Catalyst Conversations: Recent Episodes
Anya Hankin
Welcome to Catalyst Conversations, hosted by Anya Hankin in dialogue with graduates of the Catalyst Leadership Immersion — changemakers, healers, visionaries, and artists. Here we connect for heart-to-hearts about what it means to use our businesses as vehicles for our values, to show up imperfectly and courageously in our work, and to rise into aligned leadership that leaves room for our whole selves and deeply serves our communities.
Myriam Loeschen (she/her) is a certified coach and expert facilitator, a bridge-builder, and a fierce advocate for human connection. Merging her background in the SATIR therapy model, Catalyst Leadership frameworks, and Anti-Racist Training, she guides groups and individuals in resilient conversations around issues that matter — race, identity, and self-awareness.
In this episode of the Catalyst Conversations, Myriam and I talk a lot about questions — the questions our brains get looped in, the questions that help to free us from unworthiness and doubt, the questions that take bravery to ask, the questions that invite us deeper into a life that feels aligned.
Myriam shares how, for her, this last year has been one of excavation and of tilling the compost of what emerges, of examining and reclaiming what her truth is, and of inviting the communities she facilitates into this simple yet profoundly sacred process of inquiry followed by action.
((She also shares the question she was compelled to ask the poet David Whyte in a rapt room of hundreds!))
Listen in!
You can find Myriam at www.coachmyriam.com
There’s no denying that we are in the midst of huge transformation on a personal and global scale, and it can feel deeply unsettling and rich with possibility. ((And everywhere in between!))
With a foundation in body liberation, intersectional justice, radical storytelling, and creative expression — and a unique ability to hold the spectrum of paradoxes —Jenny Downer is a powerful guide for this time.
As a mama to an 18-year old and 15-year old, a partner, advocate, artist, photographer, and facilitator of visibility, Jenny practices looking at challenge and complexity with nuance and compassion. For years now, she’s used her work as a way to truth-tell and dive way beneath the surface, giving permission for others to share their own messy realness, and creating community in the process.
In our conversation, we talk about her recent neurodiversity diagnosis, her long-time commitment to shedding and shifting stigmas wherever she finds them, and what can happen when we step out of the hustle and let ourselves actually slow down and listen in.
You can find Jenny at www.shesawthings.com And on instagram @shesawthings
In this episode of Catalyst Conversations, I’m talking with Amy McMullen, a writer, activist, leader, facilitator, and wayfinder. Amy is someone who puts her body, heart, words, tools, and love on the line for the world we are creating
After pouring her heart and soul into a brand new signature offering, Amy launched Navigator Retreats just weeks before we went into quarantine last March. In our conversation today, we reflect on the major pivots we have all been tasked with traversing over this last year and she shares how she has found unexpected ways to cultivate community, comfort, a sense of nurturing — even in the midst of change and transition.
Amy’s work invites people to disentangle the narratives and stories we carry that don’t serve us, to reclaim our own truth and wholeness, and to find home in ourselves.
Amy shares how poetry and daily practices have helped her find her compass and how she is able to offer these practices to others through her work. ((She also reads some beautiful poems from Rupi Kaur, Cleo Wade, and David Whyte.))
Get cozy and settle in. Maybe even grab your tea and cuddle up under your blankets. ((We do!))
You can find Amy at navigatorpdx.com And on instagram at @navigatorpdx
Clare Kritter is a clinical herbalist and holistic wellness consultant, astrologer, flower essence practitioner, herbal educator, and lover of plants. Using medicinal herbs, food and nutritional guidance, flower essences, astrology, harm reduction and self-care practices, she works holistically to support clients on their path towards wellness.
When we talked, Clare had just made an epic cross-country journey to her new home in the midwest after living in Portland for many years. Our conversation was right on the cusp of the election, our Catalyst Cohort had just come to a close, and we were both kind of sitting with the lack of grounding that can come from big change, and especially a lot of big changes all at once.
During our conversation, Clare shares some really tangible ways to move anxiety through the body, and simple steps to invite in a sense of groundedness. We also talked about observing and trusting the cycles that exist in nature and looking to winter as a time of integration of the upheaval, grief, and learning and change of the last many months.
I experience Clare as such a wise and generous soul, a playful and silly human, and such a gifted healer. I’m really glad for you to know her.
You can find Clare at: www.clarekritter.comAnd on Instagram at: www.instagram.com/winters.sister.herbals
Sarah Greenman is a creative alchemist, artist, storyteller, writer, and facilitator. She wields her words like messengers of possibility and seems to have direct access to wellsprings of creativity. This woman is a prolific and stunning creatrix.
Sarah lives in Eastern, Oregon, and her work is deeply informed by place, by nature, by seasons and cycles which she weaves into her paintings and poems and plays and multilayered creative offerings.
The journey of these last ten months has been truly catalytic for Sarah, and we talk about all she’s lost and left and transformed since January 2020. She reminds me that there’s no reason to keep hidden the desires and visions we have for our lives and our world — that now is the time to respond to what is calling us up — even when we’re not quite sure what it will look like...
Sarah tells us: Your creativity is a bone-deep tool for healing, justice, and revelatory collective liberation. Your innate creativity will transform the world. Step into the center of your knowing and alchemize your pain into joy. It will set us all free.
Not only does she tell us, but she shows us a way, carving a path that encourages us to be brave with our own.
You can find Sarah at: www.sarahgreenman.com And on Instagram at: www.instagram.com/sarah.greenman.creative
Today I’m chatting with B Merikle. (Black, They, She). In their own words, “B is a non-profit exec challenging anti-Blackness by day; mama/artist/activist by life. B believes deeply in the power of stark contrast — trauma and pleasure — to create new Black futures that free us all.”
I’ve known B since they said yes to joining the Catalyst Leadership Immersion last year. Their work and way in the world is culture-shifting, pleasure-inducing, rest-honoring, and creativity-catalyzing. B is a painter, a writer, an oracle deck creator, a facilitator of challenging and joyful conversations about identity and race, and B is nurturing a vision for The Gerri, a physical space & virtual community offering creative sanctuary to Black women and non-binary folks, and those seeking restorative room to decompress, heal, be joyful, convene, and create.
In our conversation, we talk about centering pleasure while still acknowledging pain and trauma. We touch on the nuances of racial reconciliation. We talk about job transitions and what it looks like to allow our visions to shift and change and adapt to this time. I get quiet and listen to what B has to share. I invite you to do the same.
You can connect with B on Instagram: www.instagram.com/imanisasa
Kacy (she/her/they/them/two spirit) is a Naturopathic Doctor and Licensed Acupuncturist and is the owner of Quercus Natural Health — supporting integrated wholeness for self and community well-being. Kacy guides intergenerational communities through ritual and connection, hosts celebration circles for young people transitioning into adulthood, leads retreats for birth trauma healing, and also offers business tools to healers and wellness practitioners so they can grow flourishing careers.
We had a nourishingly twisting and turning conversation that felt healing in its own right. ((I want to note that we did touch on some intense topics around birth trauma, so please know that as you enter into this conversation with us.))
Find dr. kacy here: www.quercusnaturalhealth.com
Marisol Cordero Goodman is a heart-centered estate, trust, and corporate attorney. She’s also one of my oldest friends.
Mari and I have known each other since we were kids ((living across the street from one another in three different cities!)) but it wasn’t until she joined the very first Catalyst Leadership Immersion that we got to fully experience one another’s work. Marisol joined again as an Apprentice this last year, and we’ve gotten to deepen into both our friendship and our work together.
Over these last years in the Catalyst Cohort, I’ve witnessed Mari claim her unique place as an attorney who brings both expertise and emotional depth. I’ve seen her commit to the inner work of shedding outdated expectations of what it means to be a lawyer — and a leader — carving a path for herself in a field where for so long she didn’t see herself reflected.
We talk about how Mari’s background in counseling, movement facilitation, and nonprofit leadership merge with her extensive background in law, and equip her to show up for families as they navigate some of the most significant transition points they will experience — celebrating life, honoring death, and establishing a personalized legacy of care.
You can find Marisol at www.mcgoodmanlaw.com
Today I’m talking with the profoundly creative Caitlin Quinn! (She/Her/They/Them).
Caitlin wears many hats — I’m sure they are rainbow hats ((take one look at her website or Instagram and you’ll know she loves all things rainbow!)). Caitlin is a theater teacher, in collaboration with catalyst Kacy Borba Spann, Caitlin guides intergenerational retreats and celebration circles for young people transitioning into adulthood. She also runs the Reframe Collective alongside her partner blue and their child Raynor — where they host community events, dynamic arts adventures, design handbuilt crafts & offer consults on tangible ways to transform your space. Caitlin is also an embodied stylist and self-expressionist who uses clothing as her art form, as a conduit for transformation, and helps her clients do the same.
During our conversation, we talk mostly about Caitlin’s business, the Wardrobe Resourcery, which she brought into being during the Catalyst Leadership Immersion and you’ll get to hear all about. Wardrobe Resourcery helps us shift away from the grip of capitalism, use our wardrobes as sacred acts of resistance from the status quo, and remember that loving ourselves is a radical act.Caitlin possesses a powerful ability to reimagine, revision, and remake — which feels like just the kind of medicine we need in the world right now.
You can find Caitlin at www.reframecollective.com/wardrobe-resourcery
And on Instagram at www.instagram.com/wardroberesourcery