Karen Kieffer, my dear friend and colleague, comes on the podcast to talk consciousness and her journey with cancer. Bio: Karen Kieffer currently is. She is a trauma therapist, trainer, and integration coach, as well as mom, sister, daughter, friend, plant mom, and cancer egghead. She has lived in Massachusetts for over 30 years, but may soon become a nomad. In this episode: What is reality? Karen discusses out of body experiences, pleasure activism, and how culture shapes us. Karen mentions her path to social work, the experience of being disabled by depression, peer support, becoming trauma informed, becoming a therapist, and her present work. She shares about open dialogue, a systems approach to mental health and working with families. A theme of this conversation is supporting others by being human. Karen has also helped white people understand why issues of race can be so hard for us. We discuss somatics, complexity, resilient movements, and psychedelics. Links bell hooks - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/bell-hooks-obituary Resmaa Menakem - https://www.resmaa.com/ Pleasure Activism by adrienne marie brown - https://www.akpress.org/pleasure-activism.html Kimberly Ann Johnson and Stephen Jenkins - https://orphanwisdom.com/2021/10/31/kimberly-ann-johnson-interviews-stephen-jenkinson-on-spirit-work-conspiracies-elderhood-and-grief/ Talk about cancer Leia described in Intro: https://youtu.be/6VXTiI7eWD4