Dr. Dena Simmons: The Soil We Cannot See

“Because of them, I can dream. Because of me, I can make my dreams come true.” —Dr.

Dena Simmons What is the emotional soil the next generation will inherit? Dr.

Dena Simmons arrives at the Highland with an answer rooted in lineage, liberation, and the courage to stop calling endurance success. Dr.

Dena Simmons is an activist, educator, and student of life from the Bronx, New York. She is the founder and executive director of LiberatED, an organization that centers radical love, healing, and justice in education and social and emotional learning to support the mental health of students and educators.

In this conversation, Dena calls in the strength of her mother, who came to this country alone at 18 with $25 and created a life for her three daughters. She reflects on her twin sister’s chronic illness, her own health journey, and the years she spent swallowing difficult emotions because being a “good” Black girl meant not causing problems.

Those experiences taught her what can happen when children are expected to achieve, endure, and remain strong without anyone asking how they really are. Dena shares how being bullied at Yale and ultimately walking away from the institution forced her to redefine wellness and success.

Success could no longer be measured only by accolades, awards, or proximity to prestige. It had to include therapy, family, laughter, emotional honesty, movement, community, and the preservation of her spirit.

She names self-preservation as community preservation and explains why the work of caring for ourselves cannot be separated from caring for one another. She also takes us inside the work of LiberatED, where educators and young people are invited to co-create the communities and systems meant to support them.

Dena discusses refusing pressure to dilute the organization’s justice-centered language, the difference between neutrality and justice, and why social and emotional learning can become “white supremacy with a hug” when culture, history, identity, and power are removed from the conversation. Together, Gabrielle and Dena explore care as something we must practice rather than perform.

They consider what it means to ask people what they need, listen without judgment, and act on what we hear. Dena leaves us with two questions that can reshape the emotional ground beneath our lives: How am I really?

What would feel good right now? If Season Two of Meet Me at the Highland™ is an invitation to seed, then Dr.

Dena Simmons turns our attention toward the soil we cannot see—the emotional and relational conditions beneath our homes, schools, organizations, and communities. She reminds us that the next generation will inherit more than our ambitions.

They will inherit what we normalize, what we make space to feel, and the kind of care we make possible. Connect with Dr.

Dena Simmons Website: LiberatED: Instagram: X: LinkedIn: Connect with Meet Me at the Highland™ Full episode and companion content: https://open.substack.com/pub/meetmeatthehighland/p/dr-dena-simmons-the-soil-we-cannot?r The Legacy Studio: Instagram: YouTube: (00:00) - Black Women Lead (01:54) - Welcome to Highland (03:43) - Daughter Of Lineage (07:29) - Choosing Joy Daily (09:57) - Redefining Wellness (15:28) - Self Preservation Community (21:54) - Shifting Systems Through Youth (24:50) - LiberatED in Practice (30:20) - Courage Lessons Learned (36:35) - Freedom We Cannot Unsee (40:10) - Including Yourself in Care (41:07) - Daily Practices for Wholeness (43:23) - Kindness Joy and Community (47:39) - Wellness Needs Justice Context (50:42) - Neutrality vs Collective Healing (56:14) - Ecosystem of Care in Schools (01:01:04) - Care Under Real World Threats (01:02:23) - Agency in Healing and Culture (01:08:01) - Seeds to Grow Trust Community Love (01:12:11) - Mad Lib and Closing Blessing