Podcast
Braving the Waves
Hosted by Mikaela Brewer · EN
Author, speaker, researcher, and storyteller, Mikaela Brewer, brings us Braving the Waves & Bridging the Gap: Stories of Unsinkable Resilience & Resolvving Stigma. This podcast features a series of storytelling-focused conversations with youth in our communities. Inspired and guided by the powerful advocacy, care, and storytelling legacy at Resolvve and Unsinkable, Brewer speaks to some of today’s most empowering young storytellers, writers, musicians, comedians, activists and more about their mental health journey in a deeper, refreshing way.
Season 2 adds a new layer to storytelling. To complement the programs at Unsinkable & Resolvve's work supporting students, Mikaela offers another way to Brave the Waves: crafting words for moments that feel like they don't have any, especially for those who don't feel comfortable writing, speaking, or publicly sharing. Each week, Mikaela gathers anonymous voice notes, memories, journal entries, photos, drawings, and anything that captures a specific, meaningful moment, through a memory box form. She then creates a poem and episode to offer a comforting way to pause in a moment, preserve a memory, and feel seen/heard in it as it's given words and read aloud. Head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves to read more about the process and submit!
Season 1 of Braving the Waves featured a series of storytelling-focused conversations with youth in our communities. Inspired and guided by the powerful advocacy, care, and storytelling legacy at Resolvve and Unsinkable, Mikaela spoke with some of today’s most empowering young storytellers, writers, musicians, comedians, activists and more about their mental health journey in a deeper, refreshing way.
Resolvve, driven by a lack of comprehensive mental health literacy being taught in high schools and universities, aims to fill the gap by providing mental health education and rapid access to integrated therapeutic services.
Unsinkable, a charitable organization founded by Olympic hero and mental health advocate Silken Laumann, aims to use storytelling to help people #BridgeTheGap between struggling with their mental health and taking steps towards mental well-being.
55episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Stay With Us
Jul 15, 202400:16:07Tap to summarizeEpisode Notes This week’s poem and episode discuss a long, brimming conversation between strangers on a long flight. Near the end of the exchange, someone speaks the phrase, “stay with us,” which, out of context, can be interpreted many ways. In most, it’s an offer of comfort and hospitality, such as, “stay with us when/if you visit, stay at our hotel, or stay the night when there’s is a storm that makes driving dangerous. But in this episode, the poem’s narrator unwinds the words a bit further. As someone struggling with suicidal thoughts, they wonder if the extension of “stay with us” is an offering of safety—what’s requested is not only to stay, but to stay with us. Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!): and so I gathered, if anything, that they’d heard, seen, felt, or breathed, something in my voice or speech or careful anecdotes breaking, which made them repeat: stay with us (please don’t leave this world yet) Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.
Transcribe →Snails
Jul 1, 202400:16:37Tap to summarizeEpisode Notes This week’s poem and episode bring us alongside someone going for a walk after a harmful argument. As they process, they find themselves questioning the balance between necessary solitude and approaching apology with vulnerability and openness. There is something to be said for needing alone time and space after a disagreement, especially in reaching the conclusion that we’re the ones who need to apologize, but there is also vitality in re-entering a space with someone heart-first or spirit-first post-argument, even if you don’t have perfectly rehearsed words. Words do matter. Harm matters. Intent does matter (though not to gaslight harm). Love—how we balance these in space and community with others—needs imperfect willingness and courage, keeping in mind that imperfect is not synonymous with flawed, damaged, or defective. Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!): & I know that if I hug my body into a curly coil where I can only see myself, I might find solitude but also dark stillness. If I open my chest & unfurl, I will see light in daring to cross the sidewalk bridge, moving from stillness to slowness. Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.
Transcribe →Can You Imagine
Jun 24, 202400:13:54Tap to summarizeEpisode Notes This week’s poem and episode are a bit of a mantra/reminder to carry in your pocket, especially as things feel heavy. The month of June is celebratory in many ways, including Pride, Juneteenth, Indigenous History Month, and Men’s Mental Health Month, among many more. And we know it’s important for joy and advocacy to coexist, especially in our student communities. With this, comes many emotions, and right now, to put it in the simplest terms: things are hard for all of us, and in many ways, feel like they won’t ever change. This poem doesn’t say “It’s going to be okay” but my hope is that it offers you hope, and a new way to imagine/dream—our most powerful skill. Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!): Don’t let anyone tell you that imagining & dreaming is only for children— these are perhaps most powerful when we remember how to wield them as young adults. The greatest gift you can receive or bestow (upon anyone or anything) is to be believed in. Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves. > >
Transcribe →Remembering Thank You
Jun 17, 202400:24:29Tap to summarizeEpisode Notes This week’s poem and episode explore the feelings associated with reconnecting with a mentor, friend, coach, teacher, or anyone who offered guidance to you as a kid or teenager. The poem takes place after lost contact and many years have passed between these two people, which I think happens more often than we admit. This episode conveys what it means to reach out again (if appropriate and safe, of course), and specifically that remembering doesn’t just mean “not forgetting”—it means saying “thank you” wherever and however we can. Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!): What does it mean to remember someone? Not someone who’s passed away, but someone we haven’t spoken to in years who was once a reason we survived? Of course, it means to not forget them, which is to say ‘thank you’ fiercely. Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.
Transcribe →Packing for Graduation
Jun 10, 202400:16:05Tap to summarizeEpisode Notes This week's poem and episode explore memory, especially those valuable to recall as we approach graduation (which I know many of us are at this time), well before the tasks, lists, and thoughts surrounding moving, university, or a first full-time job set in. Think of these tasks, lists, and thoughts as the vertebrae while the potent memories are the spine that allows you movement, feeling, and a rooted way forward. Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!): Please, let me back you up a little bit because you’ll need to pack for graduation first, either in a notebook or a branch of your brain, and on the other bough-like bookshelves of your mind, you’ll find these the way you might shop from memory & association when you not only forget the list but forget just how many things you’ve remembered… Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.
Transcribe →Lilac Love
Jun 3, 202400:21:14Tap to summarizeEpisode Notes This week's poem and episode discuss climate change anxiety, grief, outrage, sadness, frustration, and the myriad of emotions that come up when we’re worried about our planet. Most importantly, my hope for this episode is that it conveys the message that making space to feel nature’s pain is love, and love is the prerequisite for just about anything. Feeling this openly and outwardly is necessary—in witnessing climate change or any other loss of life—and not a sign that you’re not doing enough, fighting hard enough, or coping well enough. It’s a sign that you’re willing to be changed. And our willingness to be moved and changed is a powerful catalyst. Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!): and what that makes you feel, even if just recognition of their will to turn toward light, is love. And it's always the first step anyway. So feel it. Weep. It's okay. Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.
Transcribe →If Hindsight Isn’t Twenty-Twenty
May 27, 202400:15:11Tap to summarizeEpisode Notes This week's poem and episode dive into the common phrase “hindsight is twenty-twenty,” asking us to think about looking back with a bit more nuance. For example, seeing an experience more clearly in retrospect shouldn’t diminish how it was felt at the time, particularly how these feelings are remembered in the body and soul (when our mind tends to intellectualize memory). The poem is written with a sonnet in mind, which usually follows fourteen lines (three stanzas of four and one of two), ten syllables per line, abab rhyme, and iambic pentameter (da-DUM, da-DUM). Our poem includes fourteen lines with ten syllables each, but doesn’t rhyme or include a clear meter. Sonnets are often love poems about desire, but here, it’s about the desire to see that looking back at anything thoughtfully is messier than twenty-twenty, while no less meaningful. Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!): Nearly always, we see things more clearly after they’ve happened. But why do we see best when looking behind us, each other? Backward in time? Never ahead, forward? Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.
Transcribe →The Crack in the Wall
May 13, 202400:21:31Tap to summarizeEpisode Notes This week’s poem and episode discuss the painful feeling of longing to be like someone else, which can often be confused with both looking up to someone and idolizing them. Of course, these are very different things! It’s a wonderful thing to be inspired by someone’s vibe or style, but this can easily trickle into self-worth/esteem/confidence and comparison traps. Through a more storytelling-focused poem, this episode breaks down what separates us in these ways, specifically how longing to be like someone else (as a tendril of not feeling like we’re enough) is a reflection of both the need to look inward and acknowledging that the other person perhaps needs to do the same (and inviting them to do this with you, if possible). The poem is about seeing ourselves in others, others in ourselves, and knowing where and how old the walls, buildings, and boxes of comparison truly are. Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!): But then, I imagine plucking a brick from the old building like a book from a shelf. What story would each hold & tell? There are thousands of brick books per building, so says the internet, gaps to grasp them sealed with mortar until the grains of stories and truths finally break their bonds free, crumbling the building to bits under their new gas-phase weight because the more brick books you free from their shelves, the faster the building falls. Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.
Transcribe →Ode to Coming Home
May 6, 202400:15:29Tap to summarizeEpisode Notes This week, Mikaela reads a poem about coming home from college/university for the spring and summer (though it can absolutely apply to returning home after having been away a long time, too). The poem and episode look at the possible tension between the comforts/familiarity of a childhood home and the newfound freedom/independence we seek as young adults, perhaps realizing for the first time that we aren’t merely extensions of our parents or guardians. It’s strange returning to a place that hasn’t changed when we have. The poem is written in a loose sapphic ode (four-stanza sections called quatrains—the first three lines of each have 11 syllables and the fourth has five). This form is usually formal, lyric, and ceremonious, written and recited to celebrate ideas, people, places, etc. Though I’ve stretched the stitching of the form, I hope it fits as a way to reflect on (and inherently honour) one of the deepest moments of knowing in our lives. Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!): Where & when are my parents not part of me? In different things, I now see and believe. I want to feel I’m nearly twenty. Yet, in loving, always we? Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.
Transcribe →Thank You Smiles
Apr 29, 202400:15:40Tap to summarizeEpisode Notes This week’s poem and episode explore parenthood, but in the voice of a toddler who has a new little sibling. Being a parent is a beautiful experience, but it is also exhausting (and equally so at different points while a child grows up). And, perhaps especially when children are very young, it may feel like your physical, mental, emotional, and spirtual work to care for them isn’t quite understood or noticed. This poem seeks to reimagine this, offering a way in which toddlers and infants may communicate how much they love those who care for them during the most vulnerable years of their lives. Here's an excerpt of the poem (the full written & visually formatted versions can now be found & read at mikbrew.substack.com!): What I mean is, sometimes no smile means you’ve caught humans loving the very very most that they can. And, I wish Mama & Dada knew that we knew. We see when they don’t smile— out of breath but not of love—trying to balance feeding us, changing us, watching us, holding up our heads, hearts, souls (and eating, maybe, sleeping, occasionally). Listen to this week's episode to hear the full poem! If you’d like to share your moment or memory on the podcast, please head to tinyurl.com/bravingthewaves.
Transcribe →