The Unburdened Leader

The issues at stake—our health, our rights, how we educate our kids—demand a lot from us. Yet, in today’s attention economy, leaders don’t always earn influence through integrity and truth. Instead, they master the art of capturing emotions, feeding fears, and speaking to lived experiences, often amplifying misinformation rather than challenging it.

When leaders step into the fight against misinformation, they take on enormous risks and the consequences are very real, from open hostility to verbal abuse to death threats.

Staying engaged in these difficult conversations requires more than just knowledge; it demands emotional regulation, capacity for conflict, and self-awareness. 

This is where unprocessed relational trauma can shape how a leader navigates conflict. But leaders who work through these wounds develop the ability to hold tension without collapsing or attacking. 

Developing this capacity for conflict is critical today. Because in an era when science is under siege, how we engage in conflict matters just as much as the facts themselves.

In the first of two conversations with leaders who model how to engage with critics without feeding the outrage machine, today’s guest shares his approach to tackling conflict and misinformation in science and health spaces, one where we engage with rigor and compassion without bending to the pressures of false equivalence. He understands that courage isn’t about shouting the loudest; it’s about staying grounded in your values, standing firm in the truth, and being authentic and creative in capturing much-coveted attention. 

Dr. Jonathan N. Stea is a full-time practicing clinical psychologist and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary. He’s a two-time winner of the University of Calgary’s Award for Excellence in Clinical Supervision and co-editor of the book Investigating Clinical Psychology: Pseudoscience, Fringe Science, and Controversies. Dr. Stea has published extensively, with regular contributions to Scientific American and Psychology Today, among other outlets, and has appeared on numerous mainstream television and radio shows, as well as podcasts. 

His book, Mind the Science: Saving Your Mental Health from the Wellness Industry, aims to educate and embolden those who wish to make informed decisions about their mental health, to improve science and mental health literacy, and to pull back the curtain on the devastating consequences of allowing pseudoscience promoters to target the vulnerable within our society. 

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How witnessing his mother’s health struggles as a child shaped both Jonathan’s career trajectory and his compassion for those who seek alternative treatments
• Why testimonials and other anecdotal evidence are actually warning signs of pseudoscience
• How the placebo effect impacts our perception of the effectiveness of alternative cures
• How not all grifters have malicious intent, though they can cause significant harm
• Breaking down common factors that make us susceptible to misinformation
• How Jonathan has learned to cope with trolls and challenge pseudoscience with humor

Learn more about Dr. Jonathan Stea:

Given our political situation in the United States, you may be hearing a lot of people–myself included–talk about living your values. Not just professing them, but really living them, even when it’s uncomfortable. It’s hard work that requires a lot of internal fortitude.

But we so often default to acting against our values in order to protect ourselves and those we love from real or perceived danger–to our jobs, our reputations, dignity, physical safety, and more. We try to protect ourselves with compliance, while our silence does real harm to others.

Those who have a history of relational trauma are especially likely to fear speaking up, even as they know their values and moral expectations are being violated. This collision of relational trauma with moral injury reinforces beliefs that the world is unsafe and that people in power cannot be trusted.

My guest today is a survivor of abuse and cultish communities. She leans on her experiences of relational trauma and moral injury in her writing, teaching, and advocacy. The ongoing healing of her relational and betrayal wounds allows her to lead with courage and clarity, especially when it is not easy or convenient.

Jamie Marich, Ph.D. (she/they) speaks internationally on EMDR therapy, trauma, addiction, dissociation, expressive arts, yoga, and mindfulness. They also run a private practice and online training network in their home base of Akron, OH. Marich has written numerous books, notably Trauma and the 12 Steps: An Inclusive Guide to Recovery and Dissociation Made Simple: A Stigma-Free Guide to Embracing Your Dissociative Mind and Navigating Life. She has won numerous awards for LGBT+ and mental health advocacy, specifically in reducing stigma around dissociative disorders through the sharing of her own lived experience.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How Jamie learned to have more compassion for her mother as the bystander in the course of writing her memoir
• How asking can I make a change here? can aid in deciding when and how to speak up
• How binary judgments of healthy or unhealthy, healed or unhealed devalue the lifelong journey and process of healing
• How to deflate your own judgments about where others are in their own journeys
• Why leaders in health and wellness spaces need to be wary of one true way thinking
• How Jamie unpacked the concept of forgiveness from her religious childhood and made space for compassion and letting go
• How growing up pretending everything was fine made Jamie value authenticity more fiercely as an adult

Learn more about Dr. Jamie Marich:

In Twelve Step programs, the first step, as I understand it, is recognizing that we are powerless to heal alone.

We cannot overcome addiction, trauma, or systemic oppression through sheer willpower or individual effort. Healing, recovery, and meaningful change require connection, support, and systems that foster growth.

All true! But we should not make a virtue out of being powerless.

Recognizing what is beyond your ability isn’t the same as accepting that you are powerless to change. Powerlessness is, in fact, a protective response that disconnects us from our personal power.

When we conflate protection with powerlessness, we risk internalizing the very dynamics that keep us trapped in authoritarian systems—whether in families, partnerships, workplaces, faith communities, or governments.

Power-over systems create environments where speaking up feels dangerous, where challenging authority risks humiliation or exile. But no matter the system or oppression, we always retain what Right Use of Power methodology calls our personal power. And that’s precisely why authoritarian structures work so hard to make us feel otherwise.

Owning your personal power in an authoritarian system requires deep, intentional work. And we cannot do it alone.

My guest today will introduce you to the types of power in the Right Use of Power framework and help you reconnect with your personal power so that you can stand firm and do hard, scary, necessary things.

Dr. Amanda Aguilera currently serves as the Executive Director of the Right Use of Power Institute and a Trusted Advisor at The Ally Co. She has dedicated most of her career to helping people and organizations understand systems, conflict, and social power dynamics to create right relationship and a sense of belonging. She has a knack for making difficult conversations easier, complex ideas more accessible, and resistance more workable. Integrating power, contemplative practices, neurobiology, and restorative practices, she works by finding a balance of head and heart and facilitating the co-creation of strategic maps that lead us forward in a more equitable way.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How the Right Use of Power framework gave Amanda language to understand and articulate power
• Why power itself is fundamentally neutral
• How Right Use of Power reframes power as a dynamic and not a possession
• Breaking down the six types of power from personal to universal
• Why direct challenges to status power are so often destabilizing 
• How undeveloped personal power leads people to do harm with their role and status power
• Why we have to become aware of how power exists in our relationships
• How developing our personal power helps us to participate in the collective power that can actually challenge systems
• How leaders can foster healthy power differential relationships

Learn more about Dr. Amanda Aguilera:

Toxic leadership stems from the burdens of unresolved trauma and difficult life experiences. 

When you don’t do the work to regulate your nervous system, the parts of you that protect you through mico-managing, shaming, blaming, not trusting anyone, or worse will eventually wreak havoc on your career, those you lead, and your own capacity for discomfort.

So, what does it look like for you to commit to doing the work?

Maybe you go to therapy or coaching, or adopt practices to deepen your self-awareness and reflection. The trouble is, “doing the work” can easily turn into navel-gazing or intellectualizing. The same tools that might help you unburden can also be used to numb out. We so often are sold the idea that we will overcome and be done with it that we bypass doing the real, deep, lifelong work.

Today’s guest illustrates–literally–what it looks and feels like to commit to doing powerful work. Her gorgeous new graphic novel, Past Tense, shares her windy and beautiful journey of doing the work through the lens of Internal Family Systems.

Sacha Mardou was born in Macclesfield in 1975 and grew up in Manchester, England. She began making comics after getting her BA in English Literature from the University of Wales, Lampeter. Her critically acclaimed graphic novel series, Sky in Stereo, was named an outstanding comic of 2015 by the Village Voice and shortlisted for the 2016 Slate Studio Prize.

Since 2019 she has been making comics about therapy and healing. Her graphic memoir Past Tense: Facing Family Secrets and Finding Myself in Therapy is out now. Since 2005 she has lived in St Louis, Missouri with her cartoonist husband Ted May, their daughter and two disruptive cats.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How going to therapy for what she thought was just anxiety became a journey of unpacking her past 
• How her therapist helped her “correct the picture” she’d been holding of people and events of her childhood
• How Sacha adapted her private sketched therapy notes into the comics she shares publicly
• How working with IFS to process her childhood has impacted her present-day relationships
• How the IFS process has helped Sacha recast her difficult experiences as gifts and strengths and her story as valuable
• How Sacha approached writing her book wholeheartedly, while still protecting her boundaries

Learn more about Sacha Mardou:

These days, the call for leaders to be adaptable, agile, flexible, clear, focused, and calm could lead many to think it's not okay to feel or that you need to be a robot.

We minimize our feelings and put on a brave face until we can no longer fake it, sometimes in the name of being “regulated.”

When there's a trend in language or an approach to healing, it can sometimes be reductive in how it's taught, explained, or understood. Concepts drawn from Polyvagal Theory, like regulation and activation, are no exception.

How some talk about regulation and dysregulation can create pressure to diminish our humanity so that we don't emote, and cause us to criticize someone if they're upset.

In reality, Polyvagal Theory offers a powerful addition to your toolbox for leading yourself and others well while staying aligned with your values. 

When we work towards helping our nervous systems become more agile and adaptable by putting in the reps and working to understand our systems and our stories, we can offer those we love and lead a greater sense of curiosity, compassion, and connection. And we will have enough boundaries and guardrails to know when to tap out, take a break, and ask for help.

Today’s guest teaches and discusses these topics so that we can learn to regulate our nervous systems better and connect better with others. 

Deb Dana, LCSW, is a clinician, consultant, author, and international lecturer on polyvagal theory-informed work with trauma survivors and is the leading translator of this scientific work to the public and mental health professionals. She's a founding member of the Polyvagal Institute and creator of the signature Rhythm of Regulation® clinical training series.

Deb's work shows us how understanding polyvagal theory applies across the board to relationships, mental health, and trauma. She delves into the intricacies of how we can all use and understand the organizing principles of polyvagal theory to change the ways we navigate our daily lives. 

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Why regulation is not a static state but an ongoing dynamic experience 
• How understanding the subconscious survival responses of the nervous system under stress can help us learn to regulate and repair
• Why we can’t discount or dismiss the messages our survival responses are trying to give us
• How even micro-moments of responding to our nervous systems’ needs can create change
• How building capacity to resourcing regulation increases our capacity to sit with discomfort and struggle in our lives and in the world
• How leaders can use Polyvagal Theory concepts to create connected, collaborative environments for themselves and those they lead

Learn more about Deb Dana: