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Welcome back to today’s podcast, a place where we share stories of awakenings—those moments when life disrupts the script and invites us into deeper truth, healing, and courage.

Today’s conversation is especially timely and tender. My guest is Susan Reedy, a Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in trauma recovery and resiliency. Susan works with people navigating grief and loss, traumatic experiences, life transitions, and anxiety—and she also trains other therapists in the skills of trauma-informed care, including the Trauma Resiliency Model.

Susan’s own story includes powerful awakenings: growing up in the Worldwide Church of God under Herbert W. Armstrong, the long work of de-programming from religious control, and her early work with traumatized children. We’ll talk openly about religious trauma, a theme that shows up often on this podcast, and connect it to broader cultural and political stress many of us are carrying right now.

We’ll also revisit the Altadena fires—how quickly they spread, the scope of destruction, and the deeply human stories of loss that followed. Along the way, Susan helps us understand what trauma is, why trauma therapy matters, and what healing and wellness can actually look like after everything falls apart.

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Today’s episode is an invitation to listen closely—to grief, to courage, and to the hard work of hope. My guest is Darcy McKenzie, a social and political activist in Minneapolis, and our conversation begins where so many lives were altered: George Floyd. Where were you when it happened? What was your response? How did it change you? Darcy answers those questions with honesty shaped by experience—growing up in rural, agricultural America; living with a tenuous relationship to the Church; and carrying the layered truths of atrocities we too often rush past, including the tragic shooting death of Renee Nicole Good.

We talk about Minneapolis in the shadow of ICE, about video evidence without a hearing, about the politics of spectacle—cowboy hats and bounty promises—and about what it means to be a military mom when the state feels like a regime. Along the way, Darcy names political heroes and builders—people like Tim Walz, Amy Klobuchar, Tina Smith, Brian O’Hare, and Paul Cumings—and asks what real leadership looks like now.

Most of all, we ask what we’re hoping for in 2026, and why optimism—clear-eyed, grounded optimism—still makes sense.

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Become a Patron - Click on the link to learn how you can become a Patron of the show. Thank you!

Ken’s Substack Page

The Podcast Official Site: TheBeachedWhiteMale.com

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Welcome to Beach Talk with Betsey Newenhuyse — where we sift through the chaos and try to make sense of what’s really going on. From the heavy-handed ICE “invasion” of Minneapolis, where thousands of federal agents’ enforcement surge has sparked protests after the shootings and the unnecessary death of Renee Nicole Good. We unpack the video evidence, no hearings, and public outrage over federal power in local streets. Connecting the dots, we’ll talk about Tom Homan’s $50K bounties, Kristi Noem’s cowboy-hat politics, then on to Pete Buttigieg at the Detroit Auto Show, and Rick Wilson’s most recent commentary - “Stopping vs. Ending.” From Jerome Powell and the Fed, America First abroad, Venezuela’s leadership, Nobel chatter around María Corina Machado, to gaudy gold trim in Mar-a-Lago — it’s all here.

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Support the show

Become a Patron - Click on the link to learn how you can become a Patron of the show. Thank you!

Ken’s Substack Page

The Podcast Official Site: TheBeachedWhiteMale.com