Circle This

In this episode Monica Corcoran Harel, screenwriter, bestselling author and founder of PRETTY RIPE and author of the viral essay "The Women Quietly Quitting Their Husbands" joins for a conversation that goes straight to the truth many women have been living but not naming. What happens when the life you've built no longer fits? Monica shares how her popular essays tap into a larger cultural shift—where women are questioning endurance, redefining marriage, and choosing agency over performance. The conversation moves into parenting and the practice of letting go, the pull between external transformation and internal acceptance, and the desire to feel fully alive in your own life. Together they circle around noticing where you've gone quiet… and what it might take to come back to your partnership and ultimately yourself. Follow Monica: @prettyripe Learn More At: www.prettyripe.com -- Stay connected with the Circle This team: @andreabendewald @circlethispodcast @emkratter @goodmessmedia @talkwithtrace For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]

In this episode of Circle This, Dre sits down with Jared Seide, Executive Director of Beyond Us & Them, a groundbreaking nonprofit bringing compassion, connection, and real tools for transformation into some of the most unlikely places—prisons, law enforcement agencies, healthcare systems, and policy spaces. Through circle and council practices, along with mindfulness-based techniques, Jared and his team train individuals within these systems to develop self-awareness, emotional regulation, and authentic connection. These programs go beyond "let's all get along" energy, this is deep, embodied work that is actively shifting how humans relate to themselves and each other inside systems that are rooted in separation and "othering." Together, they explore what happens when we interrupt the "us versus them" narrative and create spaces where people are truly seen, heard, and humanized. From incarcerated individuals experiencing profound connection to themselves and one another, to police officers learning resilience and relational intelligence, to communities finding their way back to belonging—this conversation reveals what becomes possible when there is an invitation to see beyond the mask and connect on the soul level. Jared shares the science behind circling and council, including measurable physiological changes that occur when we practice real listening and authentic expression. They unpack why social connection is as vital as food and water, and what it takes to bring this work into environments built on survival, hierarchy, and division. This is a conversation about re-humanization, choosing connection over contraction and remembering that we were never meant to do this alone. This conversation is filled with evidence of hope, that real change is possible through practical tools of connection and it all starts with sitting in a circle. Learn more and support the work at beyondusandthem.org Use code CIRCLE20 for 20% off their merchandise and help spread the message. Explore Jared's book Where Compassion Begins for deeper practice. Sign up for the Beyond Us & Them newsletter and follow them on social media @beyondusandthem -- Stay connected with the Circle This team: @andreabendewald @circlethispodcast @emkratter @goodmessmedia @talkwithtrace For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]

Award-winning filmmaker, writer, actor, and creative force Jenna Laurenzo joins Dre and Emily for a conversation about storytelling, representation, and the courage to create the stories we long to see. When Jenna entered the film industry, she quickly realized that the stories reflecting her own experience as a queer woman were largely missing. Instead of waiting for them to appear, she began creating them herself. Her award-winning film Lez Bomb and the viral Girl Night Stand series opened doors for representation, humor, and deeply human storytelling to take center stage. In this episode, they circle the idea that representation itself can be a remedy, when we see ourselves reflected in story, something inside connects and we realize we are not alone. Together they explore how writing can help us metabolize emotion, why humor often lives alongside grief, and how shared experiences of art, laughing, crying, and witnessing stories can reconnect us to our own humanity. Jenna also shares her reflections on creative resistance, building safe and collaborative spaces on set, the loneliness that can exist even within community, and the deeper pursuit of our soul's expression. To follow Jenna or find out more about her work: @jennalaurenzo www.jennalaurenzo.com -- Stay connected with the Circle This team: @andreabendewald @circlethispodcast @emkratter @goodmessmedia @talkwithtrace For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]

In this episode Dre shares the ongoing integration of her recent death doula training — an experience that began with a surprising invitation: before learning how to support others at the end of life, she first had to face her own mortality. What started as curiosity quickly opened into something deeper. Dre and Em circle around grief, awe, ritual, and the ways our culture avoids talking about death — often making loss even harder when it inevitably arrives. Dre reflects on her father's passing, the unexpected healing that can happen in the dying process, and the truth she discovered through the training: the body knows how to die, just as it knows how to be born. They explore why we are such a death-phobic culture, what it means to "die well," and how learning to witness — rather than fix or control — may be one of the most sacred roles we can play for one another. This conversation moves through grief, laughter, fear, love, and even Dre's imagined memorial service. Because for Dre, death is not simply an ending — it's part of the same mystery that makes life so precious. If facing death can bring us more fully into the present moment, maybe learning how to die is actually one of the greatest invitations to live. -- Stay connected with the Circle This team: @andreabendewald @circlethispodcast @emkratter @goodmessmedia @talkwithtrace For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]

In this episode, Dre sits down with Ashley Turner—licensed depth psychotherapist, yoga and meditation teacher, psychedelic therapist, and menopause advocate—to explore what's rising at the intersection of midlife transformation, mental health, sovereignty, and the psychedelic renaissance. Together, they unpack perimenopause vs. menopause, myth-bust the most common symptoms, and explore the link between libido, creativity, and inner fire. They dive into trauma resurfacing during midlife, hormone therapy, medical bias, and the staggering truth that women's bodies weren't required to be included in medical studies until 1993. The conversation also explores psychedelics and integration—how the default mode network quiets, how new neural pathways can form, and why connection—not isolation—is the medicine. At one point, Ashley drops an iconic truth straight from the heart: "There's nothing scarier than someone who doesn't need you." Now we see menopause as more than a health conversation— but possibly a cultural revolution. FOLLOW: @ashleyturner1, @haven_membership LEARN MORE AT: https://yoga-psychology.co/ -- Stay connected with the Circle This team: @andreabendewald @circlethispodcast @emkratter @goodmessmedia @talkwithtrace For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]