Mother's Quest Podcast Podcast Por Julie Neale arte de portada

Mother's Quest Podcast

Mother's Quest Podcast

De: Julie Neale
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Are you a mom who is ready to live a truly E.P.I.C. life? A few months before a big milestone birthday, host Julie Neale, a life and leadership coach, community builder and mom to two high-energy boys, decided to stop sidelining her dreams and become the hero of her own journey. She created this show to help light her way by gathering words of wisdom and lessons learned from other mothers further ahead on their quest. Join in for intimate conversations with a diverse group of inspiring mothers as they share how they are living an E.P.I.C. life, engaging mindfully with their children (E), passionately and purposefully making a difference beyond their family (P), investing in themselves (I), and connecting to a strong support network (C). Come along with Julie and you are sure to find some treasures of your own. Biografías y Memorias Ciencias Sociales Crianza y Familias Relaciones
Episodios
  • Ep 113: A New Way of Life: How Love Disrupts Systems of Harm with Susan Burton and Pamela Marshall

    Ep 113: A New Way of Life: How Love Disrupts Systems of Harm with Susan Burton and Pamela Marshall
    Feb 13 2026
    I'm honored to bring you a special episode of the Mother's Quest Podcast during Black History Month, featuring two extraordinary Black women, Susan Burton and Pamela Marshall, who are shaping history in real time, breaking cycles of incarceration for women through their work with the organization A New Way of Life (ANWOL.) I first met Susan and Pamela through Democracy Clothing, the brand my sister Caren founded, when we visited A New Way of Life to bring clothing to the staff and residents and later invited a group of their mothers to the Democracy studio. Spending time with them, seeing their impact firsthand, and later reading Susan's memoir, I was struck by how they transform personal loss and systemic harm into healing and hope for women rebuilding their lives. Susan founded A New Way of Life in 1998 after surviving nearly two decades in the cycle of incarceration herself. Following the devastating loss of her young son, her grief led to substance use that was criminalized and punished again and again, instead of supported. After her sixth release from prison, she finally experienced recovery rooted in dignity and opportunity and committed to bringing that same humanity to other women. What began as one home in South Los Angeles has grown into a nationally recognized reentry model that has provided safe housing to more than 1,800 women, reunited over 400 mothers with their children, and helped thousands clear legal barriers to employment and housing. This work is especially urgent given that the number of incarcerated women has increased by more than 600 percent since 1980, and that women returning home often face unique barriers, including higher rates of trauma, primary caregiving responsibilities, and limited gender responsive reentry support. Susan is now a grandmother and a great grandmother, building legacy across generations of women in more ways than one. Pamela's story is woven into that legacy. She joined A New Way of Life through a transitional employment program when Susan saw something special in her. Over time she was mentored, entrusted with greater responsibility, and eventually Susan passed the baton. Today, as one of two Co- Directors, Pamela carries the vision forward, expanding ANWOL's reach and impact. This conversation was recorded months ago, but the episode's release feels like it's arriving at exactly the right time. At this moment in our country, as state-sanctioned immigration raids harm families and destabilize communities across cities like Minneapolis, we feel the weight of injustice and wonder how to respond. And yet, we are also witnessing communities of care step forward, neighbors disrupting cycles of harm where they live, choosing solidarity over fear and acting from compassion. That is exactly what Susan and Pamela have been building for decades. Their wisdom grounds us in the knowledge that change begins close to home and is rooted in love. Topics Discussed in this Episode: The criminalization of addiction, the impact of intergenerational trauma, and the systems of poverty and racism that create cycles of harm Moving from being fueled by rage to being powered by forgiveness and love as a force for transformation How A New Way of Life creates safe homes where women returning from prison find stability, support, and the foundation to rebuild their lives Raising children to use their voices and be brave in the face of injustice Creating networks of support with like-minded people and remembering we're all connected Staying out of the "deep, dark hole" of the news cycle to protect your spirit Learning to pour into yourself while also caring for and uplifting others Why Susan believes real systemic change begins in hearts and minds, not legislation About Susan Burton Ms. Burton struggled to rise above a life of poverty, violence, and loss. As a way to cope, she fell harder into substance misuse and became enmeshed in the cycle of mass incarceration for nearly two decades. After being released from prison for the sixth time, Ms. Burton was finally able to access recovery services in an affluent area of Los Angeles. There she discovered and embraced opportunities that were never offered before. Determined to bring those resources to areas plagued by poverty and over-incarceration, Ms. Burton founded A New Way of Life (ANWOL) in 1998. Ms. Burton is a co-founder of All of Us or None (AOUON) and the Formerly Incarcerated & Convicted People and Families Movement (FICPFM), both national grassroots civil rights movements composed of formerly incarcerated individuals, their families and community allies. In collaboration with UCLA's Critical Race Studies Program, she launched an employment rights reentry legal clinic, which has grown to be the largest of its kind in Southern California. Susan has earned numerous awards and honors for her work. In 2010, she was named a CNN Top Ten Hero and received the prestigious Citizen Activist Award from the Harvard ...
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    53 m
  • Ep 112: Mothering Through the Darkness: Lessons Inspired by The Mystics Almanac

    Ep 112: Mothering Through the Darkness: Lessons Inspired by The Mystics Almanac
    Dec 18 2025
    Welcome to this special episode, one I recorded in the days leading up to the holidays and the winter solstice, the darkest days of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. This season, when the nights are long and the light feels scarce, invites us to pause, reflect, and seek warmth and meaning in intentional ways. And this year especially, the darkness has felt more than seasonal. In the face of heartbreaking events unfolding in the world, I've found myself needing practices and perspectives more than ever that help me stay grounded, connected, and hopeful. It was from this place that I found myself returning again to the Mystics Almanac. This fall, I had the honor of contributing another piece to the Almanac, a powerful creation by my friend and mentor Lindsay Pera. Years ago, inspired by the enduring legacy of the Farmers Almanac, Lindsay envisioned something similar but more mystical—an annual guide grounded in her beautifully illustrated Oracle Deck, woven with astrological insights, divinations, and reflective writings from a diverse circle of contributors. The Mystics Almanac isn't just a book of forecasts and dates. In Lindsay's own words, it's a mirror, a guide, and a reminder that we are not alone on this path. I've turned to the Almanac for this reason myself over the years; and it was especially poignant and supportive of me and my family in the days before my father passed away. The months before writing my piece for the Almanac felt incredibly heavy. In my own motherhood journey and in our country and the world, it seemed that not only were things in crisis, but that they were collapsing. Past stories, systems, and patterns revealed their cracks, leaving me disoriented and searching for new footing. I returned often to the Mystics Almanac and drew cards from the Mystics Oracle Deck. Again and again, I pulled the "Fear" and the "Beneath" cards, mirrors of all I was experiencing in the not knowing. As I sat with these cards, I realized that my personal feelings were also reflected in our collective story. Echoes of History As I listen to and read from historians, I keep noticing how much this moment echoes others in our history. The turbulence and backlash of Reconstruction, when newly won freedoms were met with violence and suppression. The Gilded Age, when vast inequality and political corruption left ordinary people struggling while the wealthy few consolidated power. The 1930s, when economic collapse and widespread fear created conditions that allowed authoritarian movements to rise across the world. Each of these times brought real devastation and loss. And yet, they also carried seeds of transformation. Reconstruction, though violently cut short, planted the roots that later grew into the Civil Rights Movement. The abuses of the Gilded Age gave rise to reforms in the Progressive Era. The despair of the Depression led to the New Deal, the creation of social safety nets, and labor rights that reshaped American life. And though the 1930s brought the world to war, its aftermath renewed global commitments to democracy, human rights, and rebuilding, even if those commitments have been fragile and incomplete. History does not repeat, but it does rhyme. Life moves in spirals, not straight lines. We return to familiar struggles, facing injustice, violence, and division, but when they arrive again, we are not the same as before. We come with new perspective, new resilience, and often hard-earned wisdom we did not have the last time around. Guiding Lights This summer and fall, I found myself asking "how should we navigate this new ring of the spiral?" How might we mother ourselves, our children, and our communities through the darkness of collapse without losing faith that something transformative is taking root beneath it all? Just as the Mystics Almanac draws on cards to illuminate the energies of the year, I decided to turn to the Mother's Quest Podcast as my own kind of oracle, revisiting conversations from episodes with mothers whose wisdom can light our way. Three voices called to me most strongly: the Mystics Almanac's own intuitive strategist Lindsay Pera, From Scratch author, producer and screenwriter Tembi Locke, and the Revolutionary Love Project civil rights leader Valarie Kaur. Lindsay's words deepened the concept of the spiral itself as a guide. Life, she confirms is not linear but more like a nautilus shell, circling back with new perspective. Challenges return, not as failures, but as invitations to greet them with greater compassion for ourselves and others. She likens our lives to the rings of a tree, each year holding stories of hardship and growth. What once felt like collapse can, with time, be recognized as part of a larger pattern of healing and becoming. Tembi reminded me of the power of ancestry and constellations. Raised by an "ecosystem of women," her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, she carries the resilience and faith they instilled. She told ...
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    35 m
  • Ep 111: Living Resistance: A Call for These Times with Poet Kaitlin Curtice

    Ep 111: Living Resistance: A Call for These Times with Poet Kaitlin Curtice
    Aug 1 2025
    In a world heavy with heartbreak and injustice, I've been searching for ways to stay grounded in my humanity…ways to resist not only despair, but also the systems of harm and oppression around us. My guest today, Kaitlin Curtice, calls this practice living resistance. Kaitlin is an award-winning author, poet, and citizen of the Potawatomi Nation who writes and speaks at the intersections of spirituality, identity, and collective healing. Through her work, including her book Living Resistance and her upcoming release Everything Is a Story, she invites us to become more fully ourselves, to honor the gifts we already hold, and to let those gifts ripple out in love, courage, and care for the world. Her life has been shaped by liminality, existing between her Native American heritage and a Southern Baptist Christian upbringing. This in-between space has given her a unique lens on how we find belonging and move toward healing in a fractured world. In our conversation, Kaitlin shares how resistance is not a single act but a continuous practice of becoming and being. She reflects on how it can be gentle and fierce, personal and political, and she offers practices for grounding ourselves in the midst of life's spiral journeys. We closed with her Resistance Commitment—a poetic call to action that reminds us that living resistance means tending to our inner lives while courageously shaping our collective future. I'm so grateful to my friend and former guest Rachel Macy Stafford, who first connected me to Kaitlin. Rachel's dedication to Kaitlin in this episode captures what Kaitlin offers the world—a call to link the best parts of ourselves so we can move forward together. Topics Discussed in this Episode: Growing up in liminality, navigating the complexity between Native American and Southern Baptist culturesThe cyclical, spiral nature of growth and how we revisit challenges with new wisdomDiscovering your unique voice and purpose through what has "always been there for you"Living resistance as a daily practice, using our everyday lives to push back against injustice and nurture a sense of wholenessEmbodiment practices that can reconnect you with your body after traumaHow rock climbing became Kaitlin's family's practice for presence and connectionBuilding community in both physical and virtual spaces and the importance of "third places" where you can be fully yourselfSeasonal living as an alternative to linear goal-settingThe power of words, poetry, and storytelling as forms of spiritual activism and as sources of healing About Kaitlin Kaitlin Curtice is an award-winning author, poet-storyteller, and public speaker. As an enrolled citizen of the Potawatomi nation, Kaitlin writes on the intersections of spirituality and identity and how that shifts throughout our lives. She also speaks on these topics to diverse audiences who are interested in truth-telling and healing. As an inter-spiritual advocate, Kaitlin participates in conversations on topics such as colonialism in faith communities, and she has spoken at many conferences on the importance of inter-faith relationships. Kaitlin leads workshops and retreats, as well as lectures and keynote presentations, ranging from panels at the Aspen Climate Conference to speaking at the Chautauqua Institution and at universities, private retreat centers, and churches across the country. In 2020 Kaitlin's award-winning book Native: Identity, Belonging and Rediscovering God won Georgia Author of the Year in the religion category. Native explores the relationship between American Christianity and Indigenous peoples, drawing on Kaitlin's experiences as a Potawatomi woman. In 2023, Kaitlin released two books, first, Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day, which examines the journey of resisting the status quo of hate by caring for ourselves, one another, and Mother Earth, and second, her first children's book called Winter's Gifts: An Indigenous Celebration of Nature, which is the premier book in a series of four books on the four seasons coming out with Convergent, RandomHouse Books. Her second book in the series called Summer's Magic was released in 2024. Besides her books, Kaitlin has written online for Sojourners, Religion News Service, On Being, SELF Magazine, Oprah Daily, and more. Her work has been featured on CBS and in USA Today. She also writes essays and poetry for The Liminality Journal and spends her time supporting other authors as they navigate the world of publishing. Kaitlin lives near Philadelphia with her partner, two dogs, and two kids. Connect with Kaitlin: Website | www.kaitlincurtice.comInstagram | www.instagram.com/kaitlincurtice Explore Kaitlin's Writing: "Living Resistance" by Kaitlin Curtice "Everything is a Story" by Kaitlin Curtice – available for preorder Liminality Journal (Kaitlin's Substack) This Episode's Challenge: Kaitlin offered us a beautiful challenge to shift from linear ...
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    50 m
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