The Homecoming Podcast with Dr. Thema

Author and retreat facilitator, Candyss Love joins us to share her powerful testimony of healing from self abandonment and self betrayal. She shares honestly about her experience with addiction, people pleasing, and manipulation. Candyss shares the healing paths of selective abstinence, silence, solitude, time in nature, self reflection, faith, and eventually a loving relationship. Candyss Love is an Army veteran, retired police officer, former criminal justice teacher, author, meditation teacher, emotional trauma retreat facilitator, podcast host, solo female van-life traveler, and wife of 7 years from Houston, Texas. With 15+ years devoted to studying psychology, archetypal identities, esoteric wisdom, quantum theory, and spirituality. she is largely known for teaching licensed mental health professionals how to thoughtfully integrate spiritual, metaphysical, and mystical teachings into their work to support deeper healing. After 8 years of sobriety and through her own deep healing journey, Candyss is dedicated to helping people remember their innate power and capacity to heal reminding them that God has already equipped them with what they need to become their own healer. Yet beyond every title, role, and identity, she cherishes the freedom to return home, rest in the presence of God and become NOBODY, the great return to nothingness. Mixed & Edited by Next Day Podcast [email protected]

Author and mentor, Bishop Sinegal shares how he became aware of the importance of mental health. Using personal experiences and Christian teachings, he explains mental health concerns for prophetic people from isolation to depression as well as practices that have been helpful on his journey. For more than 29 years Bishop Sinegal has dedicated his life to the work of Jesus Christ through his powerful ministry. Recognized by President Barack Obama as “Bishop of the Year” in 2011, his reach has transcended both social and religious boundaries. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast today! Mixed & Edited by Next Day Podcast [email protected]

As a highly sensitive person and medicine carrier, Maryam Hasnaa describes the gift of high sensitivity. She explores her journey and insights about building relationships with self awareness and clarity. Maryam Hasnaa is an intuitive, a channel, an energy healer, and a lover of all things that create a feeling of being connected to something bigger than ourselves. Maryam is the creator of New Earth Mystery School and Resonance Apothecary. The key elements of her work include knowledge and experience within a diverse range of esoteric spiritual traditions, cosmic cosmology, and energy work. Raised by two parents who are spiritual teachers, Maryam has been immersed in a world of mysticism, ceremony, and celebration since before she was born. An initiated priestess, energy worker, medicine woman, and flower practitioner, she has found her calling in offering training and mentorship for those with the trait of high sensitivity. Maryam uses her own highly sensitive gifts to remind other beings of the energetic nature of this universe. She is experienced in working with subtle plant medicine, metaphysics, universal and spiritual law, the Akashic records, embodied ceremony, ritual, meditation, sound healing, and a keeper of sacred medicine. Subscribe and share today.

Author and parenting expert, Leslie Priscilla, shares indigenous wisdom regarding understanding how you were parented shows you how you can choose to parent. With insight, compassion, humility, and care, Leslie transforms our understanding of parenting that honors and liberates our children. Leslie Priscilla is a first-generation, Xicana with Rarámuri lineage and the daughter of two Mexican immigrants. She is mother to three bicultural children and stepmother to one, and a certified Parent Coach with nearly two decades of experience working with families. Through her organization Latinx Parenting, she offers coaching, workshops, support, training, and advocacy for Latinx/Chicanx families and the professionals who serve them, locally, nationally, and internationally. Her vision is a movement rooted in children's rights, social and racial justice, and the individual and collective practice of nonviolence and reparenting. It's a vision grounded in intergenerational and ancestral healing, cultural sustenance, and the active decolonization of oppressive practices in our families, toward liberation. She is the author of the book CHANCLA: Healing Our Families, Ourselves, and Our Culture and is born, raised, and remains based in Santa Ana, CA.

Brittainy Noel shares her heartbreaking, but ultimately transformative, testimony of healing from betrayal and a much needed breakup. She shares her inner journey to reclaiming herself and making her way home. Brittainy Noel is a licensed therapist, speaker, author, and the founder of The Daily Fix, a global personal development community helping people heal, grow, and live with intention. Known for her ability to blend clinical expertise with heartfelt storytelling, Brittainy has inspired audiences across the country through her live events, workshops, and transformational conversations. Her work focuses on emotional wellness, relationships, self-worth, and helping people break free from the patterns that keep them stuck. Remember to like, subscribe, and share this video! Mixed & Edited by Next Day Podcast [email protected]

April Ryan, the longest-serving Black White House correspondent in U.S. history, joins a candid conversation about life under relentless scrutiny. She discusses political attacks, threats, family trauma, therapy, faith, and the strategies that help her stay grounded in hostile spaces. Ryan also opens up about love, resilience, and choosing to remain visible and powerful in journalism.

Dr. Thema describes the principles of matriarchy and shares her personal evolution with becoming a matriarch. Dr. Thema Bryant is a psychologist, author, professor, sacred artist, and minister who is leading the way in creating healthy relationships, healing traumas, and overcoming stress and oppression. Her life changing books include Matters of the Heart, Homecoming, Reclaim Yourself: The Homecoming Workbook, and The Antiracism Handbook: Practical Tools to Shift Your Mindset and Uproot Racism in Your Life and Community and they empower readers to connect with themselves and to others, exploring topics such as: control issues, emotional unavailability, practical activation activities, case studies, and teaching how to shift mindset and patterns around mental health, relationships, and liberation. Dr. Thema Bryant completed her doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Duke University and her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical Center’s Victims of Violence Program. Upon graduating, she became the Coordinator of the Princeton University SHARE Program, which provides intervention and prevention programming to combat sexual assault, sexual harassment, and harassment based on sexual orientation. She is currently a tenured professor of psychology in the Graduate School of Education and Psychology at Pepperdine University, where she directs the Culture and Trauma Research Laboratory. Dr. Thema is an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and leads the mental health ministry at First A.M.E. Church in Los Angeles. Most recently, she was the 2023 president of the American Psychological Association (APA) and is the host of The Homecoming Podcast. Mixed & Edited by Next Day Podcast [email protected]

Dr. Thema's brother, Pastor, author, and activist Dr. Jamal Bryant joins her to discuss the personal and professional challenges of leadership. He shares his insights on thriving, making mistakes, and evolving. Dr. Bryant explores leadership as something we can learn, study, and grow into. Dr. Jamal Bryant embodies the rare balance of spiritual gifts and practical educational experiences that connects pastoral leadership and discipleship teaching with prophetic preaching and courageous social action. Dr. Bryant is equipped and poised to initiate theological revival, decisive commitment and rededication to the teachings of Jesus the Christ as the foundation for personal living, family stability and community development. Dr. Bryant is not only known as a riveting speaker but has earned a reputation as a social justice activist. Prior to pastoring, he served as the national youth and college director of the NAACP for six years, leading about 70,000 young people worldwide on non-violent campaigns. Dr. Bryant earned his Bachelor’s Degree from Morehouse College and a Masters of Divinity from Duke University. He studied at Oxford University in Great Britain and earned a doctorate from The Graduate Theological Foundation. Mixed & Edited by Next Day Podcast [email protected]

Therapist and author, Alishia McCullough joins Dr. Thema to share what disconnects us from our bodies and how to reclaim our bodies. They explore embodiment as an act of liberation. Alishia McCullough (LCMHC) is a millennial Licensed Clinical Mental Health Therapist and owner of Black and Embodied Consulting PLLC. She specializes in somatic therapy, trauma healing, and eating disorder treatment with a focus on cultivating embodiment and fostering anti-oppression. Alishia currently runs the self-paced online course Reimagining Eating Disorders 101. She was awarded the 2023 Alumni Award from the Department of Psychology for the noteworthy contributions she has made to the field. An accomplished writer, she is the author of a collection of poems called Blossoming, and Reclaiming the Black Body now available in bookstores nationwide. Alishia's work has been featured in Bustle, WordInBlack, STAT News, BlackGirlNerds, Essence, Reckon, Wondermind, Pen America and Forbes. Don’t forget to subscribe and share. Mixed & Edited by Next Day Podcast [email protected]

Jasmine Mans joins Dr. Thema to speak honestly about the ways we abandon ourselves in relationships and the importance of choosing and loving ourselves. Jasmine Mans is a queer Black poet and performance artist from Newark, New Jersey. Jasmine’s debut poetry collection, Black Girl, Call Home (Berkley Penguin Random House) published in 2021 to critical and commercial acclaim, and was named one of the most anticipated books of the season by Oprah, TIME, Vogue, Vulture, Essence, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Refinery 29, Shondaland, Bustle, and Reader’s Digest. The collection went on to receive the prestigious Stonewall Honor Award, as well as a BCALA Award in the Poetry category. Jasmine most recently collaborated with the Brooklyn Ballet at the storied Brooklyn Academy of Music, setting her poetry to ballet and classical scores. Jasmine was also a contributor to Nikole Hannah-Jones’s The 1619 Project and has co-hosted The Kennedy Center’s Arts Across America series alongside renowned author Jason Reynolds. Jasmine began her creative journey with the acclaimed Strivers Row poetry collective, and she continues to perform to sold-out crowds, like the Sundance Film Festival, Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theater, and BAM, among many others. Jasmine can currently be heard as the voice of Ulta Beauty’s national “Muse” campaign, honoring Black women in the hair and beauty industry. Mixed & Edited by Next Day Podcast [email protected]