We Survive Through Connection with Toya Northington

We Survive Through Connection with Toya Northington

From Empathetic Presence by Lee Bonvissuto

March 19, 2026 · 37 min · Season 1 · Episode 14

About this episode

Toya Northington discusses rebuilding identity after a layoff and the role of creativity and community in overcoming anxiety.

I 've been trying to have this conversation for over a year. Toya Northington was the very first person I wanted on this podcast. We set a date. The morning we were supposed to record, she texted me that she'd been laid off from her DEI role, one of the first waves of a pattern we've all now watched unfold across this country. We rescheduled. And I'm so glad we did, because the conversation we had this March is the one we were meant to have. Toya is an artist, social worker, and founder of Frameworks for Growth, a creative wellness practice that uses art-based experiences to help people process what they've been carrying silently, before they can even put it into words. She's also a longtime client and one of the people I admire most in this work. In this episode, we talk about what it means to build your identity around a title, and what happens when that title disappears. We talk about DE&I professionals being the advocates taken away first, about isolation feeding anxiety, about creativity as a tool for coming back to yourself, not for creating something pretty, but for your own transformation. In this conversation we talk about: What it means to rebuild your identity…

People in this episode

Guest: Toya Northington

Topics covered

  • identity
  • layoff
  • creativity
  • anxiety
  • community

Keywords

  • DEI
  • social work
  • art-based experiences
  • Frameworks for Growth

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Frameworks for Growth

Books & works: We Survive Through Connection with Toya Northington

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