This is Episode One of The Parents' Way Podcast. This podcast launches on the occasion of Angela's fiftieth birthday and she is taking this opportunity to look back and talk about some of the people who have brought her to this time and place, to this moment where she is launching, with Niels, The Parents' Way, a community of parents who choose to stay present for their children and who want to raise confident and compassionate human beings who are going to make a great impact on the wider world.

Angela talks about ten people here, of the many who she feels she could name. Here are the people and, in one sentence, a key gift she has received from each of them.

Karolyn Stenlund is her mother. Angela talks about her admiration for her mother and talks about her mother choosing to stay true to the love she felt for Angela's father even when there was a real price to pay for this love.

Frank Jernigan, Angela's father, claimed that his love for men is real and matters deeply and he gave up much of what he built in his life to be true to himself.

Bob Penn was a consultant at a national non-profit and mentor to Angela. There are many lessons she has drawn from working with him and listening to him. Today we lift up this one: Relationships matter.

Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker was the president at Starr King School for the Ministry that Angela attended. Rebecca through prayer and her presence created an atmosphere of belonging that was palpable. She also showed by example that sometimes you have to start from scratch in order to live out the love that you truly feel.

Rev. Lynice Pinkard, Angela's pastor for a season of life, prayed a blessing over Angela's birth and taught in that blessing that a struggle today can turn into compassion for and solidarity with those who suffer tomorrow.

Barbara Knyper was Angela's teacher at the Ridhwan School and she taught Angela a practice called somatic inquiry. Barbara taught Angela how to welcome her inner visceral experience and allow it to unfold and reveal more dimensions of her presence. This was an embodied form of meditation that Angela still practices today. 

Patty Wipfler taught Angela how to listen to and connect with her child, and to become a safe place and a reliable anchor for a child, through thick and thin. Patty taught her that being present for this connection would both heal her, and set her daughter up to have great wisdom—and she wasn't wrong.

Amy Scher came into Angela's life to show her how she could be present with herself and work with herself on a subtle energetic level in order to become an environment where healing happens.

Pastor Mike Smith gave Angela a deep sense of belonging when he invited her into a position of leadership, when Angela was in the midst of illness and felt often inadequate to participate in anything. "I can feel your heart," he said. And that is the basis of true belonging.

There are many lessons learned from each one of these wonderful people. And we hope to hear from some of them on the podcast in time.

If there is one thing to take away from all this, let it be that we can develop a resilience in life to being here as a human being with other human beings, able to stay present in love. There is nothing about  you or any of us that deserves to be rejected. We come by our s

• The Parents' Way
• Music: Rue Laide Coupe by Circus Marcus Busqueda