Find Your Spark

In this episode of the Find Your SPARK Podcast, Nicole Wilson interviews Macy Hembd, one of our SPARKING Change Youth Interns. Macy talks about her experience participating in the February SPARK Facilitator training. The SPARK Facilitator training gave our 10 interns a great opportunity to get hands on experience in our mentoring program lessons and to learn a lot about how the mind works. They go...

In this episode of the Find Your SPARK Podcast, Brooke and Stephanie share why they are excited to be participating in #SELday with millions of others throughout the world. They discuss why they believe social and emotional learning is foundational to all learning and life, and the uniqueness of SPARK in this field. Everyone is invited to learn more about and participate in #SELday on March 26th,...

In this episode of the Find Your SPARK Podcast, Stephanie talks about how after months of suffering, she is finally no longer living in a state of fear due to her thinking about the mouse who used to live in her house. She reflects on what life was like when she was in that state and the huge difference in quality of life now that she is no longer in it. In this more relaxed state, Stephanie wonde...

In this episode of the Find Your SPARK Podcast, Brooke and Ashley talk about the constant dichotomy people seem to be up against between following your inspirations (your SPARK) and following your responsibilities. They explore their own insights around how easy it is to be tricked by the thought that we have to choose when in reality if we just learned to trust our SPARK, the rest would be taken...

In this episode of the Find your SPARK Podcast, Ashley Hunt and Jena Travise talk about their habits and how they see them in a different way. Listen as Ashley shares what she has learned about habits from Dr. Amy Johnson and how it has helped her to see that habits are just your brains best way of trying to help you out. When you understand how something works, it just makes it easier to navigate...

In this episode of the Find Your SPARK podcast, Ashley and Brooke reflect on week 1 of 2021...and why they still have hope. Listen as they share how they navigate the uncertainty of the world and make the case for innate resilience rather than an uphill battle to rebuild it. This is a conversation worth a reflection.

In this podcast, Ashley and Brooke are joined by Brooke's teenage daughter Jayda. They all came together days prior to 2021 and discussed what each of their hopes and dreams would be for 2021. Listen as they reflect on what they have learned from 2020, and what they hope comes from 2021.

Disclaimer: If you have not watched Soul, this podcast episode contains SPOILERS, you have been warned! In this episode, Brooke and Ashley are joined by Brooke's daughter Jayda. They all recently watched the Pixar movie Soul, and couldn't wait to come together and talk about it! On a recent Disney trip, Ashley first learned of this movie when she saw a shirt at Disney that read "Find Your SPARK"....

In this episode of the Find your SPARK Podcast, Brooke, Ashley and Jena reflect on all the growing pains, learning curves and growth spurts of 2020. They share about all of the unknowns that Covid-19 brought and how it forced them to be more in the moment without even realizing it. They talk about how some pretty amazing things came from not knowing and how life just has a way of taking care of us...

In this episode of the Find your SPARK Podcast, poor Stephanie is really feeling the fear of mice. She dreads the evening when they become active, is sleeping upright with the lights on to ensure they don’t break through the crack in the bottom of her bedroom door and is considering all options to rid her of this fear, including moving. Her son Alexander, on the other hand, is quite delighted by t...

In this episode of the Find your SPARK Podcast, Ashley Hunt and Nicole Wilson talk about how their mentoring classes have been going post quarantine. As you may know, SPARK is normally in a handful of local schools at this time facilitating SPARK Mentoring Programs. Since quarantine has ended and schools are open in their community, they have found it challenging to get into schools because of the...

In this episode of the Find your SPARK Podcast, tune in to Stephanie interviewing one of our newest partners - Lashica Johnson. Lashica is a mentor and Youth Development Professional with the Boys and Girls Club in Garden Grove, CA. Stephanie and Lashica chat about the recent training, how it was different from previous trainings that Lashica has done, and why she is excited about bringing the Spa...

In this episode of the Find your SPARK Podcast, Stephanie is inspired by something she read in Glennon Doyle’s Untamed and shares a very personal letter that she wrote to her “unwell” self from the perspective of her well or True Self. She talks about how the things she worries about in her unwell state like health insurance, money, retirement and her son not having a yard or a pool, look totally...

In this episode of the Find Your SPARK Podcast, Brooke and Ashley along with James Hird, the principal of Horizons Academy Alternative School, are guest speakers on an episode of Michael Neill's "Might Help, Can't Hurt!" They talk about how educating students and teachers about how the mind works not only allows them to study and learn more effectively but creates a solid foundation for having "di...

In this episode of the Find your SPARK Podcast, Jena shares about her past experiences of feeling lost, stuck and not living life to the fullest. She talks about how she used to look for outside things and people to fix her and make her feel happy. Once Jena learned about how the mind works, she is now able to see life through a whole new lens and navigate with so much more love for herself and ot...

  In this episode of the Find your SPARK Podcast, Stephanie shares a couple recent experiences which clearly indicated to her that she was living from her Spark. She first speaks about her experience of feeling jealousy and resentment to then feeling love and excitement after not being told about a good friends’ wedding. Stephanie also shares about how she found it easy to have a difficult convers...

In this episode, Brooke and Ashley discuss why they feel that youth are the answer to the division in the world today. They share how they have seen others, as well as themselves, get caught up in being “right” and how much of a disservice it is to only see one side of things. They reflect on conversations they have had with youth, and the common factor they have seen is that the youth today are s...

In this episode of the Find Your SPARK Podcast, Brooke speaks with Adam Gross, a 22 year old counseling major who lives in North London. Adam speaks about how understanding his inner critic instead of trying to change it, has helped him see his world and life differently. Listen as they shares, Finding Peace with my Inner Critic

In this episode of the Find Your SPARK Podcast, Stephanie talks about some very useful insights she had while training some of the Rebels for Peace members, a youth-led group working to end violence in Chicago. Her insights were around a problem she presented to them regarding the dilemma of balancing online schooling and work. Who would have thought her most useful parenting advice to date would...

In this episode of the Find Your SPARK Podcast, Nicole talks about the support group she facilitates with an organization that SPARK partners with called, Selah Freedom. Their mission is to put an end to sex trafficking and bring light into the darkness of survivors. Nicole shares her experience when meeting with the survivors weekly, and how she watches them uncover and transform their lives to b...

In this weeks episode of the Find Your SPARK podcast, Brooke and Nicole talk about a profound post they came across that reminded them both, when coming from a place of love, answers will always arise. They reflect on recent times that they lost sight of this and “got off track” when focusing on all the chaos going on in the world. When we do this, we are trying to find solutions from the world, r...

  In this week’s episode of the Find Your SPARK podcast, Ashley and Nicole share what they have noticed about parenting before understanding how the mind works vs. after understanding. They talk about moments of parenting when situations feel really tough but how great it is to understand that they don’t have to sit in that feeling and it will pass eventually. Ashley also shares about the Online P...

In this week’s episode of the Find Your SPARK podcast, Ashley and Nicole share what they have noticed about parenting before understanding how the mind works vs. after understanding. They talk about moments of parenting when situations feel really tough but how great it is to understand that they don’t have to sit in that feeling and it will pass eventually. Ashley also shares about the Online Par...

In this week’s episode of the Find Your SPARK podcast, Nicole and Jena share their insights on finding motivation to be healthier, after allowing insecurities to take a toll on them, they rediscovered their confidence and motivation to feel better and do better. They will be sharing more with you on how new thought always brings new feelings and experiences, when we learn to let go of the ones tha...

  In this episode, Brooke and Ashley talk about the upcoming school year. Local schools here are set to reopen in the next couple of weeks, and we have heard very strong opinions on the decision of sending kids back or not. Brooke and Ashley discuss their decisions and how they came to the decision for themselves, as well as share what they have heard on social media, and even with close friends t...