Intersections with Phil Allen, Jr.         

Episode: 035 “Your Body Will Tell the Truth”                              

Airdate: October 6, 2021

Length: 59:43

Guests: La Shonda Coleman LCSW

There are some people who bring joy and peace to spaces when they are present. La Shonda Coleman is one of those people. She is, by her own admission, passionate about people and life. La Shonda turns our attention to what we can know about ourselves from our bodies. In this episode she invites us to “pause” and check in with ourselves because our bodies have something to say about our well-being.

What is unique about La Shonda’s work is her integration of movement and the arts as resources for healing and restoration. She encourages us to not wait on the trauma to happen before we implement wellness practices, but to be proactive and practice them as a way of life. The value of the arts (and movement for that matter) is that they provide equity or equal access to resources for healing. Everyone can tap into the arts and movement.

La Shonda reminds us of our repeated question for this series, “What else is true?” Trauma is a reality, but what is also true is the resiliency built into our beings and the resources for healing are there available to each of us.

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Phil Allen, Jr. is a Los Angeles-based author, poet, social justice activist, and filmmaker. Allen’s book Open Wounds explores the murder of Nate Allen—Phil Allen’s grandfather—in the Jim Crow era of South Carolina and how that traumatic event resonated through generations of his family. Open Wounds – which is based on the Allen-produced documentary of the same name – was published on February 9, 2021. Allen is a Ph.D. candidate studying Christian ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA.