What does love look like when it puts boots on the ground? In this episode, Cynthia Marks is joined by two remarkable women doing exactly that: Ashlee George, Co-Executive Director of the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project (CTAOP), and Leoni Wainwright, founder of the Vaul Institute in Cape Town, South Africa — one of CTAOP's program partners. Guided by the South African philosophy of ubuntu — "I am because we are" — they share how community-led development, mentorship, and spaces of deep psychological and physical safety are breaking systemic cycles for the next generation.

Leoni takes us inside the Cape Flats, where the Vaul Institute creates safe spaces for young people to feel valued, loved, and heard — many of them carrying burdens far beyond their years. The conversation moves through the silence surrounding gender-based violence, a hopeful new chapter in HIV prevention, why caring for the caregivers matters just as much as the work itself, and Leoni's own courageous journey from hidden trauma to healing. Together with Cynthia, they connect it all back to the imprint — the weight children carry that was never theirs — and the incredible resilience of young people when someone simply makes it safe to be themselves.

This is And Now Love. Listen to your dreams and live from your heart. Please follow, rate, and share the podcast, and pass this episode along to someone who might need it.

To learn more or lend your support, visit www.ctaop.org and www.vaulinstitute.co.za.

This episode includes discussion of gender-based violence and sexual assault, shared in the spirit of healing. If you or someone you love needs support, please reach out to a trusted resource in your community.

0:00 — Welcome, Ashlee George & Leoni Wainwright

2:01 — Ubuntu: I Am Because We Are

5:06 — Two Organizations, One Mission

17:13 — Safe Spaces and Breaking the Silence

22:41 — Caring for the Caregivers

34:47 — A New Chapter in HIV Prevention

47:00 — The Imprint and Youth Resilience

51:12 — Leoni's Story and Wildest Dreams

Are you actually living your own life — or someone else's? In this episode, Cynthia Marks is joined once again by Dr. Loren Weiner, a Los Angeles psychotherapist whose practice is steeped in the methodology of the late Dr. Bernard Bail, for a fascinating look at how we unconsciously take in our parents' personalities, limitations, and unlived pain, and then live them out as if they were our own. Loren distinguishes ordinary identification — the natural way children absorb the people around them — from Dr. Bail's discovery of the imprint: the mother's unprocessed, unconscious feelings passed to the baby as early as the womb, quietly writing the rulebook for how much love, success, and happiness we believe we're allowed.

Through three remarkable patient dreams — a clay slab pressed into a bowl to make a perfect copy, a bullhorn announcement to "scrap the plan," and an old dusty house with peanut butter on white bread — Loren shows how the unconscious reveals the ways we've merged with our mothers, and how recognizing this begins to loosen its grip. Cynthia also shares her own discovery of carrying her mother's silence. The conversation widens to the world we build together: if we're all beset by unconscious limitations, our systems will reflect them — and the path to a freer world runs through each of us doing this inner work.

This is And Now Love. Listen to your dreams and live from your heart. Please follow, rate, and share the podcast, and pass this episode along to someone who might need it.

0:00 — Welcome Back, Dr. Loren Weiner

2:54 — How We Build a Self: Identification

4:48 — The Imprint: A Deeper Inheritance

12:40 — The Ball Metaphor: How Much of You Is You?

26:45 — Where Did I Learn to Do It That Way?

33:07 — Cynthia's Story: Carrying Her Mother's Silence

37:14 — A World Built on Limitations

41:54 — Three Dreams: The Clay Bowl, the Bullhorn, and the Peanut Butter Sandwich

58:55 — Starting the Work Yourself

Award-winning filmmaker and author Eisha Marjara joins Cynthia Marks for a moving conversation about how our earliest imprints shape the way we see ourselves — and how those patterns can be rewritten. Drawing on her acclaimed documentary work, including Am I the Skinniest Person You've Ever Seen? and Calorie, Eisha shares her journey through an eating disorder in her teens, the profound loss of her mother and younger sister, and the long road back to herself. With honesty and grace, she and Cynthia explore how an eating disorder can become a physical expression of an emotional imprint, tangled up with family expectations, grief, and the fear of stepping into womanhood.

Together they look at the ache of coming of age, the difference between care rooted in compassion versus control, and the quiet damage caused by the things families never talk about. Above all, Eisha's story is a testament to healing through creativity and tenderness — a reminder that we don't have to remain prisoners of our earliest conditioning, and that looking back at our youngest, most wounded selves with kindness is where the true rewriting of our story begins.

This is And Now Love. Listen to your dreams and live from your heart. Please follow, rate, and share the podcast, and pass this episode along to someone who might need it.

This episode discusses eating disorders and loss, and is shared in the spirit of recovery and hope. If you or someone you love is struggling, support is available through the National Alliance for Eating Disorders helpline (1-866-662-1235).

0:00 — Welcome and Eisha's Films

1:58 — Eisha's Story: Family, Immigration, and Loss

6:46 — Womanhood, the Body, and the Feminine

14:27 — Behind the Documentary

17:11 — Recovery and Rebuilding

25:16 — Two Sisters, One Imprint

29:53 — Grief, the Parents, and the Father's Strength

37:56 — "Calorie," Compassion, and Breaking the Silence