A new era of storytelling at Conscious Chatter, meet our newest team member Natalie Shehata & what slow media means for us in practice

In episode 303, Kestrel welcomes Natalie Shehata, Conscious Chatter’s new Social Media Strategist + Storyteller, to the show. A sustainable stylist, community organizer, speaker and writer, Nat brings exceptional experience and knowledge to how we approach storytelling.

“I feel as though storytelling for me has been a very powerful medium in being able to instigate change. I feel like stories really shift culture and they can shift culture on a really large scale as well. But personally for me, I’ve kind of learned so much over the years through storytelling. And I think it’s important that we kind of acknowledge that storytelling and stories in general is a vehicle for survival for a lot of people — for belonging, for connection, for hope. Stories are, especially for the BIPOC community as well, are our legacy in a lot of ways.” -Natalie

Welcoming Nat to join the Conscious Chatter team is an absolute dream — I don’t even know how else to say it. Being able to work alongside someone that I admire and respect on such a deep level is beyond incredible. And if you aren’t familiar with Nat, I’d also recommend listening back to episode 250, where she joined me for a conversation on why diversity can be tokenistic.

With this new shift in the Conscious Chatter dynamic, we put together this episode as a unique sort of refresh and check-in — to let you all know where we’re at with the show, what we’re focused on, and where we’re going.

Here are some of the key elements we explore:

• How Nat and I first came together and what it means to have her working on the Conscious Chatter team

• What storytelling means to Nat and some of the ways we align on the responsibility that comes with crafting narratives

• What is slow media and what does it look like in practice

• The challenges that come with telling stories through a slow media lens

• An update on when you can expect new episodes to drop

• Our big picture goals for the show (individually and collectively) and how we hope to continue infusing intentionality and care into the content we create

Quotes & links from the conversation:

• “We really want to be able to ensure that the stories and perspectives shared by the guests on the show are kind of always in circulation. And I guess what I mean but that is — really making sure that the perspectives, the knowledge, the wisdom that people share throughout the show — it’s not a situation where a show is released, and then that’s it, we don’t go back to it and we don’t reference those ideas. We want to be able to go back to those episodes and to the guests that have appeared on the show, and really be able to continuously keep those perspectives in circulation, and kind of keep resurfacing those ideas.” -Nat (11:35)

• “Language is super important to both of us, and really thinking about the way that we phrase things, and making sure that it is accessible to as many people as possible, and that we meet people where they are at on their journey.” -Nat (20:40)

• “Often when we’re telling stories we have to market it or promote it in a way where this guest is knowledgable on this area — whatever that may be — but when you go back and listen to these people, because they are people, they are multi-faceted individuals, and they may speak on one issue, but when you go back to listen again and again to these guests, they have so much knowledge to share, on so many different topics, that may not be their field of “expertise”. For me, what I’m really wanting to do is share that with the community and share that as individuals we are multi-faceted and we have a lot of knowledge and deep wisdom. The more we humanize that knowledge, we realize that we’ve just got so much to offer, but also, that we are flawed as humans as well, and we’re all just at this trying to do our best.” -Nat (27:08)

• “We’re not getting into these states of mind where we’re having all these light bulbs go off or all the dots are connecting because we’re not giving ourselves enough space without notifications interrupting us to get to those places.” -Kestrel (29:49)

• “It alway feels like you can never keep up, you’re further behind, there’s more things to read, more things to listen to, more things to watch, more things to catch up on, or more things you need to be posting — it all is just so much on a constant basis.” -Kestrel (34:55)

• The Root 6-Part Series Hosted & Co-Produced by Dominique Drakeford (mentioned by Nat)

• Whitney McGuire, Kestrel acknowledges her impact when reminding us that sustainability means getting active in your local community

• Conscious Chatter episode 250 (previous episode featuring Natalie)

• Follow Natalie on Instagram >