Light After Trauma: Episode 78: The Tolerance Framework May Be Doing More Harm Than Good with Kristen Donnelly, MSW, M. Div, PhD (2025)

Jan 18, 2022

Kristen Donnelly(MSW, M.Div,PhD) is a TEDx speaker, international empathy educator, andresearcher with two decades of experience in helping peopleunderstand the beauty in difference and the power in inclusivity.In this episode, Kristen warns of some of the dangers of thetolerance framework when it comes to inclusion and diversity. Sheoffers a different alternative to this framework – one that willultimately help us as a society to have better, more effectiveconversations and spew less violence and hatred toward oneanother.

Kristen Donnelly TEDTalk 1

KristenDonnelly TED Talk 2

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Transcript

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hey friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Light AfterTrauma podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari. We have a guestepisode today. Before that, just some housekeeping things, if youhaven't done so already, please go check out our Instagram page.The handle is @lightaftertrauma. If you haven't done so already,please go check out our Instagram. It is Light After Trauma, justthe name of the podcast. We've got some awesome things lined up foryou there.

Alyssa Scolari [00:54]:

Just an FYI. I do have somebody running that page so if youreach out, I will do my best to get back to you. I love connectingwith you, but just give me some time and know that if you see thatsomebody's active, please don't feel like I'm ignoring you. It'snot always me. I do hire somebody to run that page. She does anamazing job. Please go check us out.

Alyssa Scolari [01:20]:

Also, if you haven't done so already, please leave a review or arating for the podcast. That helps this podcast to grow so much andreach more people. The goal, as I've always said, is to be able toprovide people with some type of free access to mental healthinformation. While this isn't exactly mental health treatment, it'sinformation, it's connection, it's inspiration, and especially inthis world that we are living in right now, we need it more thanever. If you haven't done so already, please leave a ratingoverview for the podcast. It would mean the world to me.

Alyssa Scolari [02:01]:

Lastly, we do have a Patreon for the podcast. I know I'vementioned here before, you can please look at the show notes foraccess to the Patreon. If you are able to contribute even thesmallest amount, that would be so, so helpful. Again, it does takequite a bit of money to run the podcast, and I'm not complainingabout that. I am fortunate enough to be able to have the money todo so and to kind of keep up with it, but it is sort of becomingmore and more difficult to keep up with as time goes on becauseit's taking a lot more time as we do more things with the podcastand becoming more expensive. Any amount that you can give willwould be amazing and we would be so, so appreciative.

Alyssa Scolari [02:47]:

That being said, today I'm going to introduce our guest. This isKristen Donnelly, who is an MSW. She is a master'sdegree in social work and she is a PhD. She is also a Ted Xspeaker, a international empathy educator, and a researcher withtwo decades of experience in helping people understand the beauty,indifference and the power in inclusivity. She's one of the gooddoctors of Abby Research, COO of their parent company and anunapologetic nerd for stories of change. Kristen lives outside ofPhiladelphia with her husband, where they are surrounded by pilesof books and several video game consoles.

Alyssa Scolari [03:29]:

Hi, Kristen. Welcome. How are you?

Kristen Donnelly [03:31]:

I am fantastic. How are you doing ma'am?

Alyssa Scolari [03:34]:

I am good. I was reading your bio and felt like I was readingabout myself for a second, not just because we're from the samearea, but the piles of books and video game consoles. Do you have afavorite game you're playing right now?

Kristen Donnelly [03:53]:

Well, I'm perpetually playing Stardew Valley. I'm just always ina play through of Stardew Valley, but in anticipation of season twoof the Witcher coming back out, I'm doing a replay of Witcherthree.

Alyssa Scolari [04:07]:

Nice. Nice. I mean, it's me. It's 1000% percent me. I am on ahuge Kingdom Hearts kicker right now.

Kristen Donnelly [04:17]:

I haven't dived into that one yet. I own it. I just haven'tstarted because I'm not home enough to devote my time to a wholenew world.

Alyssa Scolari [04:26]:

Yes. That's exactly what it is. It's a whole new world. I mean,I'm addicted. I mean, I can't stop. I was like, I was reading thisbio and I was like, "Oh," I'm talking about myself for right nowplaying video games until 11:00 last night when I needed to go tobed. But I digress.

Alyssa Scolari [04:47]:

So welcome. It's so nice to have you on the show. Today we'retalking a little bit, well, little bit, lot a bit, about thisconcept of tolerance. As I mentioned when I was reading Kristen'sbio, she is a TEDx speaker. Please head over to the show notes. Allof the YouTube links to the TEDx talks will be in there. Youabsolutely want to hear them. They are phenomenal. We're talkingabout tolerance today. Can you actually just first elaborate ifyou're comfortable with sharing on how you even came to be in thisfield and be passionate about these topics?

Kristen Donnelly [05:25]:

That is the question I get the most and I'm still not good atsaying it succinctly. We'll give this another go. In a certain wayI've been having these conversations for most of my life. My familybought a company in 1991 when I was seven years old. It is in areally under-resourced area of Philadelphia. My dad's goal was tobring jobs back to that neighborhood. It's a manufacturing companyand we make dye. You've used our dye, you just don't know it. Butwe make this stain that they use in the pap smear to see if peoplehave cancer. We make the dye for the outside of sutures, the blacksutures. It's a lot of stuff. We make the color of Advil, somestuff like that.

Kristen Donnelly [06:10]:

But the point was that there was always more job opportunitiesfor people who "don't fit". Over the years, a lot of our folks havebeen in recovery. They've been just out of prison, they'reilliterate, they're not high school graduates, but we just deeplybelieve that that doesn't mean that they're not employable peopleand that they're not people and they're not worth our investmentand our belief. This evolved into a mission statement, which isthat our family is called to impact lives and create wealth. Thewealth is emotional, psychosocial, economic, physical, spiritual,everything.

Kristen Donnelly [06:53]:

How can we impact lives and create wealth all the time? Becausethat question has been at the forefront of my life, this littlewhite girl raised in suburban Philadelphia was never allowed reallybecause of where we owned the factory and the things that we werefacing all the time and the stuff, my dad didn't really, he didn'tshove in our faces, but he didn't shelter us either. We were alwaysraised to understand that where are born determines a lot of howyou live, that a lot of choices are taken away from you before youeven take your first breath. What does that look like and how canthose of us who have privilege leverage that privilege for thepower of others?

Kristen Donnelly [07:32]:

For us, it's a very faith based conversation, but I've learnedthat it's both faith based and not. It's how to human in a specificway. Very honestly, this is kind of how my thought processes havebeen going forever. I was the kid in college that when somebodywould be like, "Well, we really need to have more diversity in ourcollege experience," and I'm looking around and I'm like, "Okay,what you mean is racial diversity and I don't disagree, but you'vegot to stop using that word because I'm one of four kids at thiscollege from above the Mason Dixon line. I bring some diversity."80% of people here are on financial aid. That's some diversity forthe 20% that aren't, that are bringing that in. It's a college fullof people who grew up as third culture missionary kids. That's alot of diversity. Why aren't we bringing that in?

Kristen Donnelly [08:20]:

But everybody was so focused on the fact that we were largelyhomogeneously white, that there was no appreciation of other valuesof diversity. I kept getting bugged by that throughout the '90s andearly ots and just I was always the obnoxious kid that was onstudent government or anything else. I was like, "We've just got tostop using that word." But I hadn't figured out how to convincepeople of my argument.

Kristen Donnelly [08:51]:

It really ticked for me when I was sitting in a youth rally inBelfast, Northern Ireland in 2006 and Northern Ireland's a reallycomplicated place with a lot of tension, both violent andemotional, historically. They used the word tolerance. You have tolearn to tolerate each other. It hit me like a ton of bricks, butthat was actually one of the rudest things we could do, thattolerance is simply acknowledging that someone else is allowed toexist, that somebody else is alive because it is illegal to killyou. It does not encourage relationship. It does not encouragecuriosity. It really doesn't even acknowledge their humanity. Itjust acknowledges their existence.

Kristen Donnelly [09:37]:

For about 10 years, I chewed on it. I did as much research. I'ma nerd. I have a lot of grad degrees. I did as much research as Icould into really, truly what does diversity mean ecologically,spiritually, everything. What does diversity actually mean? Themore I looked into it, the more I realized that tolerance isgarbage and tolerance, that this is what the '90s came to, likethose coexist bumper stickers drive me up an absolute wall now,that ...

Alyssa Scolari [10:07]:

The coexist bumper stickers?

Kristen Donnelly [10:09]:

Yeah. Because this is what we were giving to other people, allwe were told as kids, so I'm an elder millennial, I'm the Oregontrail generation. What we were taught was to tolerate each other.We were never actually taught how to have conversations with eachother. We were never taught about how to appreciate that someoneelse's way to be human is just as valid as yours. We were justtaught to tolerate.

Kristen Donnelly [10:37]:

I looked around the planet and I realized, I started tracingsome things back and I was like, "Okay, a lot of this is because wewere taught to tolerate each other." There's so much pearlcollecting these days over, we don't know how to haveconversations. I'm like, "Well, we never really did."

Alyssa Scolari [10:52]:

We never did. Never.

Kristen Donnelly [10:54]:

There was pockets of humanity, especially in small towns whereyou had to get along, whether you wanted to or not. There was a lotof force proximity. That's still not inclusivity. That's justforced proximity. We've done all this. We've got 2,000, 4,900,000years of human history, depending on who you talk to. We've neverdone this well. But we have all the science in front of us thatshows we've never done it well on a large scale. We've done it wellin interpersonal relationships.

Kristen Donnelly [11:24]:

But with the continuing calls to walk away from your family ifthey didn't agree with you politically, or to walk away to assumewho somebody was based on what they retweeted on Twitter, I juststarted getting really nervous that all we were going to do waskeep fracturing even further and we were going to calcify intothose fractures.

Kristen Donnelly [11:46]:

When it came time to do my first TEDx application, this was theidea I knew, if I shared no other idea for the rest of my life,this is the one I wanted to present, which is that we have to stoptolerating each other and we have to start welcoming each otherinstead. That doesn't mean being in a relationship with toxicpeople. It does not mean being in relationship with people who denyyour humanity, but it means getting to know them a little bit firstto know whether they actually do or not or they just retweetedsomething dumb. It's saying, right now as you and I talk, there'sso much kerfuffle over JK Rowling.

Alyssa Scolari [12:22]:

So much.

Kristen Donnelly [12:25]:

I absolutely believe that her beliefs around trans people aredamaging and murderous and actually violent. The calls forabsolutely every person to completely abandon Harry Potter is alsonot productive or helpful, especially with all the research that wehave that reading Harry Potter indicates that children will be moreempathetic and open to difference than if they didn't.

Kristen Donnelly [12:52]:

I think for me, I mean, the internet is a fear machine. We carryaround fear machines in our pockets.

Alyssa Scolari [12:58]:

Yes.

Kristen Donnelly [12:59]:

If we take JK Rowling, is she a trans exclusionary, radicalfeminist? She absolutely is. She's even kind of claimed that. She'snot ashamed of it anymore. She's gotten really loud about it. Shegives a lot of money to those causes. This isn't a secret, but itdoes not mean that somebody who still finds a lot of identity as aHufflepuff is also a turf. It might, but it doesn't, there's not... Correlation does not equal causation. We can have conversationswith each other to then determine the boundaries we have to setrather than setting those boundaries before the conversation allthe time.

Kristen Donnelly [13:37]:

Really honestly, what I'm advocating for is that humans aremessy and so life is messy and we just need to allow each other tobe messy instead of these kind of very black and white boundariesthat a lot of us have instinctually begun to draw because the fearmachines told us to.

Speaker 2 [14:01]:

Yes. I mean, my brain jumps right into this cancel culture.There's such a push to, like you said, a cancel her and four peoplewho are Harry Potter fans like myself, with a slew of Harry Potterpop figures sitting on the shelf behind me, harry Potter saved mein my childhood. I say that, I'll tell anybody that. I say that allthe time. I found so much comfort and solace in those books. I findit to be so ... I'm just very unsettled by this idea that we cancelher but then we also cancel every single person who continues tosupport Harry Potter in any way, shape or form.

Speaker 2 [14:51]:

I guess the question I have for you is how do you propose, whathappens instead? What does that idea of being more welcoming andallowing people to be messy, how do we find that middle groundbetween holding folks accountable, but also allowing them space tobe messy?

Kristen Donnelly [15:12]:

In terms of, so let's keep going with this Harry Potter, becauseit's actually a pretty good one. Today on Tumblr, I saw somebodysay, "Your love of Harry Potter is not more important thansomebody's else's life." That statement to me is an encapsulationof a lot of false assumptions.

Kristen Donnelly [15:27]:

First of all, that my love of Harry Potter does not mean that Iloathe that trans folks are being murdered. My love of Harry Potterdoes not mean that I do not believe that trans women are women andtrans men are men. It does not mean a lot of things. We can drawthe boundary and say that JK Rowling is a turf. If I make thechoice to not go and see any of the new movies, for instance,because she is a producer on those, and so that puts money in herpocket. I don't need those stories anymore.

Kristen Donnelly [16:01]:

Grindelwald isn't part of this for me. I don't need to continueto explore new ways that she wants to tell stories. But that sevenbook cannon is incredibly sacred to my 20s and to erase them frommy 20s is doing some retroactive work that isn't kind to me or whoI was then or anything else. All that being said, I think we cancancel JK Rowling. I think we certainly can. I think we can stopgiving her platforms.

Kristen Donnelly [16:38]:

However, the problem is that we will always be giving her money.This is the same thing in which Disney is a problematic corporationand they are terrible in so many ways and beautiful in so manyothers. She appears more clear cut because she's one person.

Alyssa Scolari [16:58]:

She's very out and loud about her [crosstalk 00:17:01].

Kristen Donnelly [17:01]:

And obnoxious. She's obnoxious about it.

Alyssa Scolari [17:02]:

She is.

Kristen Donnelly [17:03]:

She is. I have no problem calling a spade a spade here, as theysay in the UK. She's a problem. She's a problem. But she is not theonly one who makes money on Harry Potter. She is not the only onewho is caught up in this universe. She is not the only one. She isan industry. She is a corporation.

Kristen Donnelly [17:25]:

The first thing that I always say and my business partner, Dr.Erin, and I talk about this a lot, is that you can love problematicthings as long as you understand that they're problematic.

Alyssa Scolari [17:35]:

That's a really interesting concept.

Kristen Donnelly [17:37]:

Part of adulthood is saying, "Oh my God, I love Harry Potter somuch, but I look back now and it's hella racist. The way that shedid sexuality is weird because now we know why, and retroactivelyconning Dumbledore sexuality was kind of shady." We can say all ofthese things.

Alyssa Scolari [17:58]:

The actually caused so much trauma for the students that heterrorized like Snape.

Kristen Donnelly [18:04]:

I can still say that all truth is truth and all the goodness isgoodness. Hermione is one of the ways I learned that it was okay tobe smart. All of those things can be true at once. It can be truethat she gave us a definitive world that literally saved the livesof millions of children around the world and that she advocatespersonally for the exclusion of a marginalized group, both of thosethings can be true and they are true. It sucks.

Kristen Donnelly [18:47]:

Some of it is saying things like I absolutely love sports. Ilove sports so much. I watch sports all the time. Would I love toalso tell you that I struggled to watch the NFL because I've readthe research on CTE? Absolutely. Is football something that I finda lot of joy in and that kills people? Yeah, both those things aretrue.

Kristen Donnelly [19:09]:

Really, to me, one of the examples of this not going well isthat we can't have an honest conversation in the United Statesabout guns because people who love guns can't accept that what isalso true is that they kill children. You can have a deep love ofthis culture that I personally do not understand. This can be apart of your identity, but I need you to also accept that they'retoo easily accessible and that mentally ill folks can shoot uprooms full of kindergartners. I need you to hold those two thingsas true and then we can start having conversations.

Alyssa Scolari [19:47]:

Yes.

Kristen Donnelly [19:49]:

We've been under this illusion as humans that things are simple,that things are supposed to be easy, that as we get older, thingsare more clear cut. No pals. As we get older, they get messier. Weall still have this myth that at some point in life it waseasy.

Alyssa Scolari [20:09]:

Yes.

Kristen Donnelly [20:10]:

It wasn't.

Alyssa Scolari [20:11]:

Back in the day, quote unquote.

Kristen Donnelly [20:13]:

There is no day.

Alyssa Scolari [20:14]:

There is no ...

Kristen Donnelly [20:14]:

I mean, there's a great Dane Cook joke where he says like, "Backin the day," which was a Wednesday, by the way.

Alyssa Scolari [20:19]:

I love Dane Cook.

Kristen Donnelly [20:21]:

Whenever somebody says, I'm like, he's terribly problematic, buthe had some really good jokes.

Alyssa Scolari [20:27]:

He's horrible and I can't listen to him anymore, but he had someamazing jokes.

Kristen Donnelly [20:33]:

All of those things are true. Tina Faye has some spaces to growand she is not good at being an inclusive comic. But Liz Lemon isone of the most profound comic characters we've ever had. All thesethings are true all at once. But we got to start being honest. Wegot to stop being scared to say the messy things because canceling,I'll say this, canceling shouldn't be a knee jerk reaction. Itshould be a consequence of a lot of actions.

Kristen Donnelly [21:08]:

I can't remember. It was like, so there's a Broadway star who Ireally like who came out and said that she was anti-vaccine andthat she wouldn't be getting vaccinations. A lot of her co-stars,which they have every right to do, were kind of like, "Cool. I'mnever working with you again. I'm not ever doing this again." But Iwatched the Broadway community immediately be like, "We'recanceling her." I was like, "Okay, that seems quick."

Kristen Donnelly [21:32]:

Then people started to kind of come with other receipts of otherthings she's been doing. Like, guys, this is emblematic. This isn'tone thing she did. This is emblematic of an attitude of how she'streated other people. This is kind of, she's shown us who she isand now we can believe her.

Alyssa Scolari [21:50]:

Right. It's been a buildup, not like ...

Kristen Donnelly [21:54]:

Brett Kavanaugh showed us who he was. We should have believedDr. Ford.

Alyssa Scolari [21:59]:

Yes.

Kristen Donnelly [22:02]:

Larry Nassar showed us who he was and we needed to believe thegymnasts. When people show you who they are, we need to believethem, as Dr. Angelou said. When people do something dumb on Twitterin the year of our Lord 2012, and we unearth it, we need to see abigger context.

Kristen Donnelly [22:20]:

That's kind of how I would say it. It needs to be a much moremessy conversation. I should also say everybody's decision on this,your mileage may vary. If as you're listening to this, your choiceis that you cannot engage with Harry Potter, rock on, mazel tov.You do you? That is fine. Zero judgment from me. Where it becomesis when you begin to shame me for my choices in how I'm going tointeract with this very messy, very uncomfortable, absolutelynobody wins here situation.

Alyssa Scolari [22:51]:

Yes. Because that's where so much of the chaos happens is thatpoint where it's like, well, why do you still have this HarryPotter poster? What does that make you? You're transphobic andyou're actively contributing to the murder of so many people.That's where I see so much tension, so much tension.

Kristen Donnelly [23:14]:

I think, I mean, so some of the ways we vote is with our moneyand so I don't give more money to Harry Potter stuff. I have allthe stuff that I'm going to have. I'm still going to read thebooks. I own them. I bought them already. What good is it going todo? But will I advocate for children to read it? I don't know,probably not. My niece and nephew are two. That'll be theirparents' decision. Whatever.

Kristen Donnelly [23:35]:

But what I can do is have the really hard conversations with alot of people in my life who are like, "But I'm not sure if transgirls should be in athletics." I'm like, "Okay, let's have thatconversation." I can do the things where somebody says, "I'm notsure if somebody really knows they're trans at five," and I cansay, "Okay, valid. It's something that I was confused about for along time too." Do I think that I, as an outside stranger, have anyright to say anything about that child's life? I do not. But I'veloved a lot of trans folks who tell me they knew as early as five.I want to listen to them.

Kristen Donnelly [24:10]:

Here's the messiness. Guess what guys? This is all really new.This is all really new. Health insurances still aren't paying forsurgeries. This is all still really new. We're going to figure thisout together, but let's start by acknowledging the humanity in thatperson. Let's start by acknowledging that whatever they're goingthrough is hard. Let's start by acknowledging that everybody wantsto be heard, seen, and safe. Fundamentals of human life.

Alyssa Scolari [24:36]:

Yes.

Kristen Donnelly [24:36]:

Let's start there and then if it gets messy after that, I mean,it will, let's just assume it will.

Alyssa Scolari [24:41]:

Right. It always does almost.

Kristen Donnelly [24:43]:

It has to.

Alyssa Scolari [24:44]:

Got to for any real effective change to be made.

Kristen Donnelly [24:48]:

Or for any real effective relationships. Think about the peoplethat you actually claim as deep and true relationships. Are any ofthose relationships clear cut? They're all messy. I love my husbandand would like to throw him off a bridge a lot of days.

Alyssa Scolari [25:02]:

Yes. Yes.

Kristen Donnelly [25:03]:

And not just because of dumb little habits. There arefundamental things about each other that as we've grown, we've hadto continue to make that covenant. We didn't just make a covenant10 years ago. We make it all the time. Every relationship is likethat. I hear that parenting is kind of hard. Just a rumor.

Speaker 2 [25:24]:

Right. It's just in the rumor mill. I've heard it [crosstalk00:25:27].

Kristen Donnelly [25:26]:

It's in the rumor mill. It sounds really hard and it sounds likethere are a lot of parents who don't like their kids. There's a lotof kids who don't like their parents.

Speaker 2 [25:35]:

Yes.

Kristen Donnelly [25:36]:

It's because humans are messy.

Alyssa Scolari [25:37]:

Yes. I think that's part of the reason why I love being atherapist so much is because I get to hold space for thatmessiness. I love working with kids because then I also get to workwith their families and then it becomes so much more mess. I mean,that's where the beauty happens and that's where I think so muchgets heard because at the end of the day, no matter where you areand no matter what your beliefs are, as you said, the goal is to beseen, heard and understood and safe. Exactly. Exactly.

Alyssa Scolari [26:14]:

I love that. I mean, I love it so much and I think it's kind oflike you said, I think it might be, again, for the listeners outthere, this concept is like, it's very new in itself and it's verydifferent than what I think we see on the internet a lot of days,but it's so important. If you get nothing else out of this, I wantyou to just take it and I want you to chew on it. I want you tothink about it because it's really important.

Alyssa Scolari [26:42]:

I understand lots of things might be popping up for you about,well, how can we just allow this to happen and how can we justallow that to happen? But this is really the meat of how we need to... This is it. This is the framework that we need to be adoptingfor conversations to be had, for relationships to be had, and forall of the hatred in this world to just go away a little tinybit.

Kristen Donnelly [27:13]:

I think it's ... Erin and I are empathy educators because wesay, and that's kind of how we frame ourselves because empathyisn't about emotions. It's about understanding. I will say since Istarted practicing empathy as my primary motivator through theworld, as the mindset and the framework I used to move through theworld, I'm a lot calmer. Even my doom scrolling doesn't get me asanxious as it used to.

Alyssa Scolari [27:48]:

Yes.

Kristen Donnelly [27:48]:

Nothing feels as overwhelming because in a certain way I canreally quickly, I can make some decisions quicker. I can say, "Thatbehavior I know is a hard boundary for me. Somebody engaging inthat behavior is somebody I cannot be in authentic relationshipwith. They are still a human. They are entitled to all of that. Icannot be in relationship with them." If I'm ever put into aposition where I need to work with them, one on one, one of thequestions that we will need to talk about is that behavior.

Alyssa Scolari [28:26]:

Yes.

Kristen Donnelly [28:27]:

That's it. It's that clear cut. Around vaccines, I have a lot ofimmunocompromised people in my family. I was first in line to getthe vaccine, first in line to get the booster. I'm just pump mewith whatever you want. I don't care. I'm not a physical scientist.Everyone on the planet is saying this is a good idea. Cool. I'm inline. Yet we all are doing life with a lot of people that see thesevaccines very differently. When I discover that somebody is notvaccinated, my policy very quickly becomes I cannot be within sixfeet of you without you wearing a mask.

Alyssa Scolari [29:08]:

That's your hard [crosstalk 00:29:09].

Kristen Donnelly [29:09]:

If that is not something that you are willing to do, we willneed to interact on Zoom. That's not tolerating them. That's notsaying that they're not a good person or they're evil. That'ssimply saying you have made choices and I have made choices andthis is the intersection of our choices.

Alyssa Scolari [29:32]:

Exactly.

Kristen Donnelly [29:34]:

Once I made that kind of policy in my life, and that's thephrase I use a lot, it's my policy, it's my policy to do this.

Alyssa Scolari [29:42]:

I love it.

Kristen Donnelly [29:43]:

Life got a lot less stressful. It just did. I get more curious.My question now a lot is like, "Well, I'd look to know why aren'tyou getting vaccinated?" Not judgy. Legitimately, I'm just reallycurious, what is your intersection of these decisions here?

Alyssa Scolari [30:00]:

Yes. The curiosity piece is so important. It's so important.

Kristen Donnelly [30:05]:

It's what changes the world. It's the only thing that ever has.No one also changes, I'll say this to you and you know this as atherapist, absolutely nobody changes their world view throughshaming or statistics.

Alyssa Scolari [30:16]:

Thank you. I also would like to add that nobody changes theirworld view or their opinion on anything because of a fight on theinternet.

Kristen Donnelly [30:26]:

Absolutely not. They might change their behavior because ofshaming or statistics.

Alyssa Scolari [30:30]:

Exactly.

Kristen Donnelly [30:31]:

But as a therapist and as a social worker and as an empathyeducator, I'm not looking to change behaviors.

Alyssa Scolari [30:39]:

No.

Kristen Donnelly [30:40]:

I'm looking to change world views and I'm to change how peoplemove through the planet and that never changes through shaming,statistics or being yelled at on the internet.

Alyssa Scolari [30:48]:

Yes.

Kristen Donnelly [30:49]:

It just doesn't.

Alyssa Scolari [30:50]:

Yes.

Kristen Donnelly [30:53]:

It just doesn't. Erin and I have a YouTube channel and thecomments we get sometimes are hilarious, where somebody's reallycoming for us and we're like, "Okay, dude." We want to respond backwith Taylor Swift gifts and be like, "You need to calm down, man.You are bringing a lot of anger to a conversation that we arebringing zero anger to."

Alyssa Scolari [31:11]:

Relax, breath.

Kristen Donnelly [31:12]:

Do you need a hug? Do you need a puppy? Do you need a glass ofwater? What do you need in this moment because yelling at us isn'tgoing to fix it.

Alyssa Scolari [31:21]:

Yes. Yes. Which is typically always, that's kind of my response.So many people will be like, "How do you work with people who havesuch differences? How do you work with people who refuse to getvaccinated?" It's just like, "Because I want to understand."

Kristen Donnelly [31:41]:

We have to.

Alyssa Scolari [31:41]:

We have to. If we don't understand than we are making noprogress.

Kristen Donnelly [31:49]:

I respect that for some people, this is all overwhelming.

Alyssa Scolari [31:52]:

Absolutely.

Kristen Donnelly [31:53]:

The idea of trying to get to know new people or new ideas isreally hard. We get the question like where should I start? Ouranswer is that we live in such a beautiful time of facilitatedcuriosity, start with a Netflix show. There is a really greatdocumentary on Netflix right now called Crip Camp.

Alyssa Scolari [32:14]:

What is it?

Kristen Donnelly [32:15]:

Crip Camp.

Alyssa Scolari [32:16]:

I haven't heard of it.

Kristen Donnelly [32:17]:

It is about the foundations of the Americans with disabilitiesmovement. Statistically, we'll bet that you don't know thatwhoever's listening to this within sound of my voice might not knowsomebody who is affected by the ADA Act. But spoiler alert, if youhave any sort of mental health issue, you are because mental healthis included in the ADA. It's a great documentary. It was Oscarnominated. It's an hour and a half of your life.

Alyssa Scolari [32:47]:

I've not heard of it.

Kristen Donnelly [32:52]:

That's the thing. You don't know where to start. This is all sooverwhelming. Pick a thing.

Alyssa Scolari [32:57]:

One thing.

Kristen Donnelly [32:59]:

Pick a thing. Do the one thing. Watch a documentary, listen to apodcast, go to a cultural festival in your town and sit. Ask aquestion. Go to a restaurant where you can't pronounce the food andfumble your way through it. They're used to it. I promise.

Alyssa Scolari [33:19]:

Yes. They're so used to it.

Kristen Donnelly [33:23]:

Pick a thing.

Alyssa Scolari [33:24]:

Pick a thing. Pick a thing.

Kristen Donnelly [33:27]:

Pick a thing. There's no shame in not knowing unless youactively choose to ignore.

Alyssa Scolari [33:34]:

Yes. That is dangerous. That is dangerous. Well, thank you so,so much. I mean, this is like, I'm so passionate about this topic,because it absolutely pushes us outside of our comfort zone,especially as millennials. We were literally not taught to askquestions. We were taught to just truly coexist, which doesn'thelp. Like you said, it just fosters greater separation.

Alyssa Scolari [34:03]:

I really love this topic. I'm all about exploring uncomfortablethings. This is one topic that I can see that could make peoplefeel some kind of uncomfortable things, but that's [crosstalk00:34:16].

Kristen Donnelly [34:16]:

For sure.

Alyssa Scolari [34:18]:

Thank you. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for coming on theshow today. I really appreciate it.

Kristen Donnelly [34:24]:

My pleasure. Thanks for all you're doing.

Alyssa Scolari [34:27]:

Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please headover to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on socialmedia, on Instagram. We are @lightaftertrauma. On Twitter, it is atLight After Pod.

Alyssa Scolari [34:43]:

Lastly, please head over to patrion.com/lightaftertrauma. Tosupport our show, we are asking for $5 a month, which is theequivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Please head on over.Again, that's patrion.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you and weappreciate your support.

Light After Trauma: Episode 78: The Tolerance Framework May Be Doing More Harm Than Good with Kristen Donnelly, MSW, M. Div, PhD (2025)
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