STFU Podcast
STFU Podcast
Nishea Balajadia
Welcome to STFU Podcast with Nishea Balajadia. I am a single mother, survivor of childhood abuse and domestic violence, a retired foster parent, a community advocate in Fresno, California.  I grew up in corporate tech world (I worked at Fortune 500 Companies like AT&T, Google, and Flextronics) and left in 2017 to pursue community organizing and advocacy where I was roped into evangelical megachurch cult life and escaped their grasps in 2019 while fostering three toddlers under three.  I began to educate my community members on colonization, white supremacy, and religious trauma when the pandemic hit.  In 2020 I founded Mighty Community Advocacy, which does crisis intervention and hospital advocacy for youth in Fresno. In our 2023 season is all about helping my community members learn more about topics I won't STFU about adding my friends that are experts in each topic. Whether it’s been heavy lifting with my fitness friends, deconstruction and holding faith accountable with my exvangelical friends, my anarchist friends on the frontlines of public organization and activations, de-centering colonized parenting in adoption and foster care with my friends in the adoption community, my journalist friends speaking about the industry hurdles they have to encounter daily, or talking about big moves in cannabis with my friends who are dreaming big with their cannabis brands.   This season is going to be great conversations that help our audience learn more about themselves thru hearing other's stories.  Thank you for being here.
Episode 3: Andre Henry and Make It To Tomorrow EP
Andre and I recorded this episode a couple of weeks before his album Make It To Tomorrow released.  Our conversation talked about Andre's creative process this album and the stories behind his writing.  We had a beautiful discussion about accountability in families and shed a few tears together.  I was able to listen to the EP afterwards and have been repeating Circle.  This was such a great episode.  Thank you Andre.https://www.andrehenry.co/https://andrehenrymusic.bandcamp.com/album/make-it-to-tomorrow-ephttps://hope-hard-pills.simplecast.com/
Jun 6, 2023
1 hr 11 min
Episode 2: Decentering Adoptive Parents with Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard
This conversation with Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard is so important when it comes to adoption, the difference between private adoption, foster-to-adopt, and fostering, and how this system is designed to harm all three parties [birth parent(s), child, and adoptive parent(s)].  I love this conversation with Kelsey and really grateful that we were able to have this time.  
May 22, 2023
1 hr 5 min
Episode 1: Decolonizing Spirituality +  Reclaiming & Discovering Self With Tiff Perez
I am really excited to be able to start this season off with this conversation with Tiff.  We talk about red flags in the church, what it's like to find spirituality daily, and after leaving a cult mega church.  If you have ever been in toxic and abusive spaces you know how difficult it is to leave, Tiff and I discuss what the enmeshment untangling looked like.  
May 9, 2023
1 hr 24 min
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month
Sexual abuse is now a part of my genetic makeup (trauma changes a survivor on the molecular level {citing every psychology and biology report on trauma}). And while I deal with it every day, I know there are others who also have the pain of dealing with the consequences of someone else's actions on their life. This is my experience with my abuse, reporting this as an adult, trial, and the fall out. As calls to the sexual assault hotline have skyrocketed in the past 7 weeks, please consider giving to @RAINN. If you are in need of support please see resources below. National Hotline 24/7 Support 1-800-656-4673 Online Chat hotline.rainn.org/online
Apr 29, 2020
25 min