Season 1: Episode 5 Summary

Ms. Frances Mary Albrier was born in 1898 in Tuskegee, Alabama, carrying the legacy of a grandmother who survived enslavement and helped found the Tuskegee Institute. Inside this episode, Ms. Albrier shares — through a rare oral history clip — one of the most enduring lessons her grandmother passed down: next to every poison is an antidote. She speaks candidly about bitterness, and why her elders understood that allowing the racism of oppressors to fester inside you wasn't just painful — it could kill.

Ms. Albrier went on to become a fearless civil rights organizer for over five decades — advocating for Berkeley's first Black teacher, becoming the first African American to run for Berkeley City Council, and organizing Don't Buy Where You Can't Work campaigns. She did it without being consumed by bitterness. She transmuted it into fuel.

In this episode, we explore the somatic and spiritual cost of swallowed rage — what happens in the body when pain goes unspoken. Dr. Shawna shares her own journey with Qigong and Traditional Chinese Medicine as a practice for releasing what words can't reach, and teaches a healing sound practice you can use today.

What becomes possible when you stop carrying what was meant to destroy you?

Presence Practice

Where in my body am I holding what I was never given space to say?

Reflection: What would it mean to let bitterness become fuel — not suppression, but strategy and healing?

Go Deeper — Presence Practice: Qigong for Leaders

This episode comes alive in the body. Join Dr. Shawna for a virtual Qigong class directly inspired by this episode. 🔗 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/presence-practice-qigong-for-leaders-tickets-1984147213728

Two More Ways to Go Deeper:

1. Join the community on Patreon → https://www.patreon.com/c/shawnamurraybrowne
2. Explore Cadence — Liberatory Leadership Incubator for women of color leaders → https://www.kindredwellness.net/cadence

This episode is also available as a video on YouTube. If it moved you, please like, share, subscribe, and leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review.

Archival credit: Oral history excerpts courtesy of the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University, Black Women's Oral History Project.

Season 1: Episode 4 Summary

Mother Waddles—a Detroit-based community activist—shares about navigating poverty and people, and how fashion and self-presentation weren't vanity—they were what kept her going. Getting dressed with intention helped her feel better when she was struggling.

She recounts the oppressive welfare systems that sought to strip her dignity, her shifting relationship to money, and traditions of other-mothering. We explore internalized capitalism and injected oppression that shape how Black women move through the world.

I share guidance on adornment as an energetic practice—reframing the self as sacred space. This episode invites you to consider adornment not as vanity but as a spiritual technology of presence.

Don't look like what you're going through. How you show up matters.

Featured Oral History Clip: Charleszetta "Mother" Waddles

A Detroit-based community activist and humanitarian who built the Perpetual Mission for Saving Souls while understanding that in poverty and depression, how you present yourself isn't vanity—it's dignity, mental health care, and a refusal to let systems strip you of your worth.

Presence Practice

How do I adorn myself—not for others, but as an act of honoring my own sacredness and mental well-being? What would change if I saw getting dressed as emotional care?

Reflection Question: Where have I internalized the belief that caring for my appearance is shallow, vain, or selfish? What would it mean to reclaim adornment as mental health practice?

Two Ways to go Deeper:

1.) Join me on Patreon to continue the conversation, unpack these themes in community, and practice the tools shared in this episode. https://www.patreon.com/c/shawnamurraybrowne

2.) If you’re a woman of color leader, explore Cadence—my signature Liberatory Leadership Incubator for women leading in high-stakes environments: www.shawnamurraybrowne.com/cadence

This episode is also available as a video on YouTube.

If you enjoyed it, please like, share, subscribe, and leave a 5-star review—your support helps this work reach those who need it.

Archival credit: Oral history excerpts courtesy of the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University, Black Women’s Oral History Project.

Season 1: Episode 3 Summary

Queen Mother Audley Moore was a radical Black visionary whose ideas about reparations and Black liberation were dismissed as extreme. She was lonely, misunderstood, isolated—she never fit in anywhere. Not because she was difficult, but because she was decades ahead of her time.

But here's what made her different: she made herself irreplaceable.

Without traditional credentials, Queen Mother Moore built her credibility through relationships, work ethic, and unwavering conviction. She got her "PhD on the streets and stages," and people acknowledged her genius—not her degrees.

In this episode, we explore the profound loneliness visionary Black women leaders experience when no one else can see what you see. We examine what Queen Mother Moore called "oppression psychoneurosis"—when systems make you question your own clarity.

I share my own experience of never fitting in anywhere, always being between worlds, and what it takes to cultivate a rooted village that sees you for who you are—not just what you've accomplished.

We close with a journal practice to help you attract the mentors and support you actually need—and permission to stop shrinking to fit spaces that were never meant to hold you.

In a time when Black women are being pushed out of workplaces, isolated, and questioning whether they belong anywhere—Queen Mother Moore shows us another way: make yourself so irreplaceable they have to make room.

If you're lonely, misunderstood, but know you're meant for something more—this one's for you.

Featured Oral History Clip: Queen Mother Audley Moore

A self-taught Black nationalist, reparations activist, and Pan-Africanist who built her credibility on the streets and stages rather than in classrooms, becoming an irreplaceable voice for Black liberation despite never fitting into traditional academic or political spaces.

Presence Practice

Who in my life affirms my convictions, not just my credentials? And where do I need to build more of that kind of village?

Reflection Question: What would it look like to make myself irreplaceable in spaces that matter to me—not by conforming, but by being undeniably myself?

Two Ways to go Deeper:

1.) Join me on Patreon to continue the conversation, unpack these themes in community, and practice the tools shared in this episode. https://www.patreon.com/c/shawnamurraybrowne

2.) If you’re a woman of color leader, explore Cadence—my signature Liberatory Leadership Incubator for women leading in high-stakes environments: www.kindredwellness.net/cadence

This episode is also available as a video on YouTube.

If you enjoyed it, please like, share, subscribe, and leave a 5-star review—your support helps this work reach those who need it.

Archival credit: Oral history excerpts courtesy of the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University, Black Women’s Oral History Project.

Season 1: Episode 2 Summary

Pleasant Harrison was told by her doctor that she wouldn't survive her cancer diagnosis. With no meaningful care offered, she turned to what her grandfather had taught her—herbal medicine, ancestral healing practices, prayer, and the land itself. She survived by trusting what her ancestors had already placed in her hands.

In this episode, we explore what Pleasant's story reveals about medical racism, medical neglect of Black women, and the ongoing Black maternal health crisis. I share my own maternal health story—navigating NICU trauma, being dismissed by physicians, and learning to trust my body's intuition when institutions failed me.

Pleasant's life illuminates the power of ancestral medicine, herbalism, spirit-led care, and the sacred relationship with land that Black women have always relied upon for survival. Together, we move beyond "grounding" into communion with land, herbs, spirit, and self—healing as a reciprocal, intuitive, and sacred act.

This is what it looks like to save your own life when the medical system says you won't.

Featured Oral History Clip: Ms. Pleasant Harrison

A Black herbalist and community caregiver who survived a terminal cancer diagnosis by relying on ancestral herbal medicine, prayer, intuition, and family-taught healing practices when doctors left her with no care and no hope.

Presence Practice

What part of your healing journey have you been afraid to claim?

Reflection Question: Where is your intuition—or the land—already whispering guidance that Western systems have ignored?

Want to go deeper? Join me on Patreon to continue the conversation, unpack these themes in community, and practice the tools shared in this episode. https://www.patreon.com/c/shawnamurraybrowne

If you’re ready for deeper integration, explore Cadence—my signature Liberatory Leadership Incubator for women leading in high-stakes environments: https://www.kindredwellness.net/cadence

This episode is also available as a video on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E4LtaRbhoA. If you enjoyed it, please like, share, subscribe, and leave a 5-star review—your support helps this work reach those who need it.

Archival credit: Oral history excerpts courtesy of the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University, Black Women’s Oral History Project.

Season 1: Episode 1

Anna Arnold Hedgeman and Bertha Cooley fought for racial justice inside the YWCA decades before "DEI" existed—and paid a steep price.

In this opening episode of Return to Presence, we examine Black women's burnout, workplace racism, and the health crisis created by being "the only one" in the room. We explore how racialized workplaces fracture Black women's health, the weathering hypothesis, and how capitalism and martyrdom culture demand we sacrifice our bodies for the work.

I share my own experience of burnout as a Black woman PhD student running a nonprofit and consultancy—the embodied martyrdom, chronic stress, inflammation, and mystery medical problems that came from overgiving and overworking.

Through their stories and mine, we explore what gets passed down: the beliefs that keep us stuck, the weathering that shows up in our bodies, and the mindset shifts and somatic healing practices that create space for something different.

We close with a guided release practice—letting go of what no longer serves us and beginning the return to presence.

Featured Oral History Clip:

Dr. Anna Arnold Hedgman (with attention to the legacy of Bertha Cooley)

A civil rights strategist, educator, and the only woman on the March on Washington planning committee, Anna Arnold Hedgman navigated race politics, gender bias, and organizational pressure with a clarity that shaped generations of Black leadership.

Presence Practice

Release an old mindset that keeps you tethered to overwork. Establish one small ritual this week—breath, movement, affirmation, or boundary—that honors your body’s wisdom.

Journal Question: Who affirms your convictions, not just your credentials?

Two Ways to go Deeper:

1.) Join me on Patreon to continue the conversation, unpack these themes in community, and practice the tools shared in this episode. https://www.patreon.com/c/shawnamurraybrowne

2.) If you’re a woman of color leader, explore Cadence—my signature Liberatory Leadership Incubator for women leading in high-stakes environments: www.kindredwellness.net/cadence

This episode is also available as a video on YouTube.

If you enjoyed it, please like, share, subscribe, and leave a 5-star review—your support helps this work reach those who need it.

Archival credit: Oral history excerpts courtesy of the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University, Black Women’s Oral History Project.