Clara Ritger spent her 20s building a successful media career — producing for U.S. national media such as NBC, WSJ, and TLC — while secretly battling chronic illness and burnout. A ruptured appendix, major abdominal surgery, and skin cancer forced her to reevaluate everything. In this episode, Clara shares how she burned it all down, why rest and healing are radical acts, and what she’s learned about choosing alignment over performance.

FIND CLARA:

Clara Ritger is a writer, trauma-informed meditation teacher, and inspirational speaker. Follow her on Threads and Instagram @clararitger. Her newsletter Adventure to Awaken adventuretoawaken.com shares insights and perspective shifts from the journey to come home to yourself. Get Clara Ritger’s free, 56-page guide to taking a solo retreat here: http://adventuretoawaken.com/solo-retreat-guide

FIND JANICE:

Janice Selbie's best-selling book, Divorcing Religion: A Memoir and Survival Handbook, is available here: https://amzn.to/4mnDxuo

Religious Trauma Survivor Support Groups happen online Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern. Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with others for support: https://www.divorcing-religion.com/services

Need help on your journey of healing from Religious Trauma? Book a free 20-minute consultation with Janice here: https://www.divorcing-religion.com/

Follow Janice and Divorcing Religion on Social Media:

https://linktr.ee/janiceselbie

The Sex & Power Podcast is for entertainment purposes only. If you need help with your mental health, please consult a qualified, secular mental health clinician.

The views expressed by guests on the Sex & Power Podcast are not necessarily held by the host.

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The Sex & Power Podcast: Truth-telling that liberates with Mike Steve Collins: The Anti-Civil Rights Movement

Mike Collins is the author of The Anti-Civil Rights Movement: Affirmative Action as Wedge and Weapon (University Press of Kansas, 2024), Understanding Etheridge Knight, updated edition (University of South Carolina Press, 2023), and The Traveling Queen (poems, Sheep Meadow Press, 2013). His essays have appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The Oxford American, The Cambridge Companion to American Prison Writing and Mass Incarceration, Fight & Fiddle, Callaloo, PMLA, and elsewhere. His poems have appeared in New Letters, About Place, 32 Poems, The Rupture, JAMA, The American Journal of Poetry, and elsewhere. He teaches at Texas A & M University.

https://kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700637140/

Our conversation today focuses on his recent book The Anti-Civil Rights Movement: Affirmative Action as Wedge and Weapon, where Mike examines how policies created to promote opportunity and fairness were slowly reshaped into tools that divided the very groups they were meant to empower.
FIND MIKE on TikTok @mike.steve.collins

FIND JANICE SELBIE:
Janice Selbie's best-selling book, Divorcing Religion: A Memoir and Survival Handbook, is available here. https://amzn.to/4mnDxuo

Recordings from the Shameless Sexuality: Life After Purity Culture conference 2025 available here. https://www.shamelesssexuality.org/

Religious Trauma Survivor Support Groups happen online Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern. Sign up here. https://www.divorcing-religion.com/services

For help with recovery from religious trauma, book a free 20-minute consultation with Janice here. https://www.divorcing-religion.com/services

Follow Janice and Divorcing Religion on Social Media:
linktr.ee/janiceselbie

The Divorcing Religion Podcast is for entertainment purposes only. If you need help with your mental health, please consult a qualified, secular, mental health clinician. The views expressed by guests are not necessarily held by the host.

Support the show

Detra Denise - Ashes and Embers: How Detra Denise Turned Pain into Power PART 2

In this episode, Detra shares what it was like to go from obscurity to fame after being featured in a 15-part series in the Humans of New York. She also opens up about being offered protection by the gents of the Harlem Cigar Room, and what kept her moving forward instead of giving up.

DETRA’S LINKS:

http://www.detrasstory.com/

https://www.instagram.com/onewomannyc1?igsh=MWl2cDB2ZWptYmRlMA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

https://www.facebook.com/detra.denise.52

https://youtu.be/gj4alIQTka4?si=VD1hLyzE8iztnBd9

FIND JANICE SELBIE:
Janice Selbie's best-selling book, Divorcing Religion: A Memoir and Survival Handbook, is available here. https://amzn.to/4mnDxuo

Recordings from the Shameless Sexuality: Life After Purity Culture conference 2025 available here. https://www.shamelesssexuality.org/

Religious Trauma Survivor Support Groups happen online Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern. Sign up here. https://www.divorcing-religion.com/services

For help with recovery from religious trauma, book a free 20-minute consultation with Janice here. https://www.divorcing-religion.com/services

Follow Janice and Divorcing Religion on Social Media:
linktr.ee/janiceselbie

The Divorcing Religion Podcast is for entertainment purposes only. If you need help with your mental health, please consult a qualified, secular, mental health clinician. The views expressed by guests are not necessarily held by the host.

Support the show