Bold Becoming

Carol came from a “medical family” and she herself worked as a physical therapist. So when her dear husband’s cancer diagnosis was given, she pragmatically got into gear and started checking off all the boxes needed for their journey forward. What Carol was completely unprepared for, and couldn’t even imagine would impact her the way it did, like a steel wrecking ball, was after he died. How did C...

Mohammad was on his first job out of medical school when he realized it wasn’t going to work out. Working as a radiologist, one day he took matters into his own hands and began what would, decades later, be his job—giving lifestyle advice. That day he also recognized his need for a job with human relationships. He was reprimanded for his misdeed, he shared it with his father, and resigned without...

Donna’s mom had breast cancer in the late 60’s early 70’s, right when Donna was coming of age. Right as her mom “lost her femininity,” Donna’s journey into embracing hers was nipped in the bud. Her identity, moving from a girl to a woman with breasts, was eclipsed by her mother’s ongoing struggle for her life and failed reconstruction surgery. She even felt a little like she should hide her body c...

Ben and Nicole were in their mid twenties when they had their first child. The pregnancy was normal. So when Ethan, now 25, was born and the doctor told them he probably had Down syndrome, caught totally off guard, they “bawled” with grief. Ethan’s parents kicked into high gear very quickly to learn and do everything possible to make his life as fulfilling as possible. What was the one thing Ben a...

Fifty-four percent of incarcerated people in the United States have mental illness. Eighty-five percent of the prison population have an active substance use disorder or were incarcerated because of drugs. Jeremy Schall is one of these individuals. Coming from a family history with addiction and having his first psychiatric hospitalization at age seven, his name was written all over the prison wal...

Diana lived in Colombia, South America, and was a pawn in a power control scheme that could have ended in kidnapping or death. A thriving 16-year-old, returning from an immersive, week-long community leadership training retreat, Diana found out she had to leave her home, community, and country immediately. She migrated to the USA. What is forced migration like and what impact does it have on one’s...

At 7+ months gestation, Kiki had a “super normal pregnancy” and she jumped on a plane across the country to attend a wedding. But her baby came early. Things went south from there and back in California, Kiki spent the next 6 months saving her son’s life. He didn’t have an immune system and had to have a bone marrow transplant. Find out what it’s like for a mom to go through that ordeal, and why s...

Two years before the USSR’s downfall, something unusual and unexpected happened. Masha’s family was given permission to leave. Because they were Jewish. Seventeen-year-old Masha left all she ever knew behind, forever, and lived the next five years as a refugee in Florida. Identity loss hit hard, while good fortune graced her with mentorship from the pioneers of personal development. Bio Dr. Masha...

Marci, a mother of three, made a pact with herself: by her next birthday, she’d throw in the towel if her husband didn’t shape up. His unpredictability was unbearable and she couldn’t figure out what was causing it. Until he finally admitted to being addicted to drugs. Since he also refused treatment, Marci divorced him. She couldn’t betray herself and her children by continuing with the status qu...

What happens when a Columbia-trained psychologist, working with high performers, cannot find a way to cure his own depression? He thinks of suicide. He wishes the train would take him out as he crosses the tracks some day driving home from work. And then one day doing his morning journaling, he asks a couple of different questions and a new answer lands in his lap. It gives him a way to move forwa...

Heidi had her life planned out and was well on her way to her dream of working in the film industry. At 20, she was a straight A college student who went through every door opened to her. She was acing life and enjoying it. Until a friend died by suicide. And she cried so hard she got a migraine. Then the next day, Heidi had a stroke.  Hear about Heidi’s journey post stroke…how she eventually let...

Married from ages 24-50, Gail felt like a confused teenager post divorce. She didn’t know how to talk to men, other than surface level or work-related communication. She also had to navigate finding housing with bad credit, due to her ex’s small business bankruptcy, on top of her mother’s, brother’s, and good friend’s deaths all around the same time. On top of all this, she had a brain tumor and o...

Danielle grew up in a chaotic environment with a low income family that moved almost every year, and a dad who drank and was verbally aggressive. Danielle was the one who fought back, and she carried her rebellious nature into adulthood, always standing up for the underdog. And in between all this, Danielle chose to keep her baby when she was 16 with an unplanned pregnancy. It was during her trans...

Annette grew up with more “Don’ts” than you can shake a stick at. Her mother, diametrically opposite personality-wise than her father, never ceased instilling fear into her. It seems that in Mom’s book, life had no room for error. So rather than exploring and discovering who she really was, Annette grew up cautiously sticking to the rules laid down for her. Also, she was sent to live with a distan...

Wendy and her husband were very happily married when they found out that her husband, and two of their three children, were autistic. Around the same time, her third child was also struggling with disabilities connected to fibromyalgia. But rather than the autism diagnoses devastating her, they did the opposite. Liberated and joyful, they explained why life had been so challenging. They gave them...

Can denial ever be a good thing? It served Cathy Shields for twelve long years, as she adjusted to the fact that her daughter would never hit many developmental milestones. Denial may well have protected her in a positive way. It was what gave her hope. Hope allowed her to spend every single day fighting for her daughter to access programs and services, as her daughter worked towards whatever mile...

Julia’s fighting for her life…again. Surviving childhood physical and emotional abuse from alcoholic parents, and sexual molestation and voyeurism, from which her mother profited financially, she went on to survive a suicide attempt in her twenties, and most recently, an intestinal blockage. Now she’s about to enter cancer treatment, another leg of her 30+ years chasing wholeness. Hear what it’s l...

Spencer grew up riddled with guilt and shame, so he did what he could to counter that—he inflated his ego. But keeping his ego inflated, to fill the void of feeling unworthy, required telling lies, even to himself, and hurting people he loved. From the outside he appeared successful in his career, and he’d married a wonderful woman, but eventually his pretense fell apart, landing him at his rock b...

Corbie’s had more than her fair share of challenges, beginning with a substance abusing mom who envied her for her intelligence and, from age eleven on, her Dolly Parton figure. Add to that, when her mom thought she’d had sex in high school, she called her a slut and told her she was only worth anything because of her looks. It was decades later when Corbie finally got the chance to find out who s...

Stephany Ann grew up in a family with healthy marital role modeling from her parents. She was also smart, capable, ambitious, successful, educated, became an attorney, and even won the governor's award for her work in domestic violence. So then, how did she end up in two abusive marriages with men with narcissistic personality disorders (NPD)? And why didn’t she recognize what was going on (th...

Roz was making her big dream come true. In the spotlight, sharing her voice as a singer on stages the world over, her world changed when her 8-month-old son came down with seizure disorder. She gave up her career dream to become the advocate her son needed to ensure he received the medical care and academic services he needed. Roz hit the ground running and powered through, taking care of everythi...

Barely making it over the hospital threshold, at 31, Casey almost died. She had an aggressive form of leukemia with no great treatment protocol, and they got it into remission. And they did it the second time, but causing a stroke from the meds. And they did it a third time. Loss of control over her daily life, along with pain and discomfort, made her journey almost unbearable and she was ready to...

Twenty-year-old Jay Walker has been in and out of hospitals all her life. Despite her health challenges, Jay was a regular person enjoying life. But when she was 15, she almost died due to intense swelling and left the hospital blind. She endured being in a no man’s land during the years it took to find an effective medical treatment that would keep her undiagnosed problem with swelling from becom...

Simon started losing his true identity when he was eight. By thirteen, he was “full-blown” out of sorts with his mental health. But instead of talking about how he wasn’t okay and seeking help, he did what he’d learned boys do — suppress and try to ignore the parts of him that didn't fit the criteria of being strong and brave. He held out for decades, coping, until burnout took him down. Find out...

When Liz married, she was on top of the world—happy, energetic, a go-getter, with all the right boxes checked off to launch the ideal life. She was fully alive, then turned into a shell. Shortly into the first months of marriage, Liz saw things clearly going in the opposite direction of her life vision. What was her wakeup call 13 years later that got her out of an unhappy marriage? What did all t...