This January we’ll be welcoming our second kiddo into our family! Another baby girl. Lila (my first born) is so excited, and Anees and I are very grateful to welcome this little being into our fam. We’re already sensing a lot of effervescent energy from her. Life will be full and exhausting, no doubt.

What does that mean for this space? You’ll see me in your inbox throughout the Fall (or Spring, if you’re joining me from the Southern Hemisphere) and then quieter in the new year. You can expect me to poke my head back out from newborn land in the Summer 2027. Ready for new episodes, Circles, and live offerings.

What’s coming up this Fall for the podcast? I have a rich line up of conversations, practices, and reflections ready for you over the next few months. Think soulful culture change.. grounded spiritual practice.. deep unflinching looks at what’s happening and what’s possible. I’m excited for it! Get ready to be inspired and moved.

Give this work some love ❤️ If you like my content and have gotten something from it — it’s moved you, supported you in some way — then please rate and review We Heal For All: The Collective Healing Podcast on Apple or Spotify. This helps the podcast find its way to more people. Letting the algorithm gods know it’s worth checking out.

An audiobook clip too good not to share…

Ahh “cutting your darlings.” A term every author knows well. They’re the parts of your book you love but that don’t make the final cut.

This is one of them - audiobook style!

It’s part of Chapter 3: What We’re Living Through, exploring ways people cope with the pain of the world, and the intelligence behind these responses (even when they’re less than ideal or unhealthy). I hope you enjoy.

When the World Hurts audiobook will be live and ready for you this Fall 2027! Keep an eye out for more shares and updates

Conversations worth checking out

I’ve been doing my rounds — interviews and conversations on the nature of these times, and how our inner worlds are inextricable tied to it all, and what an asset that can be. Here are highlights:

Collective Healing as a Leadership Strategy — Emotional Intelligence (EI): A Force For Good series

A series from the Daniel Goleman EI Course team, this conversation and workshop is for you if you’re interested in the role emotions play in leadership and organizations — moving beyond seeing them as a hindrance towards organizational data that can be tapped into.

What is Collective Pain and Why Is It Relevant? Bloom Tampa Bay

Bloom Tampa Bay WFLA had me on to talk collective pain - what is it and why does it matter? Hosted by Amber Freeman, a quick segment on how the times affect us and the steps we can take to turn that into something useful.

When the World Hurts: How Emotional Resilience Helps Us Heal | Happiness on Tap podcast

Hosted by holistic health coach Leann Herron. A conversation on how healing creates culture change. Listen here

How Empaths Can Stop Absorbing the World’s Pain: Emotional Healing & Self-Compassion | Joyful Mate podcast

Hosted by wellness coach Anthony Hatcher. A conversation on how to turn sensitivity into a trained skill. Listen here

What you will see from me are recent podcast episodes I was privileged to be featured on — interviews and the like. Starting with this one:

Collective Guidance Podcast with host Charla Goodnight

Climate Anxiety, Political Grief & Empath Burnout — A Healer's Guide

In addition to having just one of the coolest names, Charla Goodnight was such a gracious, generous host. A beautiful space holder, which makes all the difference when we’re going deep on a topic like collective grief — what it is and how to constructively work with it.

We covered a lot of terrain. Some of the highlights were:

• The difference between personal grief and collective grief

• How doom scrolling and 24/7 news cycles affect the nervous system

• The power of collective healing Circles vs. processing grief alone

• Cognitive empathy vs. somatic/affective empathy

• Collective consciousness and how our individual healing shapes it

• And more…

You can check it out through the video above or wherever you listen to podcasts:

Apple

Spotify

Amazon

YouTube

P.S. My fellow audiobook listeners, save the date!

Coming out this October - When the World Hurts Audiobook edition!

I’m knee deep in post-production of my audiobook, When the World Hurts. Picking the right meditative tracks, making sure all of the reflection prompts sound right..

You are going to LOVE this audiobook. It is truly one-of-a-kind and coming together so beautifully.

For those who have been meaning to read the book, but know that, well, life is life, and sitting down to read can feel like a luxury. Or those of you who just really enjoy a good, immersive audiobook - this is for you!

Narrated by yours truly. Check out a sample of Chapter 1 here:

Your monthly round-up of all things collective healing here at We Heal For All. Plus other exciting updates and reflection prompts for your own giving journey.

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Thank you, News 12 Be Well for having me on your show!

Welp, this was super cool. New York’s local news channel News 12 had me on their Be Well program with Kristie Reeter to talk about the healing power of friends. We talked community, what keeps us from reaching out, how to support our loved ones even when we disagree, and more.

I’m so grateful to connect We Heal For All’s work with more people like this! Celebrating 🎉

A recap of this month’s theme:

Becoming exquisitely skilled givers

This month I went deep on the topic of being a giver & and becoming a skilled one. How in a world that loves to take, those of us naturally oriented to give need to get super skilled at it so we don’t get swallowed up and can actualize our gifts. Here are the conversations and reflections that came from it:

CONVERSATION

REFLECTION

PRACTICE

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SUMMER READING LIST

Looking for your next good read?

Grab a copy of my award-winning book, When the World Hurts — a guide to collective healing that’s rooted in a spirit of love for these times and the roles we’re meant to play in it, as well as grounded opportunity.

Get your copy and enjoy today!

Reflection prompts

For your personal practice as a giver

What if becoming a skilled giver isn’t about giving more, but about being willing to look honestly at the way you go about doing the giving?

This kind of introspection is rarely comfortable.. but it’s always oh so good. It asks us to get curious about the parts of us that we’d rather not look at but that are ready to change.

Maybe it’s related to your relationships - romantic, friendship - or maybe it’s tied to your work - as a changemaker, helper.

The invitation here is to create space for your own journey as a giver and ask yourself:

• What edges and curiosities are you up against these days?

• What just plainly isn’t working anymore - because it depletes you, it gets you in tricky situations - that you know you need to change?

• What’s itching to evolve? What can you sense is past its time and ready to change?

Begin by finding some quiet (close your eyes, put down your phone) and take a few rounds of nice deep breath.

Turn your attention to your body and inner world, allowing it to slow down with you, letting it know you’re creating space for your relationship with giving.

Then bring a specific instance or question to mind. Maybe it’s related to your job - ways you’re working 3 roles for little pay - or maybe it’s related to that family member who you’re always helping - ways it depletes you or makes you invisible.

As you do, notice what arises in your body and inner world. Without turning away from it, changing it, or making sense of it - begin by just noticing what arises for you. Staying curious.

Remaining grounded in your body (feet on the floor, sit bones on a seat) stay here in this space of curiosity and exploration for as long as it’s interesting. Maybe waves of sensation or emotion rise and fall. Maybe images or memories surface. Allow this to be natural and well-supported.

When you feel ready, bring your sense making tools back into the mix. Grab a journal, call up a friend, create art. Allow what you sensed to take form in some way that supports you.

*If at any point you experience overwhelm that makes it hard to re-find a sense of calm or groundedness, step back from the practice and reach out to an emotionally-safe other (friend, family, therapist, coach) to help you hold what came up. This is very normal and just means you need extra support (which we all do at different parts of our journeys).

Sending love to you and your exploration.

Tomorrow I’m honored to be presenting Collective Healing as a Leadership Strategy as part of Emotional Intelligence (EI): A Force For Good, a live event series from the Daniel Goleman EI courses.

About the session

Collective Healing as a Leadership Strategy

EI: A Force For Good, a live event series from the Daniel Goleman Courses

We invite you to a 90-minute conversation with Liz Moyer Benferhat, founder of We Heal For All and author of When the World Hurts: Why the World's Pain Makes Sense, and What You Can Do About It.

This session is for organizational leaders and executive coaches. Together, we will explore an important question: How can we help those we lead and coach face fear, grief, and uncertainty in ways that build resilience and clarity instead of leading to burnout?

Drawing on nearly two decades in sustainable development and her collective healing framework, Liz makes the case that our emotions aren't obstacles to be managed but rather carry a deeper, adaptive intelligence — one that can guide how teams and leaders navigate complexity, change, and purpose-driven work. When we learn to work with that intelligence rather than avoid it, emotional avoidance no longer undermines strategy, and emotional literacy begins to accelerate it.

Please note: This live event will include a centering practice and a breakout session, giving you a chance to participate and practice.

What You'll Learn:

• The Deeper Intelligence of Difficult Emotions: Learn how to help your teams and clients face fear, grief, anger, and overwhelm not as problems to fix, but as signals that show what matters most and what needs to change.

• Facilitating Collective Emotional Processing: Discover how to handle complexity and create psychological safety around difficult feelings. This way, shared grief, stress, and urgency can turn into strategic clarity and shared purpose instead of exhaustion.

• Inner Development for Sustainable Impact: Find out why our own inner growth is closely linked to the changes we want to make in the world, and how to build organizations where people can do meaningful work for the long term without burning out.

Register here to join

Enjoying these? Then give them some love by liking, subscribing, or forwarding to a friend. Your support means a lot.

Over tarot cards and tasty beers…

Every summer since college I’ve gone on a soul-nourishing camping trip with one of my oldest, dearest friends: Emily Holmes.

We call it Women in the Woods. A chance to leave our bras at home, pack the bare minimum, and go and just be in nature together for a few days.

Over tarot cards and tasty beers, we talk—for hours—tending to the campfire as we do.

If you were a fly on a tree or a chipmunk nearby, one of the recurring conversations you would hear us go deep on are the questions of:

How do we as open-hearted people give in a world that loves to take?

How do we do so in a way that’s healthy? That’s life-giving? That keeps us rooted in the work and roles we love, and also planted in the need to be well-fed, everyday humans as we do?

Which is the conversation I’m sharing with you here today.

Emily Holmes is a very special, gifted human. Someone who epitomizes what it means to be a “giver.” Naturally connection-oriented, she has channeled those gifts into being a mental health counselor, working with kids with disabilities, now helping to coordinate services for families. As an adjunct professor at the University of Scranton, she now mentors young people going in the field. And on any given day you’ll find her volunteering at a local community event, throwing a party for one of her cousins, or just being there for the ones she loves.

Join us in this fireside chat where we share the journeys we’ve been on and are still on in exploring these questions of how to be exquisitely skilled givers.

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About the Episode

In this conversation, Emily and I explore what it means to be a “giver:” someone wired to help and to feel deeply, and how to refine that into a real craft — make it something skilled, effective, and life-giving rather than depleting.

Emily shares the mentors who shaped her, including Jerome, the group counselor who threw her into the deep end of the work and taught her to read a room like a conductor. We dig into the tender, complicated parts of being heart-centered in a demanding world: the porousness of empathy and the struggle to know “what’s mine and what’s someone else’s,” how the pull of perfectionism is tied to burnout, and how a savior complex can hide inside even our best intentions.

Along the way we reframe self-care as something far grittier than bubble baths — the willingness to sit in your own muck with people who can help you find the gold in it — and land on a surprisingly grounded meditation on hope: how it comes and goes, why its absence isn’t the end, and what it means to feel it return with a little more wear and wisdom under your belt.

This is a conversation for you if you’re someone who gives a lot, feels a lot, and is learning how to do both in a way that actually gives you life.

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What’s Here

00:00 — Welcome: Liz and Emily on capturing a conversation years in the making

02:10 — Planting the seed: mentorship, and why receiving is complicated for givers

03:13 — Why mentors have been the most critical part of Emily’s life as a giver

07:48 — Baptism by fire: high-intensity settings and learning how little you know

11:22 — Empathy as a skill: learning how to track dynamics and use it in your work

12:16 - The empathic gift of sensing others and the reality of it being exhausting

17:17 — The image of “feeling without skin”: the porousness of empathy

21:11 — An under-acknowledged gift: building the awareness and tools to work with it

23:32 — The Enneagram Two: The helper’s evolution toward the artist

27:08 — Giving that depletes vs. giving that feeds you: self-orientation as medicine

32:00 — Mentoring young people going into counseling: burnout and perfectionism

36:26 — High standards vs. perfectionism, the savior complex, and honoring our humanity

42:12 — Actualizing our gifts as an act of resistance: why tending to ourselves is an act of service

45:29 — Self-care that isn’t fluffy: sitting in the muck and finding the gold

48:15 — A community of helpers: passing it down and looking out for each other

53:07 — Hope: how it comes and goes, and why its absence isn’t the end

59:42 — Closing: find the person you can walk through this life with

Connect with Emily Holmes, CRC, LPC, LIMHP

Emily Holmes is a licensed counselor and Certified Rehabilitation Counselor who works with children with disabilities and has walked alongside people facing homelessness, addiction, and recovery. Much of her work today is spent supporting the helpers themselves — she supervises and mentors a team of therapists, counselors, and social workers — and she teaches the next generation of counselors as an adjunct professor at the University of Scranton’s Counseling and Human Services program. As a Certified Sound Bowl Healer through the Vibrational Sound Association, she brings a holistic, whole-person approach to healing.

A proud Scranton, Pennsylvania native, Emily lives in the hometown she loves. She’s a singer, a devoted family gal, and someone deeply rooted in her community.

You can reach Emily at emily.holmes570@gmail.com or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Enjoying these? Then give them some love by liking, subscribing, or forwarding to a friend. Your support means a lot.

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Before you give more, come practice receiving

Those of us who are naturally giving-oriented know the pattern well. In a world that takes and takes, we give and give and give — until we can’t give anymore.

This month we’ve been exploring what it means to become exquisitely skilled givers. And there’s no skill more foundational to that work than this one: learning how to receive.

Because the same wiring that points us toward others — that senses what they need, that offers before being asked — can leave our own tiredness unattended. We become experts in everyone else’s nourishment and strangers to our own.

This meditation is an invitation to reverse that flow. To sit down with your exhaustion and ask it, directly, what it needs. And then to give it exactly that — a soothing broth of healing and nourishment, built ingredient by ingredient in response to what you hear.

Light some incense. Put on your most comfortable clothes. Find a blanket, the couch, the floor. And give yourself permission to stay a little longer than you think you should.

Enjoy this meditation for free this month, and let me know what you think.

Meditations are part of my paid membership plan. You can access the full library of practices by becoming a paid member or try a free 7-day trial.

Enjoying these? Then give them some love by liking, subscribing, or forwarding to a friend. Your support means a lot!

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In a world that takes, we need to learn how to healthily give

The world asks a lot of us. No matter who you are.

It runs on a cultural default setting those of us called to be of service to the world know all too well.

It’s one rooted in greed, in extraction. A system that, economically speaking, is designed to prioritize self-interest. We see leaders who put themselves before others so routinely that we don’t even bat an eye at it. We see a system that rewards the few in really big ways and marginalizes the people who need us the most.

For those of us who are naturally giving-oriented — those of us who are called to mission-driven work, care taking, the helping and healing professions — this default setting is a big part of our story. Seeing the imbalances in the world, there can be a pull, an almost need to compensate for all of the greedy taking that’s happening around us.

And so instead, we give.

We give and give and give until we can’t give anymore. We take our natural orientation towards others and put it into overdrive. There’s a duty, a sense of responsibility to it. If the world is inherently me, me, me and mine, mine, mine, then it is my destined task to be a counterforce to it.

And ultimately, for so many of us, we got lost. Up against strained, complicated systems, we spin out. We get hurt, and unintentionally we hurt others. We burn out. And, often times, we turn our backs on the very thing we’re so naturally positioned to do because the reality of it has become untenable.

All of this points to a need - a reality - those of us called to be that counterforce need to face. If we want to be the people we long to be in this world, and to actually move things forward, then we need to get super fucking good at giving. We need to become exquisitely skilled givers - wise, precise, well-bound - otherwise we’ll get swallowed whole and end up feeding the very dynamics we set out to change.

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Giving: An orientation, not a humble brag

Now you might hear this term ‘giver’ and think, a little braggadocios of you Liz. Claiming yourself as such. But I don’t use that term in a backhanded compliment type of way. This isn’t me painting a picture of the worn down martyr or the Mother Theresa who won’t quit and putting them on a pedestal.

Instead what I’m speaking to here is an orientation. A natural propensity that some of us are born with.

Some of us are born more naturally giving oriented than others, and there’s research behind this. We all fall on a spectrum when it comes to empathy and sensitivity. Dr. Elaine Aron’s work teaches us that 15-20% of the population is highly sensitive - able to pick up on their environment a little bit more so than others. Some of us are born naturally expressive in our feelings, while others of us are more emotionally stoic.

We’re all made differently, and that’s a good thing. Some of us simply arrive here on planet Earth more oriented towards giving - and we’re genuinely gifted at it. We’re your social workers and nurses, caretakers and teachers.

Naming this as a neutral orientation - not better or worse - is a necessary starting point in this conversation. It grounds us in the fact that different types of humans have different types of needs. And becoming more aware of the type of human you are, helps you to hone in on those needs and become the best version of yourself.

Just like someone who’s naturally athletic - they have a lot of energy, muscle mass, are naturally inclined to move - needs skills and training to actualize those gifts, those of us who are natural givers have big, important work to do to actualize those gifts, as well.

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Can I actually save people?

Our inner worlds are bound up in how we show up in these roles as helpers and healers and changemakers. I know this from my own path. At twenty I moved to Kenya, pouring all of my time and energy and money (I didn’t have) into causes that mattered enormously to me. I was waking up to the realities of the world and was deeply moved by everything I was starting to see.

Not cognizant of it at the time, my view of the world in those early years was greatly shaped by a victim-perpetrator-savior lens. It’s what made the most sense to me. I saw a world full of haves and have-nots, full of oppressors and the oppressed. There was a need, within this lens, then for there to be saviors. The ones who would swoop in and save the day. Rescue everyone from the madness. And I, as a giver, was one of them.

This way of seeing the world is an old, well-mapped pattern. Maybe you’ve heard of it yourself? Psychiatrist Stephen Karpman named it the “drama triangle” in 1968, teaching that these three roles - the Persecutor, Victim, and Rescuer - are positions people can unconsciously slip into during conflict. Not fixed identities, but rather positions people move between in how they see things and act - the Rescuer who isn’t thanked can turn into feeling like a Victim, and so on.

How often do we see this in our activism? In our noble pursuits within nonprofits? “If not us then who?” “It is up to us as a generation.” “Save the whales.” There is a savior complex baked into the way we do social change, and frankly, it’s eating so many of us alive.

The number of stories I know - from my own life and my friends and colleagues - of unpaid and underpaid work. Of doing the job of 3 people but being paid for one. Of having our altruism leveraged and rung dry. To doing everything in our power to keep an organization afloat.

These are fueled by a sense of savior-ism. As well as victimhood. And seeing the system as a perpetrator. And while I get this view (and reality), I really do, I question how well it’s serving us in our pursuits for justice and change.

Because if I do the dance of zooming into other aspects of my life - let’s say personal and romantic relationships - and testing this lens out there (seeing myself and others as either a victim, perpetrator, savior), I quickly see - and have learned - that that framework doesn’t hold water. It’s not healthy. The belief that I can save someone - even when it comes from the most well-meaning place - just doesn’t hold up in practice. Instead, it’s riddled with arrogance and discounting the other. Who am I to know what you need? Why do I believe I know better than you? Why don’t I believe you have the capacity to help yourself?

What if the world doesn’t need saving?

Maybe the world doesn’t need saving. Maybe, instead, it needs us to be the healthiest, most mature versions of ourselves, and participate in these times of change from there. To be present and honest with ourselves about what’s happening in our lives, relationships, work - and move from that place.

And for those of us who give, becoming that healthiest version asks us to sit in the questions that make that maturing process possible. To sit in the tensions and edges that come with questions like: how to speak up when I know I’m working too much? Or, honest reflection on things like, is this person actually asking for my help? Or am I pushing my own idea of what they need onto them?

Within my own process and journey of exploring these questions, one touchpoint I’ve landed on is that the more I can actually ground what I’m doing in a type of self-centeredness, the healthier it is for me. I know! A wild place to arrive at, but bear with me.

A giver’s whole wiring points toward other. The value of what I do is always tied up in its utility to someone else. But centering the other isn’t always about generosity (although that may be the internal front I hold). For so many of us, for me, it was also a form a safety. A way to cope and protect. If you’re happy then I’m happy. If I can morph myself into who you need me to be, I’m a little more likely to get my own needs met, a little more likely to stay safe.

This, of course, leads to all sorts of unwanted outcomes, especially when the savior complex is tied in there. I offer and give myself, but don’t get the praise or recognition I ultimately want, and I slip in victim mode, licking my abandonment wounds and scorning off all who come near. Or, this otherly-orientedness leads me to not actually bring my full self into the relationship. I’m not fully honest, not fully transparent, therefore my boundaries and needs are never actually seen, let alone met.

This is one example of all of the many ways we as givers can dig into the layers that make up our natural gifts and tend to them in a way that helps them grow, evolve, and become the best versions of themselves. It’s work that’s tricky, and so very much needed.

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It is with deep honor that I share that my book When the World Hurts has been announced Winner of the National Indie Excellence Award in the category of Self-help: Spiritual! Not only that but it was also a Finalist in the Well-being category.

Self-publishing a book can be, well, a solitary path. Not because it’s not filled with great people and collaborators along the way, but because by its very nature - “self” - it requires a lot of personal drive and hours upon hours of working on it by myself.

So having my book recognized by this esteemed panel is an awesome affirmation of all those hours of work. To be seen and celebrated for it by others - especially those in the business - means a great deal. It’s my hope that it helps continue to get this beauty-of-book to the people it’s meant to reach, so it can connect with them and live on in the unique way it’s meant to.

Join me in doing a lil happy dance to celebrate When the World Hurts! You did it, girl! (“girl” being the book 😉)

Speaking of celebrating…

Book Raffle!

In honor of these NIAE awards, I’m hosting a raffle to celebrate! Over the next few weeks, I’ll give away 3 FREE copies of my book. Here’s how to join:

• Forward my newsletter or website to a friend who you know would resonate.

• Send me a screenshot or lil piece of proof that you did.

• and BOOM! you’re entered into the raffle - it’s that easy

Winners will be drawn mid-July. Reach out if you have any questions!

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A recap of this month’s theme

Social-Spiritual Maturity

Such a rich, tension-filled topic this month. In case you missed it, here’s what I explored:

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Conversations to check out

I had the pleasure of being on the Your Spiritual Journey podcast with Dr. Bob Dove this past month. If you’re looking for a calm, wise presence to listen to, check out his show on Youtube.

We discussed my book and spiritual path, the role of compassion in navigating the world, and the role us sensitive souls play in these times.

Listen & watch here: Liz Moyer Benferhat helps us to awaken as a society to a new perspective on life

Enjoying these? Then give them some love by liking, subscribing, or forwarding to a friend. Your support means a lot.

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Well you are in for a treat..

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?

Gems from Michael:

“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?”

We hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think.

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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

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Connect with Michael Stern

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. He is deeply grateful for having studied with many brilliant teachers, worked with many inspiring colleagues, and served many wonderful clients over the years. Born and raised in NYC, Michael currently lives in Portland, Maine.

• Website & one-to-one coaching

• Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence courses

• For information on six-day Mahamudra meditation retreats, reach out through Michael’s website

Teachers & Resources Referenced:

• Duane Elgin (the Great Transition, the Living Universe) and the Choosing Earth Project.

• Charles Eisenstein (Mother Earth to Lover Earth, “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible”) —

• Elisabet Sahtouris, evolutionary biologist

• Valarie Kaur (”sometimes it’s time to push and sometimes it’s time to breathe”)

• bell hooks — the bell hooks center at Berea College

• Otto Scharmer and the Presencing Institute

• Josh Schrei, The Emerald podcast (”everything that’s alive is growing out of the decaying body of what came before”)

• Our World in Data (surveys on personal vs. collective optimism)

Our lives are designed to be frenzied and full of noise.

We are constantly pushed to be more productive, more optimized, and, honestly, even more spiritually impressive. We take on the chronic over-functioning, the endless to-do lists, and the constant digital buzz.

Then we wonder why we’re exhausted. Not just “need a good night’s sleep” tired. Existentially tired.

The truth? Burnout comes from unmanaged chronic stress, and human beings weren’t meant to carry it all alone.

This weekend, June 19–22, we are gathering online for Exhausted to Energized: A Summer Soulstice Live Gathering.

This isn’t another demand on your time. This is an online gathering for people who are tired of trying to heal in isolation. We are dropping the fakery. This is about realness. Human to human.

Over 4 days, 15 facilitators are hosting 16 live Zoom sessions covering everything from nervous system regulation and somatic movement to art healing, soundscapes, and grief support.

Because we don’t want anyone doing this alone, we are running a Buy One, Get One Free promotion until we hit capacity. When you buy your ticket, you can bring a friend, a partner, or a weary loved one for completely free.

You don’t have to perform. You don’t have to turn your camera on. You can just show up as you are.

I’ll be offering a Collective Healing Circle on Sunday 6/21: Unearthing Hope in the Heartbreak. You can just join my session or buy a pass that gives you access to all of them.

Love, Liz

P.S. Fully paid scholarships are still available, too! Please reach out

Reserve your spot here

Hope to see you there!

Your ticket awaits..

I ran into a technical snafu two months ago that wiped out all of my meditations. Typically meditations are part of my paid subscription, but my technical blunder is your boon because I’ll be re-sharing them each month without the paywall.

I hope you enjoy, and …

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Summer Solstice Online Healing Event

4-day online summit for people who are existentially depleted and tired of trying to heal alone

Burnout Support · Meditation · Movement · Tarot · Herbs · Art · Sound · Grief Support

A warm place to begin again when you’re exhausted, overwhelmed, and ready to feel inspired

Register here

I’m so grateful to be part of this wonderful and much-needed event. You may recognize poet and podcaster from a conversation we did together in April. Her and healing artist Erica Leib have brought together healers, wellness experts, grief coaches, and more to create space for you and all you’re carrying these days.

I’ll be offering a Collective Healing Circle on Sunday 6/21: Unearthing Hope in the Heartbreak. You can just join my session or buy a pass that gives you access to all of them! Details below.

Please let me know if you have any questions. I would love to see you there!

With love, Liz

ABOUT THE EVENT

Hope is a skill

This isn't about becoming more productive, more optimized, or more spiritually impressive.

We're dropping all the fakery. This is about realness. Human to human.
Our lives are designed to be frenzied and full of noise.

That's what fuels the chronic illnesses. The addictions. The overshopping. The constant conflict with your partner.

Enough. We want a new way to be. A new way that we've all forgotten.

Join us if you feel that your body, mind, and heart need support.

Register here

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT

A science-aware healing event for the exhaustion crisis

Exhausted to Energized is for the person who is tired, tender, curious, grieving, changing, overthinking, creating, rebuilding, or simply needing a softer place to land.

You’ll be guided through practices that help interrupt the exhaustion loop:

• simple meditation and breathing practices to quiet racing thoughts and help your nervous system settle

• gentle movement to release tension without needing to be “good” at yoga or perform wellness perfectly

• creative reflection through art, doodling, and journaling prompts

• supportive conversations around grief, burnout, political stress, identity, relationships, and uncertainty

• tarot and intuitive tools used for self-reflection, not prediction or pressure

• herbs, plants, sound, chanting, and music as grounding practices when words are not enough

We guarantee this event will be easy for you to attend — or your next ticket is free.

This was designed for people searching for burnout recovery, rest guilt, emotional exhaustion, nervous system support, online healing events, beginner-friendly meditation, stress relief, mindfulness, and community support.

• Join live or watch the lifetime recordings later at your own pace.

• Keep your camera off if that helps you feel safer and more comfortable.

• Come to one session, several sessions, or the whole weekend.

• Take breaks whenever you need — you will not be behind.

• Participate from bed, the couch, your desk, or wherever your body can actually relax.

  Register here

COST & DETAILS

Choose what supports you to return to inspiration

EXHAUSTED TO ENERGIZED FULL TICKET

$144

Full access to Exhausted to Energized, our Summer Soulstice online gathering, plus lifetime access to all event recordings and lifetime access to our online community group chat.

RETURNING ATTENDEE TICKET

$72

For anyone who has attended a past event. Includes lifetime recording access and lifetime online community access.

SINGLE SESSION TICKET

$36

Choose one session that speaks to what you need most right now. A lower-commitment way to join the gathering.

No one turned away for lack of funds

We are offering 10 full and partial scholarships. If cost is the reason you might not come, please still reach out.

Register here

WHAT YOU’LL RECEIVE

Not just inspiration. Support for exhausted humans.

16 live guided sessions

Join facilitators across meditation, movement, grief, tarot, herbs, art, chanting, sound, emotional healing, relationships, and stress recovery.

Accessible online format

Attend from home. No travel, no retreat center, no pressure to show up in a certain way.

Lifetime recording access

Full-gathering ticket holders receive lifetime access to all session recording for after the event.

Lifetime Online Community Access

Your ticket a includes lifetime access to our online community group chat on Signal.

Register here

Enjoying these? Then give them some love by liking, subscribing, or forwarding to a friend. Your support means a lot!

Subscribe now

“All we need now is a matriarchy.. it’s what I’m holding out for.”

A mom in my local play group said to me in passing, as we sweated (literally and figuratively) the heat wave, and the climate change implications it held.

She looked down at her son, “I’m scared what’s ahead for him.”

I feel that too. My hand was on my heart in resonance. The stats and figures in my head on high.

As I went to respond, her matriarchy comment had me caught in my throat.

I knew what she meant. Or I think I did, anyways. What I felt in her comment was a longing for a culture of care.. a culture of relationality. A culture where our kids and elders and people of all stripes were protected.

But what I heard in it - whether this is what she meant or not - gave me pause. It was a type of logic that goes like this:

Right now we live in a patriarchy, where men rule the day, that’s producing collective outcomes we don’t want. The solution then is to live in a matriarchy, where women will be in power and everything will be better.

When The Mirror-Opposite Becomes Our Answer

Maybe you’ve run into this type of logic in cultural conversations too?

“We live in a hyper-individualistic society that’s creating isolation, loneliness, and lack of social safety, so changing to a collectivist society is the answer.”

“Western colonial values have rotted society, therefore Indigenous culture and values are the solution.”

“Big institutions have betrayed our trust, so the answer is to not trust any institutions at all.”

“Hustle culture is burning us out, so the answer is to opt out, wash our hands of it, do nothing.”

There’s this 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. But I only need to scratch the surface slightly, on any one of those narratives, to find that they don’t hold much water. A matriarchy, for instance, would still be run by people, with all the same propensity to dominate and exclude. Women can be assholes too, right?

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Bringing Worldviews Down to Earth

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. I get the draw to them and have fallen into that camp of thinking myself. It feels like a necessary step within a larger process.

I can think to my own journey of really opening my eyes to the reality of injustice for the first time at 19. The social theories that rang truest for me were ones that painted the world as one of: the have’s and have not’s, the working class and the proletariat, the right side of history and the wrong one. Therefore, of course, I wanted to be on the right side.

And to this worldview’s credit it moved mountains within me. It shaped my career path and sense of self; seeds that are at the core of who I am to this day. It gave me fire and clarity, to use my privilege to be of service. It gave me a vision of where to go, what to do, and who to be when my heart broke open to the harsh realities of the world.

But it didn’t take long (I take a deep breath here as I write) for that worldview to be humbled. To be taken out into the world for a spin, and to be softened as it was brought down to earth, as it tangoed with the realities of humans, systems, and social change.

That softening allowed my worldview to mature, to expand to hold more dimensionality. It helped me - as the worldview holder - to mature, as well. Softening my own harsh lines that felt so steadfast in my ‘knowing.’

Guiding Cultural Conversations Towards Social-Spiritual Maturity

These times we live in are awakening much-needed cultural conversations amongst us about what needs to change. This is a good thing! But within them, though, I see glimpses of my 19 year old self, latching on to the cleanest, simplest ‘solutions’ we can find.

This isn’t our fault, of course. The loudest versions of these cultural conversations tend to be the oversimplified ones. It’s what goes viral fastest. It’s what’s easiest to create campaigns around. And, frankly, they’re the easiest to understand.

The opportunity, though, for those of us who are called to help guide these cultural conversations and the social awakening that’s fueling them - is to offer a spiritually mature lens that takes them out of the binary and towards something more whole and nuanced.

To, as Presenting Institute co-founder Otto Scharmer put it, “Pull from the best of all scenarios, from all cultural threads or timelines we have available to us.” To weave the most interesting, innovative pieces of each thread together in a way that honors the roots from where they come from, as well as move towards something new.

When I look around, the pull I feel these days - especially for those of us in the social change space - is that the times present to us with an opportunity to spiritually mature. To spiritually mature in the way that we think about ourselves and the world. How we think about society and culture.

Our inner worlds affect how we shape the outer world. The narratives we use to make sense of things shape how we respond - how we see others, how we see ourselves. Therefore there’s deep work to do in this - to become aware of that touch point between your inner world and how it intersects and interacts with the outer world. To form a conscious relationship with that touch point, and say yes to the journey of intentionally shaping the relationship as you go.

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Show Notes

These are the threads I noodle on in this month’s Reflection piece on social-spiritual maturity. Here’s a road map of what I touch on in the accompanying video:

00:00 Welcome + what’s alive right now: social-spiritual maturity

02:23 - Post-awakening phenomenon: a 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

Referenced article

Confessions of a Former Body Positivity Influencer, By Gabriella Lascano and Amanda Su, New York Times Feb 2026

Wow, these newsletters are turning into a little moment of reflection for me. Looking back to see all that went on this month. This month was a big one!

Excited to share this with you all. Hope you’re enjoying the beginning of summer. I know we are. Love, Liz

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That time I recorded an audiobook….

Welp, that's a wrap... The audiobook of When The World Hurts is recorded!

Man, what a process.. I've never done anything like that before - been in a recording booth for 24 total hours.. worked with mics that pick up on the sound of my heart beat.. Who knew enunciating "inextricably tied" could be so damn cumbersome! 😂

It's been an awesome experience and I am SO excited for this project. Not your traditional non-fiction audiobook, this will be a warm, experiential audio journey designed to make you feel like we're just sitting across from each other in the sacred, spacious grounds of a retreat center. Think ASMR meets self-help meets pop sociology meets storytelling. Guided meditation & reflection prompts included.

Keep an eye out for more updates on this, including the audiobook’s roll out in early Fall 2026!

Thank you to my producer and editor Erin Baumann for being my creative partner in this & to Randy and VoxPod NYC for taking such good care of me during the recording.

Speaking of When The World Hurts…

It got a shoutout this month, as one of IngramSpark’s May Indie Spotlight! Alrriight!

Speaking of speaking…

I had the pleasure of being interview by Authority Magazine on what it takes to create a truly inclusive, representative, and equitable society - from the lens of collective healing.

Read the Authority Magazine interview

And then Marianne Pestana had me back on her radio show Moments with Marianne to talk collective pain, transformational leadership, and how awareness is at the heart of it all.

Listen to Moments with Marianne show

A recap of this month’s theme:

How healing brings consciousness shifts down to Earth

There was a lot of good stuff that came out of this month. I know I received a lot.

CONVERSATION

REFLECTION

PRACTICE

Thank you for being here and being you! Please reach out to say hi. I’d love to hear from you.

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This month for me has been one of chewing on embodiment and healing — and their relationship with consciousness shifts; especially the shifts in social consciousness that are happening these days.

As things change shape, how do you live from the new understandings that come with it? How do you stay in the practice of listening to the moment, and not just in a navel-gazey way, but in a way where you actually bring it into your life and move about the world from them? How does this relate to spiritual maturity — whatever the heck that means?

This is what I sat down with Rie Algeo Gilsdorf to explore. Rie is a tried and true embodiment practitioner and teacher, writer of , and Founder of Embody Equity.

In our conversation, we 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.

What We Explore

00:00 — The Power of Embodiment
02:53 — Cultural Perspectives on Body and Mind
05:59 — Reclaiming Embodiment in Modern Times
09:00 — The Interplay of Power Dynamics
12:01 — Ripe and Unripe Ideas
15:04 — Trusting the Process of Growth
17:56 — Skilled Givers and Boundaries
23:15 — Embodiment and Consciousness
27:13 — Integration of Transcendental Experiences
29:59 — Softening Rigidity in Social Participation
33:59 — Inclusivity in Activism
37:56 — Finding Your Lane in Collective Action
42:05 — Community and Resource Sharing

Connect with Rie Algeo Gilsdorf

Rie Algeo Gilsdorf teaches organizations, communities, and individuals how to navigate evolving culture with confidence, fluency, and grace. She helps people develop cultural self-awareness and build consciousness of those with very different life experiences.

She does this by breaking down the un-taught truths of our common history so they are not overwhelming, providing policy audits that reveal hidden culture, and teaching body-based awareness methods to help people recover from charged conversations and keep future dialogues productive.

At Embody Equity, Rie creates permission to be a learner around race, gender, sexuality, and ability. Her facilitation provides the support and challenge that moves participants along on their journey in a trauma-sensitive environment that helps keep people out of denial and shame.

» Learn more about Embody Equity

» Subscribe to Rie’s newsletter and Substack:

Collective Healing Circle

Sunday, May 17th • 6:30-8pm EST • Online • Donation-based

Join here

We need little ways to be with what’s big.

The good thing about so many of us seeing what's going on these days means we’re not going it alone. We have each other in this.

Having a place to slow down and create space for what you're feeling - or not feeling - really helps. To let the parts of you or the things you’re carrying have a place to go. To have a place to practice connecting with yourself - especially your heart and spirit.

Circle space like this - that uses meditation, storytelling, & resonance practice - is the kind of space to do this.

Horizontal in nature, co-creative in spirit. You can think of it like a group yoga class or community care pod, where we practice slowing down, turning inward, and sharing from the deeper parts of ourselves.

Reach out if you want to learn more to see if it's the right fit!

In love for our collective healing,

Liz Moyer Benferhat, Founder of We Heal For All

What we’ll Circle around

We’ll use the theme: How healing brings consciousness shifts down to Earth as the Circle’s entry point. Here are our prompts, meant to inspire not restrict:

• What is it like to have a realization? What does it feel like in your body?

• Think to a recent realization you had — big or small. What came up for you with the realization? Were there feelings or a drive to act? Maybe it shut you down or made you turn inward?

• What role do realizations have in your life? With so much happening these days, what role do they play in the life and evolution of society?

Sign up here

FAQs

Who is this for?

Community is so needed these days. Here’s what you can expect from this one:

• People committed to learning how to sit in the fire of the questions, rather than arrive at static, concrete answers.

• People committed to the messy, imperfect project of social change, social justice, and being of service to others and these times.

• People full of multitudes and complexities, who are committed to diversity of thought, and everyone’s right to belong

• People who have a spiritual or personal practice tied to their healing or growth; who understand the value of their emotions or are interested in exploring that more.

• People who practice self-awareness and hold a vision of collective unity while speaking their truth.

• People who are taking what they unearth in Circle and bringing it into their lives.

Where will we meet?

Virtually on Zoom. You’ll receive a link via email with instructions on how to join + a reminder email the day before.

How much does it cost?

Donation-based. I’m keeping these donation-based right now. There is no pressure to, but you can think of the value of it as equivalent to a workshop or yoga class ($30-$50). To reciprocate the gift, you can Venmo me here @liz-moyer

What can I expect in a We Heal For All Circle?

Circles are 90-minutes long and use practices of meditation, storytelling or soulful sharing, and resonance practice to support you to connect with yourself, other like-hearted people, and that which is greater than you.

A theme and reflection prompt will be our entry point. We’ll use this flow:

Open Circle

• Settle in. Warm up round of shares.

Meditation

• Connect with self. Guided visualization to ground & center.

Soulful sharing

• Connect with each other. Two rounds of equally-timed shares with resonance practice & guidelines for listening and sharing.

Cool down

• Connect beyond. Guided visualization to integrate what was experienced & offer up the energy to something greater than yourself.

Close Circle

You can learn more about the WH4A Circle model here.

Sign up here

Can’t join this month?

Join us next month! I offer these monthly.

Questions? Curious and want to learn more?

Reply here or send me an email, connect@wehealforall.com.

Want to offer Collective Healing Circles?

Learn how to facilitate healing-centered community space in service of these times with my FREE Circle Starter Kit. Take and make the We Heal For All Circle model your own by joining the full self-paced training.

Get your FREE Circle Starter Kit

Enjoying these? Then give them some love by liking, subscribing, or forwarding to a friend. Your support means a lot.

Subscribe now

Healing of all kinds, collective and personal, invites you to connect with yourself. For you to get to know yourself, your inner world — and how it dances and is impacted by the outer one, especially in the case of collective healing.

This connection with self has many layers and takes many forms. At the heart of all of them is awareness.

To connect with yourself is to observe, notice, feel different parts of your experience; to become aware of them. And ideally, over time, develop a relationship with yourself — with your mind and body — that when discomfort arises, when intense emotions come alive, you’re better able to notice them and care for them in a way that doesn’t lead you to shut down or you throw them on someone else, but instead work with them constructively, lovingly.

At the crux of all of this is awareness. If you’ve joined me in other meditations, you know I always start them by setting up your connection with your observing self — the part of you that sits in a seat of observation, a seat of awareness within yourself — able to notice and take in what you see in your inner world.

In this meditation I share a practice that helps you explore your observing self. Better understand what it is and how to locate that part of you within yourself.

Read more

Thank you for your patience! And if you have any thoughts or suggestions on this, please let me know!

This post is part of my monthly rhythm that offers Reflection, Practice, & Conversation on a collective healing theme. This month’s theme is: How healing brings consciousness shifts down to earth. Enjoying these? Then give them some love by liking, subscribing, or forwarding to a friend. Your support means a lot.

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Tucker Carlson is having regrets.

He’s grappling with his own conscience. His own hand in getting Trump elected. His own compliance and participation in why things are the way they are right now.

This is huge.

That kind of reckoning — reckoning with the role you played in there being such a manic at the wheel must be excruciating. I feel it in my own ways — ways I kick myself for not doing more. Not having that conversation. Not pushing back a little bit harder.

This Isn’t Just About Tucker

While, there’s so much to say here, I bring this up because this shift in consciousness for Carlson — the way his worldview is shifting, and the way he sees Trump and the state of the country, is something so many of us can actually relate to right now. A lot of us are going through some version of this ourselves.

Sure, probably not about Trump, if you swim in left-leaning circles like I do. But about other things.

Maybe for you, it’s waking up to the impacts of factory farming. How terrible and grueling the conditions are for those animals. How it makes them stressed, and then you’re eating that stress. So now you look at all of your food differently.

Or maybe it’s about the way you raise your kids. The way you - unbeknownst to yourself - have been leveraging fear and intimidation in trying to stay sane and get your kids to do what you want them to do. You had some new insight or flashback to when you were a kid, the way your dad or mom or grandma used it on you. Remembering the scars you still hold from it that you don’t want to pass on to your kids.

Realizations like this - in every way, shape, and form - come with stuff. Stuff like remorse, regret. Confusion, bewilderment. Depression. Hyperactivation. The list goes on, and looks different for each of us.

The question then is - what do we do with all of the stuff that comes from having a new realization? What helps us work with it, constructively, and actually turn it into something we can use? Something that makes us better? (Whatever that may mean) Something that has legs, sticks around, and actually implants itself into our lives?

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What To Do With The Funky Stuff That Comes With Realizations

The answer, my friends, lies in healing - and in particular, in the practice of embodiment.

Healing and embodiment are what bring consciousness shifts down to earth. Whether it’s a simple ‘ah-hah’ moment about how to tie your shoe laces in a new way, or it’s Tucker Carlson re-examining his whole life and platform. When funky stuff comes up with a new realization, you need healing support to work with that stuff so you can actually bring what you’re realizing into your life.

Because if not we collapse, or opt out, or push it aside and pretend we didn’t notice. But it still remains, gnawing at the back of our minds, trying to make itself know.

As Dr. Rae Johnson wrote in their piece Embodiment is Not Self-Care. It’s Capacity:

“Embodiment is not about feeling good. It is about increasing our ability to stay with what is difficult without fleeing our bodies, our relationships, or our responsibilities. It is the capacity to remain present in moments of intensity—conflict, shame, desire, rage, uncertainty—without defaulting to collapse, dissociation, or control.”

And realizations are often intense! The good ones are, anyways - the ones worth paying attention to. And these days, we as a society are going through realization, after realization, after realization. The. Veils. Are. Lifted. And we’re seeing it all.

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The Social Consciousness That’s Trying To Bust Through

Something is taking shape in all of this. A new kind of social consciousness, born from so many more of us having our eyes open to the good, the bad, the ugly.

It’s happening right now, in real time - slowly, but also with quickening speed. With each new r*pe academy investigative piece or political shooting or inspiring story about free farms or time banks, our consciousness (personal and collective) shifts and grows. Pushing us to grapple with what we want less of, and be inspired and pulled by what we want more.

Whether we have language for it or not, a new social consciousness is budding within our cultural body. And just like consciousness shifts at the personal level —this social consciousness needs help being brought to life too. To be anchored and integrated. So it’s not just swirling and twirling around everywhere, overwhelming us out of commission. But actually weaving itself into the fabric of our lives and how we co-create the world around us.

There’s Something Alive In All Of This

There’s something so alive in all of this. A dance filled with a lot of choice. Where we get to choose to let what we’re seeing change us, shape us, and do so in a way that’s full of purpose and life. To say hell yes to all of this from the part of you that knows you’re here on planet Earth right now for a reason — even if that part is hard to hear sometimes.

These threads — collective healing, embodiment, & social consciousness — are what I go deep on in this month’s Reflection piece, and will be playing with all month. I do so at the 1000 feet view — how there’s a new type of social consciousness that’s trying to take root these days, that’s pushing itself forward. And how we need collective healing and embodiment practices that help us bring it down to earth, and build our capacity to house it.

Below are show notes, if you want to jump around. As well as quotes pulled from two pieces I reference in there.

As always, I hope you’re doing really well and I’d love to hear from you. How does this land? What does it bring up in you?

And that person you’re thinking about right now - that friend, family member - who you’re like, “Oooh, they’d be so into this conversation!” Do us both a favor and forward this to them. It’d mean a lot.

With love,

Liz

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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

Articles To Check Out

Embodied Activism's Substack

Embodiment Is Not Self-Care. It’s Capacity.

Somewhere along the way, embodiment got absorbed into the language of self-care. It became associated with softness, relief, and nervous system management—warm beverages, grounding breaths, the promise of feeling better. This shift in public perception made embodiment accessible, but it also made it smaller. Safer. Easier to sell…

Read more

7 months ago · 32 likes · 9 comments · Rae Johnson

A Compass for the Cultural Intermediary

Our Bodies are Speaking to Us Right Now

I. Listening to the Body…

Read more

6 months ago · 6 likes · 1 comment · Rie Algeo Gilsdorf

Becoming Guides

Is the Climate Movement Finally Growing Up?

For decades, the climate, regeneration, conservation and environmental sectors operated on a simple, if unspoken, theory of change: inform or inspire people, then expect them to act. Fill the gaps in knowledge. Remove the barriers. Change the behavior. Push solutions. Exhort action. Rinse and repeat. And when none of that worked, try harder. Amp up the …

Read more

5 months ago · 103 likes · 39 comments · Dr. Renée Lertzman

Collective Healing Circle

Sunday, May 3rd • 6:30-8pm EST • Online • Donation-based

Join us here

Your feelings about the world right now hold so much.

They're more than just something to 'regulate' to feel better. They're packed with loads of juicy wisdom about the times we live in and the changes we're all going through.

They hold keys.. breadcrumbs.. whispers about where we're going and what you need to play your role within it.

Circle space like this - that’s dedicated to how your inner world is affected by the outer - is exactly the kind of space to touch into those threads.

Horizontal in nature, co-creative in spirit. You can think of it like a group yoga class or community care pod, where we practice slowing down, turning inward, and sharing from the deeper parts of ourselves.

Read more below to know what to expect, and reach out if you have questions or if there’s any way I can help you explore if it’s the right fit for you.

In love for our collective healing,

Liz Moyer Benferhat, Founder of We Heal For All

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What we’ll Circle around

We’ll use the theme of ‘not knowing’ as the Circle’s entry point. Here are our prompts, meant to inspire not restrict:

• What is it like for you — personally, right now in this moment — to be alive during so much uncertainty? What is your experience with it like these days?

• Where have your opinions or sense of what’s ‘true’ gotten more complicated recently? What’s shifting within you these days and what’s that like?

• What do you care about right now, even if it’s messier or less clear than it used to be?

• What can you root down into — principles, values — even in the midst of instability? What do those feel like in your body?

FAQs

Who is this for?

Community is so needed these days. Here’s what you can expect from this one:

• People committed to learning how to sit in the fire of the questions, rather than arrive at static, concrete answers.

• People committed to the messy, imperfect project of social change, social justice, and being of service to others and these times.

• People full of multitudes and complexities, who are committed to diversity of thought, and everyone’s right to belong

• People who have a spiritual or personal practice tied to their healing or growth; who understand the value of their emotions or are interested in exploring that more.

• People who practice self-awareness and hold a vision of collective unity while speaking their truth.

• People who are taking what they unearth in Circle and bringing it into their lives.

Where will we meet?

Virtually on Zoom. You’ll receive a link via email with instructions on how to join + a reminder email the day before.

How much does it cost?

Donation-based. I’m keeping these donation-based right now. There is no pressure to, but you can think of the value of it as equivalent to a workshop or yoga class ($30-$50). To reciprocate the gift, you can Venmo me here @liz-moyer

What can I expect in a We Heal For All Circle?

Circles are 90-minutes long and use practices of meditation, storytelling or soulful sharing, and resonance practice to support you to connect with yourself, other like-hearted people, and that which is greater than you.

A theme and reflection prompt will be our entry point. We’ll use this flow:

Open Circle

• Settle in. Warm up round of shares.

Meditation

• Connect with self. Guided visualization to ground & center.

Soulful sharing

• Connect with each other. Two rounds of equally-timed shares with resonance practice & guidelines for listening and sharing.

Cool down

• Connect beyond. Guided visualization to integrate what was experienced & offer up the energy to something greater than yourself.

Close Circle

You can learn more about the WH4A Circle model here.

Can’t join this month?

Join us next month! I offer these monthly.

Questions? Curious and want to learn more?

Reply here or send me an email, connect@wehealforall.com.

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