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

Send us Fan Mail 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:/...

Send us Fan Mail 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 psychol...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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.  A...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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 paren...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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 ba...

Send us Fan Mail 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 o...

Send us Fan Mail 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 becam...

Send us Fan Mail 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 w...

Send us Fan Mail 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 sh...

Send us Fan Mail 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 medi...

Send us Fan Mail 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 h...

Send us Fan Mail 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 b...

Send us Fan Mail 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:/...

Send us Fan Mail 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, relationsh...

Send us Fan Mail 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 fev...

Send us Fan Mail 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 ca...

Send us Fan Mail 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 res...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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: w...