Well, That F*cked Me Up! Surviving Life Changing Events.

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Dr. Edith Shiro, is a clinical psychologist and trauma specialist, and author of The Unexpected Gift of Trauma.

Dr. Edith works around the subject of trauma, and knows that survival is only the first step, and real healing comes from what you do after the event.

Edith believes growth after suffering isn't automatic, it depends on whether someone feels safe and connected. She built a 5 stage framework for post-traumatic growth, drawn from years of clinical work and her own family history of displacement and survival, being the granddaughter of...

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Tara Pyfrom, is a writer from the Bahamas now living in Canada.

In 2019, Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas as a Category 5 storm. Her wife, their six-year-old daughter, their five dogs and her, ended up trapped in their attic for over 24 hours while nine feet of ocean came into their house. They lost about 90% of what they owned.

However, they were incredibly lucky. A lot of people didn't make it out.

Six weeks later, they moved to Canada and started over. That's where the really fucked up part...

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Jodie Herbert brings a lifetime of lived experience caring for family members with complex disabilities, including raising a son with Level 3 autism. Navigating significant support needs and disability systems became deeply intertwined with her own life and eventually shaped her work as a disability advocate. 

Life can change in the blink of an eye, and with the birth of her first son, things would never be the same again.

This is an amazing episode filled with hope, humor, and triumph over the most life changing of events!

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At fifteen, Joshua Waldron was told he would never walk again. After five years of rehab he destroyed his wheelchair and decided that not walking, was not an option. Join us this week to hear his extraordinary story!! Joshua has spent the decades since testing one idea: difficulty chosen deliberately is the most efficient route to a life worth having. He calls it Hard Is Fun, and his book on the philosophy launches in January 2027. 

Thanks Joshua we loved having you on the show!

Site: https://hardisfun.com/

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David Shepherd was working in investment banking when a serious back injury forced him to step away and reassess the career and life he was building. That period ultimately led him to retrain and create a very different professional future.

Another inspiring story about how a serious life changing event can actually correct your life's course in unexpected ways!

Site: https://www.guestsonair.com/profile/david-shepherd

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidshepherduncomplicatedfinancialadvice/

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Dr. Maria-Elena Lukeides is a clinical psychologist whose interest in understanding suffering grew from her own experiences of a difficult home life, anxiety, depression, and feeling unseen as a young person. A formative encounter with a psychologist changed the direction of her life, leading her into nearly three decades of work in mental health. She now combines clinical psychology, mindfulness, and psychedelic-assisted therapy to explore trauma, healing, and meaning. In this episode, we have some amazing conversations around living through emotional pain, finding support, and discovering a path toward healing.

Site...

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Jeffrey Deskovic is a wrongful conviction expert, attorney, speaker, exoneree, and founder of The Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice, where he works to free innocent people and change the laws that allow wrongful convictions to happen in the first place.

His mission is rooted in lived experience. Arrested as a teenager and wrongfully convicted at 17, Jeffrey spent 16 years in prison for a murder and rape he did not commit. He was finally exonerated in 2006 through DNA testing, after the actual perpetrator was identified. Rather than allowing that injustice to define the...

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Trauma has a way of convincing us that what happened to us will always define who we become. For years, Michael Rodriguez, believed many of the fears, insecurities, and survival instincts he carried were simply part of who he was. 

His childhood was shaped by addiction, domestic violence, and periods spent in women's shelters with his mother as they escaped an unsafe home. 

As an adult, life brought different challenges. The loss of his father to cancer, years of financial hardship while sleeping on the floor of an attic to...

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Robin Rosenbluth's mother died when she was young, and her abusive and neglectful father put Robin and her sister in foster care - even though other family members offered to take them. Later, with the help of a high school guidance counselor, she was encouraged to continue her education and find scholarships to fund college. What makes her story unique is the year she taught and lived in Songa, a remote village in northern Kenya. There, Robin began to heal from the abuse and abandonment she'd suffered, finding more connection with the local...

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Dan Stachofsky's story is deeply personal— he lost his daughter at 14 years old, after a medical journey where conventional approaches fell short. That experience shaped not just him, but his entire family, and ultimately led him down a very different path around health and recovery.

As you can imagine, this is a deeply moving episode covering the highs and lows of raising a child that needs extra care, all while navigating the healthcare system, znd eventually the alternative solutions the family were forced to explore.

Thank you Dan for yo...

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Loulita Gill joins us this week for a deeply raw and amazing episode about childhood rejection.

Loulita is complex trauma survivor. She was repeatedly told by her mother, as a small child, that she was unwanted.

This narrative continued through Loulita’s childhood when her mother actually said the words ‘I rue the day you were born’.

 The rejection, and PTSD was huge. She has been able to turn her life around and survive what should not have been survivable. 

Her story is quite tragic but full...

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When Heather White was 27, she was driving with her fiancee, at 2:00am, on Memorial Day weekend, 1981, when all of a sudden, her car stopped dead in the middle of the Long Island Expressway. With no warning, a car crashed into them from behind. The car immediately burst into flames, they were taken to a local hospital and her fiance died shortly thereafter - leaving his two young sons without a father. Heather never saw him again. She had 3rd degree burns over 25% of her body including my face and hands. 

The t...

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This week we welcome Leslie Lopez, host of Mothers in Arms and an advocate for accessible third-party reproduction. She speaks openly about stillbirth, infertility, and the mental health journey of building a family through surrogacy, as a single mother.

Leslie spent six years working with California Fertility Partners before having her biological daughter as an independent parent via egg donation and gestational surrogacy. 

Her story isn't just about the medical process — it's about the unexpected grief, the tools she built to survive the emo...

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Freya Maberley's family are all neurodivergent. Her siblings/parents and grand parents were all undiagnosed. She was diagnosed ADHD at 53, and she is Autistic too, and proud! 

Her brother is undiagnosed AuDHD and her home growing up was dictated by anger and violence. She was always considered the 'normal" child in the family, but her high sensitivity meant that she became the responsible one, taking on the people pleaser role of the family dynamic.

Freya's son is diagnosed AuDHD, dyslexic, dysgraphic. Her daughter undiagnosed AuDHD. Raising them was a c...

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Those who first meet Simon Morrell are often very surprised at his history and background. You see, today, Simon, as one of Wales’ singularly most qualified martial artists and fight coaches with a library of books to his name, comes across as a confident person, but his childhood and early adult years were an experience far from anything that may have provided this.

​Simon was badly bullied, violently assaulted (at one time, an attempt on his life was made by a knife wielding thug) and eventually succumbed to terrifying panic attacks that...

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Hannia Zanana, founded her coaching practice out of Cairo that has grown entirely through word-of-mouth across several countries. She was diagnosed with epilepsy at 18, later with Hashimoto’s, and had a 5kg fibroid surgically removed. What she’s most fired up about is the thing her own body taught her over a decade: the life you are living has a direct relationship to the health of the body you are living it in. As she left the family business, stepped into her calling, and made the deeper changes, her symptoms started to ease. Her...

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This week we have a great chat with Jane Garnett, who thought she was living her ‘perfect life’ unhappy and unfulfilled! Jane’s memoir is the realization that she'd spent years pursuing a false version of happiness and success. She didn't have any healthy role models growing up, so she based her idea of fulfillment on what she saw in movies and popular culture. She became a Hollywood producer who worked for Leonardo DiCaprio, had a powerful Hollywood husband, social status, and all the external markers of success she thought would finally make her ha...

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This week we are lucky to have Zoe Rose on the show, who talks openly about her early life, when she was constantly bullied at school for her weight. To make matters worse, her home was not a safe space, with her parents unhappy and rowing, even throwing things, Zoe was unable to find safety in any situation. This of course, all feeds in to later life, where she picked a man who was not good to her, and even hid their pregnancy from his family, for the first 8 months! Zoe has taken...

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Melissa Strong, was electrocuted at home, while working on a design project related to opening her now-acclaimed restaurant (Bird & Jim) in Estes Park, CO. She died briefly and came back, experiencing a forest and tunnel! When she came back, the damage was so severe that charred bones in her hands were visible, jutting out where fingers once were. Doctors initially told her she would likely only have four fingers left — her pinkies and index fingers. A passionate, elite climber, this was difficult news for Melissa to swallow.

The recovery was long an...

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In this wonderful episode, Machan Taylor traces her journey from postwar Japan to the world stage with Pink Floyd and Sting. Uprooted from an idyllic childhood in Yokohama, Taylor was thrust into a New Jersey suburb where she didn’t speak the language and felt utterly alone. And yet she learned to turn devastation into song. And wrote her book, 'Naked Out Loud' is a meditation on identity, perseverance, and the courage it takes to come to terms with, and reveal one’s true self. Machan speaks from the heart, talking openly about her...

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Ron Camacho is a veteran law enforcement executive who currently serves as the Chief of Police for the North Charleston Police Department (NCPD) 

Ron was an angry, egotistical supervisor. He was running over people, “collecting men’s tears” in disciplinary meetings, and strutting through the halls like he'd won something. His ego was out of control  and he had no idea. Then his wife (now ex) gave him an ultimatum: marriage counseling or out of the house. He didn’t know it then, but therapy was going to save his life.

Six m...

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WARNING: VERY EXPLICIT LANGUAGE!! (Which we thoroughly enjoyed!)

This week, The Swearing Therapist, Zulma Williams, joins us for a brilliant episode! Founder of Dragonfly Therapy Services, Psychotherapist, and Inspirational Public Speaker, A leading expert in trauma, anxiety, and depression, her work helps clients overcome life challenges to reach their full potential.

Zulma was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and immigrated to the United States at age 31. At age 42, she started her Bachelor of Social Work program. A few weeks after graduating at 46, she was diagnosed with breast...

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What a wonderful episode with Lisa Arrigo. Lisa talks candidly about her childhood, finding her sexuality as she grew up, and falling into her cocaine addiction. Hold on for the most shocking part of all, using with her Dad who was a Cocaine dealer! 

Lisa's works as a psychotherapist, helping people with anxiety, depression, addiction and PTSD among other areas!

Site: Http://lisaarrigo.com

IG: https://www.instagram.com/lisa.arrigo.therapy

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Catherine Hickem’s story is grounded in lived experience navigating trauma and its long-term emotional impact. Catherine's father was her everything as a child, a loving, doting, wonderful Dad. One day, when she was just 5, it all changed , out of nowhere, and her life would never be the same again. Her journey reflects how early life challenges can shape patterns, relationships, and identity—and more importantly, how those patterns can be recognized and worked through over time. Catherine talks openly about her journey back to a meaningful relationship with her father. From heartbreak to r...

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Athena Brownson was at the peak of physical fitness as a teen and into her twenties, but things began to change out of nowhere. Soon after, she was diagnosed with Lyme Disease, but the diagnosis was just the beginning. Lyme disease is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected blacklegged ticks (deer ticks) carrying the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. Symptoms include fever, fatigue, joint and muscle aches, rash, arthritis, and varying degrees of all types of auto-immune disease. It can result in death and in Athena's case, has taken her to the brink...

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Join me this week for a super fun and insightful conversation with Sabine Kvenberg, who embarked on the wild rollercoaster of becoming and actor at the age of 19! Her memoir, 'Gumption' takes us along for the ride!

According to Sabine, you don’t need to be wealthy, gifted, or well-connected to live an extraordinary life. You just need Gumption.

Sabine believes that we can all recover from the feeling of “not special enough.” This episode is raw, authentic, heartbreaking, and triumphant! Sabine shares how the power of faith, intuition, and co...

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Dale Atkinson was Diagnosed with stage IV cancer, and given 11-12 months to live, this date has long since expired! HIs diagnosis was just weeks after finding out his wife had Lung Cancer. Both are very much still here, and Dale comes on the show to tell us how it all transpired, and the measures he is talking to stay alive. Dale has built his own path with evidence, food, and resilience, and he shares that journey, and how nutrition, health hacks, and the science keeps me alive! We love this episode so...

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Ev Foster joins us this week for a wonderful and raw conversation about the power of change! Many of us think we have to settle for what we have in our relationships, our jobs, but most of us have a choice. Ev went through a tough divorce with 4 x children and soon after started a business, that she eventually walked away from, again, because she made a choice! It didn't feel right and was causing stress, anxiety, and debt! Below is Ev's website and details about her book too!

https://changestartswithchoice...

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After 30 years in accounting, Michael Hirshorne hit a period of burnout, financial strain, and personal loss that forced a deep identity reckoning. His story centers on hitting rock bottom, to the point he was hospitalized with stress. And so began the reconstruction of his life purpose from scratch. it’s a strong personal transformation and a story of hope for all of us! 

Site: www.heaveniswithin.com

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As a Doctor, working in multiple hospitals on the front lines during COVID, Dr Furhan Qureshi witnessed prolonged exposure to death, distrust in medicine, and moral injury inside overwhelmed systems. His story shows what repeated crisis does to a physician’s identity, faith in systems, and personal resilience. 

To add, Dr Q was going through a tough divorce art the exact time Covid hit. He was traumatized. 

Dr Q also shares some expose of what really happened behind the scenes during the hardest ties of the Covid Pandemic.

Bu...

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This week we have a great conversation with Miles Spencer, and discuss his restless desire to experience as much of the world as possible, to learn from other cultures and to really test his boundaries for adventure!

Over his winding path, he has found himself tested by both boardroom chaos and adventures that had no margin for error. He helped co-create MoneyHunt, which aired on PBS as a predecessor to Shark Tank, and while those studio lights were bright, they were nothing compared to leading more than 1,500 people in kayaks over 14...

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James Verschoyle was about to head to Thailand on a fasting retreat, and had just been to the gym when he sat down to have a healthy breakfast as suggested by the trip organizers. James didn't usually order 'plant based' options from the menu, so opted for something simple, yoghurt, fruit, and a smoothie.. but little did James know that this was very close to being his last meal, ever! Join us for this amazing, nail biter of an episode, as we hear how one meal nearly ended James' life. Find out what...

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George Jerjian, had a life altering diagnosis in 2007 at the age of 52, a tumor that was meant to be life ending. All the odds were stacked against him, yet he survived to tell the tale! The experience changed the way he thought, and perceived life, and more specifically, as he approached retirement, he wanted to make sure his life continued with purpose. 

George is now a Retirement Mindset Mentor, and brings his real-world experience helping people aged 55–75 reframe aging and rediscover identity beyond job titles. Its a brilliant episode and highly rel...

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Dr Joy Kong joins us this week to discuss an important part of her life, which she turned into a book, entitled ‘Tiger Of Beijing: The Inspirational Memoir of a Fierce Regenerative Medicine Physician’ .. and it’s fascinating! 

As a student in China in the early Nineties, stifled by the Chinese government's control over students' ambitions to study abroad, Joy realizes the system won't change. She devises a daring plan to secure her exit visa to the U.S., transforming into the fierce "Tiger of Beijing."

However, before she lands i...

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Marci Marie Simmons was from a good upbringing, and had a good job. She had made a few wrong turns along the way but was doing well. After realizing the company she was working for  was taking part in some not so above board accounting, Marci started doing some 'creative accounting' of her own. So, she had found a way to steal funds on a regular basis, and had become addicted to 'not getting caught'. She knew she had to stop, but couldn't. Listen to this amazing episode as we hear in detail a...

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Brent and Kyle’s story is rooted in life-shaping experiences that led them to become who they are today.

Kyle was born with cerebral palsy, leaving him with full cognitive ability but very limited physical mobility. He lives life in a wheelchair and requires assistance with daily tasks like eating. Brent is Kyle’s older brother, and they grew up in a household where their family never accepted limitations on what was possible for Kyle.

Today, Brent acts as Kyle’s legs so Kyle can compete in some of the wo...

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This week we are thrilled to have Kayse Gehret on the show!  

Kayse lost her father to suicide when she was just 7 years old, and the grief and ptsd consumed her. She developed headaches which would over regularly, and these eventually turned into 'grand mal seizure disorder', which traditional doctors could not help with. 

Amazingly, Kayse was able to heal her own seizure disorder through microdosing. Annd now, through microdosing, she’s spent 30 years helping people reconnect with their inner guidance, regulate their nervous system, and walk a mo...

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WELCOME TO SEASON 6!!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!!??

Dr. Robert Smith is an esteemed physician and thought leader, haunted by decisions he made in practicing medicine, so much so that now in retirement he is on a mission, a quest really, to revolutionize how physicians treat mental health. He has a riveting story of how an experience forever changed him.

Dr. Smith's new book, Has Medicine Lost Its Mind? Why Our Mental Health System is Failing Us and What Should Be Done to Cure   (Prometheus Books, March 4, 2025), not only exposes t...

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SEASON 5 FINALE: (Wow!) Don't worry Season 6 begins first week of January!

Teresa Baglietto, is a 4-time cancer survivor who also endured 3 strokes and 1 brain aneurysm along the way. She’s now in remission and she speaks around the U.S. about resilience, mindset, and the simple framework she still uses to get through hard things: Set your mindset, make a plan, ask for help, keep laughter and joy close.

Despite all that she has been through, She’s an optimist at heart, with a perspective that moves people. 

Joi...

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After surviving two life-threatening illnesses, one he was told was terminal, Tom LeNoble was given six months to live on three separate occasions. 

Tom lives by the phrase: “I’m Still Here.” Whether on his podcast, or in his bestselling book, he shares his potent message with the world. The book is wonderfully titled: My Life in Business Suits, Hospital Gowns and High Heels.

Book: https://a.co/d/2vC4ug8

This is such an amazing, engaging, compelling episode full of highs and lows and Tom is such an...