And Then Everything Changed
125 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 76 ratingsTake a deep dive into a featured guest’s personal history; the pivotal moments of their childhood and adulthood that defined them and the crucial and sometimes painful decisions they made that forever changed the course of their lives. Each episode of And Then Everything Changed is an intimate conversation; sometimes funny, sometimes profound. Hosted by Ronit Plank.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/
More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/
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Episodes
Two New podcasts, More Interviews!
March 09, 2022 17:28 - 9 minutes - 12.6 MBAnd Then Everything Changed is on hiatus for a bit while I work on two new limited series podcasts. I've enjoyed these last two years of creating this show and meeting so many guests who remind me that we can survive and learn and grow after contending with challenges we never thought we'd have to face. My two new podcasts are The Body Myth and Let's Talk Memoir which do have similar themes to And Then Everything Changed. I'll be interviewing guests and getting to the heart of their pers...
Turning Dark Into Light- Twentyone Olive Trees :A Mother’s Walk Through the Grief of Suicide featuring Laura Formentini
December 21, 2021 06:00 - 35 minutes - 48.4 MBLaura Formentini was in Ethiopia when her son Blaise died by suicide. An empath like her, he had difficulty connecting to the material world and day to day life often felt overwhelming for him. Though it took years and has been painful, she has come to accept and honor her son’s choice to no longer be here. Humanitarian work and sponsoring more than 40 kids in 18 years enabled her to survive her grief and transform it into a healing force in the world. She truly believes it is possible to tu...
Holding the Evangelical Church Accountable featuring Shelly Snow Pordea
December 14, 2021 19:27 - 50 minutes - 69.4 MBWhen Shelly Snow Pordea reached out to church leaders about the sexual abuse she suffered as a child she found no support, no advocacy; instead the process of telling her story to church elders revictimized her. She would come to discover her experience was all too common. In the Independent fundamental baptist movement her family was part of, patriarchy was in full force and misogyny ran rampant. There was a dress code, gender roles were rigid, and women had to be submissive. Shelly was tau...
Inside Passage: A Missing Father, a Fractured Childhood, and the Redemptive Power of Music featuring sisters Keema and Tekla Waterfield
December 07, 2021 07:00 - 51 minutes - 70.3 MBKeema and Tekla Waterfield were raised by a young single mother in Southeast Alaska after their father left the family. With very little money but a passion for music and art, their mother moved them frequently in pursuit of her education, gigs, and new relationships. “Music festival brats” from a young age, Keema and Tekla reveled in summer trips to watch their mother perform with her friends and also sing beside her; those gatherings would become the most stable facet of their childhoods. ...
Leaving the Unification Church after an Arranged Marriage featuring Limi Marie Bauer
November 23, 2021 06:00 - 50 minutes - 69.8 MBLimi Marie Bauer was born into the cult where her parents met via an arranged marriage. They raised Limi in the Unification Church, known as the Moonies in popular culture, and Limi knew from a young age she would grow up and have an arranged marriage herself. As she got closer and closer to her wedding day she began to rebel and step away from church, but at 19 she married a man she’d met only three days before her wedding. It wasn’t until she heard her children talking about being in the c...
Caring For and Writing About The Mother Who Betrayed You featuring author Laura Davis
November 09, 2021 09:00 - 1 hour - 115 MBLaura Davis, celebrated author and advocate, joins And Then Everything Changed for episode 100! When Laura’s groundbreaking first book, The Courage to Heal was released decades ago it was the first of its kind to document hundreds of women’s stories of sexual abuse. In it, Laura shared her own story of being sexually abused by her grandfather, showed women it was possible to heal from this trauma, and called out the patriarchy. As she helped hundreds of thousands of women and her star rose, ...
Celebrating 100 Episodes: The Most Downloaded Episodes
November 09, 2021 08:00 - 3 minutes - 4.24 MBThis week is the 100th episode celebration for And Then Everything Changed! I started the podcast on Halloween of 2019 with my first guest, Paul who took a chance on a new show and a new host, and we created one of my favorite episodes to date. Since then, I've gotten to interview people in recovery, survivors, social justice leaders, and so many talented authors. On my website ATECpodcast.com you can go check out and listen to my previous episodes, each categorized by topic, so you can list...
Cults in Our Midst featuring Jen Kiaba
October 26, 2021 07:00 - 1 hour - 100 MBWhen Jen Kiaba was growing up in the Unification Church, known as the Moonies in popular culture, a main mantra was “absolute faith, absolute love, absolute obedience” which did not leave most people much room to question authority. Violence was not condoned but children were often hit, and as she came of age and noticed other contradictions, she didn’t have a safe space to process her feelings or make decisions that were right for her. Finally, when she faced an arranged marriage like that ...
Sexuality IS Sacred featuring Suzanne Najarian
October 12, 2021 05:01 - 45 minutes - 63.1 MBSuzanne Najarian had been married for two decades when she realized the sexual desire between her and her husband had all but disappeared. From the outside their relationship they had no deeper sexual connection. She began to study the nature of desire and had what she describes as a cataclysmic awakening which altered her relationship, her sense of self, and how she wanted to live. Soon, she ended her marriage and dove deep into a spiritual, sacred, and sexual practice that transformed her....
Becoming the Person You‘re Meant to Be After Childhood Violence, Drugs, and Neglect featuring Treveal Lynch
September 28, 2021 05:01 - 46 minutes - 64 MBWhen he was growing up, Treveal Lynch’s father was out of the picture, his mom was addicted to drugs and he faced emotional trauma almost on a daily basis. As a teenager he began using drugs and alcohol too, unable to escape from the patterns he grew up around. It wasn’t until he was arrested and found himself standing trial that he realized the way he was living no longer felt right. In this episode, Treveal shares the story of his childhood and how he came to the decision that he needed t...
Becoming the Person You‘re Meant to Be After Childhood Violence, Drugs, and Neglect featuring Traveal Lynch
September 28, 2021 05:01 - 46 minutes - 64 MBWhen he was growing up, Traveal Lynch’s father was out of the picture, his mom was addicted to drugs and he faced emotional trauma almost on a daily basis. As a teenager he began using drugs and alcohol too, unable to escape from the patterns he grew up around. It wasn’t until he was arrested and found himself standing trial that he realized the way he was living no longer felt right. In this episode, Traveal shares the story of his childhood and how he came to the decision that he needed t...
Ninety-Nine Fire Hoops featuring Allison Hong Merrill
September 14, 2021 08:00 - 49 minutes - 68 MBWhen Allison Hong Merrill was growing up in the slums of Taiwan her family was riddled with cycles of alcoholism and domestic violence. She couldn’t imagine a different life until she met Mormon missionaries, began attending church, and witnessed, for the first time, families who cared for one another. She became more and more active in the church and eventually fell in love, moving to the US to be with her American husband. But soon after, he abandoned Allison, took her money, and left her ...
Surviving Domestic Violence and Building a New Life featuring Sonia Frontera
September 02, 2021 08:00 - 33 minutes - 45.8 MBSonia Frontera, a collaborative divorce lawyer and author of divorce and relationship-related books, survived a 7-year toxic marriage. She married at 24 and on the flight to her honeymoon right after the wedding, her husband became a whole new person. He went from a loving man to a violent controlling one. For years she suffered behind closed doors because of fear of judgement from her family and the Church but when she finally had enough, they divorced. She has now been happily married for ...
Catalogue Baby - A memoir of (In)Fertility featuring Myriam Steinberg
August 31, 2021 08:00 - 44 minutes - 61.4 MBA few months after Myriam Steinberg turned forty, she decided she couldn’t wait any longer to become a mother. She made the difficult decision to begin the process of conceiving a child without a partner. With her family and friends to support her, she picked a sperm donor and was on her way. But Myriam’s journey was far from straightforward. She experienced the soaring highs and devastating lows of becoming pregnant and then losing her babies. She grappled with the best decision to make...
My Salinger Year and a Second Chance at Love featuring Joanna Rakoff
August 17, 2021 08:00 - 1 hour - 112 MBCalling all romantics, writers, and memoir lovers--this episode is for you! When Joanna Rakoff, best selling author of A Fortunate Age and My Salinger Year (now also a movie starring Sigourney Weaver and Margaret Qualley), took a job at a storied New York literary agency back in her twenties she had no idea her experience there answering letters addressed to J.D. Salinger about Catcher in the Rye and assisting the author himself would shape her life for decades to come. In this episode we d...
Warrior Culture and Mental Health in Law Enforcement featuring Scott Medlin
August 05, 2021 08:00 - 49 minutes - 67.8 MBWhen Scott Medlin returned from his second deployment to Iraq he didn’t realize he was suffering from PTSD, but knew something was wrong. He experienced confusion and anger and struggled with alcohol and didn’t know how to get back to who he was before entering the marine corp. Though he never regretted his decision to serve his country he often felt he was on an emotional rollercoaster. As he began to work on himself he came to understand that humans are not machines and the brain is not bu...
Weed Mom featuring Danielle Simone Brand
August 03, 2021 08:00 - 37 minutes - 50.9 MBWhen Danielle Simone Brand began researching cannabis years ago she had no idea she would become a full-fledged canna-mom and even write a book about how helpful weed can be to mental and physical health and to a sense of well-being so many mothers miss while raising their families. Her book Weed Mom, The Canna-Curious Woman's Guide to Healthier Relaxation, Happier Parenting, and Chilling TF Out, is made for busy moms and debunks the “lazy stoner” stereotype and details the health benefits o...
Now Every Two Weeks!
July 27, 2021 07:37 - 6 minutes - 6.4 MBA quick message to say hi and thank you for tuning in to And Then Everything Changed which is nearing its second birthday and 100 episodes! It's been a privilege to interview guests of all ages, backgrounds, nationalities, and experiences and learn how they became the compassionate and resilient people they are today. With my book When She Comes Back just published and my short story collection Home is A Made-Up Place due out this spring, plus some exciting projects in the works, the p...
A Life of Meaning After Profound Loss featuring Jacqueline Genovese
July 20, 2021 08:00 - 55 minutes - 76.7 MBWhen she least expected it writer and teacher Jacqueline Genovese became a mother after her older sister made her guardian of her two children before she lost the battle with cancer. Jacqueline built a life for her new son and daughter and soon, a third child, while managing her career and nurturing her marriage. Over the next few years she would lose another sister and then her mother to cancer and her marriage would end. As her children grew she became fascinated with the toll a life of ...
When the Only Choice is to Change Your Life featuring Artisha Bolding
July 13, 2021 08:00 - 43 minutes - 60.2 MBIn 2018 Artisha Bolding was working 50- to 60-hour weeks and becoming more and more unhappy. She was unsettled and frustrated in her marriage and thinking of leaving her husband and knew she wanted a different career path. As she worked more and more, her health began to suffer but though she became very sick she continued to put in long hours. Soon she was hospitalized with heart and lung complications and nearly lost her life. Through her hospitalization and long recovery her husband did n...
Shattering Gender Roles in Japan featuring Shu Matsuo Post
July 06, 2021 08:00 - 48 minutes - 66.6 MBGender equality advocate and author of the book I Took Her Name, Shu Matsuo Post grew up in a very patriarchal society. Through Japanese media and at school he grew to understand what was expected of him as a man. He didn’t learn about feminism and gender equality until he met his wife who helped him grasp what being a feminist meant. She didn’t want to take his last name so when they got married they combined their last names, but in Japan where they now live that isn’t recognized so, he de...
Girl Left Behind featuring Judy Temes
June 29, 2021 08:00 - 48 minutes - 66.7 MBOn a summer night in 1969, Judy Temes’ mother and a father, both physicians, packed their car for what was supposed to be a family vacation. Only this was no vacation. They were escaping Hungary's totalitarian regime. The tourist visas that gave them safe passage across the East-West divide came at a high price. To ensure their return, one of their two children would have to be left behind and that was Judy. For five years she lived with her grandmother in a tiny village in Hungary wondering...
Recovering from Diet Culture featuring Stefanie Bonastia
June 22, 2021 08:00 - 40 minutes - 55.8 MBStefanie Bonastia was about 15 years old when her eating disorder began. She was a shy, creative girl with anger she wasn’t aware of and wanted to gain a measure of control over her life. What began as anorexia became bulimia and later purging through exercise. She struggled mostly in secret but eventually left college and sought in-patient help. Her eating disorder ultimately spanned 25 years and she felt her relationship with food was so broken that she would never have normal hunger and s...
A Dream Come True featuring Robert Miller
June 15, 2021 08:00 - 39 minutes - 54.2 MBFor decades and decades, Robert Miller had a dream he didn’t pursue. Though he’d played music in his early twenties he left the industry to get his law degree and start a family. He often thought about playing in a band again but he didn’t act on that until he was seriously injured by a car while riding his bike. He needed 8 hours of surgery to repair his broken neck and arm but, in a huge stroke of luck, his spinal cord was intact. For Robert that was a sign. At the age of 60 he put togethe...
Healing Sexual Wounds featuring Leah Carey
June 08, 2021 08:00 - 1 hour - 84.3 MBMost of Leah Carey’s memories growing up are black spots. Her dad was an alcoholic and he was abusive to her and her mom. He would tell her how unhappy he was with her mother and that Leah should at all costs avoid growing up to be like her. He discussed his sex life with Leah, talked about her body in a sexual way, and exposed her to sexual content in the home. Even when she moved out of the house their relationship remained very strained and Leah increasingly felt like she was shrinking in...
Find Your Harbor: Life in the Wake of Loss with featuring Margo Fowkes
June 01, 2021 08:00 - 48 minutes - 66.3 MBAfter her son Jimmy died of a cancer rarely found in children, Margo Fowkes found that what helped her through her profound grief the most was other people leaving space in the world for him. She discovered support in loved ones talking about Jimmy and sharing their experience of losing him. She founded the Salt Water community to help people heal and live after their own devastating loss--a child, a sibling, a spouse, a parent, a close friend-- and to provide a safe harbor where those griev...
Find Your Harbor: Life in the Wake of Loss featuring Margo Fowkes
June 01, 2021 08:00 - 48 minutes - 66.3 MBAfter her son Jimmy died of a cancer rarely found in children, Margo Fowkes found that what helped her through her profound grief the most was other people leaving space in the world for him. She discovered support in loved ones talking about Jimmy and sharing their experience of losing him. She founded the Salt Water community to help people heal and live after their own devastating loss--a child, a sibling, a spouse, a parent, a close friend-- and to provide a safe harbor where those griev...
Shaking off the Past: From Difficult Childhood to a Place of Peace featuring Michael Arterberry
May 25, 2021 08:00 - 47 minutes - 65.7 MBMichael Arterberry grew up in a home ravaged by the violence and mood swings of his alcoholic father. In order to protect Michael, his mother signed him up for as many sports as she could and he excelled. His coaches became like his dads, his teammates, his siblings, and the accolades he got for his performance prevented him from abusing alcohol, drugs, and people. The trauma he and his siblings experienced altered their lives forever and each of them learned to cope differently: some with ...
A Better Culture for Women in the Workplace and Beyond featuring Laurel Anne Stark
May 20, 2021 08:00 - 32 minutes - 44.5 MBFor years Laurel Anne Stark put her mental health aside and focused only on work. She drove herself to exhaustion the way so many self-employed women do: never cutting herself slack, never asking for help, yet determined to focus only on work and being productive. Then one day she began digging into research about the wellbeing of the self-employed. She found that 3 out of 4 entrepreneurs suffer from a mental health issue which is further compounded for women in business because of the wage ...
Life After Childhood on a Commune Featuring Phoebe Pilaro
May 18, 2021 08:00 - 43 minutes - 60.6 MBPhoebe Pilaro spent her early childhood on a commune in the Redwood forest in the Santa Cruz mountains with very little adult supervision. Her parents had an unstable relationship and her father, likely bipolar and manic, was kicked out of the commune. Phoebe and her mother soon set off to other places and though her mother was a social and happy woman, she never set up boundaries during Phoebe’s childhood, gave her advice on growing up, or taught her about sex and protection. During her tee...
Generation Cult featuring Dhyana Levey
May 13, 2021 08:00 - 44 minutes - 61.1 MBDhyana Levey, creator of the podcast Generation Cult, knew she was growing up on a kind of commune in California but didn’t realize it was a cult until she was much older. Though her memories of childhood are often difficult, her curiosity about what her family was involved in spurred her to investigate. Soon after, she began pursuing interviews with other cult survivors gathering information, and attending the International Cultic Studies conference. Dhyana joins me to share what she’s lear...
Parents Who Leave for Cults featuring Lily Dunn
May 11, 2021 08:00 - 59 minutes - 81.8 MBAuthor Lily Dunn’s father joined Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s movement about the same time that And Then Everything Changed host Ronit Plank’s mother followed him to India. They both grew up in the shadow of Bhagwan (also known at Osho, the guru at the center of Netflix’s docuseries Wild Wild Country), each with a parent more devoted to his teachings and the lifestyle he extolled than to them. Lily shares some of what she witnessed at the Rajneeshee house she visited on weekends and she and Roni...
Emma's Laugh: The Gift of Second Chances featuring Diana Kupershmit
May 04, 2021 08:00 - 50 minutes - 69.4 MBDiana Kupershmit and her husband had no warning that their first baby Emma would be born with a rare genetic disorder that would leave her profoundly physically and intellectually disabled. A young couple who had been high school sweethearts, they tried to grapple with the devastating news. When a social worker familiar with their case suggested they give Emma up for adoption, they decided she would be better off. But soon, pregnant with her second child and wracked by regret and concern ...
Finally Safe at Home featuring Sabrina Osso
April 27, 2021 08:00 - 47 minutes - 65.6 MBSabrina Osso describes her childhood as stolen. Her father was abusive to her mother and she witnessed violence and endured trauma for 15 years. She was an extremely quiet child, was bullied in school, and her fear of both home and school created almost incapacitating difficulty for her. By high school she was suicidal but wouldn’t get help until college when a friend urged her to seek therapy. Through years of hard emotional work she began to heal, finally realized her dream of becomin...
Two Sisters on an Organizing Mission featuring Kelly and Katie McNemamin
April 23, 2021 08:00 - 40 minutes - 56.3 MBKelly McMenamin and Katie McMenamin are sisters and organizational specialists dedicated to helping others organize according to personality. After years of disagreeing with one another on how to declutter and whether to file or pile, they co-founders PixiesDidIt! After 10+ years of field research, they discovered that how you organize is hardwired in your brain and organization isn’t about making it perfect. It's about finding stuff when you need it. They created an assessment that calculat...
A Life in 147 Days featuring Andrea Wilson Woods
April 20, 2021 08:00 - 50 minutes - 69.3 MBAndrea Wilson Woods was barely an adult herself when she got legal guardianship over her 8-year old sister Adrienne after their mother called to say she no longer wanted to be a mother. An actress trying to make it in LA, Andrea worked hard to make ends meet while they navigated their new relationship in which Andrea became Adrienne’s mother first, her sister second, and her friend third. Then, when Adrienne was 15 and experiencing profound pain she was diagnosed with stage IV liver can...
Strong Like Water featuring Laila Tarraf
April 13, 2021 08:00 - 50 minutes - 69.4 MBFor years, even as Laila Tarraf continued to feel disconnected from others, her belief that any vulnerability would make her soft dictated her personal life and her work as an HR leader. The firstborn child of Lebanese parents, she was encouraged to step up and take care of the family from a young age. She sometimes resented that role but then she met and married her husband and became a mother and began a new life. A year into their marriage he had a serious motorcycle accident, was prescri...
Salvation, Injury, and Reinvention: A Football Story featuring Kenneth Scott
April 06, 2021 08:00 - 44 minutes - 60.6 MBKenneth Scott’s mother had lupus while he was growing up and though they were living off of food stamps and SSI in section 8 and she was facing great hardship as a single parent she never let the rest of the family see her struggle. When she remarried, Kenneth gained siblings but his stepdad and he went head-to-head and he witnessed his new father emotionally and physically abuse his mom throughout their relationship. Sports became Kenneth’s escape, a way to cope with the trouble he saw at h...
Fostering and Nurturing Children with Autism featuring Dr. Lynette Louise
March 30, 2021 08:00 - 59 minutes - 81.5 MBEven from an early age Dr. Lynette Louise knew she would grow up and have heaps of children. The victim of domestic abuse she understood all too well that what she experienced growing up was not okay and that she would protect her own children at all costs. But as a young mother she faced unreliable and unsafe partners and the challenge of navigating the foster care system and securing adequate schooling for her autistic and neuro-atypical brood. And even more painfully still, she had to con...
Life After Pregnancy Losses featuring Kim Hooper
March 23, 2021 08:00 - 44 minutes - 60.7 MBBefore Kim Hooper endured pregnancy loss herself she wondered if women experiencing miscarriages might have had a part to play in their loss—maybe they didn’t eat the right things or didn’t manage stress well, maybe it was their fault. As her own losses began accumulating and she understood the randomness of miscarriage, the unpredictability of pregnancy overwhelmed her and fear took over. As her sense of control over her body and her future seemed to spin out she grappled with questions of w...
From Athlete to Human featuring Kacee Hoffer
March 19, 2021 08:00 - 40 minutes - 66.3 MBFor Kacee Hoffer, finding a new identity was not easy. After stepping away from almost 12 years of diving she found it hard to find other passions, fill her time, and treat her body with compassion. She started diving at nine years old and had been a high performing division 1 athlete at Boise State, and that's all she knew. Everything she did was connected to diving and her social life outside of the sport was almost non-existent. But during her sophomore year of college she was assigne...
Your Body Is Not A Problem featuring Katherine Yasi
March 16, 2021 08:00 - 41 minutes - 57.1 MBKatherine was in second grade when her mother called attention to her weight, a moment that impacted the rest of her life. From that day on her insecurities about her size and an endless cycle of shame about her body took over. She learned that a thin body was ideal and began to believe that the smaller you could get, the more valuable you would become. She chased down diet after diet and felt that she had to apologize for being ‘fat’, doing everything she could to get skinny. But when she d...
Emotional Genealogy: Tracing the Past to Live an Authentic Life featuring Judie Fein
March 09, 2021 08:00 - 43 minutes - 59.7 MBAward-winning international travel and culture journalist, author, speaker, playwright, screenwriter, movie and theatre critic, opera librettist, and theatre director Judie Fein believes everyone has a mission in life even if they don’t know what it is and part of that mission is to become whole, as whole as they were at birth. Her own experience overcoming a trauma in childhood and her interest in story has moved her to dig into her family history, visit her ancestral homeland, and create a...
Moved to Create: Life After A Massive Stroke featuring Lafiro A. Gomez III
March 02, 2021 08:00 - 37 minutes - 51.7 MBAfter suffering a massive stroke caused by a previously undiagnosed vascular malformation, Lafiro A. Gomez III became parayzed and utterly dependent on his family for care. He entered rehabilitation and worked on recovering some of his strength but was unable to carry out many basic functions on his own. Facing infections, deteriorating kidney function, and amputations he grew weary and depression shaped his days. Until loved ones encouraged him to begin writing again and he did. Using his t...
Conquering A 20-Year Eating Disorder featuring Alli Spotts-De Lazzer
February 23, 2021 17:15 - 43 minutes - 100 MBAt a young age, Alli Spotts-De Lazzer learned about the connection between food and body weight and was only 9 years old when she started dieting. For most of her life, she equated weight with purpose and worth and fought to overpower her body’s instinct to get the nutrition it needed to keep her healthy. After battling anorexia nervosa and avoiding treatment for years she finally reached the point where she wanted to be held accountable for her actions. She decided to share her experience w...
So Much Further To Go: The Consequences of Racial Injustice and True Allyship, featuring Natajia Miller
February 16, 2021 08:00 - 50 minutes - 69.9 MBThe first time Natajia Miller, who grew up in the Bahamas, was stopped by police for Driving While Black she was en route to graduate school in Georgia, her mother in the passenger seat right beside her. After being pulled over, confronted by and racist and threatening language and police dogs, she and her mother were taken to the police station. There she was told that without paying a hefty bail she would not be released. The next time she was pulled over the arresting officer did so for a...
When Your Baby is Born With a Congenital Heart Defect featuring Annamarie Saarinen
February 09, 2021 08:00 - 55 minutes - 76.6 MBWhen Annamarie Saarinen’s newborn daughter Eve was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect she didn’t know that 1 in 100 babies are born with similar conditions and 40% of those are serious and require intervention in early stages of life. What’s more Eve, like so many babies, almost missed getting diagnosed in time because there was no regular congenital heart defect screening for newborns on the Recommended Uniform Screening Panel for newborns. Weeks and then months unfolded with Eve in t...
Rebuilding After Police Brutality
February 02, 2021 08:00 - 55 minutes - 128 MBSix years before George Floyd's death triggered national reaction to brutality and racism in policing, Phillipe Holland was shot 14 times by officers in Philadelphia. Phillipe never thought he would go public with the details but after the deaths of Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and George Floyd he no longer felt he had a choice. While Phillipe has had nonviolent interactions with police chants of Blue Lives Matter and All Lives Matter don’t sit well with him and ...
A Family Survival Story: Prosthesis, Recovery, and Resilience featuring Rosalie and Michael Mastaler
January 26, 2021 08:00 - 49 minutes - 67.5 MBWhen Hunter became an amputee at just 4 years old his parents, Rosalie and Michael Mastaler, had to negotiate a host of feelings including guilt, grief, and worry for how their son would adapt. The loss of his lower leg altered their lives and how they cared for him but Rosalie and Michael soon realized that the most powerful tool they could offer Hunter was resilience. They understood that they had to avoid feeling sorry for Hunter so he wouldn’t in turn feel sorry for himself. Hunter is ...
The Power of Advocacy After Childhood Trauma featuring Johnny Crowder
January 19, 2021 08:00 - 47 minutes - 108 MBFor 18 years, Johnny Crowder did not speak about the struggles he was enduring at home, partially because when he was young, he believed that abuse was normal, and partly because he wasn’t ready to break away from the patterns of self-harm he’d used for years to negotiate his trauma. But in 2011 he started advocating for mental health and sobriety and began working with NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. By the time he graduated from high school Johnny was diagnosed with schizop...