Finding Treasures in the Trash

"As long as you're still harming yourself, how much kindness can you put out there? How much compassion can you put out there?" — James Rosser What happens when the life you built no longer feels like your life? For James Rosser, the question arrived through an unimaginable moment. In his late twenties, during the height of the AIDS epidemic, James was mistakenly diagnosed with a terminal illness...

“I think it was that intense sense of not belonging and being alone that actually created this beautiful spark of self-reflection.” — Sylvia LePoidevin Some people inherit a clear sense of who they are. Others have to build it themselves. In this conversation, Sylvia LePoidevin shares what it was like growing up between worlds. Raised in remote parts of Africa while never fully belonging there or...

There are parts of us that learn to survive before they ever get the chance to live. In this conversation, Wai Poc invites us into the quiet, complex terrain of identity—where visibility and invisibility coexist, where inherited fear shapes connection, and where the longing to belong meets the courage to be fully seen. From growing up as one of the only Asian students in his school, to navigating...

There are moments in life when everything you built collapses. A car accident rewires your future. A company sale that looks like a dream turns into a financial freefall. A market crash. A divorce. A season where the identity you wore like armor falls apart. In this conversation, Scott Duffy does not offer the highlight reel. He tells of the collapse. The pawn shop. The last $200. The parking lot...

Content Note: This episode includes a brief first-person account of physical and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. This episode is about Radical Acceptance and Radical — and I mean radical — Self Love. Acceptance of uncharacteristic looks. Acceptance of our race. Acceptance of real physical pain. Acceptance of aging. But ultimately, it is about accepting the shadow all the way throug...

What if the parts of you you’ve learned to doubt are actually the ones trying to guide you home? In this conversation, Cari sits with Trudy Goodman to explore the quiet but profound cost of not trusting ourselves—and the long, compassionate path of returning to that trust. Not as a concept, but as a lived, embodied relationship with intuition, vulnerability, and truth. Trudy shares how a lifelong...

What if the ways you’ve learned to cope… are also the ways you’ve learned to stay away from yourself? Cari sits down with Lisa Danylchuk to explore what it actually means to lean into pain—not forcefully, not all at once, but with enough support to stay present to what’s real. Together, they unpack the many forms avoidance can take—overworking, overgiving, numbing, performing—and how easy it is to...

What if the life you’ve built—your strengths, your identity, even your success—is only half the story? In this conversation, Cari sits with Henry Most to explore what happens after we’ve learned how to “be someone” in the world. The ways we adapt, achieve, and belong aren’t random—they’re shaped early, often in response to what was welcomed and what wasn’t. Over time, those adaptive strategies bec...

What if the reason this work feels unclear… is because you’ve been trying to approach it from your mind instead of your body? Cari takes the conversation out of theory and into practice, answering the question so many people quietly carry: how do I actually do this? Not conceptually, not intellectually—but in a way that creates real movement. Using the metaphor of Ruth Asawa’s wire sculptures, she...

What if the parts of you you’ve worked hardest to hide are the ones quietly shaping everything? Cari opens a deeper layer of the work by naming what most of us instinctively avoid—the emotions, patterns, and experiences we’ve tucked away in order to function, belong, or feel in control. She calls it “trash,” not to diminish it, but to make it approachable enough to finally turn toward. Because wha...

There’s a moment in every life where something cracks open—quietly or violently—and asks us to look closer. Not at what’s polished or presentable, but at what we’ve hidden, avoided, or quietly abandoned within ourselves. This opening episode is an invitation into that space. Cari Jacobs-Crovetto shares a life shaped by both deep sensitivity and profound disruption—early vision loss, emotional inst...

If your life hasn’t been a neat, white picket fence… If you’ve learned how to function, succeed, even thrive—while something inside still feels tight, unfinished, or quietly aching—this podcast is for you. Finding Treasures in the Trash is an invitation to turn toward what you’ve avoided: the anxiety, the unease, the stories you were taught to disown. Through intimate conversations with teachers,...