co-regulation is a podcast hosted by Holly Whitaker (HOME, QUITTED) that creates space for authentic conversations about how we're navigating this period of societal upheaval and profound transition. Through conversations with thinkers, artists, and experts, informed by Holly's perspective on addiction, recovery, and the intersection of personal healing and cultural systems, this show invites listeners into real-time exploration of how we're living through unprecedented change—not as isolated individuals, but as interconnected beings whose nervous systems regulate better together than apart.
In the aftermath of the 2024 election and accelerating pressure on our social systems, the limitations of the American experiment have become impossible to ignore. Every day exposes the myth that we can solve collective problems through individual achievement, consumption choices, or personal virtue. We've inherited a story that places the burden of global salvation on our individual shoulders while the architects of collapse profit from the fallout.
co-regulation emerges from Holly's direct experience: when consumed by the pressure to fix broken systems personally, she becomes incapacitated. Her nervous system remains in perpetual fight-or-flight. But when she connects with others wrestling with the same questions, something shifts. Our bodies literally calm in each other's presence. Solutions emerge not from heroic individual efforts but from the space between us.
This podcast acknowledges that we're at the end of an era defined by extraction, dominance, competition, and separation. We're being forced to move toward each other—to find collective solutions, to rebuild ways of existing harmoniously with the earth and each other. The path forward isn't through competition or meritocracy but through connection, mutual aid, and collective sense-making.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
co-regulation is a podcast hosted by Holly Whitaker (HOME, QUITTED) that creates space for authentic conversations about how we're navigating this period of societal upheaval and profound transition. Through conversations with thinkers, artists, and experts, informed by Holly's perspective on addiction, recovery, and the intersection of personal healing and cultural systems, this show invites listeners into real-time exploration of how we're living through unprecedented change—not as isolated individuals, but as interconnected beings whose nervous systems regulate better together than apart.
In the aftermath of the 2024 election and accelerating pressure on our social systems, the limitations of the American experiment have become impossible to ignore. Every day exposes the myth that we can solve collective problems through individual achievement, consumption choices, or personal virtue. We've inherited a story that places the burden of global salvation on our individual shoulders while the architects of collapse profit from the fallout.
co-regulation emerges from Holly's direct experience: when consumed by the pressure to fix broken systems personally, she becomes incapacitated. Her nervous system remains in perpetual fight-or-flight. But when she connects with others wrestling with the same questions, something shifts. Our bodies literally calm in each other's presence. Solutions emerge not from heroic individual efforts but from the space between us.
This podcast acknowledges that we're at the end of an era defined by extraction, dominance, competition, and separation. We're being forced to move toward each other—to find collective solutions, to rebuild ways of existing harmoniously with the earth and each other. The path forward isn't through competition or meritocracy but through connection, mutual aid, and collective sense-making.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sky Fusco and Holly wrestle with fundamental questions about the role of the artist in times of crisis: Who gets to claim the title of artist? Is making art "enough" or should creative people abandon their practices to become EMTs and nurses? The conversation explores the existential doubt that plagues many creatives during unprecedented times, the fantasy of having "useful skills" instead of making vulnerable art, and how Sky uses herself as a guinea pig to give others permission to follow their creative impulses. The discussion evolves into Sky's recent decision to step back from dating men—not from hatred, but from exhaustion with those who refuse to engage in the internal work that women have been doing for decades, while maintaining that love remains her North Star even as she redefines what healthy relationships look like.
Artistic vulnerability and managing consequences of public sharing; writing about real people and relationships; intellectual property and copying in art; living as a full-time artist; claiming the role of an artist; existential questions about usefulness during crises; publicly changing your mind and contradicting previous positions; divesting from dating men and the male gaze; women's exhaustion in patriarchal systems; men's avoidance of feminist education and internal work; hetero-pessimism and relationship refusal; love as antidote to pessimism; redefining love and being the change you want to see.
Sky Fusco is an artist working across drawing, painting, writing, and a public practice she calls Internet Caretaking. Her commercial studio, ROCK SHOP, is located in Morro Bay, California. Her Substack, Unsupervised, has over 25 thousand readers, and makes frequent stops at topics like relationships, personal histories, living in community, creativity, technology, addiction, self-actualization, and navigating the digital Anthropocene as an artist. Sky took an unconventional educational path before claiming her artist identity at 27, Sky makes her living entirely through creative practice. Her visual work features bold emotional declarations, including the piece "We've been having feelings for years, they're perfectly safe." Her writing explores artistic courage, relationships, and contemporary women's experiences with sharp observation and visceral honesty. Sky's work serves as permission for others to follow their creative impulses, change their minds publicly, and use their lives as ongoing experiments in authenticity while maintaining love as a guiding principle.
Original music by Gracie Coates @graciecoates @gracieandrachel on Instagram, gracieandrachel.com
Sound engineering, editor: Adam Day, adamdayphotography.com
Producers: Holly Whitaker, Adam Day, Kate Sines
Original art by Misha Handschumacher, cmisha.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.