Between Collapse and Emergence: Learning From Conflict in Turbulent Times

Being in Relationship Across Difference in Power, History, and Identity

“Sometimes freedom is like, can you hold me please?” How do we build relationship and intimacy across differences in power, history, and identity? My guest this week is Prentis Hemphill.  Prentis Hemphill is the bestselling author of What It Takes to Heal, a groundbreaking exploration of healing, justice, and transformation. A therapist, somatics teacher, facilitator, political organizer, and writer, Prentis is also the founder of The Embodiment Institute and a leading voice in embodied leadership and collective healing. Prentis served as the Healing Justice Director at Black Lives Matter Global Network and was a lead somatics teacher with generative somatics and Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD). They hold an M.A. in Clinical Psychology. They are also the creator and host of the acclaimed podcasts Finding Our Way and Becoming the People. Prentis lives on a small farm in Durham, NC, with their partner, Kasha, their child, and two dogs. In this episode, Prentis and I talk about the practice of building relationship across difference without appeasement or defensiveness, how to let go of identities that have outgrown us, and what it looks like to turn toward each other, honestly, in a time when so much feels uncertain. website: prentishemphill.com [http://prentishemphill.com] Instagram: @prentishemphill RESOURCES: The Embodiment Institute [https://www.theembodimentinstitute.org/] Embodied Ancestral Inquiry [https://www.embodiedancestralinquiry.com/] Focusing Book [https://store.focusing.org/products/focusing] Lost Together is produced by Marika Heinrichs and Becca Rich. Our music is by Cristoffer Moe Ditlevsen, Mixed by SC Dillon. Sound Engineering and Editing by Marika Heinrichs. Get full access to Feet in the Butter at marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe [https://marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

What does Transformative Justice mean?

This week our glossary entry is on Transformative Justice. Episode 3 of the podcast dives into learning to do conflict more skillfully and how this relates to a vision of community beyond punishment and isolation. If you haven’t listened yet to my conversation with Brook Thorndycraft on growing our capacity for conflict and why it’s important for our communities, movements, and the planet — you can go back and find it in episode 3: Between Collapse and Emergence: Learning from Conflict in Turbulent Times. We are an ad-free and member supported podcast. You can join us on Substack and pledge a monthly donation that helps us make Lost Together possible and sustainable. LINKS: https://transformharm.org/tj_resource/transformative-justice-a-brief-description/ [https://transformharm.org/tj_resource/transformative-justice-a-brief-description/] https://transformharm.org/transformative-justice/ [https://transformharm.org/transformative-justice/] Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement [https://rep.club/products/beyond-survival?srsltid=AfmBOoq1ZidCm5LPCCO2Jn6Yw-TlCs-4PIxdIT3GT6quI7XQIBIoUmX3] The Wetiko Legal Principles: Cree and Anishinabek Responses to Violence and Victimization [https://utppublishing.com/doi/book/10.3138/9781487522025] Lost Together is produced by Marika Heinrichs and Becca Rich. Our music is by Cristoffer Moe Ditlevsen, Mixed by SC Dillon. Sound Engineering and Editing by Marika Heinrichs. Get full access to Feet in the Butter at marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe [https://marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Between Collapse and Emergence: Learning From Conflict in Turbulent Times

"That sense that we can just dislike each other and then dispose of each other when it gets too hard is the thing that keeps us stuck in these old systems.” What if the problem isn’t conflict, but our inability to stay with it? With over 15 years of experience and a background in mediation (Q. Med), adult education (MA), and Somatic Experiencing (SEP), Brook bridges the gap between systemic change and the human nervous system. Through coaching, training, and custom change processes, they help organizations transform power dynamics, psychological safety, and conflict into sources of possibility. This episode explores why conflict is having a cultural “moment,” what actually happens in high-stakes relational breakdown, and why most of us were never taught the skills to navigate it. In this conversation, Brook Thorndycraft shares their path into conflict work through transformative justice, mediation, and somatic practice. At the core of this is a simple but challenging truth: we don’t get to get rid of each other. Learning how to stay, even when it’s hard, is essential to any future worth building. bigwaves.ca [http://bigwaves.ca] https://substack.com/@bigwavesbrook [https://substack.com/@bigwavesbrook] LINKS: Two Loops Model: complexsystemsframeworks.ca/framework/two-loop-model/ [http://complexsystemsframeworks.ca/framework/two-loop-model/] Deep Democracy: https://www.waterline.coop/ [https://www.waterline.coop/] Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira: decolonialfutures.net/hospicingmodernity/ [http://decolonialfutures.net/hospicingmodernity/] Lost Together is produced by Marika Heinrichs and Becca Rich. Our music is by Cristoffer Moe Ditlevsen, Mixed by SC Dillon. Sound Engineering and Editing by Marika Heinrichs. Get full access to Feet in the Butter at marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe [https://marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

What does Land Back mean?

What does Land Back Mean? This week our glossary entry is on Land Back (with some thoughts on settler colonialism too). Episode 2 of the podcast explores the relationship between cultural reconnection and solidarity activism. We reflect on our relationship with land as both settlers and descendants of land-based traditions that were nearly lost. If you haven’t listened yet to my conversation with Ben Reid-Howells on how reconnecting with his Scottish roots was ignited by solidarity with Indigenous Resurgence on Tuttle Island, you can go back and find it in episode 2 Deep Roots: Showing up to Justice Work with Cultural Grounding. If you have suggestions or requests for future glossary entries, members can submit queries for our bonus Q+A episodes every month on Substack. Links: Land Back: A Yellowhead Institute Red Paper [https://redpaper.yellowheadinstitute.org/] Rehearsals for Living [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/675719/rehearsals-for-living-by-robyn-maynard-and-leanne-betasamosake-simpson/9781039000650] On Settler Colonialism in Canada: Lands and Peoples [https://uofrpress.ca/Books/O/On-Settler-Colonialism-in-Canada-Lands-and-Peoples] Unsettling the Settler Within - Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling, and Reconciliation in Canada [https://www.ubcpress.ca/unsettling-the-settler-within] Ancestral Embodiment Summer Audio Course [https://wildbody.ca/ancestral-body] Lost Together is produced by Marika Heinrichs and Becca Rich. Our music is by Cristoffer Moe Ditlevsen, Mixed by SC Dillon. Sound Engineering and Editing by Marika Heinrichs. Get full access to Feet in the Butter at marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe [https://marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Deep Roots: Showing up to Justice Work with Cultural Grounding

“Sometimes we don't know who we're from, what lands we're from, what culture we're from, what language we're from. But that culture, those ancestors, that language, know exactly who we are.” What happens when we try to do justice work without knowing who we are? Ben Reid-Howells is a Scottish-Canadian community organizer, educator, Gaelic language and culture learner, co-founder of the Centre of Resilience (Bihar, India); the "Vasudhaiva [VAH-SOO-DAY-VA] Ride" Transnational Project Series; and founding director of Deep Roots Alba, an initiative for cultural regeneration, decolonization, healing and solidarity rooted in Scotland and globally connected. Ben is also a musician, wood worker, and lives on the West Coast of Scotland. In this conversation, Ben shares his journey across continents, movements, and communities, and the turning point that shifted everything: being told to go find his own people. From Indigenous land defence movements to reconnecting with Gaelic language and land in Scotland, this is a story about moving from cultural emptiness to grounded belonging. We explore the relationship between ancestry and responsibility, the limits of guilt, and why reclaiming land-based culture is not separate from political work but essential to it. This conversation is about rebuilding cultural roots, holding complexity around whiteness and colonialism, and remembering ways of being that were never fully lost. https://www.benreidhowells.com/ [https://www.benreidhowells.com/] https://www.instagram.com/deep.roots.alba [https://www.instagram.com/deep.roots.alba] RESOURCES Deep Roots Gatherings: https://deeprootsalba.org/ [https://deeprootsalba.org/] Resilient Floating Village Project: https://www.centreofresilience.org/floating-village-project [https://www.centreofresilience.org/floating-village-project] Grassy Narrows: https://freegrassy.net/ [https://freegrassy.net/] Unist’ot’en Land Defense: https://unistoten.camp/ [https://unistoten.camp/] Tom Langhorne: www.youtube.com/FandabiDozi [http://www.youtube.com/FandabiDozi] Lost Together is produced by Marika Heinrichs and Becca Rich. Our music is by Cristoffer Moe Ditlevsen, Mixed by SC Dillon. Sound Engineering and Editing by Marika Heinrichs. Get full access to Feet in the Butter at marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe [https://marikaheinrichs.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]