In this special bonus episode, the mic gets turned: Michelle MiJung Kim—usually the host of I Feel That Way Too—is the one being interviewed.

Recorded live at the Human Rights Summit, hosted by San Francisco Pride at the historic Commonwealth Club, this intimate conversation offers a rare glimpse into the making of the podcast and the story behind it.

In conversation with longtime LGBTQ advocate and host Michelle Meow, Michelle shares the behind-the-scenes journey of launching I Feel That Way Too, including the emotional process of sunsetting her DEI company, Awaken, and reckoning with what it means to tell hard truths in public. Together, they explore the relationship between courage and shame, and how we begin again after letting go of what no longer feels aligned.

ABOUT THE COMMONWEALTH CLUB & MICHELLE MEOW SHOW

Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. Each year, they bring hundreds of events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy to thousands of members and to the public. In 2018, The Commonwealth Club and Michelle Meow teamed up to expand and broaden the programming of interest to LGBTQ audiences. Michelle Meow records her program at the Club, often co-hosted by John Zipperer, the Club's host of its Week to Week Politics Roundtable programs. Check out Michelle Meow Show to meet some of the most interesting, intriguing and often controversial people in the LGBTQ community.

RESOURCES AND LINKS

Full Transcript is Available Here

Subscribe to the I Feel That Way Too newsletter at ifeelthatwaytoo.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Learn more about Asian American Futures

Can our friendships evolve as we evolve?

It feels like it’s getting harder and harder to make new friends—and keep old ones—as our values shift and priorities change. In this era of political and cultural polarization, can we actually be friends if we disagree politically? What if we embody our values differently? Where’s the line between judging someone for being different and honoring our own integrity?

This episode is an invitation to wrestle with discomfort, stay with the complexity, and consider what it means to make room for all of our humanity.

Joined by writer and cultural worker Kai Cheng Thom, Michelle explores the grief, shame, and judgment that often accompany political misalignment between friends—and the haunting ways we sometimes punish each other when what we really crave is love.

This episode is for anyone who’s ever lost a friend in a season of political reckoning. It’s for those holding heartbreak, anger, and the question: Can we find our way back to each other, even when it feels impossible?

ABOUT THE EPISODE GUEST, KAI CHENG THOM

Kai Cheng Thom is a somatically trained coach, process facilitator, and mediator whose work focuses on the intersections of trauma healing, Transformative Justice, and social change. A noted theorist and practitioner in the field of conflict resolution, Kai Cheng has made significant contributions towards the integration and application of conflict transformation, crisis intervention, and body-based trauma healing methods in an activist context through her writing and teaching. Kai Cheng maintains a private practice as a one-on-one somatic coach, consultant, and group facilitator, drawing from extensive professional trainings in a wide variety of healing and wellness disciplines. She has also trained hundreds of embodiment and wellness professionals as Adjunct Faculty with the Institute for the Study of Somatic Sex Education and a Senior Teacher at The Embody Lab. Learn more about Kai Cheng Thom at www.kaichengthom.com.

Follow Kai Cheng Thom on Instagram: @kaichengthom

Kai’s Book: Falling Back in Love with Human

ABOUT THE HOST, MICHELLE MIJUNG KIM

Michelle MiJung Kim is one of today’s most compelling voices on courage, complexity, and connection. With a voice that is both precise and expansive, Michelle helps people make sense of their inner worlds and the outer chaos. Through storytelling rooted in emotional honesty, she invites us to confront what’s hard, name what matters, and move through the world with deeper integrity and courage. She is the award-winning author of The Wake Up, a globally recognized speaker, and the producer and host of I Feel That Way Too, a narrative podcast that dares to ask life’s trickiest questions so we can feel less alone—and more alive—together. Whether on stage, on the page, or behind the mic, Michelle’s presence is a mirror and a call to courage—to live our lives more fully, to build resilient relationships, and to believe in the possibility of our personal transformation and collective liberation. Learn more about Michelle at www.michellemijungkim.com and follow her journey on Instagram @michellekimkim.

RESOURCES AND LINKS

Full Transcript is Available Here

Watch the full interview on I Feel That Way Too YouTube Channel

Subscribe to the I Feel That Way Too newsletter at

Can you be in a loving, committed relationship and still want… more?

Join as Michelle MiJung Kim takes us on a wild ride through her first open relationship experience—complete with thirst traps, identity crisis, communication breakdowns, and more spiraling than she cares to admit. What began as an exploration of freedom quickly turned into a crash course in boundaries, grief, and brutal self-awareness.

With guidance from polyamory experts Leanne Yau and Jessica Fern, Michelle unpacks what it means to honor your desires, and being courageous enough to face what surfaces when you do.

Whether you’re poly, monogamous, or somewhere in between, this episode is about letting our most intimate relationships serve as a portal to our desires, wounds, and opportunities for healing and deeper connection to ourselves and each other.

ABOUT THE EPISODE GUESTS

JESSICA FERN is a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional and an integrative practitioner with 25 years of experience and training in somatic, narrative, psychotherapeutic and spiritual therapies. She is the author of Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Nonmonogamy and The Polysecure Workbook, and co-author of Polywise: A Deeper Dive Into Navigating Open Relationships and Transforming the Shame Triangle: From Shame to Love Using Parts Work. Learn more about Jessica at https://www.jessicafern.com.

Follow Jessica on Instagram: @jessicafern411

Jessica’s Books: Polysecure; Polywise

LEANNE YAU is a British award-winning polyamory educator, writer, speaker, certified sex and relationships educator, and trainee psychosexual therapist whose work is all about non-monogamy and sex positivity. She creates educational and entertaining multimedia content about creating healthy and sustainable non-monogamous relationships, drawing from her lived experiences as a polyamorous, bisexual, neurodivergent, kinky, and Asian agender femme who has been openly non-monogamous since 2016. Learn more about Leanne at www.polyphilia.blog.

Follow Leanne on Instagram @polyphiliablog

ABOUT THE HOST, MICHELLE MIJUNG KIM

Michelle MiJung Kim is one of today’s most compelling voices on courage, complexity, and connection. With a voice that is both precise and expansive, Michelle helps people make sense of their inner worlds and the outer chaos. Through storytelling rooted in emotional honesty, she invites us to confront what’s hard, name what matters, and move through the world with deeper integrity and courage. She is the award-winning author of The Wake Up, a globally recognized speaker, and the producer and host of I Feel That Way Too, a narrative podcast that dares to ask life’s trickiest questions so we can feel less alone—and more alive—together. Whether on stage, on the page, or behind the mic, Michelle’s presence is a mirror and a call to courage—to live our lives more fully, to build resilient relationships, and to believe in the possibility of our personal transformation and collective liberation. Learn more about Michelle at www.michellemijungkim.com and follow her journey on Instagram @michellekimkim.

RESOURCES AND LINKS

Full Transcript is Available Here

Watch the full interview on I Feel That Way Too YouTube Channel

Subscribe to the I Feel That Way Too newsletter at ifeelthatwaytoo.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Learn more about

What happens when your career—your identity, your income, your belonging—suddenly disappears?

In this intimate episode, Michelle MiJung Kim opens up about the collapse of her career after she chose to speak out about Palestine. One day she was a sought-after speaker and celebrated DEI leader. The next, her calendar was empty. The applause stopped. The invitations vanished. And she was left asking: Was any of it ever real?

Together with somatic coach and author Kelsey Blackwell, Michelle explores the painful unraveling of ambition, the burnout of performance, and the quiet grief of no longer wanting the life she once worked so hard to build.

This episode is a love letter to anyone who’s been let go, shut out, or burned out. Anyone who has lost a version of themselves. And anyone trying to find out who they are when the titles fall away.

If you are also longing to live a purposeful life in alignment with your values, this episode is for you.

ABOUT THE EPISODE GUEST, KELSEY BLACKWELL

Kelsey Blackwell is a cultural somatics practitioner dedicated to supporting women of color to trust and follow the guidance of the body so we may powerfully radiate our worth, dignity and wisdom in a world that sorely needs this brilliance. As a facilitator, coach, and speaker, she has brought abolitionist embodied practices to such diverse groups as riders on Bay Area Rapid Transit trains to students at Stanford University to the offices of LinkedIn. She works 1:1 with clients as well as leads the eight-week group program, Decolonizing the Body. Kelsey is the author of the viral article, Why People of Color Need Spaces Without White People, published by The Arrow Journal. She is a Certified InterPlay Leader, Strozzi Certified Somatic Coach, and holds a master’s degree in Publishing from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. In addition to being impactful, Kelsey believes working towards personal and collective liberation must also bring joy. Learn more about Kelsey at www.kelseyblackwell.com

Follow Kelsey Blackwell on Instagram: @decolonizingthebody

Kelsey’s Book: Decolonizing the Body

ABOUT THE HOST, MICHELLE MIJUNG KIM

Michelle MiJung Kim is one of today’s most compelling voices on courage, complexity, and connection. With a voice that is both precise and expansive, Michelle helps people make sense of their inner worlds and the outer chaos. Through storytelling rooted in emotional honesty, she invites us to confront what’s hard, name what matters, and move through the world with deeper integrity and courage. She is the award-winning author of The Wake Up, a globally recognized speaker, and the producer and host of I Feel That Way Too, a narrative podcast that dares to ask life’s trickiest questions so we can feel less alone—and more alive—together. Whether on stage, on the page, or behind the mic, Michelle’s presence is a mirror and a call to courage—to live our lives more fully, to build resilient relationships, and to believe in the possibility of our personal transformation and collective liberation. Learn more about Michelle at www.michellemijungkim.com and follow her journey on Instagram @michellekimkim.

EPISODE CREDITS

This episode was produced by Geraldine Ah-Sue, Eunice Kwon, and Michelle MiJung Kim. Written by Michelle MiJung Kim and Geraldine Ah-Sue. The sound designer is Katie McMurran. Music by Katie McMurran, and Jiyeon Park. This podcast is brought to you by Asian American Futures.

RESOURCES AND LINKS

Full Transcript is Available...

Let’s talk about the question that makes everyone squirm: “Why are so many Asian women with white men?”

In this raw and nuanced episode, Michelle MiJung Kim sits down with her longtime friend Christine (a Chinese American woman married to a white man) to unpack the tangled web of desire, race, loneliness, and belonging in interracial relationships—specifically those between Asian women and white men. From TikTok comment wars and the infamous "Oxford Study" to lived experiences of love, shame, fetishization, and survival, no stone is left unturned.

With radical honesty, Michelle shares her own dating history with white men and the uncomfortable questions it forced her to face:

“Am I internalizing racism through who I date?”

“Is love ever just love in a world shaped by white supremacy?”

“And what does it mean to feel seen, held, and understood in an interracial relationship?”

This episode holds space for all the complexities—without flattening anyone’s experience. Whether you’ve been in these relationships, judged them, or questioned your own desires, this conversation invites you to look inward with curiosity and compassion.

ABOUT THE HOST, MICHELLE MIJUNG KIM

Michelle MiJung Kim is one of today’s most compelling voices on courage, complexity, and connection. With a voice that is both precise and expansive, Michelle helps people make sense of their inner worlds and the outer chaos. Through storytelling rooted in emotional honesty, she invites us to confront what’s hard, name what matters, and move through the world with deeper integrity and courage. She is the award-winning author of The Wake Up, a globally recognized speaker, and the producer and host of I Feel That Way Too, a narrative podcast that dares to ask life’s trickiest questions so we can feel less alone—and more alive—together. Whether on stage, on the page, or behind the mic, Michelle’s presence is a mirror and a call to courage—to live our lives more fully, to build resilient relationships, and to believe in the possibility of our personal transformation and collective liberation. Learn more about Michelle at www.michellemijungkim.com and follow her journey on Instagram @michellekimkim.

EPISODE CREDITS

This episode was produced by Geraldine Ah-Sue, Eunice Kwon, and Michelle MiJung Kim. Written by Michelle MiJung Kim and Geraldine Ah-Sue. The sound designer is Katie McMurran. Music by Joyce Kwon, Katie McMurran, and Jiyeon Park. This podcast is brought to you by Asian American Futures.

RESOURCES AND LINKS

Full Transcript is Available Here

Watch the full interview on I Feel That Way Too YouTube Channel

Subscribe to the I Feel That Way Too newsletter at www.ifeelthatwaytoo.com

Learn more about Asian American Futures

“How do I love my family without sacrificing me?”

In this deeply personal episode, Michelle MiJung Kim unpacks the complicated layers of love, sacrifice, guilt, and resentment within immigrant families. From financial support to emotional labor, Michelle reflects on the invisible expectations placed on her, often at the expense of her own desires and needs.

Featuring renowned therapist and Brown Girl Therapy founder Sahaj Kaur Kohli, this episode explores how concepts like filial piety, enmeshment, and parentification shape our understanding of love—and the emotional toll of setting boundaries when silence has always been the language of care.

If you’ve ever wondered:

“Am I selfish for wanting to live my own life?”

“How do I love my parents without losing myself?”

“Can I heal without their acknowledgment?”

…you’re not alone. This episode is for you.

Whether you're navigating intergenerational trauma, redefining your relationship with your parents, or learning to center your own needs for the first time—this conversation will meet you where you are.

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/i-feel-that-way-too-courage-collective-episode-1-am-i-a-bad-daughter-registration-1412846785769?aff=oddtdtcreator

ABOUT THE EPISODE GUEST, SAHAJ KAUR KOHLI

Sahaj Kaur Kohli, MA.Ed&HD, LGPC, NCC is an award-winning therapist, writer, and speaker on a mission to make mental health care more diverse, equitable, accessible, and inclusive. As the first in her family to do a lot of things — be born in the West, go to therapy, and marry outside of her religion/race/culture — Sahaj understands the unique struggles of children of immigrants, and she uses her personal experience to create original resources and content for this underserved population. Learn more about Sahaj at www.sahajkaurkohli.com.

Follow Sahaj Kaur Kohli on Instagram: @browngirltherapy

Sahaj’s Book: But What Will People Say?

Sahaj’s Podcast: So We’ve Been Told

ABOUT THE HOST, MICHELLE MIJUNG KIM

Michelle MiJung Kim is one of today’s most compelling voices on courage, complexity, and connection. With a voice that is both precise and expansive, Michelle helps people make sense of their inner worlds and the outer chaos. Through storytelling rooted in emotional honesty, she invites us to confront what’s hard, name what matters, and move through the world with deeper integrity and courage. She is the award-winning author of The Wake Up, a globally recognized speaker, and the producer and host of I Feel That Way Too, a narrative podcast that dares to ask life’s trickiest questions so we can feel less alone—and more alive—together. Whether on stage, on the page, or behind the mic, Michelle’s presence is a mirror and a call to courage—to live our lives more fully, to build resilient relationships, and to believe in the possibility of our personal transformation and collective liberation. Learn more about Michelle at www.michellemijungkim.com and follow her journey on Instagram @michellekimkim.

EPISODE CREDITS

This episode was produced by Geraldine Ah-Sue, Eunice Kwon, and Michelle MiJung Kim. Written by Michelle MiJung Kim and Geraldine Ah-Sue. The sound designer is Katie McMurran. Music by Joyce Kwon, Katie McMurran, and Jiyeon Park. This podcast is brought to you by Asian American Futures.

RESOURCES AND...

I Feel That Way Too is a narrative podcast that explores life’s challenging questions so together we can feel less alone in our struggles and find the courage to take values-aligned actions.

Through candid storytelling and insightful conversations with experts and everyday people, each episode unpacks the doubts, fears, and quiet longings that shape our lives. Whether it’s questioning monogamy, navigating political divides, or redefining who we are beyond our jobs, host Michelle MiJung Kim invites you to feel seen, understood, and a little less alone. If you’ve ever thought, “Does anyone else feel this way?”—this is the place for you.

——

Trailer Transcript available here.

I Feel That Way Too is co-produced by Geraldine Ah-Sue, Eunice Kwon, and Michelle MiJung Kim. Our host is Michelle MiJung Kim, and our audio engineer is Katie McMurran. Visual design is by Vu Tran.

This podcast is brought to you by Asian American Futures.

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