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Coaching can feel like a solo sport, but it doesn’t have to!

Join Becky Mollenkamp and Taina Brown for a free live workshop on October 30th at 2 p.m. ET where we’ll explore what it really takes to grow as a coach rooted in liberation, not just business.

🌟 In this session, you’ll learn:

• What liberation can look like for you and your clients
• The 3 essentials every coach needs for a sustainable, liberatory practice
• How community can fuel your growth with fresh ideas, accountability, and support

This isn’t just another workshop—it’s a doorway into deeper connection with coaches who share your values.

👉 Reserve your free spot today: https://evt.to/eodmahasw

(If you can’t make it live, sign up anyway—replay will be available!)

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THIS IS FOR COACHES (or anyone who uses coaching skills)...

Join Becky Mollenkamp and Taina Brown for a free live workshop on October 30th at 2 p.m. ET where we’ll explore what it really takes to grow as a coach rooted in liberation, not just business.

🌟 In this session, you’ll learn:

• What liberation can look like for you and your clients
• The 3 essentials every coach needs for a sustainable, liberatory practice
• How community can fuel your growth with fresh ideas, accountability, and support

This isn’t just another workshop—it’s a doorway into deeper connection with coaches who share your values.

👉 Reserve your free spot today: https://evt.to/eodmahasw

(If you can’t make it live, sign up anyway—replay will be available!)

This week, Becky and Taina cut through the noise—what “compromise” really means in a deeply divided America. Triggered by Jerry Greenfield’s exit from Ben & Jerry’s, Tad Stoermer’s critique of liberal nationalism, and the recent killing of Charlie Kirk, we unpack how stories are told, how power is preserved, and who gets to be the “martyr.”

We talk about:

• How Christian nationalism (via figures like Charlie Kirk) has evolved — from campus provocateur to media force to mythic martyr.
• Why “compromise” is pitched as a virtue — but often functions to protect white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and nationalism.
• How grief and the narrative around someone’s death (Kirk’s, especially) are weaponized in service of myth-making and mobilization.
• The difference between compromise and surrender—and why that distinction matters in politics and in life
• Jerry Greenfield’s choice to leave Ben & Jerry’s rather than mute his values for corporate comfort
• Tad Stoermer’s warning about liberal nationalism, American mythology, and the weaponization of compromise
• The powder keg moment America is in, and what it means for those with privilege vs. those without
• Culture as propaganda: from Star Trek to 9/11 broadcasts to the cult of celebrity
• How white liberals cling to the dream of compromise and why it only leads to deeper harm
• What legacy really means—not just what you build, but what you walk away from

This is a heavy one. We name the fear, the grief, and the hope in imagining a future beyond duct-tape solutions. And, as always, we find a little levity at the end (Cardi B, Beyoncé, and witchy weekends).

Resources Mentioned:

• Tad Stoermer video: “Why U.S. Historians Keep Reinforcing American Nationalism (Even When They Think They Aren’t)”
• “A Resistance History of the United States” by Tad Stoermer (coming 2026)

🎤 PROUD MEMBERS OF THE FEMINIST PODCATERS COLLECTIVE

Death isn’t something most of us are taught to face with honesty, compassion, or ritual. In this episode of Messy Liberation, hosts Becky Mollenkamp and Taina Brown sit down with Nikki Smith, The Death Doula, to explore what it means to navigate dying, grief, and collective loss with more humanity.

Nikki shares how her personal experiences with loss led her to become a death doula and grief coach, and why she believes grief doesn’t have to suck. Together, we talk about how our culture fails us in grief (three days of bereavement leave? really?), the myths of the “stages of grief,” what collective grief looks like in moments like COVID and global injustice, and why rituals matter.

We also touch on end-of-life dignity, hospice care, and what Nikki has learned about her own mortality from walking alongside others in their final days. This conversation is real, tender, and surprisingly hopeful—it’s about love, legacy, and finding joy even in the hardest moments.

If you’ve ever felt alone in your grief, questioned how to support someone through loss, or wondered what it means to prepare for your own death, this episode will meet you right where you are.

Discussed in this episode:

• How Nikki became a death doula and grief coach
• Why toxic positivity is harmful in grief
• The many forms of grief, including disenfranchised grief
• The limitations of bereavement leave and how workplaces fail grievers
• Rituals and cultural approaches to death
• The myth of “stages of grief” and why grief is nonlinear
• Collective grief in times of crisis (COVID, genocide, natural disasters)
• The dignity (and indignity) of dying, and hospice care
• Talking with kids about death
• Finding joy, ritual, and love inside grief

Resources:

• Nikki Smith’s website (and podcast info)
• Nikki and Taina’s upcoming session on collective grief (Sept. 25)

🎤 PROUD MEMBERS OF THE FEMINIST PODCASTERS COLLECTIVE