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What Happens In Between
Quentin Allums on Power
Ep. 16
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Quentin has accomplished incredible feats, but we dug more into his vision for the future rather than his work in the past.
What I appreciate most about this conversation is that Quentin is the type of person who, like myself, can move through disparate topics swiftly and seamlessly. We lot have to stick together!
Follow Quentin at @tagjustq across platforms and check out his site: quentinallums.com
In this episode, we discuss:
Quentin’s relationship to entrepreneurship
Getting paid to be yourself
Tackling big, exciting problems
Speaking to be understood by the masses
The aesthetic of power
How one or both of us will live to be 1000 years old
Question of the Week: What is your greatest ambition? Send me your answers @athenasayaka on IG!
More episodes
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7. Cultural Worker x Transplant Survivor x Agender with Walela Nehanda
53:10||Season 3, Ep. 7Episode Summary: In this week’s episode of What Happens In Between, I sit down with Walela Nehanda, a cultural worker, transplant survivor, and agender writer who created their debut book, Bless the Blood - A Cancer Memoir as an archive for Black, Young, and Disabled people. Walela helps us shift the narrative toward a world rooted in care, interdependence — and ultimately, revolution. How do we define our realities without molding ourselves into a presentation? Join us on today’s episode as we explore what it means to be a Cultural Worker x Transplant Survivor x Agender human using art and writing to push a revolutionary culture forward.Question of the Week: When navigating through massive amounts of grief, how do we practice compassion without being rooted in ego? Topics Covered:Walela’s definition of a “Cultural Worker”The key ingredients of culture from the lens of a Cultural Worker Survivorship: A new creation of what it means to be aliveWalela’s relationship to their body as a cancer and transplant survivorHow relationships can help us realize that we deserve care Interacting with the fluidity of feelings about your writing How we can make ourselves legible in response to feelingsFour questions for our Seedling RoundResources:Audre Lorde’s The Cancer JournalsGuest Info:Connect with Walela Nehanda on Instagram. Support Walela on Patreon, and pre-order their debut book: Bless the Blood - A Cancer Memoir here.Join the Newsletter:NewsletterShow Notes:Walela Nehanda is centering self-acceptance as a means to a more supportive, nurturing future. Walela’s debut book, Bless the Blood - A Cancer Memoir is an archive for Black, Young, and Disabled people, where feelings can be validated in a way they didn’t think was possible. Walela is redefining the next era of the Black Arts Movement and exploring what key ingredients of culture can resolve conflicts in search of survival and progress. If art is a point of political struggle, is culture how we make ourselves legible to each other?In December 2020, Walela underwent a stem cell transplant and spent 31 days in isolation. Walela helps us shift an overly autonomous narrative toward care and interdependence — and ultimately, revolution. They teach us why being patient with our bodies is proof that survivorship has no end date. Unfurling into (self-)acceptance of love. Walela reminds us that within the mess there is creation — and it doesn’t have to be coherent. Within it, you can be responsible for the outcome and supported through the process. Join us on today’s episode as we explore what it means to be a Cultural Worker x Transplant Survivor x Agender human using art and writing to push a revolutionary culture forward.6. Black Woman x Free Spirit with Shavon Swain
58:19||Season 3, Ep. 6Episode Summary: In this week’s episode of What Happens In Between, I sit down with Shavon Swain, a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) with over 10 years of experience working in the mental health field. Shavon helps us understand that the layers of curiosity, imagination, and possibility are cultivating your innate wisdom. What does it mean — and feel like — to have the freedom and the expansiveness to try on all different parts of yourself? Join us on today’s episode as we explore what it means to be both a Black Woman and a Free Spirit.Question of the Week: Why do parents put gift bows on household appliances in their homes?Topics Covered:Questions around being a free spirit, imagination, and possibility How Human Design highlighted Shavon’s innate wisdom Permission to shift and change within career/identity Shavon’s formula for clarity + embodiment = authenticityUsing somatics to sit with and understand emotion How Shavon channeled her intuitive gifts into a careerHow increased neurodivergence accessibility impacts therapy Four questions for our Seedling RoundGuest Info:Connect with Shavon Swain on Instagram, The Healing Lounge Website, her personal Website, and Therapy For Black Girls Website. Check out Shavon’s NEW! Guided Journaling Cards here.Join the Newsletter:NewsletterShow Notes:We get to choose how the layers of curiosity, imagination, and possibility integrate into some (or all) aspects of our lives. As a Black Woman x Free Spirit, Shavon utilizes human design, astrology, and inner child work as a permission slip to deepen her therapy practice while staying true to herself. But Shavon’s intent isn’t to make her work her sole identity. It’s a layered evolution, textures upon textures of the Self. Shavon’s somatic-centered therapy practice helps her clients understand how emotions and feelings show up in the body. How can you become your own tool for self-compassion? To embody self-awareness and understanding is to understand aspects of the Self. What does life look like when you believe clarity + embodiment = authenticity?Shavon reminds us that there is freedom and expansiveness when we try on all different parts of ourselves. All the possibilities exist. Join us on today’s episode as we explore what it means to be both — a Black woman and a free spirit.Follow Us:InstagramWebsite4. Poetic x Empathy Driven Curiosity with Xenia Viray
48:04||Season 3, Ep. 4Episode Summary: In this week’s episode of What Happens In Between, I sit down with Xenia Viray, Imagination Healer, Multidimensional Artist, and Community Weaver focused on facilitating workshops and writing. Xenia expands our perspective of relationship dynamics, interconnectedness, and imagination as the ability to wade through the depths of experience. Is it possible to see imagination simply as the way we think and process? Join us on today’s episode as we explore what it means to be a Poetic x Empathy-Driven x Curious Imagination Healer who believes in experimenting with the construction of correctness.Question of the Week: If you were a climate or a landmass, what kind of land would you be?Topics Covered:Questions around empathy-driven curiosity, personal stories, and being understood The psychedelic experience of being in the world and relationshipBeing poetic = Everything is made up How spirituality and mysticism helped Xenia understand her imagination Being unfamiliar with linear choice vs. linear experience Different levels of capacity concerning depth of experience Two questions for our Seedling RoundResources:Crystal Bennett HarrisArthur Vogelsang’s poem HelpGuest Info:Connect with Xenia Viray on Instagram and her Website. Xenia Marie Ross Viray (she/they) is an imagination healer, multidimensional artist and community weaver with a focus on facilitating workshops and writing. Born as a brick-and-mortar business, Myths of Creation is a container for experiments, writings, and gatherings at the intersection of creativity and spirituality. Myth's core intention is to reconnect communities, ideas, and art forms that have been separated in order to enrich the pool of imaginal possibility. Xenia's 1:1 offerings Imaginal Temple and Heart Channel are designed to help unique creatives anchor the frequency of their natural genius.Show Notes:Everyone has a unique way of communicating, receiving, and interpreting language. With an infinite desire to understand individual experience, Xenia views the world from a dual, cosmic point of view: intrigued by the human experience and in constant observation. How does the construct of perspective help us be in relationship with each other and the universe?Xenia’s newest offering, an “Imaginal Temple,” relates to her interpretation of what it means to be “an adult,” and a response to curiosity about the different layers within Self. When we view the world and ourselves as a desire for a relationship to experience, there is endless power — and an opportunity to create. In Xenia’s words, “My imagination is actually my energy. It's who I am without the constructions of the outside world.” Xenia allows us to examine the world and ourselves — while also experimenting with its structures and interpretations. Expansion and contraction (as a sign of bravery) is beautiful. Join us on today’s episode as we explore what it means to be an Imagination Healer who believes in experimenting with the made-up construction of correctness.5. Black x Multiple AuDHD x Creative Activist with Ben-Oní
48:04||Season 3, Ep. 5*CORRECTION: Neuroexpansive is a term coined and trademarked by Ngozi Alston.Episode Summary:In this episode of What Happens In Between, I sit down with Ben-Oní, a neuroexpansive clinical psych doctoral student, orator, writer, and Black disability justice activist. Ben-Oní shares their experience as a Black Multiple AuDHD and how that translates into their Creative Activism. Join us on today’s episode as we explore what it means to be neuroexpansive, leading through a lens of beauty, and devoted to activism. Question of the Week: What is one thing that you want to make your descendants proud to say about you?Topics Covered:What it feels like to be in your own village or family as a multipleThe power of memory among Ben-Oní’s family, especially for friends and familyWhy Ben-Oní is pursuing a PhD in clinical psychologyHow academia interacts with Ben-Oní’s creative activismEssentialism, minimalism, and the role of beautyThe nuances of Black womanhoodHow the term BIPOC coalition builds and flattens experienceReal diversity means disagreeing with someone, or being disagreed with, and being OKThree questions for our Seedling Round Guest Info:Connect with Ben-Oní on the Black Neurodiversity website and Instagram.Follow Us:InstagramWebsiteShow Notes:For Ben-Oní, being multiple means living within a family. Sometimes being part of his family requires surrender, but their goal isn’t to control or integrate their family as they accept their multiplicity exists to make them feel safe. Ben-Oní is committed to sharing resources and presence around neurodiversity, disability, and other spaces from their lived experience. Through Black Neurodiversity, she shares resources and trainings that center on intersectional neurodiversity and anti-ableism. Their aim is to give Black people their own space to dive into our unique experience with disability, neurodiversity, culture, ethnicity, and race to ensure our experience isn’t glossed over or minimized. In some ways, the right words to match the experience don’t even exist yet! Their academic work in clinical psychology supports an even deeper resourcing for Black Neurodiversity and their activism. Ben-Oní shares the importance of letting our work be impactful, informative, and meaningful while also infusing it with joy, humor, and beauty, especially beauty! We can be heavy and light. Join us on today’s episode as we explore what it means to be neuroexpansive, leading through a lens of beauty, and devoted to activism. Seedling Round:Ben-Oní answers a few rapid-fire questions about their favorite thing they learned recently, their relationship to time, and why their lens as a Black, multiple AuDHD, and creative activist is a joyful space to inhabit.3. Community Curator with OlaRonke Akinmowo
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49:40||Season 3, Ep. 1Episode SummaryWelcome to Season Three of What Happens in Between, which will focus on multiplicity and how we develop the rich, internal narratives of who we are. In this week’s episode, I sit down with Karyn Paige, a certified human design practitioner — and self-proclaimed late-blooming, daydreaming, indoor kid — who helps us be compassionate about our individuality. Personality traits can serve as containers for our layered identities. But are those containers what we mold ourselves into as a means for survival? Join us on today’s episode as we navigate individual alignment through the lens of human design, astrology, anti-oppression, and the intersectional experiences of women of color.Topics Covered:The need to shift into different identities for survival Finding safety (and gifts) within neurodivergence How to carve space for Self in the world Being out of alignment and finding redirectionRejecting characteristics of oppressive systems The effects of bypassing a disability Three questions for our Seedling RoundFull DescriptionOur lives can only exist at their greatest capacity if there is compassion to accept all aspects of ourselves. As a Biracial x Partially Blind x Introvert, Karyn uses human design and astrology as tools for finding language for what she already knows within herself. Karyn helps us hold space and lean into full-bodied acceptance to not be dragged down by limitations. Is there a narrative in favor or against parts of your identity? How do you carve out space that is solely for you? Don’t forget: You have an extreme amount of self-determination, self-agency, control, and options. Personality traits can serve as containers for our layered identities. But are those containers what we mold ourselves into as a means for survival? Individual experience can be supportive of the way you want to feel, interact, and move through the world. Karyn, a Black woman in Human Design, shows us that choosing to have a fulfilling, enriching, life experience is validation. Period. Join us on today’s episode as we navigate individual alignment through the lens of human design, astrology, anti-oppression, and the intersectional experiences of Women of Color.Question of the Week: How do you support multiple aspects of yourself with balance and care?Guest Info:Connect with Karyn Paige on her Instagram, Website, and TikTok Follow Us:InstagramWebsiteSeason 3 Trailer
01:31||Season 3, Ep. 0mercurial process of creating something beautiful. Join Athena for biweekly explorations of the layered thinking, feeling, and living process — where complexities come untied, yet aren’t seen as unhinged. Season 3’s focus is Multiplicity and how we develop the internal narratives of who we are. Tune in for conversations with practitioners, community builders, curators, and artists who are navigating themselves as another way to explore, question, and reclaim the world around them. Why is your specific lens a beautiful space to inhabit? crafting identity is a key element in nurturing the human experience. And the making of each episode. Between every other Wednesday, starting February 7th, 2024!Season 2 Recap
04:04|Athena discusses the best way to stay in touch while you wait for Season 3 and shares key takeaways from each episode.Listen to the private podcast HEREFollow Us:InstagramWebsite