From neighbors shoveling driveways to the quiet labor of holding community spaces, this episode explores how care becomes invisible, and how naming it can be radical. Becky shares a story about hosting invitation-only “secret salons” and grappling with the discomfort of being compensated for community-building work. Taina reflects on moments when emotional labor was unexpectedly acknowledged—and how powerful that recognition can be.

The conversation expands into privilege, power, and relationships: what it means when someone checks their privilege out loud, how that can change the nervous system in a room, and why pretending we’re “past” bias is far more dangerous than admitting it exists. They also talk about gendered entitlement, “support husbands,” emotional safety, and the exhausting reality of always wondering when contempt might surface.

• What mutual aid looks like in everyday life (and why it’s not charity)
• Snowstorms, disability, aging, and who gets left behind
• The invisible labor of care, organizing, and community-building
• Why being seen matters as much as being paid
• Emotional labor, race, gender, and power dynamics
• Checking privilege—and why it changes the room
• Supportive partnerships vs. entitled masculinity
• Why “I’d never do that” is a red flag
• Capitalism, commodification, and collective responsibility
• How acknowledgment can be an act of liberation

Resource:

• "Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next)" by Dean Spade

🎤 WE ARE PROUD MEMBERS OF THE FEMINIST PODCASTERS COLLECTIVE

Check out the Season 10 trailer for Here’s What I Learned with Jacki Hayes, a fellow member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.

This season is built around real experiments. Jacki isn’t just talking about ideas. She’s inviting coaches and service providers to assign her an actual experiment from their area of expertise. She runs it in her business, then they come back together to break down what worked, what didn’t, and what the results actually show.

If you like practical insight, honest reflection, and learning from real-world tests instead of polished theories, this season is worth a listen.

Find the show wherever you listen to podcasts or visit https://www.jackihayes.co/podcast

NOTE: This episode was recorded before the murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Our hearts are with his family and we share your outrage about his murder. Abolish ICE.

In this episode of Messy Liberation, Becky and Taina sit inside two overlapping kinds of grief: personal loss and collective unraveling. Becky names the heavy, destabilizing grief of watching U.S. power erode on the global stage—and what it means to confront the loss of privilege, safety, and certainty in real time. Taina shares the complicated aftermath of her mother’s death, including the anger, relief, and dissonance that come from being told a story about someone that doesn’t match your lived experience.

Together, they explore grief as a political and embodied experience, the difference between healthy and harmful anger, and why being “aware” isn’t enough without guardrails, resourcing, and community. This episode is about naming the mess without rushing to fix it—and learning how to stay human when the world makes it very tempting not to.

🧠 Discussed in This Episode
• The grief of losing global privilege—and why it still matters even when privilege is complicated
• Why awareness without action (or guardrails) can keep us stuck
• Seasonal depression, political despair, and “who gives a shit” energy
• Resource mapping as a tool for emotional regulation and capacity
• Healthy anger vs. destructive anger—and why movements can’t survive on rage alone
• Parenting, power dynamics, and what under-resourcing does to relationships
• Complicated grief after the death of an abusive or estranged parent
• The dissonance of hearing glowing stories about someone who harmed you
• Relief as a valid response to death—and why that doesn’t mean you didn’t love them
• Dehumanization, polarization, and the cost of refusing to seek understanding
• Why systems benefit when we fight each other instead of looking up

🎤 WE ARE PROUD MEMBERS OF THE FEMINIST PODCASTERS COLLECTIVE: http://feministpodcastcollective.com/