AFGO is a podcast for personal growth and development nerds with an eye towards the intersectional… When I say nerds, I mean it’s made for listeners who like to geek out on “growing up.” It’s for folks who’ve observed themselves getting more enlivened by “processing challenges” and “waking up.” It’s for folks who enjoy sharing difficult truths, metabolizing painful experiences, and holding space for others attempting to do the same.

It’s a deeply personal project that was sort of born out of several years being immersed in my own personal trauma work. I was learning a potent new language, but I felt somewhat isolated in the work… As I became more transparent about my experience I came across more and more people who have been through something similar and found myself wanting to build a little community for us…

At the same time, I noticed I wasn’t encountering many voices in the personal growth and development sphere that looked like me: queer, black, fat, left handed, etc. (actually, some of them may have been left handed, but none were “out and proud” about their mains gauches.) I realized that I was doing a lot of translating, and I wondered if “intersectional” voices might have something unique to offer the conversation.

People who aren’t travelling in feminist theory circles may wonder what I mean by “intersectional.” Here’s what the interwebs have to say:

in·ter·sec·tion·al·i·ty
ˌin(t)ərsekSHəˈnalədē/
noun
  1. the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
    “through an awareness of intersectionality, we can better acknowledge and ground the differences among us”

The term was coined by the American feminist legal scholar, critical race theorist, and civil rights advocate Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, and the concept has since evolved to acknowledge any number of way intersectionality can occur and impact a person’s path. I would go so far as to say most of us are living at some kind of intersection, some place of friction between one path or viewpoint and another.

It’s true that much of the material that progresses me along the path when it comes to my own growth is relatively translatable, but whether I was dealing with relationship, identity, early trauma, health, body or professional growth issues, I found myself reaching to the heart of the matter when I was able make my experience plain and not necessarily have to process it through “normative” lenses. When I asked personal mentors about what I perceived as “missing voices” from the field, I was encouraged to find them, or be one!

Hence, AFGO (short for Another F*ing Growth Opportunity) Podcast, my own personal playground, jungle gym and possible dojo, open to anyone doing hard work, personal and communal, who’s also interested in hearing from / connecting with others doing the same. I’m not an expert, not a therapist or coach. I’m actually a musician geeking out on building a “light” space where folks are invited to bring the fullness of their experience to the table while grappling with our personal and collective darkness, our struggles…our overwhelming abundance of (f*ing) growth opportunities….

Fruitfully,
Your personal Folk Rock Diva,
Lilli Lewis