Welcome back to The We in Work. After six episodes exploring what it means to be seen, perform, belong, and feel safe, this bridge episode looks back at the questions that shaped Season One and introduces what's coming next: Wild Child Summer, a 15-episode limited series beginning June 17.

In This Episode

We revisit the central themes of Season One:

• What does it mean to be truly seen?
• How much of our social life is performance?
• What does vulnerability actually require?
• How does emotional labor shape our relationships and work?
• Why is loneliness rising despite unprecedented connectivity?
• What does it mean to feel safe?

Looking across all six episodes, a common thread emerges: the gap between our interior selves and the versions of ourselves we've learned to present to the world. Season One explored that friction and the costs of shrinking, performing, and adapting ourselves to fit external expectations.

Introducing: Wild Child Summer

This summer's series asks a different question:

What happens when we stop editing and embrace our inner wildness?

Drawing on research into adult play, creativity, positive emotion, and self-expression, Wild Child Summer explores what it means to take up more space, reconnect with curiosity, and live with greater authenticity—without abandoning thoughtfulness or care.

Across 15 episodes, we'll explore topics including:

• Who were you before you learned who you were supposed to be?
• When did you stop playing?
• What stories did you inherit?
• Why do we abandon ourselves?
• How did we learn self-doubt?
• What lives in swallowed words?
• Why are we afraid of being "too much"?
• What is the grief of an unlived self?
• What does authenticity actually mean?
• What does it mean to have permission to take up space?
• How do we come home to our body?
• What it means to be wild?

New This Season: The Pod Journal Club

We're introducing the Pod Journal Club—a simple way to turn listening into conversation.

Gather a few friends, colleagues, family members, or thoughtful strangers. Listen to an episode together, discuss the questions it raises, and explore how the ideas connect to your own lives. The goal isn't agreement—it's deeper conversation and shared reflection.

The Wild Child Summer Workbook

To accompany the series, we've created a digital workbook featuring:

• Reflective journal prompts for every episode
• Creative, hands-on activities
• Small rituals designed to carry each episode's question into daily life
• Discussion prompts for Pod Journal Club gatherings

The workbook is designed for both group participation and solo reflection.

Key Takeaway

Season One helped us name the friction between how the world works and how humans actually think, feel, and relate. Wild Child Summer asks what comes next.

Not a roadmap. Not a prescription.

An invitation to explore the parts of yourself that have been waiting patiently beneath performance, compliance, and self-editing—and to see what becomes possible when they are finally given a little more room to breathe.

Wild Child Summer begins June 17. Until then, take care, stay true, and into the wild we go!

Welcome to Season Two of The We in Werk.

This season is called Wild Child Summer—a fifteen-episode exploration of the parts of ourselves that existed before expectations, performance, and social conditioning quietly shaped who we became.

Over the next fifteen episodes, we'll slow down and examine the forces that influence how we think, feel, work, relate, and move through the world. Together, we'll explore the tension between who we are and who we learned to be.

Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, sociology, philosophy, and lived experience, Wild Child Summer asks:

-Who were you before the world told you who to be?

- What beliefs, expectations, and systems shaped you along the way?

- Which parts of yourself were adapted for survival, belonging, or approval?

- And what might it look like to reconnect with the person underneath it all?

This season offers thoughtful research, honest reflection, and plenty of curiosity as we investigate the stories we've inherited and the identities we've constructed.

Because sometimes the most important journey isn't becoming someone new.

It's remembering who you've been all along.

In the Season 1 finale of We In Work, Kim explores the concept of safety as more than the absence of danger. Drawing on Polyvagal Theory, psychological safety research, and personal reflection, she examines how felt safety shapes our ability to connect, learn, create, and grow.

Key topics include:

• The difference between objective safety and felt safety.
• Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory and the role of the autonomic nervous system.
• Neuroception: how the body unconsciously scans for safety and threat.
• The impact of chronic unsafety, hypervigilance, and past experiences on present-day relationships.
• Co-regulation and the importance of supportive, predictable relationships.
• Psychological safety in the workplace, including the work of Amy Edmondson and Google’s Project Aristotle.
• Why meaningful growth requires both safety and vulnerability.
• Practical reflections on conducting a personal “safety inventory” and creating safety for others.

The episode concludes by tying together the season’s themes—being seen, vulnerability, emotional labor, isolation, and safety—and introduces the upcoming Wild Child Summer series.

Key Takeaways

• Safety is a biological state, not merely a rational decision.
• The nervous system requires felt safety for curiosity, creativity, and connection.
• Psychological safety enables honesty, learning, and better decision-making.
• Healing often occurs through repeated experiences of reliability, trust, and co-regulation.
• Growth requires balancing security with the willingness to take meaningful risks.
• Small, consistent actions build safety more effectively than grand gestures.

References:

Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.

Fromm, E. (1941). Escape from freedom. Farrar & Rinehart.

Google re: Work. (n.d.). Guide: Understand team effectiveness. Google. Retrieved June 13, 2026, from https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/understanding-team-effectiveness

Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.

Porges, S. W. (2021). Polyvagal safety: Attachment, communication, self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.