I am feeling, you know, these sensations of being upregulated, or I'm feeling really frozen. Like when I work with folks, we look at, okay, so like, how do you read your system and then what, what do you need to shift it?

What might help shift it? What do you do when you can't shift it? How do you bring people in? How do you build a support network? How do you build a network so that at any given time you can call somebody? And they can just come hold you or like, they can give you energy work? I think part of what I'm trying to do and what you're trying to do and what other people are trying to do is, is rebuild the web of connection that we've lost over the last few generations, you know, like, and, and as social capital has declined and social media has risen, like, how do we find each other again?

How do we feel each other again? How do we feel? The connection with the trees, I think that's the most important thing we can do right now. especially for middle class white people. But also, but for everybody, you know, like how do we, how do we find, our connections to the earth, to the divine, to each other, to our bodies.

To our ancestors, like how do we place ourselves in the system, in the web so that we understand that we're not alone and so that we have people and beings that we can co regulate with,

Jeremy Blanchard: And it's choosing to, um, recognize that there's an interplay between, where you're resourcing yourself and the work you're doing for systemic change, right? that when we opt just for the systemic, Change side just for change making just for movement work just for organizing at our own expense all day We're gonna lose it.

We're not gonna stay in it. we're gonna burn out we're not gonna be able to keep contributing

Noëlle Janka: Yeah,

Jeremy Blanchard: just to riff on something ago, what are the, ways in protests that we can design to have regulated nervous systems. And I'm remembering back to one of my very first direct actions as a young climate activist in, in college. It was at PowerShift 2013, I think, and I got invited to, uh, Quaker direct action from Earth Quaker Action Team.

And, was not at all familiar with the Quaker tradition, but they were doing a sit in at a bank that was funding mountaintop removal. And it was my first experience of, like, a spiritually grounded activist anything. Everything up until then had just been like, just, you know, the sort of fire hose intensity energy.

And in the Quaker tradition as my first encounter with it, but we sat in silence. for ten minutes. there was, you know, there were some words spoken, but it was this very, like, we were like, ground, ground, ground, ground, before going out. And I could feel it as we were walking out, I was like, oh, we are like, really together, but we're not together out of this activated, you know, there was a fire there, but it was a really rooted fire, instead of it just sort of chaos energy that propels you forward.

Noëlle Janka: Yeah. That's really beautiful. Thank you for sharing that story. And I think, I mean there's

even small tweaks like, instead of yelling something, if people are singing it

Jeremy Blanchard: yeah,

Noëlle Janka: That could change it. You know, like, it, doesn't maybe necessarily have to like all be like this big thing. And I hope that nobody thinks I'm shitting on protests because that's not my, that's not my intention. I just think there's ways that we can do it a little bit differently.

[00:13:45] Preventing burnout: Coaching can be about doing less, not more

Jeremy Blanchard: I'm curious, you know, thinking of the ways in which social change and chronic illness can go together, right? There's this theme of burnout, there's this theme of, overextending ourselves. To add the coaching element into this. I'm curious if you have any thoughts on like. How you've seen coaching with your clients maybe like prevent some of that or keep away from some of the worst impacts that could have led to worse illness. I think that's both of our visions is that we, we don't have to have as many sick, burnt out changemakers.

Noëlle Janka: Yeah, I mean, that's why I hired you as a coach so many years ago. So I was like, I can't keep burning out. Like, this isn't cool. There's got to be another way.

And it turns out there is, which is great.

I think a lot of times when we talk about coaching generally, like in the coaching industry, it's about supporting people to do things that they want to do or to do the things that they're not doing to get out of their own way so they could do the things they want to do. And I think a lot of times when I'm working with folks with health challenges, It's actually about like, what do you need to stop doing?

Right? You need to stop pushing. You need to stop collapsing. And like, not that I would ever say those things to people, but those are some of the patterns that show up. Or like, you need to stop trying to do seven million things at once, and like see that like. Life will go on if you do half as much, you know, um, and Part of that is unlearning whatever conditioning or stories are causing that.

Sometimes that's addressing trauma, which I'm not a trauma therapist, so sometimes I have to send people somewhere else, but sometimes it's also just making space for folks to notice the impact of some of the ways that they've been being, right. So there's a lot of crying.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah. Can you give an example of that last piece there? Like that way of being, or that way of doing that's something they haven't experienced?

Noëlle Janka: It could look like pulling somebody in to do a task with them and getting that person to help them just like do the thing and not worry about the quality of it and just be done with it as a way to keep the perfectionism monsters away.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah, I mean definitely one of these intersections between this like personal and systemic that I see is the way our individualist culture wants us to do everything on our own, right?

How am I overworking, overextending leading towards burnout? How do I learn to not pretend that I am this isolated thing and play into the capitalist myth of separation and individual success and productivity?

Noëlle Janka: Yeah, and I mean, I see it even with folks who aren't sick, like there's so much magic and just going somewhere and doing things with people.

I can't tell you how many times I work with my clients and I'm just like, okay, what would like you say, you want to do this thing? What would make that sweeter or more fun or make you more likely to do it and nine times out of 10, it's to do with other people, even if that means just going to the library to do it.

And I think that's because we're social beings and even in the basics of polyvagal theory, right, one of the physiological states is called social engagement. We need social engagement to be regulated And like, it's so easy to forget that. because they don't teach us that in kindergarten, you know, maybe they do now, but they certainly didn't when I was in kindergarten.

[00:17:23] Healing: 30% repair, 70% transformation

Noëlle Janka: I just think that's so, it's just so important. And it sounds simple but it's so powerful.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

I want to read another quote from you. It's one of my favorite quotes from the book, that impacted me a lot.

You wrote, "Healing doesn't look like getting back to the way things were before, the way things were before made you sick. Healing is seeing clearly what does not serve you, and being willing to switch up anything that is in your control."

And that just resonates a lot with me, looking at my own, um, healing, mental health difficulties have come up.

And, um, I've definitely bought into this view of healing of like, I felt better before I want to get back to before. And this idea, this forward looking interpretation of healing really strikes me. And it feels like a very coach y way of holding healing. It's like, you're have a, possibility orientation, like a almost a transformational view on what healing can be.

So curious if there's anything more you want to say about that.

Noëlle Janka: Yeah, well something, this definition of healing I've been working with actually since putting out the book is that **healing is **really **like, 30% **percent **repair and like 70% **percent **transformation. **

And I think that really works for every definition of healing. Whether like, on the personal level, physical healing, spiritual healing, emotional healing, and then on the collective level too. And yeah, I just, I hear it so much, people being like I just want to feel better again, I just want to feel the way that I did and that might be possible, you know, but like, it's, it's also just important to recognize that where we came from, like those are the conditions that created the challenges that we're facing, both on the personal and the, collective level.

You know, another thing I talk about a lot in the book is visioning. And I think that's where visioning can be really useful because it's really easy to be like, well, if I can't go back to where I was then where the hell am I going? And that's really scary. And, Um, I think that's something that, that helps us personally and collectively, like dreaming together. Okay. So if the medical industrial complex is killing people and keeping us sick and just like not that helpful for most things, then what do we want instead?

Like what does that look like?

Hopefully this is changing, but like when I was a young organizer, we didn't do a lot of collective dreaming. You know, it was just like, we need to change this policy right now, or like, we need to stop climate crisis right now. And it's like, okay, great, but what are we moving towards? So how do we personally and collectively dream outside of that is I think, an important thing to be looking at.

And, even if it's at the personal level, like again, a really great place to pull other people in. Like, Hey buddies, like, this is what I think I want my life to look like. What do you think? You know? And then when a bunch of people are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it makes it more possible.

Jeremy Blanchard: This weekend I was at, uh, a four day somatics course with Strozzi Institute and, was having a conversation about how do we bring others in to determining our role within the collective change?

Noëlle Janka: Mmm.

Jeremy Blanchard: Right? Like, if I see that there's something I want to learn about creating a multiracial democracy, how can I go to the people who are much further ahead of me on that change path and say, hi, I'm interested in being here. I'm interested in showing up, here's the skills I have. Instead of me solely deciding like, well, I think I can fit in here. It's like, these people actually know the terrain more. It's like a strategy conversation. Like what would be strategic for me? Where can I be placed? you know, where, how would you, uh, advise me to place myself within this work? And there's something so like rich there that's, it's like a, It's again, it's like removing the individualist tendencies. You know, you and I have both done lots of visioning activities and like, I'm gonna go sit down with me and my journal and I'm gonna write out my vision for my life. Right? And instead exactly what you're talking about, how can we vision, but with others, even if it's about our, our role, but we're doing it immediately held in a collective and systemic container.

Noëlle Janka: Yeah, 100%. I think it's Yeah. good strategy.

[00:21:51] Serving 1-on-1: Embracing the role of healer within social movements

Jeremy Blanchard: Cool. I'm Curious to talk about, so we're both coaches among many other roles that we both hold. You and I both work on a one on one, or on a small group or training workshop level. I'm curious, there's like this contradiction here, this tension that exists that I see between the individual level , where we're really getting to be with one person and the exact support they need to go through their next level of growth to show up for their life and their change making work. And then this desire for systemic change, like you and I are both holding a systemic view of things.

And so I'm curious like, how do you hold both of these? How do you think about these?

Noëlle Janka: Yeah. Well, I think I want to shout out a couple resources first, and then I can share my story. So Deepa Iyer's Social Change Map is really, really cool. I use it with clients and friends a lot and it shows like all the different roles that are necessary in a movement for social change to be successful.

And one of them is healer, And I think that's where I've landed. But there's also weavers and storytellers. I mean, there's a bunch of different roles.

And then this book actually just came out by Omkari Williams, Microactivism, How you can make a Difference in the World Without a Bullhorn. And she has something similar. She has like different archetypes to help you figure out like, how is the way that I am going to make change?

And I think that both Deepa Iyer's social change map and this book are really important right now as people are figuring out, okay, like, what am I going to do about Palestine? Like I want to do something and I don't, so I just wanted to

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah And we'll put the links in the show notes.

Noëlle Janka: Yeah. But it is something that I struggle with. I got into student student organizing in college, both political organizing and, uh, worked on a living wage campaign. I do really appreciate that style and that approach to making change, it's so powerful. It's such a great thing to do in community. It can be so effective. It can be so strategic. Like campaigns are such a rush. You know, like I worked on the first Obama campaign and it was like one of the coolest things I've ever done. It was super amazing. Um, and afterwards I was in, I was sick in bed for four days and it was like some of the sickest I've ever been.

So like at a certain point I had to recognize that like, that wasn't working for me. And you know, you and I had the privilege of being in the emergent strategy ideation institute with adrienne maree brown in Detroit. And I sort of went into that event being like, I'm gonna let this event help me see where my place in the movement is. And, uh, we ended up breaking into groups. My group ended up being like 50% percent healers. And I left that event in that experience being like, okay, like my role in the movement is as a healer, like whether I want to accept that or not.

Still a few years later I applied to graduate school to get a master's in public administration because I was like, I got to do the policy work. I have to work at the collective level. And then I got accepted into graduate school and I had this crisis because the only way I was going to be able to do it would have required me to quit coaching for two years.

And I realized that like, I didn't know if I could do that. Like, it just felt so important to me to be able to work with people one-on-one.

And I had this incredibly powerful conversation with LaTosha Brown who, co founded the Black Voters Matter project. And I was like, Latasha I can't decide whether I need to work at the individual level or the collective level. And I thought that she was going to talk me into doing collective work because of what she does.

And she was like the river is filled, drop by drop. Do not underestimate the power of doing individual work. She was like, we need both. And she's like, **if this is your spot, then this is your spot. And you need to know that it's just as powerful as if you were leading like hundreds of thousands of people. **

And that really did it for me. I was like, okay, if LaTosha Brown is telling me that I can lean into doing individual work, then, then that's what I'm going to do.

And I really do think everybody has a calling and a role and like a place where their individual skills and experience are most useful and it's only by saying yes to our gifts and what we're being called to do, that we're really going to make the change that we want to make. So I think people forcing themselves into one box or another, us included is not being of service.

And saying yes to the thing that we're being called to do, even when it feels hard. you know. I, I hope it doesn't take everybody 20 years to figure it out like it did for me. But if it takes that or more like, God bless you, keep going, figure it out .

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah. that resonates a lot. You know, I know it's something I've struggled with a lot and I imagine anyone who's considering any kind of one on one or small group, smaller scale as their primary mode in how they're serving, struggles with this too.

Especially having the background in community organizing that we do where, we're rooted in this mindset of like, we know that change needs to happen through social movements and social movements changing policies and norms.

That's the scale of change we need to address the problems that we're in. And so I think we share this, and I think so many people listening probably encounter this too. There's this question of like, you know, where are we going? Is it working right? It brings up these bigger, almost existential questions of like Ultimately being very small, right? This kind of contradiction of like trying to make a meaningful, sizable impact and also recognizing our like relative insignificance as any single individual within a larger whole.

So yeah, I hear you.

Noëlle Janka: Yeah, and I mean, I think the way I like to think about it is going back to the collective nervous system piece. Like the more people, the more individual nervous systems inside of our collective nervous systems that feel resourced, that are more resilient, that can experience a trauma and come back from it more quickly, then that resources the collective. I've, I've seen it within organizations, you know, like one person on a team can change and then everybody's like, Ooh, tell me about that. What's happening there? And it's like they don't necessarily all need to get coached or all need to do years of deep internal work for that to have a really big impact.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

[00:28:28] Coaching Technique: Reconnecting with body wisdom and intuition in coaching

Jeremy Blanchard: One of the things I'm curious about is what are some ways that you bring this systemic change orientation into your coaching? You know, you and I were both trained in a coaching model and most coaches are trained in coaching models that have little to no awareness of systemic factors. I'm sure there's lots of ways that you do this, but curious to hear one or two that you might want to share.

Noëlle Janka: Yeah, so with every client, we have a whole session dedicated to just screaming "smash the patriarchy!" and just like Yeah, That's good. Can you put a demo video online? Get a sample client. I'm down I'll be your demo client.

Okay, That'll be my next reel Instagram.

Yeah, it's a lot of things. I think it's a two pronged approach, which builds off of the coaching model we were trained in, but just kind of, tweaks it a little bit. So one of the things, you know, we do as coaches is we help people see what are the internal conversations that are getting in the way.

You know, sometimes they're called self limiting conversations, or monkey mind. I think it can, in some cases, be useful when those conversations to come up to be able to label them together. Like, oh, and that's internalized ableism. Or that's internalized fat phobia, or that's internalized capitalism telling me that like, if I'm not productive, I'm worthless, or I'm nothing. That's one side of it.

But I think the more impactful side, this may be less obvious maybe even harder to talk about because it just feels like magic sometimes is really supporting people to to re-root, you know, like we were talking about earlier, to reconnect, to reconnect with themselves, to reconnect with, whatever you want to call it, spirit, source, the collective.

So some of what I do with folks is, supporting them to tap into their bodies and their intuition. Like, I did it with a client this morning. And so they've been experiencing a lot of grief. And I was like, okay, lay down, get yourself comfy, and we're going to ask your body some questions. And the way that I think about intuition, voice of wisdom, whatever you want to call it, is that when we're consulting, that we are consulting this vast algorithm that includes the wisdom of the earth, the wisdom of our ancestors, just like so much more than what we can hold in our beautiful little brains. So I think that's part of the work, too, is just getting people, in that connection again and in the practice of consulting that connection.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah. I'm curious if we can build on that a little bit more. So we've got these two dimensions, right? First dimension is let's name systems of domination, separation and oppression that are showing up.

I think it's like rampant in any kind of healing circles that we, we talk about it as great let's look at your internal narrative. Okay. That's your internal narrative. We're not even talking about where it came from, but implicitly it's sort of a you thing.

Like you, you've got this internal narrative, right? Like, you know, and it's not therapy. So we're not going to talk about where it came from in your childhood, but, you know, we're just going to kind of leave it at it's inside you, right?

And you're, you're naming this first really important piece of, okay let's name that you actually didn't come up with this narrative, at least most of it probably. This is patriarchy. This is white supremacy, right? This is ableism.

What do you see when you do that for folks? Like what tends to happen?

Noëlle Janka: Yeah, it kind of depends on. Where people are at, like in their own understanding of power and domination in this country or like how much they've thought about some of these things. Because sometimes I can be like does that smell like anything to you and they're like, yeah, white supremacy culture. And then it's like, really quick. And it's like, well, obviously like I don't want to be doing that.

But sometimes it's more of a conversation of like, you know, I could be full of shit, but I think maybe some of this is internalized ableism. Like, do you want to take a look at that together?

And, I think what's useful about naming it for folks is that when they see it, it's become so much easier to let it go. And they become so much more inspired to lean into what's actually true for them.

And I think it's, it's also like you were pointing out, it being a you thing. You know, like we don't need to be putting more stuff on people, making them feel bad about who they are and how their brains work and all that kind of thing. And I, I think it's helpful for people to see like, that's not me. That's not me. Like I was just programmed with that and that's really not me. And it's not true. I'm not trying to follow that.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah, yeah. And it's it also in my experience, cause I do this with my clients as well, you don't have to fix it as much either. Right. I think when it's easy to get fixated, on like, oh, well I've got this thing, this, this place my mind goes, that causes me to, things get harder, I get stuck, or I get stopped, I hold back. Um, okay, well, what do I do about it? You know, I kind of need to, I need to figure out a thing or technique or strategy or change it or whatever, whatever sort of default tendency is about how to address something like that coming up. When you name like, yeah, well does this sound like internalized patriarchy?

Patriarchal culture tells us da da da da da. Sounds like I'm hearing some of that in this. Does that resonate at all? Suddenly it's like, oh yeah, right. Great. And at least in my experience, most of the time people aren't like, great, what do I do about that? Like, as an internal personal thing, what do I do about that?

It's kind of like, right, that was never me in the first place. It's not like a me thing that I have to then go do something about. It's just like conditioning I've received.

Noëlle Janka: Mhmm.

[00:34:25] Noëlle's sources of inspiration

Jeremy Blanchard: Well our time is drawing to a close in a few minutes here, but as we uh, start to wrap up, I'm curious to hear what's been feeding you, like, where have you been getting sources of inspiration, that you might want to recommend to our listeners? Whether that's books, poems, thought leaders, podcasts.

Noëlle Janka: Yeah. For folks with health challenges who also have a creative side or a crafty side, I want to recommend, uh, Jenni Grover, J E N N I. She's @CoachJenniGrover on Instagram, and she's been a chronic illness coach longer than me. She's ten years ahead of me, and she's specifically right now, a wellness coach for makers. She also has a book called Chronic Babe 101 about how to live an awesome life with chronic illness. And she's just a delight and she, I don't know, she keeps me going.

Do you know, uh, Bernadine Evaristo? She's written a bunch of books. Girl, Woman, Other is maybe her most famous. Girl, Woman, Other, is like one of the coolest books I've ever read, in part because of the way that it's written, like the punctuation, it's like written like poetry and every chapter is the story of a different woman. And it goes like all across generations, nationalities, races, etc. It's just an incredible work of art.

And then, her other book about her own experience is just so sweet and so inspiring. Like you and I are big on like, uh, sticky notes, we've talked about this. Like putting our goals on sticky notes and she had one that said, um, I'm gonna win the Booker Prize. And she did recently! She got accepted alongside Margaret Atwood. And I just think that's way cool. I just, I really, I've been really appreciating recently like artists' dedication to their craft and just knowing like, this is what I'm here to do and nothing else matters.

And I've just been thinking about that a lot and trying to embrace that in my own life.

Jeremy Blanchard: Hell yeah Thank you .

Noëlle Janka: Yeah Do you have any on your plate right now?

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah. Wildchoir just came out with their EP album. And it's this incredible spiritual social change choir music. With this really beautiful justice orientation.

Noëlle Janka: Thanks for sharing.

[00:36:52] Closing

Jeremy Blanchard: So um where can folks connect with you and keep learning from you?

Noëlle Janka: Yeah. noellejanka.com, noellejanka on Instagram. LinkedIn, if that's your speed. Um, and then the book, Rebel Healing is available wherever books are sold online and in some bookstores and libraries.

Jeremy Blanchard: Thank you so much for being here, for chatting and, uh, so, so grateful to be buddies on this path together. So. Thanks, friend.

Noëlle Janka: It's so nourishing and so joyful for me. Thank you, Jeremy.

Jeremy Blanchard: Thank you so much for listening and thanks to Noel for sharing her wisdom and expertise here. Check out the show notes for links to the resources that Noelle mentioned and other ways to connect with her.

Episode five comes out in two weeks with nonviolence trainer and activist. Kazu Haga.

Kazu Haga: And so I think so much of the work that we need to do starts within our own movement spaces of like, how do we create that culture where even if I do or say the worst possible thing, I know that I still belong because it's the way that the universe is structured, right? There's nothing outside of belonging.

And so how do we give people that felt sense?

Jeremy Blanchard: So make sure to subscribe in your podcast app of choice so you can catch that episode and all the future ones.

If you'd like to tap into the resources I've collected are around personal and systemic transformation, please head over to widerroots.com to sign up for the free newsletter.

If you have any questions or topics that you would love to see us cover on the podcast, you can email me podcast@widerroots.com. And you can follow the podcast on Instagram at widerrootspod.

Special thanks to Josh, Jessica, Kristen, Lilah and Ben for offering feedback on this episode.

And a big thanks to Wildchoir for the theme music for this show. You're currently listening to their song, remember Me, which will play us out.

See you next time. Alright. ready.

I don't know why I'm gonna count myself down.

Noëlle Janka: Can't wait for the  blooper video

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah, There's going to be a blooper reel at the end for sure.