As a millennial awakening to the great challenges facing society, I am curious about how I can use my time and energy wisely while I’m here on this planet. I feel called to be an increasingly effective translator in the face of groupthink, divisive politics, and complex social realities. Going further, I am passionate about being a convener of positive, creative change. The constant portrayal of a mean and dangerous world incapable of resolving collective problems together only encompasses one aspect of humanity.
Everything changed when I started questioning and challenging what I learned in history and what I saw in the media. Deep corruptions and abuses were (and continue to be) not talked about. I kept noticing how covert forces within our very own government were responsible for the suffering of millions of lives in the U.S. and around the world, regardless of which president was in office.
The culture and information wars playing out in the media have generated ferocious argument, yet very little clarity about how we can engage with each other across the vast differences in the news we consume. Real corruptions and cover-ups remain hidden, largely due to special interests driving our corporate media systems telling us what to see.
Yet everyday, good people are speaking up about the deeper challenges facing society, beyond partisan politics and official narratives. A few examples: the toxic chemicals in our food that are leading to unprecedented levels of chronic illness in our youth; the disturbing role that intelligence agencies and Big Pharma played in fueling the War on Drugs; the blatant mass surveillance and abuses of power by our national security state.
With minimal public awareness about these issues, the paper tigers drowning out real issues in our mainstream media landscape will continue to distract and polarize people into us vs. them camps. Opportunities to think deeper about the world and to build bridges across differences are lost. As eco-activist Frances Moore Lappé states, a culture of fear and rigid thinking causes most of us to shut down and to see others as potential threats. However, a democratic culture can be defined as one that invites open dialogue of different views, and promotes transparency. Most importantly, a democratic culture builds trust. This is needed in a time where trust in American media and public institutions are at an all-time low.
Something I’m coming to in my journey is that we can't make sense of our times alone, nor within our own echo chambers.
Cancel/call-out culture, rampant censorship, and divisive social media algorithms are not the answer if we want a sensible and collaborative future. Even progressive organizations find themselves at a standstill these days, due to internal conflicts fueled by the culture wars. How do we build an alternative narrative that supports civil dialogue, and the willingness to question forces that work to keep us divided and fearful?
I’ve worked with a lot of different personalities, across diverse efforts and spaces. The challenges and opportunities of human collaboration is what led me to attain my master’s degree Organizational Development and Change from Sonoma State. For the past 8 years, I’ve been climbing the ladder of insight, personal growth, and activism on many different fronts.
I hold a bachelor's degree in Psychology, and a certificate in Holistic Health Studies from San Francisco State. I’ve worked in the public education school systems of San Francisco and Marin County, CA for 7+ years, serving youth in many non-traditional forms—teaching yoga and mindfulness, and supporting and mentoring at-risk youth with trauma and intensive emotional needs in inner-city schools impacted by poverty, violence, and systemic inequity.
At a public high school in the Bay Area, CA, I ran a wellness space and regularly taught life-skills, conflict resolution skills, and health education. I also served as the Restorative Justice Coordinator where I worked to heal the school-to-prison pipeline—serving as a fierce advocate for students impacted by punitive school structures and juvenile hall systems. At San Francisco State University, I co-facilitated the Holistic Health internship in the Holistic Health Studies program which focused on the Season for Nonviolence, a global grassroots campaign dedicated to building on the power of a nonviolent mass movement to awaken consciousness within activism. We are all products of our violent society, until we do the courageous work of transforming the violence in our own lives to transform the violence in the world.
Gandhi and King believed that the nonviolent journey is one that affirms both our differences and fundamental unity with others. It is the process of becoming increasingly free from fear, transforming "us" vs. "them" in thought and action as we work for the well-being of all. I’m passionate about healing the cycles of violence that show up in our personal lives, activism, relationships and communities, media systems, economic systems, and other social-political realities.
I currently work for WantToKnow.info, a grassroots-funded news information service and educational platform focusing on high-level cover-ups and corruption. We summarize important news stories that go out to thousands of subscribers, from corporate corruption to military abuse to stories that focus on solutions and human goodness. Our site also serves as a research tool and comprehensive archive for educating the public on deep government and corporate corruption. We provide easy access to whistleblower reports and declassified government documents. These topics are often controversial, censored, and challenging to face. Yet we strive to be a trustworthy and balanced resource for those who want to go deeper than the official narratives we're told to believe.
I also work with Project Censored, a nonprofit dedicated to critical media literacy skill building, raising awareness on the dangers of propaganda and censorship, and educating people on the importance of independent media to uphold media democracy. It was here that I co-created the idea of a Constructive Journalism and Mindful Media Movement, which calls for a reinvention of media and journalism, engages people across political and cultural lines, and emphasizes solutions and collective power. I also work with Safe Tech International, a movement that raises awareness about Big Tech and wireless radiation issues. I am the co-founder for Restorative Practices Integration Associates, a consulting business for schools, organizations, communities, and activism spaces.
My activism isn’t just based on the facts and data stored in my head about how the world works. The future I believe worth aspiring for fosters social-emotional intelligence and sensemaking in how we relate to ourselves, each other, and the world. An activism that invites us to undergo personal transformation, knowing ourselves outside the distress of oppression and fear to create the world we want to live in.
I believe in human goodness and our creative and collaborative instincts. I believe in freedom: the freedom to create constructive changes for myself and the world. The freedom to align with what is authentic to me, instead of pledge my allegiance to status quo norms.
Owning this inner freedom seems to be an important part of supporting the freedom of our collective existence: freedom from captured government agencies that put profits over public interest, endless wars, censorship, mass surveillance, and the increasing privatization of wealth. Freeing ourselves from these harmful systems starts from within, and what we do to grow and evolve ourselves in a world filled with groupthink and conformity.
There are many reasons for grief, confusion, and rage right now. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote about these related concerns in his final book: Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos Or Community. He asserted that humankind has the resources and technology to overcome oppression and corruption. With many awakening to mass deceptions and corruptions, our times call for some restoration of community, and our sense of common good and connection with each other. Paradoxically, this also means to pay attention to established interests that gain by confusing and dividing us. To some degree, this means noting what power elites are pushing for, and to correct efforts that serve private gain over the common good (people and environment).
Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can only be done by projecting the ethic of love to the center of our lives. — Martin Luther King Jr.
Hardwired for connection, we might find that open inquiry together about crucial societal issues is a necessity for democracy and collective empowerment. As social commentator and poet bell hooks once said, “Without an ethic of love shaping the direction of our political vision and our radical aspirations, we are often seduced, in one way or the other, into continued allegiance to systems of domination.” She wrote a powerful essay, "Love is the Practice of Freedom," which further explores the need for love in any social movement. She argues that approaches to activism are rooted in overemphasizing material goals like policy change, lawsuits, and learning political jargon. Yet very little attention has been put on changing how we think and relate to each other and our environment. Instead, it is more common to see the shutting down of different perspectives and people treating others as mere disposable artifacts in the cultural economy.
King often spoke of his vision for a Beloved Community, in which people centered the Greek social concept agape in their lives. Instead of it meaning something sentimental or affectionate, agape is the understanding, creative, redeeming goodwill for all people. He shares eloquently: "If I respond to hate with a reciprocal hate, I do nothing but intensify the cleavage in broken community. I can only close the gap in broken community by meeting hate with love … Agape is a willingness to go to any length to restore community."
This site serves as my own personal journey to write about what I’m doing to help restore a sense of greater good in society. And what’s bringing me meaning and purpose amidst the collective challenges we face.
Outside of my efforts to be a translator in the face of social division, and a curator of positive, creative change, I love to get creative in the kitchen. Engage in personal growth. Dance. Explore the outdoors. Sing. Make art. Get nerdy about the Enneagram. Endlessly laugh. You can also find my personal blog on Hive, a decentralized social media network powered by the Hive blockchain!
