Rebirthing the Wise Warrior: Burnout as a Portal to Collective Liberation, with Dr Rola Hallam

Rebirthing the Wise Warrior: Burnout as a Portal to Collective Liberation, with Dr Rola Hallam

Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard. How can the apparently catastrophic collapse of the person we thought we were clear the path for who we are meant to become? What might change when we dwell less on what we're doing to serve others, and focus more on the quality of consciousness from which our action arises? Dr Rola Hallam [https://www.drrolacoaching.com/] is an award-winning humanitarian recognised for her extraordinary role in building hospitals and bringing medical aid to Syria during a decade of mass killings of civilians unleashed by the country's now-toppled dictatorship. In this episode, Dr Rola speaks about the transformation she experienced after trauma and exhaustion she accumulated via her humanitarian work led to a 'dark night of the soul' that radically changed her understanding of herself and her service in the world. "I was desperately trying to pull us forward and into a better future because the present seemed so unbearable. And I think that crash that I had was really this almighty sort of cataclysmic rupture that in some ways forced me to sit in the cracks," Dr Rola says. "The pain, the grief, the rage, the powerlessness — everything that I had suppressed in all those years, I had to feel them, I had to learn to be with them, I had to integrate them and transmute them so that I could also reconnect to more of that unconditional love, more to joy, more to beauty, more to my right responsibility." Called to the role of doctor from childhood, Dr Rola also felt a strong sense of warriorship from a young age — a combination of archetypal energies that would propel her later relief work in her Syrian homeland, where women and children bore the brunt of the former regime's atrocities. Dr Rola's burnout experience helped her to unravel how some of her own early traumas had shaped her path as a "wounded healer". But it also reflected her experience as a "wounded visionary" — struggling with the pain of the mismatch between the world she could imagine and present reality. With the support of her Sufi practice, various trauma modalities, and psychedelic-assisted therapies, Dr Rola began to harvest the gold hidden in her dark night experience and now offers programmes to support people to build resilience and navigate the collapse-rebirth cycle. These include her new nine-month journey called Wise Warriors. "I would say that is the home of this transformation from clever to wise so that we can all become this healing impulse, this healing presence…for collective liberation, for collective awakening," Dr Rola says. This dialogue provides a vivid illustration of the power of grace to transform our most vulnerable moments into portals for growth and awakening. It also reminds us of our innate capacity to tap into a living stream of inspiration to meet personal and global challenges. "It's so easy to look at the scale of everything and feel too small and too insignificant," Dr Rola says. "But I hope that if nothing else, our conversation today is a reminder of not just our responsibility, but of the agency, of the potency in each one of us to really be a positive contribution. And that is all that is asked of us." Further Resources: Dr Rola Hallam [https://www.drrolacoaching.com/] (website) Wise Warriors The Resilient Leadership Workshop [https://www.gobeyondburnout.com/resilient-leadership] Saving Syria's Children [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03c7m8s] (BBC Documentary) Related Pocket Project Programmes: Resilience Programme, Phase II [https://pocketproject.org/resilience-program-phase-2/] (A standalone facilitation training starting in July). About Rola Hallam: Dr Rola Hallam is an award-winning Syrian-British doctor, humanitarian, trauma-informed coach, speaker and spiritual teacher whose work sits at the meeting place of healing, leadership and sacred service. As founder of CanDo, Rola helped build seven hospitals in Syria and supported care for more than four million people in conflict-affected communities. She has witnessed the devastating impact of war, burnout, moral injury and trauma, not only in the world's hardest places, but also in the bodies and hearts of those who serve. Honoured as the first Syrian TED Fellow, Rola has spoken on global stages alongside presidents, celebrities, grassroots activists and changemakers. Her talks have been viewed more than 11 million times, inspiring people around the world to reimagine what healing, leadership and social change can look like. After her own experience of burnout and PTSD, Rola's work evolved beyond emergency medicine and humanitarian action into a deeper exploration of nervous system repair, embodied resilience and spiritual transformation. Today, she guides sensitive leaders, healers, frontline workers and changemakers to move from survival, self-abandonment and depletion into wholeness, truth and sacred responsibility. Her approach brings together Western medicine, trauma healing, somatic work, Sufi wisdom, embodied resilience and expanded states of consciousness. At the heart of her work is a simple but radical invitation: that our presence is medicine, and that when we heal what lives within us, our service becomes less about sacrifice and more about devotion, aliveness and right relationship with the world.

Leading in Chaos: Transforming our Lives Into 'Instruments of Repair', with Amy Elizabeth Fox

Hosted by Kosha Joubert. Produced by J'aime Rothbard. How can we meet this time of polarisation, breakdown and chaos by turning our lives into 'instruments of repair'? How can we undertake the work of healing and reconciliation needed to restore relations between genders? Amy Elizabeth Fox [https://amyelizabethfox.com/] is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Mobius Executive Leadership [https://www.mobiusleadership.com/], a global transformational leadership firm, and longtime collaborator with the Pocket Project and its co-founder Thomas Hübl. In this episode, Amy and Kosha build on insights from Leading in Chaos [https://www.mobiusleadership.com/], Amy's new book co-authored with Nicholas Janni, to explore how to develop the inner ground that supports us to align with a sense of larger unfolding in this era of fluidity and change. "We know that the operating system we've relied on in a command-and-control predictable world will not be sufficient to grapple with these times of uncertainty and churn," Amy says. "So we're going to have to build inside organizations what I've been calling nests, which are small groups, and the purpose of these nests is not functional or technical: It is just emotional support and care." As leaders increasingly recognise the need to embrace more feminine principles to support their staff and navigate growing complexity, Amy provides a compellingly clear vision of how we can each integrate both our trauma healing work and a sense of devotion to something greater than ourselves to reveal the unique contribution that is ours to make. "I think there's a natural impulse of the heart at this time to be of service and to be part of the reparative web, that is arising naturally in this time of great violence and cruelty and degradation of life in many ways," Amy says. "So the inner work is in part attuning to and defining and engaging with what your contribution is meant to be." In the light of last week's Pocket Project Global Social Witnessing Call "From the Epstein Files to Inside the Manosphere: Tending to Fractured Gender Relations [https://pocketproject.org/event/from-the-epstein-files-to-inside-the-manosphere-tending-to-fractured-gender-relations/]," Kosha and Amy also dive deeply into the question of how men, women and people of all genders can undertake the work of reconciliation and repair. Amy emphasises both the importance of women continuing to support one another in healing from trauma and for men to come together to undertake the process of "unnumbing" from patriarchal conditioning. These complementary processes can, Amy says, form "the precursor for real co-creation and reinvention of how we relate to each other." Infused with Amy's gift for illuminating core principles of healing and awakening with clarity, beauty and precision, this episode will nourish anyone seeking to lead with an open heart in this time of great peril and promise. Further Resources: Leading in Chaos: A Clarion Call to a New Future From Two Pioneers in Leadership Development and Transformational Change [https://www.mobiusleadership.com/] (Book) Leading in Chaos [https://leadinginchaosbook.com/events/leading-in-chaos-online-sessions-fall-2026/] (a series of seven online sessions with Amy Elizabeth Fox and Nicholas Janni, running from September to December 2026). Mobius Executive Leadership [https://www.mobiusleadership.com/] Amy Elizabeth Fox [https://amyelizabethfox.com/] (website) Related Pocket Project Programmes: Resilience Programme, Phase II [https://pocketproject.org/resilience-program-phase-2/] (A standalone facilitation training starting in July). About Amy Elizabeth Fox: Since 2005 Amy Elizabeth Fox has served as one of the founders and Chief Executive Officer of Mobius Executive Leadership, a global transformational leadership firm. For the last twenty years she has served as a leadership and culture change advisor to eminent professional services firms and Fortune 500 companies and facilitated immersive executive development programs for senior leaders. In 2026 she co-authored a book with Nicholas Janni entitled Leading in Chaos to help executives navigate the unique challenges of leading through increased complexity and adaptive demand. Mobius offers top team intervention, business mediation, executive coaching and personal mastery programs all aimed at unlocking potential and building deeper trust, intimacy and connection within a company's top tier. Mobius also sponsors a professional development arm for maturing transformational practitioners called the Next Practice Institute and has an e-learning arm entitled Mobius Touch. Since 2013 Mobius has had the privilege of partnering with the premier leadership advisory firm, Egon Zehnder, together offering sessions for leaders from around the world. Amy serves as the lead faculty for the quarterly Discovery program offered jointly to N-1 leaders. Further she has guided programs for long standing clients in tandem to overseeing the evolution and expansion of Mobius. Amy is considered an expert in healing individual, family and collective trauma and has been a pioneer in introducing trauma-informed development and psycho-spiritual principles into leadership programs. In addition to her work with Mobius, Amy is a senior student of mystical teacher Thomas Hübl, serving as part of his online faculty team and as lead faculty for his two-year Timeless Wisdom Training. Together Amy and Thomas are guiding a first of its kind year-long certification in Trauma Informed Consulting and Coaching. Before starting Mobius Amy worked as a trainer for Vantage Partners, as a senior executive in Wellspace, and as the Director of Public Affairs for the Cathedral of St John the Divine where she supported Paul Gorman, Carl Sagan and Vice President Gore in a decade long effort to engage the American faith communities in responding to climate change and environmental degradation. Amy has a Masters in Counseling from Lesley College and a BA in Psychology from Wesleyan University.

A Global Social Witnessing Invitation: From the Epstein Files to Inside the Manosphere – Tending to Fractured Gender Relations

Register for the July 1 Global Social Witnessing Event [https://From%20the%20Epstein%20Files%20to%20Inside%20the%20Manosphere%20%E2%80%93%20Tending%20to%20Fractured%20Gender%20Relations] Hosted by Matthew Green. Produced by J'aime Rothbard. We are living in a time when a new upsurge in systemic oppression, silencing and violence toward the feminine has become impossible to ignore. The Epstein Files, the activities of misogynistic influencers featured in the 'Inside the Manosphere' documentary, and a CNN investigation into the 'Motherless' online platform where men shared pornographic videos of their sedated partners and wives, have opened new windows into the extent and depth of gender-based perpetration, complicity and wounding alive in today's world. A lack of justice and accountability have compounded the harms. In this episode, co-host Matthew Green [https://matthewgreenglobal.substack.com/] joins J'aime Rothbard, the producer of What is Collective Healing? to discuss the upcoming Pocket Project Global Social Witnessing call [https://pocketproject.org/event/from-the-epstein-files-to-inside-the-manosphere-tending-to-fractured-gender-relations/] on July 1 at 8:00 PM Central Europe time (7:00 PM UK, 2:00 PM Eastern) dedicated to creating a space to digest the revelations in the Epstein Files and related material. J'aime and Matthew discuss how Global Social Witnessing serves as a participatory, embodied practice that can start to build the kind of ground that could ultimately support restoration and repair. In that sense, the free call on July 1 is an opportunity to participate directly in collective healing and experience what becomes possible when we tend to our collective wounds in community. Further Resources: Register [https://pocketproject.org/event/from-the-epstein-files-to-inside-the-manosphere-tending-to-fractured-gender-relations/] for the Global Social Witnessing call: From the Epstein Files to Inside the Manosphere – Tending to Fractured Gender Relations More on Global Social Witnessing in Episodes One [https://open.spotify.com/episode/0GqxMFVxGxmhyTqfaIm9p3?si=b7d8f711cdae418e] (Manda Johnson) and Episode Fourteen [https://open.spotify.com/episode/3mNiOwiEffyMQXS2EANhNl?si=ad95a99f359c471f] (Bayo Akomolafe) Calling Men Into Presence: Masculinity Beyond Separation and Struggle, with Kevin Young [https://open.spotify.com/episode/7IV7K8Ap6izVzQY2df8sVK?si=nuWCkjkcRU2EpbI6eRN7JQ] Opening the Heart of Humanity by Healing the Gender Wound, with Cynthia Brix and Will Keepin [https://open.spotify.com/episode/6sYTrphXWgvGJjC3sR3LNL?si=c208f9ead40d40be] Kosha Joubert on Global Social Witnessing as a Portal to Collective Healing [https://open.spotify.com/episode/0KJiFmI4ZhlLn22Ae6rbLh?si=b9e69812784945a2] The Resonant Man [http://www.theresonantman.com] About Matthew Green Matthew Green is a journalist and facilitator working to show how an understanding of collective trauma can help solve the climate crisis. As global investigations editor at the non-profit DeSmog, he leads coverage of the global climate crisis, energy politics and global struggles for environmental justice. He is a co-host of the What Is Collective Healing? Podcast at the Pocket Project and co-founder of the Resonant Man [http://www.theresonantman.com] international men's initiative.

Relational Resourcing Before Repair: The Missing Foundation of Systems Change, with John Kania

Hosted by Kosha Joubert. Produced by J'aime Rothbard. John Kania joins Kosha Joubert to explore the evolving relationship between systems change and collective healing. Drawing on decades of experience in social innovation and collective impact, John reflects on how his work has shifted from focusing primarily on structures, institutions, and collaboration to recognizing the profound role that trauma, resilience, and healing play in shaping the systems we live within. Over the last 30 years, John has been a practitioner, researcher, writer, teacher, and speaker on how organizations and people can achieve change together. John is currently the Executive Director of the Collective Change Lab [https://www.collectivechangelab.org/], a nonprofit catalyst and thought leader placing healing at the heart of social and environmental systems change. In February 2024, John published a ground-breaking article [https://ssir.org/articles/entry/healing-trauma-systems] with Katherine Milligan and Laura Calderon de La Barca called Healing Systems which explored how recognising trauma in ourselves, other people, and the systems around us can open up new pathways to solving social problems. The article has been downloaded more than 80,000 times showing the huge amount of interest there is in how collective healing can unlock systems change – which is also the central question we're exploring at the Pocket Project. Laura Calderon de La Barca studied intensely with Thomas Hubl over several years and was an early guest on this podcast. [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-collective-wound-of-colonialism-with-laura/id1813974942?i=1000711093472] Kosha and John explore why sustainable systems transformation cannot happen through policy and structural change alone. John shares how the Collective Change Lab has increasingly focused on creating the conditions for healing by beginning with resourcing, resilience, and reconnection. Rather than leading with conversations about trauma, he emphasizes the importance of helping individuals and communities reconnect to their own innate healing wisdom and capacity for relationship. Ultimately, John highlights that collective healing is both a personal and systemic process. Healing individuals and communities is essential, but so is transforming the conditions that continue to produce harm. This conversation offers a hopeful vision for how healing centered approaches can strengthen our ability to redesign systems, build resilience, and create lasting social change. It also highlights the growing alignment between the Collective Change Lab and The Pocket Project [https://pocketproject.org?utm_source=chatgpt.com], whose shared commitment to collective healing is helping shape a new paradigm for transformation. With its lively and fresh take on the nature of resilience, this conversation provides deep insights into a foundational element of collective healing work, and the vision underpinning the Pocket Project's global mission. It' s not too late to join us in the Resilience Program [https://pocketproject.org/resilience-program/] training. Follow this link to sign up for the self-study course of Phase I. Registration is open for Phase II of the training which starts in July. Further Resources: Collective Change Lab podcast: https://soundcloud.com/collective-change-lab [https://soundcloud.com/collective-change-lab] Recent podcast featuring John Kania: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4K3wihrIN1Fw97k4Rhrma2?si=jn9eEWpvTO-PNRhvTBP8Bg [https://open.spotify.com/episode/4K3wihrIN1Fw97k4Rhrma2?si=jn9eEWpvTO-PNRhvTBP8Bg] Healing Systems [https://ssir.org/articles/entry/healing-trauma-systems], article by John Kania, Laura Calderon de la Barca, and Katherine Milligan in Stanford Social Innovation Review. (This was a heavily downloaded article that explores intersection of collective healing and systems change). How Embodiment Transforms Systems Change [https://collectivechangelab.medium.com/how-embodiment-transforms-systems-change-9b71a04dd289], latest article from John Kania, Louise Marra, Laura Calderon de la Barca and Lian Zeitz. Pocket Project Resilience Program [https://pocketproject.org/resilience-program/] Pocket Project Resilience Circles [https://pocketproject.org/resilience-circles/] About John Kania John is a visionary social sector leader with a passion for inspiring and empowering others to create transformational change. Over the last 30 years he has been a practitioner, researcher, writer, teacher, and speaker on how organizations and people can achieve change together. John is currently the Executive Director of the Collective Change Lab, a nonprofit catalyst and thought leader placing healing at the heart of social and environmental systems change. Prior to founding the Collective Change Lab, John was an Executive-in-Residence at venture philanthropy New Profit, where he co-led the launch of a systems change practice. From 2001 to 2018, John built and ran FSG, a social sector consulting firm and think tank. As Board member and Global Managing Director at FSG, John focused on inspiring FSG's Leadership Team, consultants, and operations staff to achieve excellence in their work, leading strategic initiatives incorporating equity and systems thinking into FSG's culture and strategic perspective. John is a co-author of the ground-breaking Stanford Social Innovation Review articles "Collective Impact," (most read SSIR article ever) "The Dawn of System Leadership," and "The Relational Work of Systems Change." He is also co-author of "The Water of Systems Change," which is being used by practitioners around the world to bring clarity to how social change happens. John currently serves on the boards of Catalyst Now, Third Sector Capital Partners, and the Center for Action and Contemplation.

Thomas Hübl on Restoring Forward: How Cultivating Resilience Aligns Us With a More Flourishing Future

Hosted by Kosha Joubert. Produced by J'aime Rothbard. What is the true meaning of resilience? And how can cultivating our capacity to stay related to life's challenges help us align with a more authentic future? In this powerful episode, Pocket Project CEO Kosha Joubert and the teacher and facilitator Thomas Hübl. explore the essence of the kind of resilience work practiced in the Pocket Project's Global Trauma Relief Projects [https://pocketproject.org/global-trauma-relief-project/] and the next phase of the Resilience Program [https://pocketproject.org/resilience-program-phase-2/] training, which starts in July. Thomas explains how a burden of unprocessed trauma can weigh us down and keep us stuck — much like an overloaded boat marooned in a shallow river. Growing our resilience is like restoring the flow of water — helping us to start moving again despite what happened to us. The work of resilience-building is not, in that sense, a return to the past, but a form of post-traumatic growth that allows us to orient towards a more emergent future. "When we integrate the hardship, we are always moving forward. It looks like we are coming back to a more baseline state, but actually we are going to a new form of baseline that is more enriched and a bit wiser than the state before we got hurt," Thomas says. "We're not restoring backwards, we're restoring forwards." Kosha and Thomas also explore how trauma shows up in social systems — acting as "sand in the engine" that hinders collaboration and leads to miscommunication, polarisation and fragmentation. "And as long as we don't see this because it's unconscious, we are fighting all the time with the symptoms," Thomas says. "Collective and intergenerational trauma healing is to turn that into a conscious process, see what we are dealing with, and then from there develop methods and technologies to integrate it." With some concerned that collective healing practices could inadvertently serve to strengthen unjust systems by helping people adapt to oppressive circumstances, Thomas explains that the goal is to establish the level of social coherence and maturity needed to change systems "from the inside out." "That is where I think social justice work and collective trauma work, and maybe the spiritual and mystical work, need to come together to create the pathway to do that," Thomas says. "Healing-centered approaches are a way to pay back the mortgages that we took for thousands of years." With its lively and fresh take on the nature of resilience, this conversation provides deep insights into a foundational element of collective healing work, and the vision underpinning the Pocket Project's global mission. You are invited to join this global movement. [https://pocketproject.org/resilience-program/] This dialogue was recorded during a session in Part 1 of the Pocket Project's Resilience Program [https://pocketproject.org/resilience-program/] training that ran from May to June. Click here [https://pocketproject.org/resilience-program/] to learn more and register for Phase II of the training which starts in July, or to do the self-study course for Phase 1. Further Resources: Pocket Project Resilience Program [https://pocketproject.org/resilience-program/] Pocket Project Resilience Circles [https://pocketproject.org/resilience-circles/] Pocket Project Global Trauma Relief Projects [https://pocketproject.org/global-trauma-relief-project/] Thomas Hübl [https://thomashuebl.com/] About Thomas Hübl Thomas Hübl, PhD, is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator who works within the complexity of systems and cultural change, integrating the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science. Since the early 2000s, he has led large-scale events and courses on the healing of collective trauma. He is the author of Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World and Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds. He has served as an advisor and guest faculty for universities and organizations, as a coach for CEOs and organizational leaders, and is currently a visiting scholar at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University. He is a co-founder of the Pocket Project.