In a world where harm feels constant and outrage comes easy, what does it mean to seek justice without punishment? What does healing look like when the tools we’ve been given—police, prisons, shame, and exile—feel both unsatisfying and deeply entrenched?

In this powerful season finale, Michelle MiJung Kim confronts her own rage after her mother was mugged, and grapples with different approaches to addressing harm. Michelle invites us to wrestle with the hard questions: What actually makes us feel safe? Who gets punished, and who gets protected? And what might become possible if we practiced something different?

Featuring illuminating conversations with writer and disability justice activist Mia Mingus, this episode challenges the binary of good vs. bad people and opens the door to more expansive, healing possibilities.

If you’ve ever wrestled with the tension between your values and your reactions—between the world you want and the one we live in—this episode will speak directly to your heart. Honest, unflinching, and deeply human, it’s a call to imagine new ways of responding to harm that don’t replicate the very violence we’re trying to escape.

ABOUT THE EPISODE GUEST, MIA MINGUS

Mia Mingus is a writer, educator and trainer for transformative justice and disability justice. She is a queer physically disabled Korean transracial and transnational adoptee raised in the Caribbean. She works for community, interdependence and home for all of us, not just some of us, and longs for a world where disabled children can live free of violence, with dignity and love. As her work for liberation evolves and deepens, her roots remain firmly planted in ending sexual violence. Mia founded and currently leads SOIL: A Transformative Justice Project which builds the conditions for transformative justice to grow and thrive. She has been involved in transformative justice work for almost 2 decades and has supported numerous people, groups, families and communities in addressing harm, violence and abuse using transformative justice. She is an abolitionist and a survivor who believes that we must move beyond punishment, revenge and criminalization if we are ever to effectively break generational cycles of violence and create the world our hearts long for. She is passionate about building the skills, relationships and structures that can transform violence, harm and abuse within our communities and that do not rely on or replicate the punitive system we currently live in. Mia speaks and gives trainings about transformative justice throughout North America.

Follow Mia Mingus on Instagram: @miamingus

Mia’s Blog: Leaving Evidence

ABOUT THE HOST, MICHELLE MIJUNG KIM

Michelle MiJung Kim is one of today’s most compelling voices on courage, complexity, and...

In this special bonus episode, the mic gets turned: Michelle MiJung Kim—usually the host of I Feel That Way Too—is the one being interviewed.

Recorded live at the Human Rights Summit, hosted by San Francisco Pride at the historic Commonwealth Club, this intimate conversation offers a rare glimpse into the making of the podcast and the story behind it.

In conversation with longtime LGBTQ advocate and host Michelle Meow, Michelle shares the behind-the-scenes journey of launching I Feel That Way Too, including the emotional process of sunsetting her DEI company, Awaken, and reckoning with what it means to tell hard truths in public. Together, they explore the relationship between courage and shame, and how we begin again after letting go of what no longer feels aligned.

ABOUT THE COMMONWEALTH CLUB & MICHELLE MEOW SHOW

Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. Each year, they bring hundreds of events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy to thousands of members and to the public. In 2018, The Commonwealth Club and Michelle Meow teamed up to expand and broaden the programming of interest to LGBTQ audiences. Michelle Meow records her program at the Club, often co-hosted by John Zipperer, the Club's host of its Week to Week Politics Roundtable programs. Check out Michelle Meow Show to meet some of the most interesting, intriguing and often controversial people in the LGBTQ community.

RESOURCES AND LINKS

Full Transcript is Available Here

Subscribe to the I Feel That Way Too newsletter at ifeelthatwaytoo.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Learn more about Asian American Futures

Can our friendships evolve as we evolve?

It feels like it’s getting harder and harder to make new friends—and keep old ones—as our values shift and priorities change. In this era of political and cultural polarization, can we actually be friends if we disagree politically? What if we embody our values differently? Where’s the line between judging someone for being different and honoring our own integrity?

This episode is an invitation to wrestle with discomfort, stay with the complexity, and consider what it means to make room for all of our humanity.

Joined by writer and cultural worker Kai Cheng Thom, Michelle explores the grief, shame, and judgment that often accompany political misalignment between friends—and the haunting ways we sometimes punish each other when what we really crave is love.

This episode is for anyone who’s ever lost a friend in a season of political reckoning. It’s for those holding heartbreak, anger, and the question: Can we find our way back to each other, even when it feels impossible?

ABOUT THE EPISODE GUEST, KAI CHENG THOM

Kai Cheng Thom is a somatically trained coach, process facilitator, and mediator whose work focuses on the intersections of trauma healing, Transformative Justice, and social change. A noted theorist and practitioner in the field of conflict resolution, Kai Cheng has made significant contributions towards the integration and application of conflict transformation, crisis intervention, and body-based trauma healing methods in an activist context through her writing and teaching. Kai Cheng maintains a private practice as a one-on-one somatic coach, consultant, and group facilitator, drawing from extensive professional trainings in a wide variety of healing and wellness disciplines. She has also trained hundreds of embodiment and wellness professionals as Adjunct Faculty with the Institute for the Study of Somatic Sex Education and a Senior Teacher at The Embody Lab. Learn more about Kai Cheng Thom at www.kaichengthom.com.

Follow Kai Cheng Thom on Instagram: @kaichengthom

Kai’s Book: Falling Back in Love with Human

ABOUT THE HOST, MICHELLE MIJUNG KIM

Michelle MiJung Kim is one of today’s most compelling voices on courage, complexity, and connection. With a voice that is both precise and expansive, Michelle helps people make sense of their inner worlds and the outer chaos. Through storytelling rooted in emotional honesty, she invites us to confront what’s hard, name what matters, and move through the world with deeper integrity and courage. She is the award-winning author of The Wake Up, a globally recognized speaker, and the producer and host of I Feel That Way Too, a narrative podcast that dares to ask life’s trickiest questions so we can feel less alone—and more alive—together. Whether on stage, on the page, or behind the mic, Michelle’s presence is a mirror and a call to courage—to live our lives more fully, to build resilient relationships, and to believe in the possibility of our personal transformation and collective liberation. Learn more about Michelle at www.michellemijungkim.com and follow her journey on Instagram @michellekimkim.

RESOURCES AND LINKS

Full Transcript is Available Here

Watch the full interview on I Feel That Way Too YouTube Channel

Subscribe to the I Feel That Way Too newsletter at