Bridging Healing and Activism (w/ Noëlle Janka)

“Healing doesn't look like getting back to the way things were before, the way things were before made you sick.”

Noëlle Janka is a politicized career and healing coach dedicated to supporting social change leaders. For the past decade, she has brought together her personal experience navigating chronic illness with her passion for social justice and transforming systems of oppression. Noëlle recently published her book, Rebel Healing: Transforming Ourselves and the Systems that Make Us Sick.

In this conversation, Noëlle shares concrete ways coaches can support social change leaders to reconnect with their bodies, intuition, and a sense of interconnectedness. We explore how coaching can help prevent burnout by focusing not just on doing more, but on what needs to stop. And Noëlle opens up about embracing her role as a healer within social movements and how she navigates the tension between one-on-one work and large-scale transformation.

Check out the episode page for the transcript and the full list of the resources mentioned in this episode: https://widerroots.com/4

Key moments

• 02:04 - The Root Cause: What inspired you to write Rebel Healing?
• 06:41 - Doing work for justice with a more regulated nervous system
• 13:45 - Preventing burnout: Coaching can be about doing less, not more
• 17:23 - Healing: 30% repair, 70% transformation
• 21:51 - Serving 1-on-1: Embracing the role of healer within social movements
• 28:28 - Coaching Technique: Reconnecting with body wisdom and intuition in coaching
• 34:25 - Noëlle's sources of inspiration
• 36:52 - Closing

Resources & Links

• Rebel Healing: Transforming Ourselves and the Systems that Make Us Sick (Book by Noëlle Janka)
• Liberated to the Bone: History's Body's Futures (Book by Susan Rappo)
• Deepa Iyer's Social Change Map
• Microactivism: How You Can Make a Difference in the World Without a Bullhorn (Book by Omkari Williams)
• Strozzi Institute (Somatic coach training program)
• @CoachJenniGrover - For folks with health challenges and a crafty side
• Chronic Babe 101: How to Live an Awesome Life with Chronic Illness (Book by Jenni Grover)
• Girl, Woman, Other (Book by Bernadine Evaristo)
• Wildchoir (Spiritual Social Change Choir Music)
• Black Voters Matter Fund
• Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute with adrienne maree brown

Connect with Noëlle

• Noëlle Janka’s Website
• @NoelleJanka on Instagram