Explore every episode of the podcast Life Shift™ | Pivotal Moments & Life Change

Content note: this episode includes discussion of sexual assault and an abusive relationship. Sometimes the yes that changes everything looks, at the time, like an escape. Angela Harger Thompson has been a storyteller since she was four, waving a feather duster in her sister's home movie. At 30, she packed her Honda Civic and drove to Los Angeles with no connections and a very big dream. Two months later, a producer who had promised to keep her safe drugged and assaulted her. Angela reported it. She went to the hospital, then sat with police for six hours, then waited nine months for a district attorney to tell her the case wouldn't be prosecuted. And she made a very intentional choice. She would heal right there in LA, through therapy, yoga, and a lot of anxiety attacks behind a bar, because he had already taken enough. A few years later, burned out and waiting for her big break, she said yes to crewing a sailboat from Panama to the Marquesas. She had never sailed. One week out, the world shut down. Borders closed, plans changed daily, and what was supposed to be six weeks turned into 49 days at sea, including sixteen days with just two people on board and a storm straight out of Castaway. She kept the camera rolling the whole time. That footage became her documentary Quarantine at Sea, and the rest of the story became her memoir, Worst Tits Ever. This conversation is about survival, faith, and the moment Angela realized she could stop waiting for someone to hand her the role and start creating it herself. What You'll Hear: Moving to LA at 30 and why knowing her values early mattered so much The producer who groomed her by promising to keep her safe What reporting an assault actually looked like, and why she understands why so many women don't Choosing to heal in the same city where it happened Pushing through anxiety attacks while bartending and auditioning The dream that helped her say yes to crossing the Pacific Being stranded at sea as COVID closed every border Learning to sail in a 15-minute tutorial and riding out a storm near the equator Recognizing an abusive relationship and fighting to keep her documentary Why she stopped waiting to be chosen Guest Bio: Angela Harger Thompson is an actress, filmmaker, and storyteller whose work spans film, commercial, voiceover, and now the written word. Her screen credits have included Sense of Urgency, Something in the Woods, the web series Austin Wannabes, and the video game DC Universe Online, where she voiced the iconic DC Comics character The Question. Her transformative experience began in January 2020, when she wrote a single goal in her journal at a church Dream Day: let God tell a great story through me. She had no idea that would soon unfold in the most unexpected way. A few weeks later, she boarded a sailboat in Panama and set out on a three-to-four-week passage across the Pacific. One week in, a satellite email changed everything. COVID-19 had become a global pandemic. With island borders closed and nowhere to land, Angela found herself stranded at sea, navigating squalls, relational conflict, and her own spiritual awakening. She kept the camera rolling the entire time. That footage became Quarantine at Sea (2022), a feature-length documentary she directed, produced, and starred in, now streaming on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play. But the story was bigger than what the documentary could hold. Her memoir Worst Tits Ever tells the rest: a raw, laugh-out-loud funny, heartbreakingly honest story of faith and the hard work of rebuilding. Foreword writer and actress Jen Lilley describes it as "a love story, a survival story, and a coming-of-age-in-your-thirties story." Believing every person carries a story worth telling, Angela founded The Storytell Initiative to help others find and share theirs. She lives in Southern California with her husband, Dustin. She is grateful to catch the sunsets over the Pacific, though now safely from a beach. Website: https://angelahargerproductions.com Quarantine at Sea on Prime Video: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0LZUYBIYA02UYEYORJXKNF3D33 Worst Tits Ever on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Worst-Tits-Angela-Harger-Thompson/dp/B0G8R4BLXF Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ You Might Also Like: Reclamation: Coming Back To The Girl Who Got Shut Down Starting Over: You Can Lose Everything and Still Be Okay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some goodbyes don't come with a conversation. They come with a phone you keep picking up and putting back down. Brittany Perham grew up in a house full of friends and happy memories, with a mom who protected her and her brother, and a father whose drinking nobody named out loud. In college, when things got scary, she made one of the hardest grown-up decisions of her life. She stopped answering his calls. The silence stretched to almost fifteen years. When her brother reconnected with him before his wedding, Brittany found herself back in a little bit of contact, just in time for her father's final year. There was one good phone call, a recipe, a "good to talk to you." And then there was a hospital room at Mass General, where she and her brother had to decide to let him go. Then came the surprise. Weeks before he died, her father had changed his will and named her the executor of an estate that turned out to be buried in debt. It took almost seven years to close. This is a tender, honest conversation about estrangement, about guilt and sadness living side by side, and about how a story keeps changing each time we tell it. Brittany is a poet and a teacher, and she talks about her father with so much care and so much honesty. I loved every minute of this one. What You'll Hear: Growing up in what looked like the perfect childhood while living with a father's quiet addiction The decision at 21 to get a therapist and step away from her dad Why estrangement never really feels like freedom Walking around the house holding the phone, unable to make the call The one good phone call, and a recipe she'll never forget Taking her father off life support and the strange intimacy of that moment Being named executrix of an indebted estate she never saw coming Why the story of her father is ultimately a story of not knowing Guest Bio:Brittany Perham's new memoir, Executrix (University of Georgia Press), won the 2025 AWP Sue William Silverman Prize for Creative Nonfiction. She is also the author of Double Portrait (W.W. Norton), which won the Barnard Women Poets Prize and was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award; The Curiosities (Free Verse Editions); and, with Kim Addonizio, the collaborative word/art project The Night Could Go in Either Direction (SHP). Her writing has received support from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Hemingway House, the James Merrill House Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, the Wallace Stegner Fellowship Program, and Yaddo. She taught for fifteen years at Stanford University before joining the English faculty at Endicott College, where she is an associate professor. She lives in San Francisco and Massachusetts. Website: www.brittanyperham.comExecutrix (University of Georgia Press): https://ugapress.orgListen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/followSubscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ Keywords: estrangement, grieving an estranged parent, alcoholic father, children of alcoholics, executor of an estate, grief, memoir, memory, family stories, complicated grief You Might Also Like: Grief and Fatherhood: The Song That Changed Everything Part of Me Died That Day: Learning to Live After the Worst Day of Your Life Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some of us carry a weight for so long that we forget it isn't supposed to be there. Chloe Kelly spent 35 years being very good at being someone she wasn't. She learned the rules early. Play sports. Earn man points. Don't stand out. Never let anyone see. She got so good at the performance that even she couldn't see through it for decades. There was a soulmate. A house. A good job. Everything that was supposed to add up to happiness. And underneath all of it, a quiet leak. A dripping tap that just wouldn't stop. Then, at 45, on her lunch break, she downloaded a face filter app. She pressed a button. And she couldn't look away from what she saw. This is a conversation about what it feels like to live inside the wrong story for 35 years, and what it feels like when the real one finally starts. Chloe is warm, funny, honest about the hard parts, and sickeningly happy in the best possible way. She's calling in from Buenos Aires, because of course she is. What You'll Hear How Chloe spent decades earning "man points" and what that kind of performance actually costs The FaceApp moment on a lunch break that cracked everything open Why telling her wife was the point of no return, and how that conversation went What it felt like to discover joy after a lifetime of quiet sadness Solo travel across 18 countries as a trans woman in her forties, the beautiful parts and the hard ones Why she now wants to give the person she used to be a hug instead of a shake Guest BioChloe Kelly is a British writer who transitioned at the age of 45 after decades of suppressing her true identity. After leaving a 25 year corporate career, she is rebuilding her life through writing, travel and sharing her experiences to help others navigating major life changes. She has written for PinkNews, is currently writing a guide for people transitioning later in life, and is also working on a travel memoir about travelling solo around the world as a trans woman in her forties, exploring identity, courage and reinvention. She documents her travel adventures through her Girl:Avanting YouTube series. YouTube | Instagram | Substack Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/followSubscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ gender identity, late transition, transgender story, transitioning later in life, self acceptance, authenticity, performing for others, telling your wife you are trans, solo travel as a trans woman, finding joy You Might Also Like: Trystan Reese: A Journey Through Love, Identity, and Family Cancer: The Diagnosis That Stopped the Reinventing Reclamation: Coming Back To The Girl Who Got Shut Down Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you know what it is to be the steady one. The person who shows up, holds it together, and makes sure everyone else is okay before anyone thinks to ask about you. Jeff Abbott has been that person for more than 25 years in emergency medicine, most recently as a Critical Care Flight Paramedic and base manager. On April 26th, 2022, his friend and pilot Jim died in a helicopter crash. Jeff responded to the scene in another aircraft, kept his people together all day, and then went home and broke down in his wife's arms. What followed was eighteen months of anger he couldn't name, nightmares he couldn't shake, and a slow realization that being built for this work didn't make him immune to what it carries. This is a conversation about what happens inside the people who show up when everyone else needs help. We talk about EMS culture, dark humor, and the quiet cost of never asking for anything in return. We talk about Boulder Crest, EMDR, breathwork, and watching chickens until his nervous system remembered what calm felt like. And we talk about a book Jeff started 25 years ago, found in an old email, and finally finished because it was time. He tells it plainly, the way someone does once they've set some of the weight down. What You'll Hear Growing up in blue collar Buffalo, a military dream cut short by a knee injury, and 25 years in EMS The April 2022 helicopter crash that killed his friend and pilot Jim Eighteen months of anger as the mask that fear and shame wear Boulder Crest, EMDR therapy, breathwork, and watching chickens Why self acceptance is the wall that has to come down The book he started 25 years ago and finally finished Guest BioJeff Abbott is a Critical Care Flight Paramedic, author, and speaker with more than 25 years in emergency medicine. His career has taken him from ground EMS to critical care and flight medicine, where functioning calmly in chaos became both a skill and part of his identity. He is the author of Built For This: A Paramedic's Reckoning, a candid memoir about EMS culture, dark humor, camaraderie, loss, and what happens when being able to keep functioning is mistaken for being unaffected by the work. paramedicabbott.comBook: Built For This: A Paramedic's Reckoning Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/followSubscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ first responder mental health, paramedic PTSD, grief and anger, asking for help, EMS culture, flight paramedic, trauma recovery, Boulder Crest retreat, EMDR therapy, losing a friend You Might Also Like: Anger: The Drink I Never Stopped Drinking Part of Me Died That Day: Learning to Live After the Worst Day of Your Life Identity: More Than the Thing You're Known For Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you know what it is to lose someone in the middle of building something together. To be left holding a piece of unfinished work and a hole where a person used to be, with no idea how to carry either one. Jan Becker is a filmmaker who set out with his close friend Christian to make a documentary about a vision quest in the high desert. They finished shooting, went their separate ways for the holidays, and then, on the fourth of January, Jan got a text. Christian had died in a plane crash, along with his two young daughters. What follows is the story of the year Jan spent alone in an editing room with his friend's face on the screen, turning grief into something he could hold. He talks about the strange sense that the desert had been preparing him, about losing his father two years earlier, and about how finishing the film became the way he learned to mourn. This is a conversation about what we do with the things left unfinished, and about how the work of our hands can carry us through the parts of grief that words cannot reach. What You'll Hear The phone call on the fourth of January that changed everything Why finishing the film became Jan's way through grief What it feels like to edit footage of someone you have lost The vision quest, and the sense that it had been preparing him Grieving a best friend and a father as one long process Choosing meaning and connection over recognition Guest Bio Jan Becker is a German-born, Los Angeles-based filmmaker, director, producer, and editor. He has worked in media production for more than 15 years, with credits across documentary, television, and commercial storytelling. His work often explores transformation, healing, trauma, spirituality, and the deeper psychological forces that shape human lives. Jan is the director, producer, and editor of Vision Quest, a feature documentary about a 10-day wilderness retreat in the California high desert and the healing power of nature. The film became deeply personal after the tragic death of his friend, co-director, and producing partner Christian Oliver, who appears in the film. Through his production company, Exalted, Jan is developing documentary and narrative projects that make inner transformation visible through cinematic storytelling. exalted.la | visionquestfilm.com | Vision Quest Trailer | Instagram Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ sudden loss, losing a best friend, grief and creativity, finishing what someone started, film as healing, plane crash grief, processing a father's death, vision quest, meaning after loss, storytelling as healing You Might Also Like: Grief: Making Something Beautiful From What Broke Part of Me Died That Day: Learning to Live After the Worst Day of Your Life 147 Days: Raising and Losing My Sister Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some of us have known something about ourselves for a very long time. And we have spent just as long trying to pretend we didn't. Kate Saint Clair grew up seeing and hearing things no one around her could explain. She was the curious kid who asked too many questions and got lies as answers. The sensitive one who felt everyone else's feelings as if they were her own. For years, she tried to be the tough kid. The normal one. The person who didn't see anything. But the knowing didn't go away. It never does. This episode is about the long, quiet war between who you are and who you think you're allowed to be. Kate's shift didn't come from one single moment. It came in pieces: a voice in a park that moved her and her toddler away from danger. A skin cancer diagnosis that stripped her of every way she'd been performing. A six-year-old girl making a deal with her dead grandfather in a dark bathroom and then spending two decades honoring it. What she eventually found wasn't just peace with her gift. It was herself. What You'll Hear: How growing up feeling "too sensitive" became the foundation of a career helping others The moment Kate heard a voice in a park that may have saved her daughter's life, and what it finally pushed her to do Why a skin cancer diagnosis became the unexpected turning point that made her stop deferring and start leading What it looks like to fight the thing you were born for, and what finally makes you stop How Kate shifted her career from reading for others to teaching everyone that the ability is already theirs The story of a six-year-old girl, a closed bathroom door, and a grandfather she refused to talk to for nearly twenty years Guest Bio: Kate Saint Clair is a Human Intuition Expert, psychic medium, and intuitive advocate who has been teaching intuition as a practical, embodied skill since 2007. Her work is devoted to normalizing intuition and helping people trust their inner guidance with clarity and confidence. Through her books, live programs, and communities like The Clair Club, she supports people in understanding how intuition communicates through the Clairs: clear knowing, feeling, seeing, hearing, and sensing. Known for her grounded, direct approach, Kate empowers people to move from self-doubt to self-trust and live guided from the inside out. ‘Find out which Clair you use the most to access your personal Intuition’: https://www.katesaintclair.com/quiz A chapter of her book Be Guided and Be Great and some free resources including energy meditations, an intuition tracker, and more: https://www.katesaintclair.com/resources Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ -- intuition development, psychic medium story, trusting yourself, childhood shame, sensitive people, spiritual awakening, self-acceptance, life shift, finding your purpose, embracing your gift Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you know what it is to finally exhale. To reach a season where the noise quiets down, the plan starts to work, and for the first time you let yourself believe things might actually be okay. Ryan was 24 and living in Denver when he reached that place. He had married young, moved more times than he could count, and spent his whole life feeling unsettled. And then, quietly, life started to come together. One ordinary Tuesday he went to work, and at lunch he got a call that his wife had not shown up for hers. She had been killed that morning by their next door neighbor. What followed was almost twenty years Ryan spent trying to outrun that day, through grief he could not name and an addiction that nearly took his life. This is the story of how he finally stopped running, and found his way back. Ryan does not tell this story to shock anyone. He tells it because he spent two decades believing he had to carry it alone, and he wants you to know that you do not. What You'll Hear What it feels like to finally feel settled after a lifetime of moving The ordinary morning that split his life into before and after How grief and addiction can quietly braid together Losing years of memory, and hiding it from everyone The lowest night that finally turned him toward help Why telling the story out loud began to set him free Guest Bio Ryan Roberts is a father of four between 3 and 16 years old and a full-time network engineer. He is the author of the memoir Fragmented: The Crossroads of Trauma, Addiction and Recovery. He has been sober since February 16, 2018, and his mission is to help people find recovery, hopefully sooner than he did, and to meet them wherever they are on their journey. Digital Diatribe | Substack Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ sudden loss, losing a spouse young, grief and addiction, recovery from alcoholism, feeling settled, complicated grief, finding purpose again, sobriety, memory loss and grief, telling your story You Might Also Like: Part of Me Died That Day: Learning to Live After the Worst Day of Your Life Anger: The Drink I Never Stopped Drinking Grief: Making Something Beautiful From What Broke Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you know what it feels like to hold everyone else together before you are old enough to hold yourself. To learn young that love can leave, and that safety is not something every kid gets to keep. Robin was eight when her mother died. By eleven, her father had chosen a new life over his children and sent Robin and her younger sister into foster care, rather than let them live with the aunt who wanted them. Five and a half years passed with no contact from her family. She grew up among strangers, first in a shelter and then in a foster home where she was fed but never really loved. And still, somehow, she kept reaching for people. At eighteen she traveled alone to a village in Kenya and found the belonging that had been missing her whole life. This is a conversation about what happens after the people who were supposed to stay decide to go. Her story is not tidy, and she does not pretend it is. But Robin is proof that a hard beginning does not get the final word, and that love, once you let it in, can be the thing that carries you the rest of the way. What You'll Hear The moment a father's choice changed the course of two young lives What it means to be parentified as a child, and how it stays with you Becoming sensitized to racism as an eleven year old inside the foster system The year in Kenya that turned strangers into family How raising her own children became a way to reparent herself Why Robin believes love is the counterpoint to grief Guest Bio Robin Rosenbluth, author of the forthcoming memoir, Living With Strangers: Healing a Wounded Heart in a Distant Land (to be published by She Writes Press on October 27, 2026), is a former foster teen who advocates for finding permanent homes for older foster youth. She has worked in the nonprofit sector in New York, raising funds for museums, women's organizations, healthcare, and environmental causes, and has taught fundraising at New York University and Columbia University. She has studied memoir and the craft of writing with many renowned authors and writes a Substack, My Jagged Journey as a Debut Writer. Robin and her wife have raised two children who now have families of their own. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. robinrosenbluth.com | Substack: My Jagged Journey as a Debut Writer Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ losing a parent young, foster care survivor, childhood abandonment, finding belonging, grief and love, reparenting yourself, feeling unwanted, chosen family, healing after a hard childhood, foster youth advocacy You Might Also Like: 147 Days: Raising and Losing My Sister Grief: Making Something Beautiful From What Broke Starting Over: You Can Lose Everything and Still Be Okay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You know the version of yourself you built to get through. The one who keeps the peace, reads the room, holds it together so no one else has to worry. Maybe you have wondered who you would be if you ever set that version down. This week I sat with Tarah and EJ Kerwin, two therapists who spend their days helping couples find their way back to each other. They came in curious about a therapy they wanted to understand before recommending it, and instead they found themselves in the middle of their own life shift. For Tarah, a supervised ketamine session opened a door to something her body had been carrying since she was a little girl, something she might have lived her whole life never knowing. For EJ, it became a slow lesson in letting go of the control he had always mistaken for love. What stays with me is how gentle they are with all of it now. There is no neat bow here, no tidy lesson about pain making you stronger. There is a woman learning that she was allowed to feel safe in her own body. There is a man learning that joy is something you have to actually go looking for. And there are two people who found out that you cannot force safety onto a person, you can only make enough room for it to arrive. What You'll Hear Why keeping the peace can quietly cost you your own voice What it feels like when your usual ways of coping stop working The difference between controlling a relationship and creating safety in one How buried memory can reshape the way you see your whole life A kitchen conversation that started with letting go and ended in more love Why real change is never too late, at fifty, at eighty two, at any age Guest Bio Tarah and EJ Kerwin are the founders of Relationship Renovation and creators of the Relationship Renovation Model™, as well as hosts of the Relationship Renovation Podcast. They blend raw honesty, humor, and decades of combined experience to help couples deepen intimacy and build emotional safety. Known for their vulnerability and real-life storytelling, they share practical, research-backed tools rooted in attachment science and nervous system regulation. EJ is also the founder of Men Who Do the Work, a group helping thousands of men create emotional safety and show up more intentionally in their relationships. Together, their work includes the nationally recognized Relationship Renovation Counseling Center in Tucson, Arizona, a globally ranked top 1% podcast, the Relationship Renovation @ Home manual (available on Amazon), a global online community, and private coaching for couples and individuals. They are passionate about helping partners break old patterns, rebuild trust, and create lasting, intentional connection. Instagram | YouTube | Facebook | TikTok Relationship Coaching | Relationship Renovation at Home Manual | Patreon Community Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ childhood trauma healing, recovered memories, ketamine assisted therapy, emotional safety in marriage, releasing control in relationships, couples healing together, learning to feel joy, self compassion after trauma, feeling safe in your own body, we are not uniquely broken You Might Also Like: Anger: The Drink I Never Stopped Drinking The Cost of Quiet: Learning to Speak Up After Years of Silence Starting Over: You Can Lose Everything and Still Be Okay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever loved someone and felt the fear of losing them arrive in the very same breath? Most of us learn early to look away from that fear. Brad learned to look right at it. Brad grew up the grandson of Auschwitz survivors, carrying a fear of death that felt older than he was. As a boy, he needed proof that the people he loved were still breathing. Then, at eighteen, he told a childhood friend he loved her, and two weeks later she was diagnosed with a rare cancer. Everyone expected the frightened boy to retreat. Instead, he brought his guitar to her hospital room, and something shifted. The music eased her pain. It eased his. And it showed him that the thing he feared most could also be the place where he was most needed. This is a conversation about what it means to stay. To sit beside someone without the right words. To let grief become something you tend, instead of something that tends you. Brad turned his fear into a life of helping other people channel their pain into beauty. By the end, you might find yourself thinking about the moments you almost walked away from, and the ones you are so glad you didn't. What You'll Hear Why the fear we inherit can feel like our own, long before we understand where it came from The two weeks that changed everything, and the choice to show up anyway What music can do in a room where words fall short The quiet difference between fixing someone's pain and being present for it How grief can be channeled toward destruction or toward beauty, and why the direction matters Turning loss into a life's work, one song and one person at a time Guest Bio Brad Wolfe is a singer-songwriter, community activist, and founder of Reimagine, a national movement helping people transform loss into meaning and action. His music and mission are deeply intertwined, both shaped by a lifelong exploration of mortality, love, and healing through creativity. Wolfe's forthcoming three-part EP collection, Loss, Life & Love Mixtapes, has been more than a decade in the making, with the first chapter, Loss, arriving this summer. His musical journey began after his childhood friend Sara was diagnosed with a rare pediatric cancer. Wolfe spent two years writing and playing songs for her in the hospital, an experience that inspired both the Sunbeam Foundation, which has raised over $1 million for cancer research, and his musical project, Brad Wolfe & The Moon. Through Reimagine, Wolfe has since helped create over 4,500 events for more than 250,000 people, using music, storytelling, and art to explore grief, healing, and human connection. www.bradwolfe.com | letsreimagine.org Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ fear of death, intergenerational grief, showing up for someone who is sick, the power of music in grief, losing a first love, turning pain into meaning, presence over fixing, anticipatory grief, finding purpose after loss, learning to stay You Might Also Like: Grief and Fatherhood: The Song That Changed Everything Grief: Making Something Beautiful From What Broke 147 Days: Raising and Losing My Sister Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tyler spent years building what the world told him success looked like. The abs, the car, the company. And the world cheered him on. He drove his dream car home one day, pulled into the driveway, turned off the engine, and felt completely empty inside. He didn't know yet that emptiness was trying to tell him something. Then he went to gymnastics class in his late twenties, and a coach told him to punch harder. His body said no. He said, you shut up. And his knee went completely sideways. ACL, MCL, LCL, quad, meniscus, all in one shot. He hobbled to the side and started doing ring work anyway, because that is what kind of man Tyler was before all of this began. What followed was four surgeries, nearly a year of his life spent in bed recovering, and a slow, painful unraveling of the identity he had built from the inside out. This is a conversation about what happens when you can no longer prove yourself. About the inner critic that drove him and the inner cheerleader he had to build to replace it. About the company he shut down because it was making money the wrong way. About what he calls a choiceless choice. And about the life that came after. What You'll Hear: Why Tyler bought everything society said would make him happy, and why none of it worked The moment on the gymnastics floor when his ego and his body had it out, and the body won What four surgeries and years of recovery forced him to face about himself How a meditation retreat moment changed the way he speaks to himself for good Why he shut down a successful company because it was built on shame-based marketing What he means by the inner cheerleader, and how you actually build one Guest Bio: TYLER BRAMLETT is a movement coach, father, and co-founder of WeShape whose path was reshaped by a cycling accident that shattered his femur and permanently damaged his knee. Unable to return to traditional, appearance-driven fitness routines, he began a 15-year healing journey that included multiple surgeries and deep study in functional anatomy, biomechanics, and rehabilitation. Through working with top physical therapists and coaches, he discovered that real transformation comes from moving smarter, not pushing harder. This lead him to reject shame-based fitness culture and create an approach centered on alignment, mindful movement, and what he calls “movement freedom,” the ability to live without feeling trapped in a body that hurts. Find Tyler and WeShape across social media: @WeShape Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ -- You Might Also Like: How Kevin Palmieri Rebuilt His Life After Chasing the Wrong Dream Alan Lazaros on Rebuilding His Life After a Near-Fatal Car Crash When Her Body Spoke, She Finally Heard -- shame-based fitness, identity and injury, ego and healing, inner critic, movement freedom, fitness industry toxic culture, choiceless choice, self-compassion and fitness, recovering from knee surgery, performing success Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are moments in life when someone says something so simple, so obvious, that you almost miss it. And then it stays. It rewrites everything. Joomin Hwang had been dancing since middle school, performing since college, and quietly watching Broadway clips on YouTube long before anyone told him it was possible. What he needed wasn't a strategy. It was permission. His professor gave him that. She said, you don't have to make it. Go and experience it. And something shifted. Not a plan, not a guarantee. Just a door left open. Joomin packed his bags at thirty, moved to Wisconsin without knowing a word of English, and spent the next decade doing exactly what he'd been told was unrealistic. This conversation goes well beyond Broadway. It goes into what it felt like to grow up without a stable home, to find power for the first time through movement, to cry for three months when a teacher said you weren't good enough, and to write a journal in the middle of a divorce just to help yourself breathe again. Joomin's story is about what it looks like when you stop treating your dream as a destination and start treating it as a way of moving through the world. What You'll Hear: Why Joomin felt powerful for the first time when he saw a breakdance move at twelve years old The two teachers who told him he wasn't talented, and what he did next The six words from a professor that sent him across the ocean at thirty What it felt like to be the first native Korean to perform at the Tony Awards How a divorce in 2024 led him to build a journaling method that changed the way he faces problems What he means when he says you should dream your dream as a verb, not a noun Guest Bio: Joomin Hwang began his journey as a breakdancer in South Korea. While touring and performing a dance show at London’s Peacock Theatre in 2007, his life was changed after seeing a performance of Billy Elliot. Shortly after, at the age of 29 and despite not speaking English, he moved to the US to study Vocal Performance at the University of Wisconsin. He made history in 2018, just 5 years later, with his Broadway debut in The Prom by becoming the first native Korean to perform at the TONY Awards. He later joined the original cast of & Juliet, making another breakthrough as an actor from South Korea to play a non-Asian principal role in Broadway’s history. Joomin brings a dynamic and multidisciplinary energy to the stage and screen. His diverse credits include performances in the off-Broadway production of KPOP at A.R.T., In the Heights at Axelrod Performing Arts Center, and screen appearances in Iron Fist, Isn’t It Romantic, Pose, and the film adaptation of In the Heights. Now based in New York City, Joomin continues to expand his artistic reach across theatre, film, and television—committed to representing international artists with authenticity, resilience, and heart. Living in New York and doing what he loves to do is an unbelievably sweet dream for Joomin. In addition to his performance career, Joomin is a certified vocal coach dedicated to helping others find freedom and confidence in their voice. He combines personal experience with technical expertise to guide dancers, actors, and singers through real transformation—just as he did himself. Joomin just released his first book, The Rule of Five Journal, which grew out of his own experience navigating major life changes and building a daily system to help individuals build clarity, balance, and forward momentum. www.joominhwang.com Book: www.amazon.com/dp/B0GR6H3W1N Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ -- following your passion, permission to fail, starting over at 30, Broadway performer story, immigrant identity, self-doubt and perseverance, dreaming without a destination, finding power through movement, journaling through divorce, living life as a verb Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you’ve had a moment where you looked around at your life and didn’t recognize it. Not because it was bad, exactly. But because everything you’d been holding together had finally stopped holding. That moment has a weight to it that’s hard to describe. And if you’ve been there, this episode is going to feel familiar. Matt Ross spent decades building things. He grew School of Rock from a struggling startup into a global brand. He led teams, created value, stayed in motion. He was the guy with the plan. And then at fifty, everything came apart at the same time. His son had a psychiatric breakdown. His brothers were lost to addiction. Both sets of parents were dying. He’d just lost the company he’d built. And one night he sat alone in his basement and asked himself if he was going to fold. He didn’t fold. But the road back wasn’t fast or clean or dramatic. It was therapy, Al-Anon, medication, a very slow kind of self-honesty, and eventually, a question that changed everything: what if you treated yourself like a business? This conversation is about what it actually looks like to rebuild from the inside out, one careful step at a time. What You’ll Hear: The moment Matt sat in his basement and asked himself if he would fold What it felt like to carry the weight of a disabled son, addicted brothers, and dying parents all at once Why treating yourself like a business became the framework that helped him rebuild The slow, unglamorous work of therapy, Al-Anon, and learning to ask for help How founding One River School gave him the first real sense of purpose he’d ever felt What he means by functional, emotional, and creative growth, and why creative growth might be the missing piece for a lot of us Guest Bio: Matt Ross is an entrepreneur, author, and media executive with nearly 30 years of experience building businesses that inspire passion and creativity. From rocking New York’s airwaves to scaling global education brands, now he is the author of GROW OR FOLD: Transform Yourself in Midlife and Beyond, a profound story of awakening your enthusiasm for growth. Since 2012, Matt has been the Founder and CEO of One River School, a company whose mission is to “Transform Art Education®.” Today, One River operates fifteen schools in six states with plans for substantial growth over the next five years. Learn more at mattross.com You Might Also Like: How Carol Look Found Joy When Her Loved Ones Struggled with Addiction Identity: More Than the Thing You're Known For Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ -- Keywords: midlife crisis, rock bottom, rebuilding after loss, mental health and success, caregiving and burnout, parenting a disabled child, purpose after 50, self-awareness, treating yourself like a business, growth mindset, addiction in the family, creative education Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some people live their early lives in what Dave Raymond calls blissful ignorance, and he'll be the first to tell you that isn't a bad thing. Growing up as the son of a legendary college football coach, stumbling into becoming the original Philly Fanatic, Dave spent decades inside a life that felt close to charmed. He didn't overthink it. He just showed up, leaned in, and let the joy carry him. Then, in the span of a few weeks, everything changed. His mother received a terminal diagnosis. His seven-year marriage ended. He had a newborn son at home. And for the first time in his life, Dave found himself somewhere he had never been, completely without footing. What he didn't expect was that the character he had spent sixteen years performing would become the thing that slowly pulled him back. Tick by tick. Appearance by appearance. Until he could see something on the other side. Now at 70, Dave is a speaker, author, and happiness advocate who has spent decades studying what it actually takes to build a good life. This conversation travels through bliss and loss, through grief and resilience, and into the quieter question of what we're really being shaped for, even in the seasons that feel like they might break us. What You'll Hear: How growing up in a football coaching family formed Dave's identity, and what he couldn't yet see about himself The role his deaf mother played in shaping the performer he would become How three separate losses arrived in the same few weeks and what that collision felt like from the inside The way the Philly Fanatic became an unexpected lifeline during the darkest stretch of Dave's life What positive psychology taught him about joy, suffering, and not wasting either one How meeting his wife Sandy shifted his understanding of what a partnership was supposed to feel like The moment he finally gave himself permission to call himself a performer, and what that unlocked Guest Bio: Dave Raymond is the original Philly Fanatic, the beloved mascot he performed for sixteen years with the Philadelphia Phillies. A speaker, author, and happiness advocate, Dave has spent decades studying the science of positive psychology and translating it into practical tools for building a meaningful life. He now speaks to organizations and individuals about long-term sustainable happiness, resilience, and finding purpose. You can connect with him and explore his work at DaveRaymondSpeaks.com. -- 🎧 Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow 📬 Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/     You Might Also Like: Rock Bottom: Where the Most Fulfilling Life Began Identity: More Than the Thing You're Known For -- finding purpose after loss, happiness after grief, resilience, positive psychology, life shift, blissful ignorance, performance and identity, meaning after crisis, the Philly Fanatic, long-term happiness, don't waste your suffering, finding your calling Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever been so good at becoming what people needed that you forgot who you actually were underneath it all? Taira Soo did that for almost fifty years. Different rooms, different versions, a new self for every chapter. It felt like a superpower. It was also a way to keep from being seen. Then a friend reached across a lunch table, touched a lump, and said the word that changed everything. What followed wasn't just treatment. It was a strange, forced stillness, the first she'd had in years, and in that quiet, everything she'd been outrunning finally caught up. The pain, the questions, the girl she'd left behind in every reinvention. And then her memory started coming back in fragments, and she began writing them down, and she could not stop. This is a story about the life shift that happens when you can no longer perform your way through. About realizing you were never a series of separate lives, but one continuous thread. About putting the luggage down and finding out the little girl, the dancer, the founder, they were all still there, waiting. Taira didn't set out to write a book. It found her. And on the other side of it, she stopped proving and started living. What You'll Hear: The lunch where a friend said "it's cancer" between bites, and why she didn't fall apart Why a lifetime of adapting felt like strength until it left her a stranger to herself The night after her first infusion, when the stillness surfaced everything she'd buried How her memory returned in fragments and turned into 412 pages she never planned to write What it means to set down an old identity, and grieve the friends who quietly disappear The quieter, more internal life she lives now, with nothing left to prove Guest Bio: Taira Soo is the author of Just a Little Buzzed, a memoir about identity, adaptation, and learning to know yourself after a lifetime of becoming what was needed. She spent years in dance, acting, and fashion before a cancer diagnosis interrupted everything she had built. Her work explores what happens after the performance stops. Website: www.splitandtype.com Instagram: @tairasoo -- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com -- cancer diagnosis story, reinventing yourself, losing your identity, finding yourself after 40, chemo brain and memory, healing through writing, breast cancer journey, learning to slow down, who am I really, letting people love you You Might Also Like: Illness: When the Hard Thing Sets You Free Reclamation: Coming Back To The Girl Who Got Shut Down Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are moments that don't make sense until much later. And then there are moments that make total sense the instant they happen, even if you can't explain them to anyone else. Kate Clinch sat in a small chapel in Sydney, a self-described non-believer, and felt something she had never felt before. Not a feeling she worked toward. Not a belief she talked herself into. Just a deep, quiet, unquestioned knowing. She was in the presence of a saint. She walked out with armfuls of biographies and a story she didn't yet know was also hers. What followed was a decade of discovery. A historical novel about Eileen O'Connor, a disabled Australian woman who built a nursing organization from her sick bed and is currently being investigated for sainthood. A cancer diagnosis, stomach surgery, chemotherapy, and learning to eat and drink again. A slow, surprising realization that she couldn't tell Eileen's story without her own coming along for the ride. Kate came to this conversation as someone who spent years hiding behind her subject. She's leaving it as someone who finally understands why she was the one who had to write the book. What You'll Hear How a stranger's offhand suggestion led Kate to a chapel that changed her life The near-death experience that quietly rearranged her sense of what mattered What a stomach cancer diagnosis took away, and what it somehow gave back Why she started making rosaries before she knew she'd need them The moment she realized she couldn't tell Eileen's story without telling her own What a century-old smile taught her about what actually changes the world Guest Bio Kate Clinch was a solo General Practitioner until a near death experience prompted a change in priorities, and she became a full-time mother homeschooling her children, with a developing interest in mysticism and the meaning of life. As her children became more independent, she started to write novels exploring those themes. Her first, unpublished novel longlisted for the 2020 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers in Australia. Her debut novel, Every Inch a Saint: a Novel about Eileen O'Connor, Australia's Second Saint-in-Waiting, was published in April 2026. It celebrates the inspirational life of a woman who defied the odds of illness and disability and the opposition of the church hierarchy to establish a home nursing organisation to care for the sick in Sydney's slums in 1913. Find her at kateclinch.com. -- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ -- spiritual awakening, cancer survival story, historical fiction, faith without religion, near-death experience, writing as healing, calling and purpose, grief and motherhood, life after loss, following your instincts You Might Also Like: When Illness Becomes a Gateway to Spiritual Awakening Surrender: The Wave That Changed Everything Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you have ever loved someone so much that you quietly rearranged your whole life around them, this conversation will feel familiar. At twenty-two, Andrea Wilson Woods got the phone call that split her life into a before and an after. Her mother no longer wanted to be a mother, and her eight-year-old sister, Adrienne, needed someone. Andrea said yes without knowing what she was saying yes to. She worked multiple jobs so she could be there for school pickups, dinners, and school events. She built a life around one person. And then, three weeks shy of finishing her first year of high school, Adrienne was diagnosed with stage four cancer. What followed was 147 days, and a grief that Andrea would spend years learning how to actually feel. This is a story about caregiving, about the friends who show up and the ones who quietly disappear, about laughing in hospital rooms because laughter is its own kind of survival. It is about the mistake of pretending you are okay, and the slow work of finding yourself again when the person who was your center is gone. What You'll Hear: What it means to become a parent to your sibling before you are ready Why some people vanish when things get hard, and how to ask for the help you actually need The humor that lived inside the hardest days The cost of pushing grief down, and why grieving out loud matters Advocating for someone you love, all the way to the end What it looks like to find a new North Star, more than once Guest Bio Andrea Wilson Woods is a keynote speaker, a writer who loves to tell stories, and a patient advocate who founded the nonprofit Blue Faery: The Adrienne Wilson Liver Cancer Association. For over ten years, Andrea worked in the education field as a teacher and professor for public and private schools as well as universities. Andrea obtained her master's degree in professional writing from the University of Southern California; her nonfiction writing has won national awards. Her best-selling and award-winning book, Better Off Bald: A Life in 147 Days, is a medical memoir about raising and losing her sister to liver cancer. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Andrea-Wilson-Woods/author/B07X51HH8W https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawilsonwoods/ https://www.facebook.com/bluefaerylivercancer/ https://www.instagram.com/bluefaeryliver/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/blue-faery https://www.youtube.com/c/BlueFaery/ -- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ -- sibling loss, becoming a parent young, caregiving and grief, losing a sister, delayed grief, finding purpose after loss, childhood parentification, hospice and dying at home, friendships that fade after loss, finding a new north star You Might Also Like: The Complexity of Grief After Losing a Brother in Childhood Part of Me Died That Day: Learning to Live After the Worst Day of Your Life Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is a version of you that other people count on. The one who shows up, who fixes things, who holds the whole thing together. So what happens when that version can no longer do the thing that made it yours? Robert spent thirty-two years as a surgeon. Then an accident took his hand, and the surgeries that followed took something he never expected to lose. First his career, slowly. Then, quietly, his footing. What he thought was control turned out to be an addiction, and the person who saw it clearly was the one who loved him most. This is a story about the identity we build to survive, and what is left of us when it falls away. It is also, gently, a story about what grows back. Robert does not wrap his hardest years in a neat bow. He sits with the darkness, the withdrawal, the fog that made getting out of a chair feel impossible. And then he tells us what he found on the other side, and why he believes his worst chapter was the one that wrote his best. What You'll Hear Why success can become a place to hide from the fears we never dealt with The moment a wife's ultimatum became an act of love What eight days of rehab and seven weeks of withdrawal actually feel like The brain fog that no achievement could push through How a packet of five herbs reopened a door he thought was closed Choosing not to return to the career that once defined him Guest Bio Robert R Beltran MD, Pharm D, FACS. Doctorate degrees in medicine and pharmacy from the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center. Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Double board certified by the American Board of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery and the American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Surgical practice for 31½ years, performing 14,000 surgeries. Founder, CEO and Chief Formulator for Recomnd Nutrition. www.recomnd.com -- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ -- losing your identity after a career ends, opioid addiction recovery, surviving withdrawal at home, prescription painkiller addiction, finding purpose after addiction, rebuilding after rock bottom, starting over later in life, when your work is your identity, hope after addiction, healing after loss of self You Might Also Like: Anger: The Drink I Never Stopped Drinking Identity: More Than the Thing You're Known For Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever built a life so carefully that you forgot to ask whether it was actually yours? Lora did everything right. The good girl, the good student, the good wife, the good mom. And then, right on the edge of an empty nest and a little freedom, she found out her husband had been living a second life for fifteen years. This is a conversation about what happens after the floor gives way. Lora talks about collapsing, literally, and then getting back up. About the slow realization that the people who hurt her did not get to decide who she became. And about the harder mirror underneath the betrayal, the one that showed her all the ways she had been abandoning herself long before anyone else did. It is tender and honest and, in the end, hopeful. Not because everything wrapped up neatly, but because Lora found out something worth knowing. You can lose the whole thing and still be okay. What You'll Hear: How perfectionism can quietly become your entire identity The visceral moment everything Lora believed came apart Why she stopped waiting for the pain to disappear and started rebuilding The turning point: they don't get to ruin my life What the betrayal revealed about the ways she was betraying herself Choosing boundaries, honesty, and a smaller, deeper circle Guest Bio: LORA CHEADLE, JD CHt is an author, TEDx speaker, and leadership wellness coach who specializes in burnout and betrayal recovery. She is the author of It’s Not Burnout; It’s Betrayal: 5 Tools to FUEL UP & Thrive, the award-winning book FLAUNT! Drop Your Cover and Reveal Your Smart, Sexy, & Spiritual Self, and hosts the top-rated podcast, FLAUNT! Create a Life You Love After Infidelity or Betrayal. Website: https://loracheadle.com/ Social Media Links: YouTube: www.youtube.com/@LoraCheadleLifeChoreographer Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loracheadle/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lora.cheadle --- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ You Might Also Like: Self-Worth: The Life She Fought For Comfort: When Cozy Becomes a Cage Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever quit the thing everyone could see, only to find the thing nobody could see was still running the show? Zach Brittle is a couples therapist who spent decades certain that alcohol was the danger. He grew up afraid of becoming someone he wasn't, carrying stories about drinking that were planted in him long before he ever had a drop. When he finally put the bottle down in November of 2020, he expected relief. What he found instead was anger, the kind that had been hiding in plain sight his whole life, quietly running every relationship he had. This episode follows Zach through that harder, truer work. Not the quitting, but everything that came after it. The slow rebuilding of trust with his daughters, the patience required while his wife found her own sobriety two years behind him, and the strange, steady gratitude that replaced the pride he used to need. It's a conversation about what we each call our drug of choice, and what it actually costs to finally put it down. What You'll Hear: Why Zach's fear of alcohol started long before he ever took a drink The moment his daughter confronted him, and why he calls it brave What changed the night he poured out his last drink on November 13th Why he says quitting drinking was the easy part of his recovery How the chaos in his family shifted onto someone else once he got sober The theory he now uses with couples about everyone's hidden drug of choice Guest Bio: Zach Brittle is a licensed mental health counselor, Certified Gottman Therapist, Certified Relational Life Therapist, speaker, and host of Marriage Therapy Radio, a relationship podcast with more than 4 million downloads. He has spent years helping couples navigate conflict, connection, repair, and intimacy with more honesty and skill. In addition to his clinical work, Zach speaks openly about his own recovery journey and the deeper work of learning to stay present in the face of anger, uncertainty, and relational pain. His story brings together themes of sobriety, emotional responsibility, marriage, and personal transformation in a way that is both honest and deeply human. Follow Zach on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn all under the same handle @marriagetherapyradio --- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- sobriety, recovery from alcohol, anger and addiction, parenting through change, couples therapy, asking for help, family healing, gratitude in recovery, fatherhood and forgiveness, honesty after addiction You Might Also Like: Rock Bottom: Where the Most Fulfilling Life Began Fatherhood: The Fifteen Minutes That Changed Everything Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever kept moving because stopping felt more dangerous than going? Pat knew that feeling better than most. He filled his life with travel and sport and constant motion, not because he loved being busy, but because stillness was where his hardest thoughts lived. Then on an ordinary foggy morning, a wave put him face-first into a sandbar at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. He broke his neck. He stopped breathing in the water. And somewhere between almost dying and being pulled back to shore by his friend John, something in him reorganized completely. This episode follows Pat from a childhood that taught him to hide what he felt, through years of outrunning himself across more than fifty countries, into a hospital bed where he had to relearn how to move his own foot, and finally into the life he lives now. One built, day by day, on a phrase he still says to himself. Even when it's bad, it's good. What You'll Hear: How a childhood built on toughness taught Pat to hide what he was really feeling The accident at Ocean Beach, and the minutes he spent saying goodbye to the people he loved What it was like to be rescued, revived, and told his neck was broken How he found gratitude inside a body that had to relearn how to walk Why he now works with young people who carry the same silence he used to carry What it means to finally live in the present instead of always running from it Guest Bio: Patrick Yalon is a San Francisco-based deputy probation officer, high school basketball coach, endurance athlete, writer, and the author of the upcoming memoir Still Here. In 2024, he nearly died in a catastrophic surfing accident at Ocean Beach, where he broke his neck, drowned, was revived on the beach, and underwent emergency spinal surgery. What followed was a long and uncertain recovery that forced him to rebuild not only his body, but his identity and sense of purpose. Since then, Patrick has used endurance, reflection, and writing as part of that rebuilding process, including taking on the Moab 240 ultramarathon. He writes and speaks about trauma, resilience, meaning, and what it means to live fully after nearly losing everything. iRunFar article: https://www.irunfar.com/still-here-running-the-moab-240-mile-after-a-near-death-surfing-accident --- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- near death experience, surviving trauma, spinal cord injury recovery, learning to be present, outrunning your feelings, gratitude after tragedy, second chance at life, healing from silence, masculinity and emotion, finding purpose after trauma You Might Also Like: Illness: When the Hard Thing Sets You Free Fatherhood: The Fifteen Minutes That Changed Everything Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever lived a life that worked, on paper, and still felt like you were only halfway in the room? That is where Lena Fein spent most of her life. Not broken. Not miserable. Just partially there, ever since a moment at seven years old when the safest place she had, her own diary, got read out loud and used against her. Lena did everything right after that. School, a career in engineering, a family, a persona that held. And underneath it, a part of her stayed folded up and quiet for over forty years, until her mother was dying of cancer and Lena looked into her eyes one last time and saw something she had been waiting her whole life to see. That moment did not fix anything overnight. But it cracked something open, and Lena spent the years after slowly, gently claiming back the pieces of herself she had given up on. Her voice. Her rhythm. Her breath. Her story, eventually written down and shared with the world in her memoir, Shattering the Mirror. This episode is for anyone who has ever wondered if the parts of themselves they buried a long time ago are still in there somewhere, waiting. They usually are. What You'll Hear The diary moment that taught a seven-year-old to hide her heart A childhood accident that left Lena unable to fully breathe for decades What she saw in her mother's eyes in the final days of her life How she slowly reclaimed dancing, singing, and writing as an adult Why she finally found the courage to publish her memoir What it means to find compassion for a parent who never had the tools Guest Bio Lena Fein lives in San Francisco, the city of her birth. After receiving a master’s degree in engineering from UC Berkeley, she enjoyed a successful career in high tech and founded a non-profit that funded health and education projects in at-risk communities around the globe. Now retired, Lena enjoys the arts in all their forms, including painting, singing, dancing, and writing. Currently, Lena is often seen taking long walks by the bay and hugging her grandchildren. Her memoir, "Shattering the Mirror," is about her quest to confront her life and see through the distortions of her traumatic childhood. Now in her late sixties, Lena lives with more freedom, clarity, and love than she ever imagined. The book is really about the truth that healing is possible at any age — and that wholeness is priceless. Lena's book and links: shatteringthemirror.com Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/s5e270 Follow the show: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- mother wound, childhood shame, deathbed forgiveness, reclaiming your voice, emotional numbness, generational trauma, finding wholeness, late life awakening, memoir writing, healing after loss You Might Also Like: Choosing the Harder Door: From Childhood Shame to Federal Prison Self-Worth: The Life She Fought For Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some secrets get handed to us before we are old enough to know what to do with them. Ranae was a preteen in a small Minnesota town when she was sexually abused by boys she had known her whole life. The instruction that followed- stay quiet, or people will think you are bad- became the quiet architecture of everything she built afterward. For decades that belief ran the show. It showed up as people pleasing, as quitting good jobs before anyone could find out she was not good enough, as a kind of disappearing she did inside her own mind without ever naming it. Eventually it led her into a scheme that spiraled into wire and mail fraud, and one morning, into a bathroom mirror where she gave herself exactly two ways out. She chose to turn herself in. She served fifty-one months in federal prison, and she will tell you plainly that walking through those doors is the day her healing actually began. This conversation is about shame, about the stories we are told to keep, and about what becomes possible once we finally put one down. What You'll Hear: How a childhood secret in a town of 572 people shaped three decades of choices The moment Ranae faced two options in front of a mirror, and chose the harder one Why she says her healing began the day she walked into federal prison The prison psychologist who refused to let her settle for halfway What it felt like to walk out the doors and feel free for the first time How Connecting to Cope, named after her dog, became her life's second purpose Guest Bio: Ranae Van Roekel is a mother, grandmother, wife, dog lover—and someone whose life was forever changed by the consequences of her choices. After committing a crime that harmed people both close to her and unknown to her, Ranae served 36 months in federal prison. What she once thought could never be part of her story—being labeled a felon—became a defining chapter in her journey. Through incarceration, Ranae came to understand how deeply unresolved trauma had shaped her actions and decisions. This realization became the catalyst for years of healing and recovery. She has since dedicated herself to self-care, education, and advocacy, using her lived experience to help others—regardless of their histories or hardships—discover coping skills and pathways toward healing. Today, Ranae is a passionate advocate for justice reform, working to create a system that acknowledges the humanity of every individual and addresses the root causes of crime, including trauma, stress, and mental health struggles. Through her platform, Connecting to Cope, she shares her story, insights, and strategies with others navigating personal or professional challenges. Her mission is clear: to empower people to face their pain, embrace healing, and move toward thriving lives. Social Channels https://www.facebook.com/connectingtocope/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/connecting-to-cope/ https://www.instagram.com/connectingtocope/ https://connectingtocope.com/ --- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- childhood sexual abuse, shame and secrecy, people pleasing, federal prison, healing in prison, trauma and choices, white collar crime, family forgiveness, finding worth, prison reform advocacy You Might Also Like: Reclamation: Coming Back To The Girl Who Got Shut Down Self-Worth: The Life She Fought For Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever noticed your life getting smaller without ever deciding to shrink it? Not all at once. Just one canceled plan, one closed door, one quiet no to something that used to feel possible, until one day you look up and wonder where all the room went. That's where Scott Stirrett found himself partway through COVID. He'd already done the hard things once. Left a steady job at twenty-two to start a charity from nothing. Came out, eventually, after years of being afraid of what people might think. But comfort, real comfort, has a way of quietly wearing off if you let it. A decade of stability dulled the muscle he used to take risks with, and it took a pandemic and a therapist's gentle observation to show him how far it had drifted. This is a conversation about what it actually takes to rebuild a relationship with the unknown. Not white knuckling through it. Practicing it, on purpose, the same way you'd train a muscle you forgot you had. And about what becomes possible once you stop needing to know how things will turn out before you're willing to try. What You'll Hear: How a decade of stability quietly wore down Scott's comfort with risk The moment in COVID that made him name his own perfectionism out loud Why he believes self compassion, not ambition, is the real engine behind growth What it took to leave the charity he built and led for twelve years How coming out later in life changed his relationship with fear itself The difference between a good decision and a good outcome, and why that distinction matters Guest Bio: Scott Stirrett is a Canadian entrepreneur, author, and social impact leader whose mission is to help people reach their full potential. He is the Founder of Venture for Canada (VFC), a national charity that has supported over 10,000 young professionals since its launch in 2013. Under Scott’s leadership, VFC has raised over $80 million and built partnerships with organizations including Employment and Social Development Canada, RBC Foundation, TD Bank, Scotiabank, and leading Canadian foundations. The organization focuses on equipping early-career Canadians with the entrepreneurial skills and mindset needed to thrive in an uncertain economy. Scott is the author of The Uncertainty Advantage, a practical guide for young professionals navigating today’s unpredictable world of work. Endorsed by Andrew Yang, Stephen Poloz, Amanda Lang, Eric Ries, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, and Michele Romanow, the book draws on lessons from scaling VFC, emphasizing adaptability, entrepreneurial thinking, and lifelong learning. Before founding VFC, Scott worked at Goldman Sachs in New York City. He is a graduate of Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. He has been recognized as a Telus LGBTQ Innovator of the Year, an Action Canada Fellow, a Globe and Mail Changemaker, and an Ashoka Fellow, among other honours. His commentary has been featured in The Washington Post, Forbes, Fast Company, The Globe and Mail, CBC News Network, and BNN Bloomberg. He currently serves as Co-Chair of the Board at the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights and sits on the Board of the Speech and Debate Canada Foundation. Links: Personal website: https://www.scottstirrett.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottstirrett/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottstirrett/ Substack: https://substack.com/@scottstirrett Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Uncertainty-Advantage-Launching-Career-Change-ebook/dp/B0DGCD6ZCV/ —- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- comfort with uncertainty, fear of the unknown, perfectionism recovery, coming out later in life, leaving what you built, self compassion practice, risk taking and growth, shrinking under pressure, rebuilding confidence, chosen family and friendship You Might Also Like: Starting Over: You Can Lose Everything and Still Be Okay Fatherhood: The Fifteen Minutes That Changed Everything Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever looked fine on paper and still felt like something was missing. Good job, good marriage, kids who love you, and underneath all of it, a quiet hum of not quite. Drew Norton knew that hum well. He was drifting through his late twenties, chasing money because he thought money was the thing that would finally make him feel like enough. Then one afternoon he came home to find his six month old son not breathing. What followed was an hour and a half that felt like a lifetime, a misdiagnosis that haunted his family for weeks, and a slow, unglamorous rebuilding of a man who realized the work he thought he was doing for a paycheck was actually the work that taught him how to show up for the people he loved. Drew talks about what it cost him to keep performing wellness instead of practicing it, what his wife's healing taught him about his own, and why he now spends his days helping other men find the brotherhood he didn't have when he needed it most. What You'll Hear: The fifteen minutes between a phone call and a front door that changed everything Why looking fine from the outside almost cost Drew his presence on the inside How a misdiagnosis turned weeks of fear into a strange kind of mercy The realization that sales training and listening to his wife were the same skill Why men are lonelier than ever, and what brotherhood actually requires The four pillars Drew now builds his life and his work around Guest Bio: Drew Norton is "The Everyday Sales Leader," a podcast host, and Co-founder of The Abundant Man. After a family emergency reshaped his perspective, Drew lost 100 lbs and led a sales team to over $20 million in revenue. Today, he helps leaders and teams unlock their potential through his core teachings: Leadership is a Choice and Sales is Life. He believes that to Belong is the first step to Believe and Become , and he challenges high-performers to realize that Wanting More is the only path that enables you to Serve More. Drew is a private pilot, a husband of 13 years, and a father of four. https://my.theabundantmanproject.com/ ---- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- drifting, complacency, fatherhood fear, marriage after trauma, faith and doubt, men and vulnerability, brotherhood, finding purpose, presence over perfection, rebuilding after fear You Might Also Like: Anger: The Drink I Never Stopped Drinking Surrender: The Wave That Changed Everything Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever had a feeling in your gut that just knew, that told you to keep going even when nothing around you confirmed it? Carly had one of those since she was a kid. And then, somewhere around thirty, it went quiet. If you have ever lost the thing that used to steer you, you already know how unmooring that silence can be. Carly's path winds through a childhood spent on stages, a move to New York at twenty-two, a pandemic that emptied out her industry overnight, and a second cancer diagnosis that arrived right when she had already started to lose her footing. She talks about sitting on a couch and telling the people who loved her most that she needed to go dark for a while, and how that one honest moment became part of how she found her way back. The shift here is not loud. It is the slow trade of proving herself to other people for simply loving the work because she loves it. By the end, Carly is lighter. Not because everything got easier, but because she stopped carrying things that were never hers to carry in the first place. What You'll Hear: How a lifelong gut feeling disappeared around Carly's thirtieth birthday, and what that silence revealed The pandemic years that emptied out her life in New York and quietly reshaped her identity A second cancer diagnosis at thirty one, and the couch conversation where she asked for permission to fall apart Why she chose to go dark instead of staying positive, and what that taught her about real support Starting a TikTok account from a hospital room and finding a community no support group could give her How a feature film role and a move to Philadelphia became proof that the hardest chapter also cleared a path forward Guest Bio: Carly Otte is a New York City & Philadelphia-based actor, improviser, and storyteller originally from Pittsburgh. Her on-screen credits include The Fault in Our Stars, recurring appearances on Impractical Jokers, and most recently the feature mockumentary The Conspiracists (now streaming on Amazon Prime). In addition to her performance work, she teaches improv at the Philly Improv Theater and works in communications and storytelling. Carly is also a two-time cancer survivor who shares patient advocacy content on TikTok, using her platform to document her journey and support others. Follow Carly on Instagram: instagram.com/CarlyOtte Follow Carly's cancer journey on TikTok: tiktok.com/@CarlyOtte Watch The Conspiracists on Amazon Prime --- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- cancer survivor, redefining success, identity shift, acting career, second diagnosis, grief and healing, creative joy, finding community, starting over, self worth You Might Also Like: Rock Bottom: Where the Most Fulfilling Life Began Surrender: The Wave That Changed Everything Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever performed feeling completely fine while everyone around you assumed you were falling apart. Kate Kayaian knows that feeling from the inside. She spent four decades as a professional cellist, the kind of career most people only dream about, and on the night that career quietly ended, a room full of people watched her voice shake and assumed grief. What she was actually feeling was relief. We talk about how she chose the cello at four and a half because of a boy she had a crush on, and how that one small decision became her entire identity for the next forty years. We talk about what it felt like to be cheered for and still feel like, in her words, a trained monkey. We talk about giving herself permission to stop with no crisis forcing her hand, just a quiet knowing. And we talk about sitting at her mother's deathbed and asking forgiveness for a decision her mother never needed her to ask forgiveness for. The shift here isn't really about quitting an instrument. It's about the moment you realize the thing everyone has always known you as isn't the whole truth of who you are, and what it costs, and frees, to go find out who's underneath. What You'll Hear Why a four year old's crush on a boy shaped four decades of Kate's life The night an audience mistook her relief for heartbreak What it felt like to be called a trained monkey, and still love the music Giving herself permission to stop, with no crisis forcing her hand Rebuilding an identity from scratch in her late forties The conversation with her dying mother that gave her real permission Guest Bio Kate Kayaian is an author, speaker, and career strategist for high achievers who want to build lives of impact, purpose, and sustainable success. A former professional cellist, Kate performed as a soloist, chamber musician, and recitalist in venues ranging from Boston’s Jordan Hall to leading European concert halls. She trained at the New England Conservatory of Music and held a fellowship with the New World Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas. Today, Kate’s work centers on helping accomplished professionals—creatives, executives, educators, and entrepreneurs—define success on their own terms and create careers that feel as good as they look. Through her 1:1 coaching and her signature group program, the Creatives Leadership Academy, she guides clients to develop clarity, confidence, and the practical strategies needed to lead at the highest level without sacrificing their well-being. She is the author of Beyond Potential, a practical guide for high performers navigating the next chapter of their professional lives, and the host of Tales from The Lane, a podcast exploring the hidden challenges and unexpected joys of success. As a sought-after speaker, Kate delivers keynotes and workshops on leadership presence, mindset transformation, and redefining what’s possible for high achievers across industries. Alongside her private practice, Kate serves as President and Artistic Director of the Bermuda Philharmonic Orchestra, where she continues to champion creativity, collaboration, and innovation in the arts. She lives on the island of Bermuda, where she spends her days coaching clients around the world, writing, speaking, and tending to her garden. Instagram: @kkayaian LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-kayaian-852147181/ Website: www.katekayaian.com ---- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- identity after a career, professional musician burnout, who am I without my job, redefining potential, second career after forty, grief and relief, permission to stop, starting over later in life, letting go of an identity, midlife reinvention You Might Also Like: Rock Bottom: Where the Most Fulfilling Life Began Illness: When the Hard Thing Sets You Free Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some decisions cannot be made with a chart. Joy Kong knows this because she tried. Three days and three nights of careful, logical reasoning, and still she could not talk herself out of what her gut already knew: she needed to leave China and find her own life, even if she could not explain why. What followed was years of fighting. A visa rejection that most people would have taken as a sign to stop. An isolating marriage in a country where she knew almost no one and had no safety net. And a quiet moment on the floor of her apartment, squatting and sobbing, where something in her finally admitted how much pain she had been carrying. Joy did not just survive those years. She built something from them. A medical career. A stem cell academy. A company. A memoir. And a way of seeing the world that holds both the difficulty and the beauty at the same time. What You'll Hear: The three-day decision that changed the entire direction of Joy's life What it felt like to be rejected by the American embassy after 18 months of preparation How she cold-called hotel rooms in Beijing to find her way out The slow, quiet erosion of an isolating marriage, and the moment she knew she had to leave The unexpected mentor who went to bat for her when no one else would How escaping circumstances is only the first kind of freedom, and why the deeper kind takes much longer Guest Bio: Dr. Joy Kong is a UCLA trained, Stem Cell Doctor of the Decade 2021 and triple board certified anti aging physician. She is the President of the American Academy of Integrative Cell Therapy and a leading voice in regenerative medicine and longevity science. Beyond her medical work, Dr. Kong’s personal journey includes immigrating from China, escaping an abusive marriage, and rebuilding her life from scratch after arriving in the US with almost nothing. She brings a grounded perspective on resilience, integrity, and the body mind connection, while helping audiences understand stem cell therapy with clarity and realism. Website: https://joykongmd.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr_joy_kong/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joy-kong-md-4b8627123/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@joykongmd ---- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- starting over, leaving home, abusive marriage, finding identity, immigrant resilience, escaping control, rebuilding a life, inner strength, freedom, soul survival You Might Also Like: Starting Over: You Can Lose Everything and Still Be Okay Reclamation: Coming Back To The Girl Who Got Shut Down Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever built a life that looked exactly right from the outside, and felt completely hollow from the inside? This episode is for you. Colette Jane Fehr grew up watching her parents argue in a house where conflict felt dangerous. So when she fell in love with a man whose family never raised their voices, she thought she'd finally found safety. They married, built a beautiful life, had a daughter. And somewhere in the space between the perfect house and the quiet dinner table, Colette started disappearing, one unspoken need at a time. The shift came three weeks after her daughter was born. Colette was sitting on the couch, postpartum and unraveling, while her husband watched golf and sipped wine beside her. She didn't yell. She didn't storm out. She just looked over and understood, quietly and completely, that she was utterly alone. That moment didn't end her marriage. But it started the long, honest work of figuring out who she actually was, and what she actually needed. Colette eventually went back to school, earned her degree in counseling from Rollins College, trained for years in emotionally focused couples therapy, and built a career helping others find the language for the things they'd been too afraid to say. Her book, The Cost of Quiet, is drawn directly from that work and from her own story. What You'll Hear: How growing up in a conflict-averse household set Colette up to choose the wrong kind of quiet in her marriage The moment on the couch that cracked everything open, and what she understood in that silence Why she calls it "good girl itis," and how people pleasing hides even in outgoing, seemingly confident people How a chance conversation with a short-term boyfriend planted the seed for her career in therapy What 15 years of sitting with other people's pain taught her about her own The difference between self-silencing out of fear and choosing peace from a place of wholeness Colette Jane Fehr is a licensed psychotherapist, author, and speaker based in Orlando, Florida. She specializes in emotionally focused couples therapy and has spent nearly 15 years helping individuals and partners learn to communicate from a place of vulnerability rather than avoidance. Her book, The Cost of Quiet, is available wherever books are sold. She also writes a weekly Substack newsletter, Secrets from a Therapist, and can be found on Instagram at @colettejannfehr or at colettejannfehr.com. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- people pleasing in marriage, emotional disconnection in relationships, finding your voice, postpartum anxiety, couples therapy, self-silencing, divorce and reinvention, emotional attunement, the cost of quiet, self-connected communication You Might Also Like: Anger: The Drink I Never Stopped Drinking Self-Worth: The Life She Fought For Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a bonus drop, a little different from our usual Life Shift episode. I just launched a new show called Trivia, Sort Of. It's lighter, it's playful, and it's less "guess the answer" and more "here's a strange, fascinating fact, wait really?" I wanted to bring it to you here first, since you're already part of this community. In this bonus episode, I share a quick intro to the new show and then play episode one for you right in this feed. Two episodes of Trivia, Sort Of are live now, with a new one dropping every Tuesday. If you enjoy what you hear, subscribe wherever you listen: https://pod.link/6787199863 Thanks for letting me share something new with you. I'll see you back here soon for the next Life Shift episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are moments in life when everything falls apart at once. The job, the relationship, the car, the sense of direction. And then, in Laurie Collister's case, the house itself. A neighbor's forgotten french fries started a fire that took nearly everything she owned. But somehow, a floor-to-ceiling shelf of three hundred handwritten diaries made it through the smoke without a page touched. Laurie had been journaling since she was eighteen. Not for posterity, not with any plan. Just to survive, to process, to let the pressure out. She never imagined those entries would one day be the map that led her home to herself. But reading through them, volume by volume, she began to see her own life the way a novelist sees a character: clearly, curiously, with a kind of tenderness that had been hard to access from the inside. This is a conversation about what it means to excavate your own story, to find the thread that was always there, and to finally stop measuring your life against a template that was never built for you. What You'll Hear: How a house fire became the strange beginning of Laurie's deepest self-understanding What it felt like to read her own diaries as if they belonged to someone else, cringing, laughing, and eventually arriving at compassion The way loneliness had become her status quo so quietly she didn't know it was there until it wasn't How writing her memoir forced her to name the arc of her own change and ask whether she had actually changed at all What it means to stop being the sidekick in your own life The idea of a "secret contract," the calling that was being named by others long before she could hear it herself Laurie A. Collister is a memoirist, former counselor of seventeen years, and caregiver to her 97-year-old mother. Her debut memoir, A Different Kind of Vow, traces her winding journey through career, connection, and identity, drawing from decades of personal journals to uncover what she calls her sacred contract. Her second memoir is due in July 2027. She lives in the Pacific time zone with her mother's very large dog nearby. You can find her and her books at lauriecollister.com and on Amazon. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- finding yourself through journaling, house fire life change, memoir writing healing, loneliness and self-discovery, starting over in your 30s, reading your own story, identity outside society's template, self-compassion through writing, caregiving and personal boundaries, life purpose and calling Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's a version of your life where you take the safe path. The familiar one. The one that makes sense on paper. And then there's the version where you say yes to something that sounds completely ridiculous, and that version turns out to be the one that teaches you the most. David S. Bernknopf spent over 20 years at CNN, covering the world, building a career that became his whole identity. When new ownership came in and the culture shifted, he made a decision, quietly and quickly, the way journalists learn to do. He walked away. Then he moved to Alaska on a cold call from a stranger. He didn't know anyone there. He'd been once, for five days. But something about the absurdity of it felt right. This is a conversation about what happens after the identity you've built for decades gets set aside. About the kind of loneliness that settles in slowly, that you normalize before you realize it isn't healthy. And about the two words from his adult kids, that would be a pretty cool thing, that quietly set him free. What You'll Hear: How a 21-year-old chose CNN over a safe small-market job, and why his dad thought he was crazy What it felt like to walk away from a 20-year career that had become his whole identity The unexpected cold call that sent him to Alaska in his mid-60s The isolation and loneliness that surprised him, even though he thought he'd prepared How two years in Alaska made him more patient, and gave him his first fiction book Why his kids' permission slip mattered more than he expected it to Guest Bio: David S. Bernknopf is a veteran journalist and television news producer who spent more than two decades at CNN, where he rose to executive director of news planning. After leaving CNN, he continued his investigative journalism career in Washington, D.C., before accepting an unexpected job running the only investigative news unit in the state of Alaska. That two-year experience became the basis for his debut novel, Two Years on Another Planet, a fictionalized account of life, loneliness, and reinvention in the last frontier. He now lives in Colorado, consulting on documentaries and, as he puts it, living a project-oriented life. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- career identity loss, reinvention after 60, loneliness and isolation, saying yes to the unknown, life after CNN, moving to Alaska, writing your first book, permission to change, journalism and purpose, children as anchors Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some questions live quietly inside us for so long that we forget they're there. Not because they don't matter, but because we've learned to keep moving without an answer. That's where this episode begins. T. Alex Blum was adopted as an infant into a privileged East Coast family. He always knew he was adopted. It just wasn't something anyone talked about. And so he carried that sealed envelope through decades of building a career, raising kids, and making a full life, never quite realizing the weight of what he was holding. Then, in 2019, a message arrived on 23andMe. His niece. And behind her, three full biological brothers he'd never known existed. What followed wasn't a dramatic unraveling. It was something quieter, and somehow more profound. It felt like relief. Like a question finally exhaling. What You'll Hear: Why Alex grew up knowing he was adopted but never feeling permission to ask about it The moment holding his newborn son became the first time he understood what it meant to be biologically connected to someone How a single 23andMe message unlocked three brothers and a whole new sense of belonging What it felt like to gain three best friends overnight, later in life when that kind of connection is hardest to find The parallel lives he and his brothers lived, growing up in the same part of the country without ever knowing the other existed What writing his memoir taught him about saying less and being honest Guest Bio: T. Alex Blum grew up in New York City, attended boarding school, and built a long career in commercial TV production and marketing consulting. He and his wife Andrea run a consulting firm in San Diego and have a blended family of five kids. His memoir, An Accident of Birth, explores his experience as an adoptee and the unexpected discovery of three biological brothers. It was released in May 2025. Find him at talexblum.com. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- adoptee identity, biological siblings, 23andMe discovery, adoption and belonging, finding family later in life, sealed adoption records, late-life connection, DNA relatives, untethered feeling, origin story You Might Also Like: Adoption: The Chapter You Thought Was Finished Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you've always known something was a little off, like there was a frequency everyone else could tune into that you just couldn't quite find. Rob Lynch felt that from the time he was a kid, a quiet, persistent sense of difference that he couldn't name. When he was eleven, a Brady Bunch episode and a careless comment to his mother unlocked a secret his family had kept since the beginning. He was adopted. For decades, Rob absorbed that truth and moved on. He built a life, raised kids, wrote a novel, loved people, lost people. The adoption became background noise, something other people found more interesting than he did. But then lockdown arrived, his daughter did a DNA test, and a stranger reached out through a genealogy website. The message was simple: I think I'm your first cousin. And the thread, once pulled, didn't stop. What followed was three Sundays of pacing, a phone call he almost didn't make, and a voice on the other end that said: I looked for you for so long. Can you ever forgive me? Have you had a good life? This episode sits with what it means to find a missing piece, and whether the shape of your life changes once you finally hold it. What You'll Hear: The night Rob found out he was adopted at eleven years old, and why his mother finally told him How being a late discovery adoptee shaped (and didn't shape) his sense of self The DNA test, the stranger's message, and the daughter who changed everything Three Sundays of almost making a phone call, and what it felt like when he finally did His biological mother's first words to him, and how he responded What a warm, careful relationship with a new family looks like years later Guest Bio: Rob Lynch is an author, mental health advocate, and animal rights supporter based near Toronto, Canada. His debut novel, Vudon Caliber, is available on Amazon. He is a passionate music fan, film lover, and someone who believes, along with Ted Lasso, that we are never finished versions of ourselves. You can reach him on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/official_voudoncaliber/. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- adoption identity, biological mother reunion, late discovery adoptee, DNA ancestry test, finding birth parents, adoptee mental health, lockdown genealogy, belonging and identity, family secrets, recovery and healing You Might Also Like: Adoption: The Brothers He Never Knew He Needed Choosing the Harder Door: From Childhood Shame to Federal Prison Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some people spend their whole lives searching for the thing that animates them. Rich Harwood found it the hard way. He was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis in 1960 and told he had three to five years to live. His family went on a death watch. Doctors called him a lemon. He grew up in hospital beds, learning early what it felt like to be invisible, manhandled, spoken about but never spoken to. What Rich did with all of that is not a story about triumph over adversity in the bumper-sticker sense. It's quieter and more honest than that. He decided, at eight years old, to stop calling for his parents in the night. Not out of bitterness. Because watching them fall apart hurt him more than the fever did. That decision became the seed of everything that followed, a life built around seeing people, hearing them, and refusing to let dignity be a thing you have to earn. Nearly forty years ago, Rich started the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation. Today it operates in fifty states and forty countries. His work is about bridging divides, restoring belief in one another, and helping communities come together and actually get things done. The line from that sick little boy watching a clock tick through the night to the work he does today is not a straight one. But it is a direct one. What You'll Hear: The moment at age eight when Rich stopped calling for his parents in the night, and what that act of compassion cost him How repeated chronic illness shaped his understanding of dignity, invisibility, and what it means to truly be seen The story of Mr. Rivers, a coach who changed the game schedule for one Jewish kid and saved a life in the process What Rich believes is the direct line between his childhood in hospital beds and the community work he does today The burning bush, and why Rich returns to that image every single day when the work feels impossible How getting in motion became his survival strategy at 4:28 in the morning, and why it still is at sixty-five Guest Bio: Rich Harwood is the founder and president of the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping communities bridge divides, build shared responsibility, and restore belief in one another. He started the organization at twenty-seven, when everyone told him not to. It now operates in fifty states and forty countries. He has written nine books, most of them with the word hope somewhere in the title. He lives his faith, loves his family, and still wakes up before 4:30 every morning ready to make something of the day. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- chronic illness and identity, finding purpose through suffering, hope and community building, childhood trauma and resilience, cystic fibrosis survival story, being seen and heard, civic renewal, mentorship and belonging, transforming pain into work, the burning bush and calling Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some stories ask a lot of you. This is one of them. But it gives something back too. Karen Diskin-Dickson grew up in a house where silence was survival. From her earliest memories, she carried fear the way other kids carried backpacks, always aware of what the next moment might bring. She was a twin, a straight-A student, a girl who rescued stray dogs, and a child who believed it was her job to protect her sisters from what was happening inside their home. She never got a carefree childhood. She got a crash course in endurance. When she was 12 and a half, the weight of it all became unbearable. What followed was a moment by a river, a dog who changed everything, and a voice she had never heard before that told her she was loved. She chose to believe it. And somehow, improbably, that choice held. This episode traces what happened next. The escape. The years of silence. The therapy that helped her learn to play. The confrontation with her father at 24 finally freed her from fear. The decision, later in life, to move her elderly parents into her care, not out of obligation but out of grief for the mother she had never had, and a hunger to finally learn how to be someone's child. And the foundation she now runs with her sisters, helping trauma survivors understand that it's not what's wrong with them. It's what happened to them. What You'll Hear: The moment at 12 and a half that became Karen's life shift, and the dog who stopped it from going another way What it felt like to grow up not knowing what carefree meant, and how animals became her refuge How she learned to parent without a map, and why asking for help was one of the bravest things she ever did The long road to confronting her father and finally releasing a fear that had followed her across state lines Why she chose to care for the parents who hurt her, and what she was really looking for in that choice How the Remarkably Resilient Foundation grew from a shared question among sisters: who was going to teach this? Guest Bio: Karen Diskin-Dickson is a retired nurse, EMT, Reiki master, grandmother, and co-founder of the Remarkably Resilient Foundation, which she runs alongside her sisters. She is the co-author of Remarkably Resilient: Community Matters, published in 2019. Karen speaks publicly and volunteers with incarcerated individuals, helping trauma survivors understand their own responses and find a path toward healing. She lives with her life partner and four grown children nearby. You can reach her and explore her work at www.remarkably-resilient.com. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ ---- healing from childhood trauma, generational abuse, breaking the cycle of trauma, surviving childhood neglect, trauma recovery journey, choosing love after abuse, ACEs and resilience, trauma informed healing, finding joy after hard things, incest survivor story Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you've spent years showing up as a slightly different version of yourself depending on who was in the room. Maybe you learned early that being liked was safer than being known. If any of that lands, this conversation is for you. Peter Bailey grew up carrying something heavy: the feeling that something in his family was broken, and that it was somehow his job to fix it. That inherited sorrow shaped him into a kid who crossed the outside of a bridge over a six-lane highway just to feel like he mattered. It shaped him into someone who drank and people-pleased and performed his way through his twenties, until one night, sitting at a typewriter with a beer beside him, something in him finally said, this is going nowhere. What happened after that, including sobriety, Joseph Campbell's hero's journey, 45 years of leadership work across 50 countries, and a new book called The Epic of You, is a story about what becomes possible when you stop running from your own chapters and start reading them differently. What You'll Hear: How Peter inherited his family's sorrow as a young child, and how that shaped his relationship with approval and identity The moment at a typewriter that became his rock bottom and his turning point How discovering Joseph Campbell's hero's journey gave him a map for every season of his life, past and future The difference between surviving and thriving, and how we often spend years in the closet looking for the light Why he teaches "don't fix, don't judge, don't steal" as a way of showing up for others without taking the light off them What it looks like to treat your own life as a heroic journey, even the ordinary parts Guest Bio: Peter Bailey is the President of The Prouty Project, a strategic planning and leadership development firm based in Minneapolis. He is also the author of the newly published book The Epic of You- Reframe Your Past to Navigate Your Future. Bailey’s personal story — from challenges to triumphs, travel to transformation — becomes a living example of how obstacles can shape our identity and fuel our growth. Whether you’re standing at a crossroads or simply wondering “What now?”, The Epic of You helps you see your past with fresh eyes and your future with fresh purpose. Book and Ted-x website: www.peter-bailey.com Prouty Project website: www.proutyproject.com — Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ — sobriety journey, hero's journey, people pleasing recovery, self-esteem and identity, Joseph Campbell transformation, leadership and vulnerability, emotional intelligence, disease of comparison, reclaiming your story, life shift moment Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Matt Gilhooly and I host The Life Shift – a podcast about the moments that change everything. When I was eight years old, my life flipped upside down. For a long time, I didn't know how I would ever process it. That's a big part of why I created this show. Each week, I sit with someone and talk about one specific moment – the kind that splits a life into before and after. Loss. Trauma. Identity shifts. The quiet unraveling that nobody sees coming. We talk about how they moved through it without pretending there's a clean finish line. If you've ever felt like your story doesn't fit the script, I hope you'll listen. Search The Life Shift wherever you get your podcasts – or find me at the links below. 🌐 thelifeshiftpodcast.com 📬 thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com 📱 @thelifeshiftpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some stories don’t begin at the hardest moment. They begin with what comes after it. Scott Martin was 35 years old, coaching at the collegiate level, rubbing elbows with national team players at a Nike camp outside Chicago, when his body quietly started failing him. A fever. A bad night. A doctor who said drink Gatorade and sent him home. By the next morning, he was in a coma. A month later, he woke up as a quad amputee. If you’re listening to figure out how someone survives that, you will. But what this conversation is really about is everything Scott carried in the years that followed. The way he worked instead of grieving. The discrimination he faced trying to return to coaching. The night he lost a $10 million malpractice trial, pulled into his garage, and sat alone in the silence with thoughts he doesn’t sugarcoat. And then, instead, made a list. That list became a road. The road eventually led to a coaching job he worked for free, five adopted children from Romania and Ethiopia, two state championships with kids no one believed in, a soulmate he’d let go at 19 and found again 40 years later, and a book called Play From Your Heart published by Simon and Schuster. Scott didn’t heal in a straight line. None of us do. But he kept choosing the next thing, and this is what that looked like. What You’ll Hear: The moment Scott realized in his hospital bed that his life as he knew it was over, and how his mind responded Why he buried himself in work for years after his amputation, and what that avoidance was protecting him from The night he lost everything at once, and the choice he made in his garage that changed the direction of his life How a news segment about adoption pulled him toward five children he never planned for The parallel story of coaching a team of overlooked 12-year-olds to a state championship, and what they gave back to him Why Scott believes the pieces of his life fit now, even with all the gaps and loss and detours in between Guest Bio: Scott Martin is a soccer coach, teacher, author, and father of five adopted children. After becoming a quad amputee at 35 following a near-fatal illness, he rebuilt his life through coaching, fatherhood, and eventually writing Play From Your Heart, a memoir published by Simon and Schuster. Scott lives in Wisconsin, coaches at the club level, and is passionate about using his story to support the disability community and anyone who has had to start over. His book is available for pre-order now wherever books are sold. Reach Scott at reader.playfromyourheart@gmail.com. — Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ – life after amputation, rebuilding identity after trauma, disability and resilience, overcoming depression, quad amputee recovery, coping with grief and loss, starting over in your thirties, adoption as transformation, identity after illness, shame and disability Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some moments don't announce themselves. They arrive as headaches you explain away, as an MRI you schedule between school pickups and client calls. And then your phone rings ten minutes after you get home, and everything you thought you knew about your life gets quietly rearranged. Jen Dary was 35, a business owner and new mom to two babies, when a neurologist told her she had a lemon-sized brain tumor sitting behind her left eye. What followed wasn't just a medical crisis. It was a complete unraveling of who she thought she was supposed to be, and a slow, surprising reconstruction of who she actually wanted to become. In this conversation, Jen talks about the strange calm that preceded brain surgery, the spiritual visions that carried her through, and the grief that arrived weeks later in a coffee shop. She shares what it looks like to release the identity that doesn't fit anymore, and how she came to understand her life less as something that happened to her, and more as something she might have chosen. What You'll Hear: The phone call that changed everything, and the strange quiet before she told anyone How Jen organized, planned, and kept moving as a way to survive the shock The visions and spiritual experiences that shaped her recovery and her new book What survivor's guilt looks like when you meet someone whose tumor wasn't benign The shift from type-A responsibility to living like you don't need permission How writing her memoir helped her leave something of herself for her sons Guest Bio: Author Jen Dary is a highly sought-after leadership coach, entrepreneur, brain tumor survivor, podcast host, and mom. As founder of the coaching firm Plucky, she has coached professionals from over 200 companies, including Google, Facebook, Slack, Code for America, The New York Times, and many more. She has shared her expertise with the Wall Street Journal, and as guest on multiple podcasts including Harvard Business Review's Women at Work. She has written for Harvard Business Review online and was published in Harvard Business Review's Work Smart Series. Jen was a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts resident and is active in the DC writing scene. Jen's first book "I Believe in Everything: A Memoir of Illness, Motherhood and Magic" will be released January 2026 (Daring House, LLC). Jen lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and two young sons. More at: jendarywriter.com/ and https://linktr.ee/jendarywriter "I Believe in Everything" Official Website: daring.house/i-believe-in-everything Jen Dary on IG: @jendarywriter --- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- brain tumor survivor, life shift moment, identity after illness, brain surgery recovery, spiritual awakening, finding purpose after trauma, survivor's guilt, meningioma, radical acceptance, living with intention Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Somewhere along the way, most of us learned to take better care of other people than we do of ourselves. We know the right things to say. We show up. We hold space. And then we go home to the version of our life we haven't quite told anyone about. Misha Brown spent years doing exactly that. A performer from a tiny one-stoplight town, he built a life that looked full from the outside, travel to over a hundred countries, a career on cruise ships and stages, a laugh that could fill any room. But behind the shine was a quiet, persistent loneliness, and a drinking habit that had become the costume he wore instead of a self. The shift came on Christmas Eve in a New Jersey hotel room. Empty cans, a makeshift ashtray, and a phone call with his best friend who was struggling. After hanging up, Misha looked in the mirror and asked himself a question that changed everything: why can't you be your own friend? It wasn't a dramatic moment. It was a quiet one. And sometimes that's exactly what breaks something open. What You'll Hear: How a missed college audition planted the first seeds of a fractured identity Why performing became both a superpower and a way to disappear The Christmas Eve hotel room moment that became an eight-year turning point What it actually felt like to get sober, without a support group or a clear plan The structured self-love framework Misha created for himself that became a book How social media helped him find his people, and his purpose Misha Brown is an undeniable entertainment powerhouse who excels as an influencer, podcast host, and performer. With a knack for captivating audiences, he shot to notoriety on TikTok in 2021 with the viral Lessons in Not Crossing a Gay Man series, amassing over 6 million followers. Named Motivational Creator of the Year and honored by the Webby Awards for social impact, he also earned a Best Comedy Podcast nomination from the Podcast Academy. Misha’s work has been spotlighted by People, USA Today, and Good Morning America, cementing his status as one of the most compelling voices online. His debut book, Be Your Own Bestie: A No-Nonsense Guide to Changing the Way You Treat Yourself, is available wherever books are sold. He lives in Texas with his husband and a collection of pets he is deeply devoted to. You can find him everywhere at @yourbestie_misha. --- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- self-love, sobriety, identity, recovery, performing arts, belonging, inner child, self-worth, authenticity, friendship Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some moments arrive quietly. This one arrived with teeth. Tim Thomas spent most of his life moving through the world one decision at a time, eyes forward, gut leading. Fighter. Special Forces operator. A man who found clarity in high-stakes moments and chased them because that was the only place he felt fully present. It worked. And it also kept him from seeing almost everything that mattered beyond the edges of his own experience. Then a shark bit him off the coast of Sydney, and something opened up. Not because of the danger. Because of a friend's eyes in the water. Because of one second where the stress fell out of his body and something unexpected arrived in its place. Peace. Not because the situation was okay. Because another person had his back. Tim calls it the moment he realized we don't need more stuff. We need more trust. What You'll Hear: The shark attack that rewired how Tim understands human connection How living only through your own eyes leaves you unconsciously cut off from others What Tim discovered about loneliness, fatigue, and why they're more dangerous together than either is alone The "golden question" that broke his isolation during one of his lowest seasons Why authentic conversations, not weapons or strategies, are the most powerful thing we carry How breathwork and sleep became the tools that brought everything else back Guest Bio: Tim Thomas is a Father of two, former MMA fighter & Australian Special Forces Commando who now helps people reclaim their energy and mental clarity through sleep and breathwork. After working with veterans struggling with PTSD and noticing that real change began the moment their sleep improved, he created Breathwork in Bed to make better sleep simple and accessible for anyone battling exhaustion and overwhelm. His mission is helping people move from surviving their days to actually living them with peace, power, and presence. Tim Thomas wants to gift you 28 days of great sleep. Sound good? These links are for immediate and natural sleep improvement; They’re Tim’s company's online resource called - The ‘Breathwork in Bed’ app. The app will guide you to sleep with peace and out of bed with power. Enjoy! Apple: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6575362285?pt=127061224&ct=BIB50K&mt=8 Google: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.breathworkinbed.bibsleepapp20&hl=en https://breathworkinbed.com.au/ https://www.instagram.com/breathworkinbed/ https://www.facebook.com/breathworkinbed https://www.tiktok.com/@breathworkinbed?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc https://www.linkedin.com/in/bettersleepbetterworld/ ---- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ trust and connection, near-death experience transformation, veteran mental health, sleep science, breathwork for sleep, overcoming isolation, freediving mindfulness, internal compass, authentic conversation, loneliness and fatigue Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some of us build an entire life before we realize the foundation was made of survival, not solid ground. If you have ever pushed hard, achieved big, and still felt like something underneath you was quietly trembling, this episode is for you. Kathleen McKune grew up in a home marked by abuse, neglect, and a kind of chaos that required a five-year-old to climb up to the stove and start making dinner for her siblings. She became a high-achieving entrepreneur, a strategic facilitator, a co-founder, a mother, and an author. She did all of it with what she calls "steeled up Kathleen": walls up, eyes forward, purpose driving every step. The struggles were internal. The world only saw the results. In 2017, Kathleen was facilitating a trauma training in Kansas City when a slide went up showing the Adverse Childhood Experiences scale. She assumed most people in the room would score close to her. Most scored zero, one, or two. She had written down an eight to fib a little, knowing she was actually a nine. That moment, at 56 years old, was the first time Kathleen understood that not everyone grew up the way she did. It did not break her. It gave her language. It gave her science. And slowly, years later, it gave her permission to begin asking who she actually is underneath all the survival. What You'll Hear: How perfectionism rooted in childhood fear shaped Kathleen's entire professional identity The moment a data slide cracked open sixty years of assumed normalcy What it felt like to write a book with her twin sisters and learn, in detail, what had happened to each of them The difference between managing trauma and actually healing, and the question that finally forced her to reckon with it Why dancing is the first piece of her authentic self she has found, and what that means for the journey ahead How Kathleen chose the purpose that was once given to her, and what it means to finally own it About Kathleen McKune Kathleen Harnish McKune is a co-founder and CEO of Team Tech, a strategic facilitation firm, and the CEO of Remarkably Resilient, a nonprofit dedicated to trauma-informed resilience education. She co-authored the book Remarkably Resilient: Community Matters alongside her twin sisters Sharon and Karen, sharing the neuroscience of trauma and a framework for building resilience. Kathleen works with state and local governments, corrections, child welfare agencies, and incarcerated populations across Kansas, and brings both lived experience and rigorous research to her mission of helping people understand what happened to them, and how to move through it. You can find her at remarkably-resilient.com. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ childhood trauma recovery, adverse childhood experiences, ACEs score, breaking generational cycles, trauma-informed resilience, healing authentic self, survival perfectionism, high-functioning trauma survivor, neuroscience of trauma, what happened to you Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is a kind of grief that never gets to happen out loud. It stays pressed down inside you, shaped by the people around you who couldn't hold it. Matin knows that grief. She found out her mother had died by reaching for a hand that didn't reach back. She was thirteen. And then the world she had counted on, her mother's family, her father's warmth, the permission to even cry, quietly fell away. What followed was years of building a life on her own terms. Studying in secret. Sleeping on hard surfaces just to avoid going home. Moving from Iran to Japan to finally have room to breathe. She did it without anyone telling her she could. She did it by becoming her own closest companion, the kind of friend who says, I remember when that happened, and we got through it together. Matin is a plant molecular biologist who studies mangrove trees, organisms that live between land and sea, in conditions most things can't survive. She sees herself in them. In this conversation, she shares what it took to finally reach peace, and why she believes all of us should talk about our stories, not as something brave or rare, but as something ordinary and necessary. What You'll Hear: Growing up with a father who was both deeply loving and unpredictable, and what that did to a child's sense of safety The moment Matin discovered her mother had died, and being told not to cry Losing her entire maternal family in the grief that followed, and the deep loneliness that set in How she secretly studied through high school, skipped dinner for four years, and fought her way to college just to survive Building an academic career across continents, including surviving a violent assault in Japan, and still choosing not to become defined by her pain What turning forty felt like, and the inner bond she credits with getting her here Guest Bio: Matin Miryeganeh grew up in Rasht, Iran, and is now a plant molecular biologist based in Japan, where she has lived for sixteen years. She studies mangrove trees, and the connection she feels to these resilient organisms runs deeper than science. Matin is also the author of All Is Well, a memoir in which she shares her journey through loss, isolation, and the long, quiet road to peace. You can find her book on Amazon and Goodreads: https://www.amazon.com/All-Well-memoir-survival-strength/dp/B0FHH898H6 Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ childhood grief, mother loss, growing up without support, finding inner peace, resilience, trauma healing, isolation, self-connection, immigrant journey, life transformation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you grew up loving someone who was always somewhere else. Always present in the house but somehow out of reach. If that landed in a part of you that still carries it, this episode might feel like a long exhale. Matt Fogelson grew up wanting more of his father than his father knew how to give. When his dad died unexpectedly during Matt's college years, the grief that followed wasn't just about loss. It was about all the conversations they never had, the closeness that always felt one step away. Matt went to law school, followed the family blueprint, wore his father's suits to work, and spent years trying to fill a hole that kept its shape. Then he brought his own son home for the first time. The baby wouldn't stop crying. The dog was barking. Nothing was working. And without thinking about it at all, Matt started singing. What came out was a Grateful Dead song. It wasn't logical. It was just true. And that small, strange, middle-of-the-night moment quietly became the beginning of something he'd been waiting his whole life to start. What You'll Hear: The specific moment of grief that intensified when Matt became a father himself Why music became a bridge to a part of himself he'd put away How singing the same song to his son for 14 years shaped their connection The bar mitzvah moment that made him realize he was repeating his father's patterns What writing a memoir taught him about understanding and forgiving a man he never fully knew The advice his aunt gave him after his father died, the advice he rolled his eyes at, and why he wishes he'd heard it sooner Matt Fogelson is an author, former attorney, and lifelong music obsessive who spent decades navigating the emotional distance passed down through generations of his family. His memoir, Restrung: Fatherhood in a Different Key, traces the journey from grief to presence through the language of music. He lives with his family and can be found at mattfogelson.com. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ father son relationship, grief after losing a parent, emotional distance in families, fatherhood and identity, music as healing, inherited trauma, becoming a present parent, memoir writing as grief, breaking family patterns, unresolved loss Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you've done something you're not proud of. Maybe you've done it more than once. And maybe the hardest part wasn't the doing, it was the sitting with what it said about you. Nick Gomez grew up moving fast, through friendships, through relationships, through versions of himself he wasn't sure he believed in. Raised in Cancun with a lot of freedom and very little guidance, he learned early that if no one found out, it didn't really happen. That belief followed him into adulthood, into relationship after relationship, until one moment changed the math entirely. This is a conversation about what it actually takes to tell the truth when you know it's going to cost you. About the patterns we carry from childhood without realizing it. About grief, writing, the strange relief of finally saying the thing out loud, and what it looks like to slowly, imperfectly become someone you actually respect. What You'll Hear: Why Nick kept repeating the same pattern across three relationships, and what finally broke it The three months he spent deciding whether to confess, and what helped him find the courage How writing a memoir in 30 days helped him process what he'd done and understand why The role his father's death played in reshaping who he wanted to be What honesty looks like now, in dating, in friendships, in how he shows up for himself Why grief so often goes unspoken, and what it actually looks like to support someone who's losing someone Guest Bio: Nick Gomez is an author, filmmaker, and coach based in the United States. Originally from Cancun, Mexico, Nick has written multiple memoirs exploring identity, honesty, and the messier parts of being human. Two of his books are available as free audiobooks on YouTube. He approaches his work, and his life, with a commitment to authenticity that took years to build and that he keeps rebuilding every day. You can find him at https://www.realnicholasgomez.com/ Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ self-sabotage, relationship patterns, emotional honesty, cheating and confession, childhood neglect, self-worth, identity, memoir writing, psychedelic therapy, grief, father loss, authenticity, codependency, personal transformation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you know this feeling. Someone died and you kept going, because that was what you were supposed to do. You stayed busy, you stayed capable, and somewhere along the way you convinced yourself that you had handled it. Rebe Huntman lost her mother to cancer at 19. The grief counselors told her to move forward. So she did, with discipline and determination and a full, successful life. But 30 years later, on the edge of turning 50, she realized she had never actually let herself miss her. Not really. This episode follows Rebe's pilgrimage to Cuba, a country where the dead are not gone, where ancestors are spoken to daily and the veil between worlds is treated as thin and navigable. What she found there, in the dances, in the drumming, in the quiet workroom of a spiritist in El Cobre, was not magic for its own sake. It was permission. Permission to stop moving past her grief and start staying in it. What You'll Hear: How Rebe mastered the art of moving forward and the cost it quietly carried The moment in Cuba when her understanding of death, grief, and ancestry completely shifted What it felt like to reimagine the hospital room scene she had been carrying for 30 years How a country with a different relationship to death gave her a new way to love her mother The small, daily rituals she brought home from Cuba and what they have meant for her healing Why showing up fully as yourself can become a quiet gift to everyone around you Guest Bio: Rebe Huntman is a writer, former Latin dancer, and choreographer who has spent her career at the intersection of movement, storytelling, and spirit. She spent decades running a professional dance company and teaching college and high school before turning her full attention to writing. She splits her time between Delaware, Ohio and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Her debut memoir, My Mother in Havana: A Memoir of Magic and Miracle, was published in 2025 and chronicles her transformative pilgrimage to Cuba in search of her mother and herself. Find her at rebehuntman.com and on Instagram @rebehuntman. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ grief after mother's death, ancestral healing, Afro-Cuban spirituality, pilgrimage and transformation, learning to talk to the dead, disenfranchised grief, mother loss, life after 50 identity, Santeria and healing, memoir of magic and grief Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you have had a moment where your body tried to tell you something and you looked the other way. A small signal, easy to explain away. This episode is for anyone who has ever dismissed a whisper, and then had to reckon with what that whisper was trying to say. Shruti grew up as a working mom in Melbourne, living a normal, full life, when tingling in her feet gradually became something she could no longer ignore. Over years, that quiet signal grew into a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, a progression from walker to wheelchair, and a complete reshaping of her career, her home life, and her sense of self. What she found on the other side was not what most people might expect. She found strength, not the performed kind, not the kind someone else told her she had to have, but a deep, steady resilience that rose out of the hardest circumstances of her life. This is a conversation about what it means to carry an invisible illness through a world that cannot see it. It is about traveling alone to Kerala to try Ayurvedic therapy on nothing but hope. It is about reliving your hardest moments to write a memoir, and about looking back at all the worry you carried before, and finally letting it go. What You'll Hear: How Shruti's MS symptoms progressed over nearly a decade before a turning point shifted her entire life What it felt like to lose her job, her mobility, and her previous identity, and how she moved through that The solo trip to Kerala for Ayurvedic treatment, and what she found there beyond the therapy itself How writing her memoir, My Invisible Battles, helped her discover a version of herself she had never met before The connection between stress, chronic illness, and finally releasing the need to overthink everything Why she believes strength is not something anyone can teach you, and where it actually comes from Guest Bio: Shruti Ghate is an author and mother of two based in Melbourne, Australia. After years of living with multiple sclerosis, she published her memoir, My Invisible Battles, to offer guidance and solidarity to others navigating an invisible autoimmune illness. Her work is grounded in the belief that sharing our stories can reach farther than we imagine. Find Shruti and her book at www.shrutighate.com, and on Amazon Kindle worldwide. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ living with multiple sclerosis, invisible illness, chronic illness resilience, autoimmune disease journey, progressive MS, finding strength, wellness memoir, identity after diagnosis, invisible battles, caregiver support MS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is a particular kind of grief that does not announce itself. It arrives in the middle of an ordinary drive, through a phone ringing on a Sunday afternoon, in the voice of a stranger delivering news your brain simply refuses to hold. If you have ever felt the world keep moving while you were standing completely still, this episode will find you. Stephen Panus lost his 16-year-old son Jake in August 2020, on a weekend trip that started with a peace sign from the driveway and ended in a parking lot, screaming to the sky. What followed was not a clean journey through stages. It was survival. One hour, then one day. The weight of holding a family together when you could barely hold yourself. The rage that comes when someone else’s carelessness takes everything. And the strange, hard-won realization that forgiveness was not about letting anyone off the hook. It was about releasing himself. In this conversation, Stephen talks about what grief actually does to a body, a marriage, a family. How his wife and son experienced the same loss and walked entirely different paths through it. How the Jake Panus Walk On Scholarship grew from a house full of flowers into something that keeps his son’s name alive in the world. And what it means to show up for someone in pain, when there are no right words and showing up is the only thing that matters. What You’ll Hear: The moment Stephen received the phone call that changed everything, and what happened in the minutes after The complexity of grief when anger, self-blame, and love are all happening at the same time Why the second year of grief was harder than the first, and the role of therapy in keeping his family together How the Jake Panus Walk On Scholarship grew from an impulse to honor a son into a living legacy The difference between knowing you lost someone and actually accepting it What Stephen would say to anyone who doesn’t know what to do when someone they love is suffering Guest Bio: Stephen Panus spent his career as a sports marketing executive, building brands behind the scenes. In August 2020, his 16-year-old son Jake was killed in a car accident on Block Island, Rhode Island. In the years since, Stephen has become a speaker, an author, and the creator of the Jake Panus Walk On Scholarship, a series of three scholarships honoring Jake’s spirit of compassion and lifting others. His book, Walk On, is available now and all proceeds support the scholarships. Stephen lives in Connecticut with his wife Kelly and son Liam. https://www.stephenpanus.com/ Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ Keywords: child loss grief, father losing a son, grief and forgiveness, sudden loss, grief guilt shame, surviving the loss of a child, grief therapy, learning to live after loss, grieving father, walk on scholarship Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's a moment in Nick Prefontaine's story where the doctors step outside the hospital room to deliver news they don't think he can hear. His mom stops them. She knows better. Even in a coma, she believes her son is taking things in. That one act of belief, quiet and firm and unwilling to accept the ceiling others had set, shaped everything that came after. Nick was fourteen when a snowboarding accident put him in a coma for three weeks and rewrote the map his future was supposed to follow. The doctors said he might never walk, talk, or eat on his own again. What they didn't know was that Nick was already setting a different goal. Before he could even form words, he was mouthing them. He was going to run out of that hospital. This episode is about what it looks like to recover not just a body, but a sense of self, a purpose, and a calling. Nick shares the four-part framework he unknowingly used at fourteen and has spent decades refining. It's not a system built for winners. It's built for people in the middle of the worst thing that's ever happened to them. What You'll Hear: The snowboarding accident that changed everything and the series of unlikely moments that kept Nick alive What his mother did in the hospital room that set the tone for his entire recovery The internal voice Nick heard before he could speak, and how he's learned to trust it as an adult The STEP system: Support, Trust, Energy, Persistence, and how Nick applied it without knowing it The long quiet after the fanfare faded, and what it felt like when regular life resumed How Nick finally said yes to the calling he'd been putting off for years and what happened when he did Guest Bio: Nick Prefontaine is a speaker, coach, and founder of Common Goal. At fourteen, a snowboarding accident left him in a coma with injuries so severe that doctors doubted he'd walk again. He did. He ran. And eighteen months later he was door-knocking in neighborhoods, beginning a career in real estate that would eventually make room for the work he was always meant to do. Today, Nick works one-on-one with trauma survivors, accident victims, and people in the middle of life crises, sharing the STEP system he used to recover and helping others find their next step when they can't see it yet. You can find him and download the full STEP system at nickprefontaine.com/step. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices