Episode 14: Grief & Healing Through Community Organizing & Contemplative Activism w/ Jessica Sun

In this episode, Dana Daugherty sits down with Jessica Sun for an honest conversation about grief, healing, and contemplative political activism aided her in the search for something worth living for. Jessica shares how growing up in an apolitical, culturally conservative, nonreligious, and capitalist-focused household led her to politics as a source of meaning, and later to faith and spirituality as part of her healing journey. We talk about navigating racial discrimination, controlling authority figures, and the mental health system at a young age and how receiving therapy and helping others became a way to survive and make sense of her own pain. Jessica reflects on community organizing as both a path toward self-actualization and a stand-in for healing her family and talks frankly about navigating political burnout and connecting with political activists in community to ground herself again. Jessica is a second-generation Chinese U.S.-ian, community organizer, and former software engineer, currently in the application process with the Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods..You can find Jessica Sun online on LinkedIn, or @JessicaSun on UpScrolled and Spoutible.Links mentioned:principled: https://principled.careers/Anand Giridharadas' 2023 commencement address to Sidwell Friends (pay walled): https://the.ink/p/a-commencement-address"Let Yourself Be Loved" by Philip Bennett: https://www.paulistpress.com/Products/8-482-1/let-yourself-be-loved-revised-and-expanded-edition.aspxNoam Chomsky quote "What does it mean to be truly educated?": https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7360975-what-does-it-mean-to-be-truly-educated-i-thinkLever News: https://www.levernews.com/Drop Site News: https://www.dropsitenews.com/