Shawna Mills is a story artist, director, and designer whose work you already know — Black Dynamite, Star Wars Rebels, Rise of the TMNT. In this conversation with Jess, she goes deeper: to her grandmother Ernestine, who told her she could do anything, and to the ongoing work of moving from surviving into thriving.

They talk about grief as love in another form. Anger as sacred information about a boundary. The parts work Shawna was doing before she had a name for it. And her company, Soda Monkey Entertainment — built to make the worlds she never got to see as a Black girl growing up watching animation. Her dream: put those dreams in the front seat.

Chapters:

0:00 Meet Shawna Mills (opener + intro + Purple Couch pre-roll)

2:23 The conversation begins — reading Shawna's bio

4:30 Grandmother Ernestine — the belief that shaped a career

9:00 From Black Dynamite to Star Wars Rebels

12:00 Grief as love in another form

15:00 A word from Main Street America

15:43 Back to the conversation

17:30 Anger as sacred information about a boundary

23:00 Parts work before she had a name for it

28:30 The move from surviving to thriving

33:00 Soda Monkey Entertainment

36:30 Putting Black girls' dreams in the front seat

39:00 The tree house dream

Jess holds space for Ryan The Son — artist, entrepreneur, and creative director — in a conversation that goes places most therapy podcasts won't. Ryan talks about being told he "talks white" growing up, the muscle memory of Black boy joy he had to build after that, and what it takes to trust his gut in industries that keep telling him to shrink.

The two get into ADHD and entrepreneurship, the voice that says you're being selfish for wanting your own life, inner child work, and what it looks like when a Black man refuses to make his personality fit somebody else's box. Jess asks him how he knows it's safe to trust himself. His answer: "Vibes."

Chapters:

0:00 Meet Ryan The Son (intro + opener + Purple Couch pre-roll)

2:23 The conversation begins

4:47 VIMBASI practice — vibe, image, behavior

11:53 ADHD and entrepreneurial pattern-matching

14:43 The "selfish" voice from childhood

15:17 A word from Main Street America

16:00 Back to the conversation

20:38 The performer and the present — both here

23:51 "How do you know it's safe?" — vibes

29:06 Refusing to shrink your personality

33:06 The shrinking funnel in industries

36:06 Channel instead of shrink

Get connected:

• Learn about Purple Couch Therapy: purplecouchcounseling.org

Jess sits down with her best friend Soco Rey — a therapist in LA, an embodied healer, and the person who first told her what "rich as fuck" really means. Not money. Aliveness.

The two met on a beach in Miami nine years ago when they were both surviving and pretending they weren't. In this conversation, they trace the friendship — through burnout at the county, through mother wounds, through the moment they both figured out what they were actually chasing. Soco talks about her Sovereign Daughter work with eldest daughters who are living for everybody but themselves, the pivot from grinding to embodiment, and what it looks like to hold each other when the healing gets hard.

This one has tears in it. Come sit with us.

Chapters:

0:00 Meet Soco Rey (intro + opener)

1:48 The conversation begins — finding our feet

5:20 VIMBASI practice — affect, sensation, imagination

6:35 The vibe of best-friend energy

14:07 Being in survival mode without knowing it

15:00 A word from Purple Couch Therapy

15:43 Back to the conversation

17:01 70-hour weeks at the county

22:31 What "rich as f*ck" really means

28:31 Mother wounds and eldest daughter work

37:31 Sovereign Daughter work — the practice

40:31 Being held by a friend when you don't know how to ask

Get connected:

• Learn about Purple Couch Therapy: purplecouchcounseling.org
• Follow Soco Rey: socorey.com / @healwithsoco
• Learn about Sovereign Daughter Program: https://socorey.com

Kimiya Factory — queer Indigenous Afro-Latina activist, founder of Black Freedom Factory, and one of the loudest, sharpest voices coming out of San Antonio — sits down with Jess for a conversation that is heavy and full of joy at the same time.

They get into sacred rage as inheritance, what it means to be a vessel for ancestors, and the cost of doing this work in a city that doesn't want you doing it. Kimiya talks about being on CNN at 20, how the deepest cuts come from your own people, and what it actually looks like to change rape culture. She also talks about being a whole human being — she needs an oil change, she wants rest and softness and a better skincare routine — because Black women organizers are not mascots.

The story of the night they met (with a white woman at the bar) may become one of your favorites.

Chapters:

0:00 Meet Kimiya Factory (intro + opener)

1:48 The conversation begins

7:18 VIMBASI practice with Kimiya

13:30 Imagining rest, softness, better skincare

14:59 A word from Purple Couch Therapy

15:43 Back to the conversation

20:39 The white-woman-at-the-bar story

25:03 Sacred rage as ancestral inheritance

29:32 Being a vessel — ancestors speaking through her

34:32 CNN at 20 — the cost of national visibility

42:32 Black Freedom Factory — from a protest to a movement

49:32 Being a whole human being (needing an oil change)

54:32 The deepest cuts come from your own people

1:00:32 What it takes to change rape culture

Get connected:

• Learn about Purple Couch Therapy: purplecouchcounseling.org

The show opens where it means to keep going — Jess Chavira-Eubanks, LCSW-S, sitting down alone to name what most therapy podcasts won't. She calls it the fuckery. White body supremacy as the standard. Patriarchy that doesn't serve anybody. Capitalism, colonialism, and the systems that shape how our bodies hold pain.

In this launch episode, Jess walks you through the VIMBASI practice — vibe, image, behavior, affect, sensation, imagination — a somatic toy to play with from Dr. Resmaa Menakem's work that she'll weave through every episode. She talks about what it means to build Purple Couch Therapy from her own healing, why she's centering Black women, and what listeners can expect: real conversations, real practice, real community.

If you've been surviving and calling it healing, this is the podcast for you.

Chapters:

0:00 Welcome to the Purple Couch

0:41 Naming the fuckery

2:10 Being called "radical" — reclaiming it

3:10 VIMBASI — a somatic practice from Dr. Resmaa Menakem

5:16 Walking through the practice — Behavior, Affect, Sensation, Imagination

9:40 Dirty pain — why this show exists

10:36 Building Purple Couch Therapy — the vision

12:40 The three phases of healing

15:15 Naming white body supremacy — and healing from it

16:40 Closing thanks

Get connected:

• Learn about Purple Couch Therapy: https://www.purplecouchcounseling.org/