Posts by Valerie Friedlander
How to Create Belonging
How to create belonging starts with understanding that most of us don’t know what belonging really is. It’s hard to create something that you haven’t first experienced and there is a difference between intellectually understanding vs experiencing something. What most of us do experience is strong conditioning from a young age around fitting in –…
Read MoreReclaiming Humanity Through Grief
Reclaiming humanity through grief is necessary for our ability to intentionally create a world that honors each person’s humanity. Understanding and having space to grieve and support each other through our grief helps us to connect to our shared humanity. In so many often unconscious ways, we are encouraged to dehumanize ourselves and others. One…
Read MoreRethinking Empowerment and Releasing Comparison
Rethinking empowerment and releasing comparison go hand in hand in a society where empowerment is treated as a commodity and lifestyle is used as a sales tactic. Lifestyle as a sales tactic encourages us to compare how happy we are to how happy someone supposedly living a particular lifestyle appears to be. When empowerment is…
Read MoreHow to Cure Comparisonitis
How to cure comparisonitis starts by understanding the cause and that this isn’t just a “you” problem. It’s something that impacts you, your confidence, your sense of self, and your well-being, so it feels deeply personal. Since it’s internal, comparisonitis feels like a habit of comparing yourself to others in one or multiple areas. It’s…
Read MoreInsights from Change Making Feminist Founders
Insights from change making feminist founders are an important type of support for other feminist business owners and leaders. We are surrounded by stories of what success is and what you must do to achieve it that perpetuate exploitation of ourselves, of others, and of our planet. These stories are what is normalized but they…
Read MoreHow to Create A Schedule That Works For You
How to create a schedule that works for you cannot take a one size fits all approach. Most so called “successful people” strategies play on the false idea that we all have the same 24 hours and should, therefore, be able to get the same amount done. These strategies fail to factor in our humanity,…
Read MoreHow to Cultivate Self-Love
How to cultivate self-love is also how you develop self-confidence, make room for self-care, and show up as your best self. This episode is an updated replay of the season one episode, Relearning Self-Love. Your relationship with yourself is the foundation for your relationship with everyone and everything in your life. Unfortunately, it is also…
Read More7 Ways to Relax this Summer and Beyond
The 7 Ways to Relax this Summer are also the ways we can learn to bring more rest into our lives. We have seven areas that influence our energy and each needs care as we learn to release, relax, and rest. Our society is infused with stories that pull us away from our humanity, which…
Read MoreHow to Navigate Societal Gaslighting and Stay Empowered
How to Navigate Societal Gaslighting and Stay Empowered is an updated replay of the season one episode “No, You’re Not Crazy.” Most information regarding gaslighting focuses on the psychological experience within individual relationships. However, gaslighting is actually a societal phenomenon with roots in social power dynamics. Those roots are why it is common to experience…
Read MoreResilience Through Unexpected Career Shifts
Resilience through unexpected career shifts is often something you realize in retrospect. It’s natural to feel stress in times of change, especially during unexpected transitions that impact your financial security. It can feel overwhelming when you’re walking through them. Once you know that you successfully regained a certain equilibrium in your life you can look…
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