Radical Discernment: Activism with Sensitive Souls
Between Breath and Air
S1-E3: Katherine Golub
Dana (host): Katherine Golub is a leadership and Career Clarity coach with over a decade of experience helping changemakers overcome overwhelm, cultivate confidence, and get clear about what's next. An activist since she was 17, Katherine is dedicated to doing her part to bring forth a world in which all people's needs are met. She currently works towards this from her perch as a city councilor. Katherine lives with her partner and a 15-year-old son next to a community farm on the unceded lands of the Potomac people in Greenfield, Massachusetts. Today, we're going to explore radical discernment. Welcome, Katherine.
Katherine: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really glad to be here.
Dana: I'm excited to dive into exploring what radical discernment means to you and how you're bringing this to your work.
Katherine: Yes, absolutely. So my early work, except for waitressing when I was 17, was as an activist. I organized students against the war in Iraq and tried to pass sweatshop-free legislation in Connecticut. I was basically a workaholic activist through my college years.
After I graduated, I worked in strategic affairs with the hotel workers union, UNITE HERE. Then I had a huge turn of events and life wake-up calls that forced me to take a different path. My partner at the time was racially profiled, picked up while driving to work, and deported back to Mexico.
Then, I discovered I was eight weeks pregnant after having moved to Arizona to try to be closer to my partner. I moved to Oaxaca, Mexico, when I was seven months pregnant and couldn't continue the work I had been doing. I faced really big questions about what work I was going to do, who I was, and how I could take care of my son and myself. It forced me to ask questions I had been ignoring for a long time about self-care because I realized I needed to learn to take care of myself to take care of my son.
Over the next four years, I became a doula and childbirth educator, moved back and forth to Mexico, and finally found myself back in Greenfield, Massachusetts. I decided to come back to Greenfield when my son was four and a half as a single mom. I had been doing a lot of birth work but couldn't continue it as a single mom being on call for births. I wanted to do work that helps people through major life transitions and rites of passage. So, I opened a coaching practice, initially as a health coach. But people were coming to me with questions related to work—they were unsatisfied and uncertain about what was next. I saw that helping people who were burned out doing work that made a difference in the world was a way to weave together my passions for social justice and personal transformation. Initially, I wanted to help people prevent burnout, but most of the people who came to me were already burned out and wanting to get clear about what was next. So, I figured out how to help people get clear about what's next in their work and craft a life that honors their multiple values, themselves, and their loved ones. That's the work I've been doing for the last ten and a half years—helping changemakers get clear and confident in their roles, whether they're contemplating big changes or navigating new leadership roles.
Dana: What an incredible story! I'm always drawn to talk to people who have a lived, felt experience of their own transformation. Thanks so much for sharing all of that. What an incredible journey. You said your son is 15 now?
Katherine: Yes, he's 15 now. He was the biggest surprise of my life, and it's still fascinating to me. I'm the mom of a 15-year-old—imagine that! But he's really wonderful, the biggest and best surprise of my life.
Dana: That's fantastic. Children are incredibly powerful teachers, aren't they? My daughter, who's 22 now, has taught me so much along the way. For better or worse, I've been a willing and sometimes not-so-willing receiver of all those lessons, but I think most parents can agree.
Katherine: Absolutely, yeah.
Dana: One thing that has drawn me to you, Katherine, is our shared desire to help individuals become their best, most grounded, most resourced versions of themselves so that their impacts outside their individual circles can have greater impact. I really love how you position your activism to support individual well-being. I'm often encouraging people to look at their own resources and abilities to manage their energy while doing big things. What do you have to say in response to supporting people in that capacity?
Katherine: Often, people get stuck in a false dichotomy, believing they either need to take care of themselves or show up for social change. But I have found that the exact same practices that help us feel good in our work and in our lives are the same practices that help us make a bigger impact. The term "self-care" can be misleading because it suggests centering only on oneself. But when we sleep well, pause to drink water, hula hoop for five minutes, or talk to a friend, these actions help us care for ourselves and the collective. I've been playing with the term "solidarity medicine," which means any action that helps us stand in mutual responsibility—taking care of ourselves and our communities.
Dana: Can you give some examples of micro-practices that support this idea?
Katherine: Sure. Before giving specific examples, I want to contextualize them. Clients often come to me to get clear about big life changes, but it's really the tiny choices that lead to clarity and confidence. Over the years, I've tracked and studied practices that I call "radical discernment." I define it as the practice and skill of making choices that honor our personal and collective needs. This involves pausing, turning toward ourselves with warmth and kindness, noticing how we feel and what we need, and then choosing a next step that honors those needs. These practices can be as short as 30 seconds—pausing to reflect, tuning in with ourselves, and choosing consciously. This helps us replenish our energy and make strategic choices.
Dana: Do you find it's hard to help people see how developing individual wellness practices affects the whole and their bigger impacts?
Katherine: Not really, because my clients come to me with a lot of awareness that they want both. They are typically already exhausted and overwhelmed and ready to try something new. They come to me convinced it's time to make a major change. They may have habits developed as responses to trauma, attachment wounds, internalized oppression, or just the challenges of showing up in our culture. It can take dedication and energy to shift habits, but they know they want these changes.
Dana: I love how you talk about not seeing a path forward as an either/or lens and helping people embody their existence in a more fulsome way. Thank you for explaining all that so beautifully, Katherine. I absolutely love and thrive on the word "discernment." I use it a lot in my practices as well because it gives a person more choice when they're in a discerning space. What's your take on the word "discernment"?
Katherine: One of my best friends in writing is an etymology dictionary. The roots of the word "discernment" mean separating things to see them more clearly and also judgment, which is about making choices. The word "decision" has roots that mean "to kill," which involves saying yes and no. People often talk about boundaries, but they really mean knowing what to say yes and no to. It's about developing the strength to claim what we want to say yes to and the courage to say no. There are only 24 hours in a day, and it can be painful to say no. Time management is grief work because it's painful to say no.
Dana: That's so true. It took me straight back to an experience I had in the library yesterday. I was stuck in analysis paralysis, trying to decide which books to pick. I couldn't tell what to say yes to, and it was validating to hear you say that saying yes is something to discern as well. I'm in a habit of saying no a lot more right now, so your validation helped me see that I need to practice saying yes more.
Katherine: Absolutely. Sometimes, the easiest way to cut to the chase is to listen to our bodies. I'll have clients hold an option and notice what happens in their bodies. There's a practice called the Tetra Lemma, where you take pieces of paper with different options and stand on them to sense what your body tells you. It can quickly help access information that's already there in your body and assist your left brain in making decisions.
Dana: What a cool tool. Thanks for sharing that. It's a fantastic way to do a decision-making process if you're really stuck in your brain about it. This can help bring both the mind and body together. Thanks so much for that, Katherine.
Katherine:You're welcome. It's about bringing discernment into practice. When we make choices that honor our needs, both personal and collective, we create radical change. Radical discernment is one of many things needed for radical change. These
are the small steps that create waves.
Dana: Absolutely. And you know, something that's often hard to navigate is the transition from traditional activist work to activism that blends individual well-being and collective change. There's a learning curve there. Have you found your clients transitioning into this new blend of activism?
Katherine: Definitely. They often come to me burnt out from traditional activism and eager for a new approach. They want to continue making a difference without sacrificing their health and well-being. It's about finding sustainable ways to contribute to change. They realize that to sustain their activism, they need to care for themselves too.
Dana: That's powerful. It shows that activism and self-care aren't mutually exclusive but deeply interconnected. Thanks for sharing your insights, Katherine.
Katherine: It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Dana: You're welcome. That concludes our conversation for today. Thank you all for listening. Tune in next time for more insights and conversations on Between Breath and Air.