Season 5, Episode 3: Election Conversations with Mr. Matthias Roberts and Rebecca Walston

Matthias Roberts is a queer  psychotherapist (in Washington State) and the author of both "Holy Runaways:

Rediscovering Faith After Being Burned by Religion" and "Beyond Shame: Creating a Healthy Sex Life on Your Own Terms". He is one of my favorite friends I met in graduate school, a human deeply committed to connection and curiosity,  and someone who I deeply admire. With Matthias, I feel a sense of belonging and openness to understanding the world and holding space for that curiosity which is so threatening elsewhere.

 

Rebecca W. Walston is an African American lawyer, who also holds a MA Counseling, an all around boss babe. Rebecca runs a Law Practice and serves as General Legal Counsel for The Impact Movement, Inc.  She is someone who fiercely advocates for others freedom and healing. She is a dear friend and colleague, who anyone would be lucky to spend a dinner with talking about almost anything.

Trigger Warning: Proceed only if you are comfortable with potentially sensitive topics.

This is not psychological advice, service, or prescriptive treatment for anxiety or depression. The content related to descriptions of depression, anxiety, or despair may be upsetting or triggering, but are clearly not exhaustive. If you should feel symptoms of depression and/or anxiety, please seek professional mental health services, or contact (in Kitsap County) Kitsap Mobile Crisis Team at  1-888-910-0416. The line is staffed by professionals who are trained to determine the level of crisis services needed. Depending on the need, this may include dispatching the KMHS Mobile Crisis Outreach Team for emergency assessment. 

Speaker 1 (00:18):

Welcome to the Rise podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender, and spirituality. Today we're continuing our conversation on election humanity and politics. I have two guests today. I'm very excited about it. Matthias Roberts, who's a queer psychotherapist in Washington State, and the author of both Holy Runaways and Beyond Shame. Actually, he's one of my favorite friends I met in graduate school. I don't know if he knows that he's a human, deeply committed to connection and curiosity and someone I deeply admire with Matthias. I've always felt this sense of belonging and openness to understanding the world and holding space for that actual curiosity, which has seems so threatening elsewhere. So I want to thank Matthias for joining me and taking time out of his morning. And Rebecca Wheeler Walstead holds an MA in counseling an all around boss babe. Rebecca runs a law practice and serves as general legal counsel for the Impact movement, and she is someone who fiercely advocates for others freedom and healing. She's a dear friend, obviously she's a colleague and she's someone that anybody would be lucky to spend a dinner with talking about almost anything. So thank you, Rebecca, for joining me today.

(01:40):

I can say that for myself in my own experience, my anxiety is heightened overall and feelings that I can keep at bay with regular normal coping mechanisms such as exercise. It takes to me a little bit more and I have to offer myself a lot more grace in the process. I encourage you no matter where you are, to engage these topics with grace towards your own self, towards your neighbor, towards your family, and towards whoever's in your proximity. We won't get things done overnight no matter who we are, and we will get them done if we become more aligned and care more for those in our proximity, that means our neighbor. So if you're feeling or experiencing anxiety around the election or family or other triggers, I want you to encourage you to seek out and find someone to speak with. Maybe you need a mental health professional, maybe you need a spiritual advisor. Maybe it's your coach and it's something related to business. Maybe you need to go see your doctor for aches and pains you've been having. I don't know what it might be for you, but don't hesitate to reach out and get the help you need. We're going to jump into the conversation and voices from across the country. We are all different and we're not meant to be the same. I hope you find pieces of you in each of their stories. Hey, Rebecca. Hey, Matthias. Thanks for being with me today.

Speaker 2 (03:06):

Daniel, thanks for having

Speaker 1 (03:07):

Us. I just thought we would talk about this really amazing subject of politics and humanness because we're so good at it in the United States. Yeah, right. Y'all thoughts on that? Even as I say that, just politics and being human, what comes to mind?

Speaker 2 (03:34):

For me, there's almost a dual process happening. I think about my first thought was, well, politics are, but then I also thought about how when we separate institutions out fro