What you’ll hear in this episode:

• She is Rising
• The healing power of art
• Survivor leadership

Great Society is a podcast all about those who are working to lift the voices of those with a hard time being heard. In this episode, our host spoke with Brooke Axtell. Axtell is a human rights activist, author of the book Beautiful Justice, a survivor, and founder of She is Rising which is a healing community for women and girls overcoming rape, abuse, and sex trafficking. After overcoming her own traumas, she became an advocate for those who have gone through sexual and gender violence which led to her founding She is Rising with the purpose of helping others heal and find their strength.

Axtell shared with that audience that one of the most powerful catalysts for her healing has been art. Through her abuse, she was lead to believe that her voice and her desires did not matter, so having the ability to express herself creatively reinforced that her voice mattered and deserved to be heard. Art has also allowed her to reclaim and redefine who she is outside of what had been done to her. She uses art in her foundation to help other survivors find their voice, grow, and heal. The purpose is to help them shift away from being a victim and become the artist of their own life. It gives them choice and agency when they’re healing from something which they had no control over.

To hear more about Axtell’s story, supporting others in their path to freedom and healing, redefining the rescue narrative, and her other work, listen to the eighth installment of Great Society. If you enjoy what you hear then be sure to share with friends and colleagues!

Great Society is a founding_media podcast created in partnership with Constance Dykhuizen.

Host: Constance Dykhuizen

Guest: Brooke Axtell

Find She is Rising on Facebook

 

Transcript:

this is a founding media podcast if or or hello everyone welcome to great society podcast about people who are working to elevate the voices of others I’m your host Constance thank yous and my guest today is my friend Brooke Axtell she’s an activist author and founder of she is rising healing community for women and girls overcoming rape abuse and sex trafficking broke read from her new book and we chatted about survivor leadership and how art has helped her heal here’s my conversation with Brooke

hi everyone welcome the great society I’m your host Constance thank yous and I’m here with my friend author and activist Brooke Axtell thanks so much for being here broke my pleasure I’m so excited to talk to you today because you’re been a friend for a long time and then you also have a book that just came out very excited to talk about that I was able to read it can you start off today by kind of reading from it’s actually called beautiful justice reclaiming my worth after human trafficking and sexual abuse yes third passenger I need to find one for us I was excited when I was reading I didn’t actually know that I was in it but I think that’s the part you’re gonna read it so I’m excited about that yes I want to find the passage from our experience going to the red light district in Bangkok and your my guide to that area and it was very meaningful for me I was in Bangkok to speak for our members of parliament from over thirty southeast Asian countries addressing gender based violence and human trafficking but also how this deep awareness that the reality of these issues was very close to the area where I was speaking and I want to make sure that I had the opportunity to connect with some survivors so is thrilled that I could be a part of that with you and I need to find the passage when I walked down one of the main streets of the red light district with my friend Constance I witness bar after bar filled with white western men holding their drinks and checking out the merchandise every time I saw a new neon sign advertising girls are heard another wave of men laughing with their crew I was filled with disgust each one reminded me of my trafficker and the man he sold me too callous men ruled by their cravings disconnected from the truth of the suffering they left in their wake they refused to see what their desires divorced from the reality of other human lives ultimately cost although technically it is not legal for the bars in Bangkok to directly sell the girls they facilitate the transaction in benefit financially in most of the visible commercial establishments of buyer picks a girl and then he’s the bar an exit fee to take her somewhere to perform sexual acts to the uneducated I it might appear to be consensual but those histories of abuse coercion and poverty tell a different story there is an illusion of a constant party with copious drinks loud music and young smiling girls some have numbers Penn to their clingy dresses so they can quickly be identified by a buyer display conceals the reality of rape complex trauma and economic vulnerability it also hides the fact that many of them are under age a few blocks from the bars a safe house for survivors of sex trafficking shelters girls in their teens and early twenties over up beautiful homemade dinner of ties stews and rice dishes I spoke to the girls about their experience in recovery what do you love most about being here I asked the girls at the dinner table one of the staff members translated for me when it was her turn to speak the shy’s wonder girl sitting next to me smiled and said when I like most about being here is learning about the love of god she beamed as she shared the S. her face illuminated from within that is beautiful thank you for sharing that with me I replied in awe of her response after walking past all the buyers of the sellers all the girls still trapped in poverty and exploitation her answer purist through my disgust and gave me hope god was in the red light district I saw her in the faces of these radiant girls my favorite part about being here another young woman said is our Christmas parties every year during Christmas we host a party invite all the girls from the bars to come so we can give them presents and show them love one of the staff members explained we pay the bar owners a fee for any of the girls who want to come it’s the only time of year when they were they receive are always taking from them the girls are excited to show me the rest of the house when we went upstairs the gentle one who talked about the love of god walked with me what are you passionate about I asked I make art she said excitedly want to see absolutely I sat she led me over to her collection of drawings and held up one for me to see smiling with pride that is gorgeous you are a talented artist thank you she said with quiet confidence she spoke like a person who had started to grasp her own worth I love my dinner with the survivors of Bangkok filled with hope after all the indoor they’re living with the joy of loving and being loved they’re learning the truth of their spiritual identity and purpose love found them in one of the most loveless places on earth in the past they were told they were nothing more than sexual commodities to be consumed by men with greater power and privilege now they were preparing for college and spoke with excitement about their dreams for the future as I watched the sun rise over Bangkok the next day I could see the light within these young survivors was far fiercer than the violence that was forced on their bodies

thank you so much I feel like I’m in a trance I feel like your voice is so beautiful and you took me back to that night but I remember well I loved getting to see that little girls aren’t as a member looking out at just how exceptionally gifted she she was by it by any standard but particularly to be able to make such beautiful art and to find hope after what you’ve been through and that to me is what reading your book was like to getting to read about your story getting to see how much beauty you found on the other side of it you’re really talented artist performer and poet writer all these things you perform with Katy Perry at the Grammys how much is how you open the book can you talk a little bit about what art has done for you and allowed you to do and how it’s allowed you to connect with other survivors thank you for that are it has been a powerful catalysts from healing there is a clear message that is communicated through all abuse which is that our voices and our desires don’t matter so for me the power of creative expression is that it affirms that our vision of the world that our voices have value and that we deserve to be heard I also feel that in the context of use we often learn that we are to be ashamed that somehow we are responsible or that we’re somehow fundamentally broken because of the things that have been done to us and I think part of the power of art is that we get to reclaim and redefine who we are as creative and resilience individuals who have a contribution to make and one of the reasons that I introduce creative expression and to the work that I do with survivors because I think part of the the power of it is being able to offer not only a path for voicing our truth and our experiences but also it’s a entry point into a new identity and being able to shift from being a victim or even merely a survivor to being the artist of our own lives and really seeing that we do have a choice and we do have agency even when we’ve experienced things that are deeply traumatic and over which we have no control that we still have the ability to rise up on the other side and to define who we want to be in the world

I love that the artists of our own lives I think what I was kind of surprised by about your book it just how practical it was because like I work with sexual abuse and trafficking survivors but you really laid out a roadmap that was really practical you’re really honest and raw about the process that you went through but you also talk so much about how it’s important to bring in other faith traditions for people to take their background into account when they’re going through this process can you tell me a little bit about what you recommend and what you lay out for survivors in the book with the the spiritual peace I think it’s really important to make sure that we’re not replicating some of the power and control dynamics that are set up in abuse and sexual exploitation and I think often people who are well meaning and different faith traditions want to present there are religious ideology as the only way to heal and I think it becomes really important instead to engage in conversations with survivors based on their unique backgrounds their spiritual values and their practices to really help them to trust their own spiritual path and to define over time what will be most healing for them because I think something that stolen from us is our ability to trust ourselves to trust that we can make meaning that we can know what is true for us because in the context of abuse we are essentially forced to live inside someone else’s reality someone else’s view of the world someone else’s odd concept of who we are and what we should believe and sometimes that’s just implicit in the abuse and sometimes it’s very explicit and particularly if there is any sort of religious justification used for why we’re being abused it becomes that much more important for people to be encouraged to find their own spiritual practices and and spiritual meaning in ways that feel deeply healing to them and I think there’s sometimes a student teacher and if something has been helpful for us to think well then it should apply to everyone to share it with everybody and so I try to stay away from being prescriptive and I try to stay away from that in the book you know I I did share okay these are the practices that I’ve been home for me personally and I actually just want you to trust yourself and trust that you can know what’s right for you so I think as advocates we just need to be really mindful of the fact that what may feel liberating and healing for one person might actually feel violating an alienating for someone else and you just become really curious about your what is someone’s religious background what in what ways has religion potentially been is to harm them and in what ways can we maybe offer some some guidance and encouragement for them to pursue their own spiritual path in a way that feels authentic and healing really trust that they can actually know for themselves what is good and right for them

that’s really great thanks I think one thing working in I called the anti trafficking space and such as people say social justice or human rights or however you want to call it but I think one thing that’s really particularly started started to really bugs me is the kind of the idea of of rescuing and freeing girls and going out kind of on this crusade and and boys and men and women and so but I think I think what what why that bothers me is because there’s kind of an impatience with funders with programs for people to be healed to be freed to be on the other side of it it’s almost like people expect it to be this physical binary like you’re enslaved you’re not enslaved but I mean in your book you lay out so clearly and so beautifully how I mean you talk about dissociation you talk about even the concept of soul loss for you feel like you lost your soul in this process and that’s just not something that is on the other side of the door rather of a rescue attempt or of an organization trying to get involved in your life so can you tell me kind of about what what you maybe what how how your journey was through through healing and maybe what we can with what we can come to expect kind of its allies from people maybe we can expect anything maybe that’s the point I love that you brought this up I think thought language of rescue is problematic for multiple reasons obviously if if you were a child or or someone who has been out physically restrained and held captive in a very specific contacts the language of rescue becomes more appropriate but we know that the reality of sex trafficking both domestically and globally is that there are vulnerabilities which are exploited psychological coercion which takes place and then also violence and threats of violence but it’s more complicated than just in your physical rescue and and not as for several reasons I think one of the primary reasons is that there is the the physical realities of this kind of exploitation but they’re also the psychological motion emotional and spiritual realities and what I have seen and in my own work as that liberation is a process so we can offer physical refuge for instance in a shelter or a residential community we can offer the you know law enforcement intervention we can offer advocacy there all these tools and ways that we can offer support for someone to exit exploitation just in the way that we can offer tools and support for someone to access said doesn’t the mystic violence relationship but we also can’t make choices for people right I think the statistics to take somebody seven times or something like that to leave an abuser and trafficking I’ve known women have gone back to it after the quote rescuer after I’ve been like hello I’m here to help you and then but that’s kind of the life that they have chosen is right for them for that moment even if there is that psychological complicity in like all these other things and trauma that feed into that but it’s it’s such a it’s such a wider thing right it’s not raised by now so I think with the way I view that as it’s the internalization of oppression I love the work of Brazilian educator Apollo ferry and I I mentioned in the book and he talks about the fact that after someone’s been a process to long enough that they internalize the guidelines of the oppressor and they actually become fearful of freedom is very similar to what you see in terms of domestic violence and the trauma bonding the loyalty that can happen I mean we even see with prisoners of war not prisoners of war these are these are what were your soldiers who have advanced training to resist psychological coercion we still see that they can become loyal to their characters right they can actually become because they are so emotionally dependent on their captors they can actually become loyal to them and so when you think about the vulnerability of a young woman who doesn’t have that training he doesn’t have that preparation how much more is she going to be vulnerable to becoming emotionally dependent and loyal to the very person that’s harming her in from the outside that so confusing you know we want to have this very linear red your narrative in which someone’s always grateful to be physically removed from a situation right if you put it in the context of internalized oppression and liberation because our process and our role as advocates and allies is just to see what could be my place and supporting ongoing liberation for this person and to be a voice to affirm their value to or from their choices to from their options I saw this even when I was in a domestic violence relationship there were maybe six or seven people along my path whether it was someone who witnessed me being verbally abused for law enforcement who showed up were on a family member who reflected back to me this is not the way you deserve to be treated there are different points along the way we’re someone reflected back to me this is not what you deserve another way is possible for you how can I support you and I needed to hear that multiple times before I was ready to accept that relationships I’ve I I very much think that there are a lot of parallels if if somebody had tried to step in and and essentially forced me before I was ready I think it actually would have in some ways made me more loyal to their relationship because I was not ready psychologically I needed someone along these different points of my story to be able to reflect the truth back to me and I think that’s the most powerful thing that we can do is to understand that for someone who’s been through sex trafficking or partner violence our our greatest gift is to be with them and empathy to speak truth and encouragement about the truth of their identity and then to always a firm how can I support you and your options if you want them and I will walk with you as you explore what those options might look like I think that the rescue narrative is one that we really need to challenge because it really doesn’t take into account the way that complex trauma works and the way that the neurobiological impact of trauma works and weekends I understand that and the fact that when you’ve been abused long enough abuse is your norm and for human beings what is normal what is familiar feel safe and it’s very confusing and it takes time so yes if somebody’s physically held hostage or their child we need that immediate and direct physical intervention but obviously it’s more complex than that yeah so I prefer to frame it in terms of how do we support someone in their own path to freedom and healing how do we help someone exit dangerous and abusive situations in what ways can we support them to do that rather than framing ourselves as the hero of the narrative

I love that you you call you refer to those kind of people as allies in the book and you read it out in your intro you call it an invitation to beautiful justice which I love and you made a little list of how allies can be there for people who are in trauma exploitative situations you start with a firm are worth support us in practical ways offers compassion keep reaching out remind us of our joy how did you come up with that there’s there if you go on as well but how did you come up with that list is there anything that you want to reiterate in terms of the needs of survivors when I was composing that list I was reflecting on what was most helpful for me in terms of the people who cared about me and and wanted to support my healing but I also was thinking about what actually works N. my advocacy particularly with women in their teens and twenties and for me I think the most important piece of that is being in a space we’re willing to walk with someone in their suffering and not necessarily focused on providing a solution but cultivating a relationship because I think the the greatest the greatest gift that we can give someone and helping them move towards physical and emotional safety is cultivating a real relationship and it’s it’s from those real relationships based on empathy and respect and this continuous outreach in this continuous presence and encouragement toward the things that give them life and give them joy that they are over time willing to make some courageous and difficult choices to start their healing path I think the framework of looking at particularly sex trafficking from the standpoint only a physical safety really misses the mark because the truth is it’s the relationships that keep people safe and it’s the lack of relationship the lack of support that makes people vulnerable to exploitation so from my perspective the antidote is real relationship in real community and and people are vulnerable to exploitation when they don’t have that so if we want to be a part of the solution we have to look at are we really willing for any form of interpersonal violence or exploitation are we willing to be with people in their suffering even when it’s very hard to witness and to listen knowing that we can’t necessarily immediately be the solution but we can be one voice of hope along the way yeah how do you how do you mean I guess speaking as somebody who I want to do good like I want to be involved in things like this how do you divorce yourself from that idea that R. like control of the because I think that still kind of an ongoing thing for me like I want to be able to prove to donors for innovations that I’m working for in the social media that I do for nonprofits like we’re making a difference like how do you show up for people but then also like be accountable to donors and things like that that is complex I I found that when it comes to fund raising and communicating impact that usually the numbers that are communicated in the way in which the communicated our we’ve rescued this number of corals or maybe even if it’s in the wrong address services we’ve provided therapy or you know bags for this number of individuals which can be even more difficult to communicate and hacked because you’re saying were providing services for for this many girls but what is the outcome range when you’re dealing with complex trauma it’s not it’s not that easy not what I heard it right but I think I think one of the most powerful tools we have to communicate in a meaningful way with potential donors or with people that want to be a part of collective impact is to tell stories real stories about how survivors actually view the the impact of the services in terms of their personal journey knowing that for many of us this is a life long path I I still feel that even though I have incredible emotional freedom in my life that I am continuously committed to a journey of healing and recovery so when I look back for instance at the services that I received at safe place now it’s not safe or safe alliance did my attend therapy sessions they’re resolved everything for me no but having access to free therapy at the time that I needed it most was absolutely lifesaving and life transforming and sat me on a path where then I could begin to seek out what was next for me so I think for you know for for donors being able to understand the stories and understand I couldn’t do the work that I’m doing now if I didn’t have those ten free therapy sessions and yet obviously I needed far more than that and so being able to look at this story on the over arching narrative of why that’s meaningful why that’s important and life saving to me becomes a way that we can both be honest and communicate impact so I think survivor narratives and not and that way become really important because we can say okay we service many people we’ve offered these particular forms of outreach with educated this many people but I think hearing directly from survivors what is meant to them even if they’ve had a relapse even if they haven’t been able to permanently end the cycle of violence immediately being able to say it for you what was impactful why did this matter I think those questions become more important as we’re trying to both be honest and communicate impact

I love that one of the organizations I work with in Thailand actually I was interviewing a survivor and her quote back to me when I kind of asked her about her experience was I was able to claim justice for myself and I was so happy that was the quote even though our attorney was their pro bono helping her through the process I loved it her narrative was I did this for myself and that’s that’s what we want right is for her to be able to help out on her own so I want to talk now about she is rising you’ve you’ve done a lot of hard work on yourself you’ve he is in the book you lay out your path kind of to re integration to community and now you’re able to give back and to meet with survivors and help them kind of find their own journeys can you tell me about when you started she is rising and how that’s going I founded she is rising a little over two years ago and I created this project because I felt that there was a missing piece in the conversation around survivor healing which was what I see as beyond the crisis phase beyond short term recovery to long term recovery and the potential that we have to help survivors identify their gifts passions and capacity for leadership I really wanted to be a part of a healing community where we could give mentorship and practical tools and opportunities and trade conversations around what it would look like for survivors to become leaders and what was so fascinating to me is that when I first started these conversations with sex trafficking survivors and taxes I was really struck by the fact that when I first started asking them to share with me what it meant to them to be a leader all of their associations were negative all of them and all their associations with power where negative which makes sense in terms of what they had been through but they couldn’t in the first conversation that that I hosted even give me an example of a leader that they admired wow and not really blew me away because I had this vision of having a community of survivors who were all on their unique path to being leaders and change makers and yet they fundamentally because of the trauma they’ve been through Associated power with abuse of authority and so we had an incredible opportunity to really dive into what are their values and how could that show up and how they might want to lead and so we started with what what are the things that you want to see change in your community sort of using that as an entry point to a conversation about what it means to be a leader and then eventually as they were identifying their leadership values were able to look at okay there are leaders like in okay and Mother Teresa that they were able to name they were all people that were both deeply spiritual and also committed to social justice which I found really inspiring but when we started the conversation they couldn’t think of one person and and so to me that signals not just that we need to give women and girls have experienced this kind of exploitation the the opportunity to receive mentoring and education and you know concrete ways that they could step into their own unique path to leadership whether it’s through media and the arts or policy but we also need to go deeper to the psychological PCR and what of the frameworks that they’re still seeing the world through that makes them feel that in order to be good and compassionate and essence you have to give up your power and you have a you you can’t actually be someone who is taking initiative to to lead and in that way so what I found as we were continuing to have this conversation was that many of them told me no one has ever called me a leader no one has ever told me that I could lead this is the first time in my life that anyone is even said I could be a leader it seems like you’re creating a new language kind of and then enter like inviting them into it right like having to kind of redefine what it is and what it can be so that they can see themselves in not but that was what became clear to me was that in order for them to even be willing to explore what their unique possibly dish it may be that we had to start the B. the beginning yeah and and why do they believe that power is inherently bad and inherently problematic and what would it look like if they could channel their power for good in the world and so once we started to work through those pieces the they were able to identify okay these are the way that I want to create impact in the world these are the ways I want to express myself these are the things that that break my heart or make me angry that we need to be addressing whether it’s the way the stories about survivors are told in the media or it’s you know antiquated policy so dot dot is exciting to me and I’m also in transition right now she is rising and I’m looking more I what are the ways that I can integrate the last decade of both volunteer advocacy and professional advocacy working with survivors of gender based violence and sex trafficking to focus on the prevention education for a long time I didn’t have a strong belief that there was much we could do on the education side that would actually be effective which is is difficult to admit as somebody that is an activist and works in the spaces I get it America a lot of time on that because it to me it felt like this generic let’s Rick would raise awareness but not actually directly engage with survivors but I think the more and more that I work directly with survivors and the more that my heart has been expanded in broken open a thousand times hearing these stories the more that I wanted to look at are there pragmatic tools that we can give people through education that could help with both the prevention of partner violence sexual violence and sex trafficking so that’s been something I’ve been doing more lately working with students looking at particularly the intersections of dating violence and sex trafficking because I feel like so many of the stories that I’ve heard I would say over seventy percent of the cases that I worked on the trafficker presented himself as a potential boyfriend or love interest and the grooming process in the beginning of the relationship was very similar to dating violence so I started to talk more about this and I have a piece coming out are on C. N. N. dot com isn’t an op ed on the subject but I’ve been looking more for she is rising to to engage in some of the pieces of prevention education to look at strategically how do we equip young people to identify the red flags of potentially abusive relationships and then what is the overlap between that and the way a potential trafficker me presents and although that doesn’t address all types of trafficking it does address the majority of the trafficking that I’m seeing so my hope is that she is rising with the help of others are leaders in our community could really look at innovative strategies for for prevention and not just general raising awareness which I’m not really interested in at this point by looking at what people now what are the what are the tools that we could give particularly young women in foster care in drug and alcohol treatment facilities you know the areas where we know there are already is this vulnerability how can make a quick them to recognize manipulation and grooming and psychological coercion how can we help them be more resilience when they might encounter these types of grooming because I keep hearing from from young women I just I wish I had known how this worked I wish I had understood what he was doing and I see that both and dating violence and sex trafficking and there’s so many parallels that my hope now is that she is rising could be a part of addressing that very specific prevention piece

if you’ve kind of already answered this but my question was just like what is what is sex trafficking look like and we’re in central Texas and what is it look like here you said it’s a lot of things around dating violence and partner violence so is there any other kind of like narratives that you think are worth sharing other people should know about that may be different from the traditional idea rate so the the primary types of trafficking that I’m seeing our our familial trafficking so family shocking their own kids I did the type of trafficking described earlier is often called you know the finesse behind for the Romeo pence essentially somebody who steps then and you know in the honeymoon phase promises to create a life for this person and if they have economic vulnerability an attacker you financially and then you know if there’s emotional vulnerability and and meet these emotional needs because this young woman is not being taken care of in the ways that she needs to be that is the most common story that I see and then and the minority of the cases I see are you know gang affiliated or criminal network affiliated out most of the time the women and girls encounter have been in a trafficking situations where there’s one trafficker running maybe a just a few girls and they all have a very similar relationship to the trafficker and they’re made to feel that they’re part of this family and they have a role to take care of the family I’m in it in family situations and situations a family tracking family is is their addiction present I think that’s something that’s really hard for people to maybe get their heads around is it that it’s generation to generation there’s been trauma or abuse like what do you think family trafficking yes I think the addiction of the parents is the major risk factor from what I’ve seen and either allowing someone to step in and exploit the child because they’re just simply not present or exploiting the child in a direct manner because they’re trying to feed their addiction wow so what what’s next for you you have a book yes she is rising what’s coming up so over the next couple of months I will be traveling and speaking to focus on conversations around what it means to create beautiful justice for survivors and for allies I hope to inspire both survivors of gender violence and sex trafficking as well as allies to have a meaningful dialogue about what it means to create a more expansive vision of justice outside of the criminal justice system so one of the things that I explore in the book is the the definition of just being what is deserved and I feel that we often fixate on justice is merely being the conviction of perpetrators within the criminal justice system and although I think that form of accountability is important we have a very broken system that often does not serve survivors and protect survivors and so I’m really interested in even we have the best case scenario and a perpetrator is held accountable for the crimes that they commit I feel that that is incomplete because it doesn’t address the cost and the emotional aftermath of the trauma and so you know I talk about in the book how I was in the courtroom when trafficker was convicted and and a federal case but I watch the aftermath of what it was like for the girls who went through that and that the pain that they were still in and the struggles they still had and I felt like even though this is the best case scenario for then from a legal standpoint from an emotional and psychological standpoint it wasn’t justice because they didn’t yet know their value they didn’t yet have the ability to tap into their own emotional freedom and so I am hoping in in the next couple of months to continue the conversations around what it means to support survivors and creating their own emotional freedom and their own beautiful justice as they define what that means for them which ultimately is a question of what does it take for them to thrive and to know their worth you’re the best person for that I think I love that thank you I’m in is the question I ask everybody how do you define success for yourself in your work in your creative endeavors how do you think about success do you try to measure your working anyway the first piece of success for me is engaging and creative work that makes me come alive that is meaningful and creative and that constantly awakens my curiosity and passion some very process oriented in the way that I view success it’s more for me about how I am experiencing the work and then the second piece is does the work that I’m doing and the world resonate with and contribute to healing and justice for the communities that I care about and so I based out more on the very intimate stories I hear from the people that I’m speaking to and working with because it’s impossible for me to to measure that beyond what I know to be true for the people that reflect back to me how how the work is speaking to them and serving them so I’m very process oriented and relational and the way that I view success and you know my hope is always that I can lead by example so it’s important to me that the way in which I engage in the work is joyful and meaningful and stimulates my creativity it is also a service in any meaningful way to others so when I hit that sweet spot that’s where I feel most alive and I feel like I can continue to make a contribution thanks thank you so much for educating me and inspiring me and always letting me know when my work is good my works maybe needs some work I read your perspective that you bring in thank you for your book thank you for having me thanks thanks everybody

thanks so much to my guess Brooke Axtell please pick up a copy of Brooks book beautiful justice she is such a powerful story and we all have so much to learn from her experience as either survivors or allies to follow her work you can go to she is rising dot org we’ll put a link in the show notes the great society team includes main cross and stake usen producer Mariah Gosset an audio engineer Jake Wallace thank you to everyone it found the media for your support thanks for listening