Hidden Chapters: Real Stories that Bring Light to the Hidden Parts of Life

Send me a message via text or voicemail! Florian Kemmerich's story starts with a boy walking to school in a village where he didn't speak the language, getting bullied, and quietly asking not why he’s being bullied, but why someone would want to do that to another person. That question never left him. What followed was fifteen years of judo, a path toward the Olympics he walked away from...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! What do you assume about someone who seems to have it all together? Jody Hudson is a successful businesswoman, speaker, author, nonprofit leader, and mother. But behind that accomplished life is a hidden story of abandonment, foster care, adoption, alcoholic parents, divorce, financial hardship, and the devastating loss of her daughter, Alex. In our honest,...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! "Despite everything that happened, despite everything I've been through, I really like who I am." In 2018, Niki Borger left Germany and moved to the United States to pursue a career in acting. But while she was building something new, she was losing everything familiar. Over the next seven and a half years, she lost nearly every parent figure...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! Season 4 begins a little differently. Before we officially begin Season 4 of Hidden Chapters , I wanted to share a little more of my own story . If you've been listening for a while, you're used to hearing me ask the questions. This time, the roles were reversed. I recently had the privilege of joining Tracy "Mrs. JDog" Flanagan on the T...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! Welcome to Season 4 of Hidden Chapters!  🎉 This is more than a new season. It's the beginning of a new chapter for the podcast. In this short episode, I'm sharing the story behind Hidden Chapters' new cover art, why I've made the decision to move to a biweekly release schedule, and what you can expect from the conversations ahead. &quot...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! ☀️  As part of the Hidden Chapters Summer Replay Series, we’re revisiting conversations that shaped the heart of this podcast,  stories that continue to reflect the themes introduced in the Season 3 bridge trailer.  ☀️ Original Shownotes: What if the cracks in your life could become your most beautiful part? Inspired by Kintsugi , the Japanese art of repair...

Send me a message via text or voicemail!  ☀️ As part of the Hidden Chapters Summer Replay Series, we’re revisiting conversations that shaped the heart of this podcast,  stories that continue to reflect the themes introduced in the Season 3 bridge trailer.  ☀️ Original Shownotes: 🎙️  Episode Summary In this deeply moving episode, Mick shares his journey of navigating unimaginable grief after the lo...

Send me a message via text or voicemail!  ☀️ As part of the Hidden Chapters Summer Replay Series, we’re revisiting conversations that shaped the heart of this podcast,  stories that continue to reflect the themes introduced in the Season 3 bridge trailer. ☀️ Original Shownotes: If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, start there, it’s the foundation for everything in this episode. 🎙️  Episode Summa...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! ☀️ As part of the Hidden Chapters Summer Replay Series, we’re revisiting conversations that shaped the heart of this podcast,  stories that continue to reflect the themes introduced in the Season 3 bridge trailer. ☀️ 🎙️  Episode Summary PART 1:  Laura Engel was seventeen when she got pregnant, unmarried, in Mississippi in 1967.  Her family sent her to an un...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! ☀️ As part of the Hidden Chapters Summer Replay Series, we’re revisiting conversations that shaped the heart of this podcast,  stories that continue to reflect the themes introduced in the Season 3 bridge trailer. ☀️ This week's episode is a tender conversation.  It explores grief and joy existing side by side and what it looks like to carry both at th...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! ☀️ As part of the Hidden Chapters Summer Replay Series, we’re revisiting conversations that shaped the heart of this podcast,  stories that continue to reflect the themes introduced in the Season 3 bridge trailer. Original Shownotes: What happens when the life you built starts to slowly unravel, not with a crash, but with quiet, unseen shifts? In this episo...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! ☀️  As part of the Hidden Chapters Summer Replay Series, we’re revisiting conversations that shaped the heart of this podcast,  stories that continue to reflect the themes introduced in the Season 3 bridge trailer. This week's episode is a deeply relatable conversation about motherhood, expectations, and the emotional weight so many women carry quietly...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! ☀️ As part of the Hidden Chapters Summer Replay Series, we’re revisiting conversations that shaped the heart of this podcast,  stories that continue to reflect the themes introduced in the Season 3 bridge trailer.☀️ This week's Summer Replay conversation explores identity, transition, and what happens when one chapter of life closes and another one beg...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! ☀️ As part of the Hidden Chapters Summer Replay Series, we’re revisiting conversations that shaped the heart of this podcast, stories that continue to reflect the themes introduced in the Season 3 bridge trailer. ☀️ This week we begin where so many stories begin: family. This conversation with my mom is one of the earliest and most meaningful episodes ever...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! In this bridge trailer , I reflects on the heart of the podcast and the stories shared over three seasons, from military spouses and grieving parents to authors, veterans, and people rebuilding their lives after unexpected change. Hidden Chapters is a space for honest conversations about grief, identity shifts, healing, motherhood, marriage, faith questions...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! Hidden Chapters Season 3 Finale +  One Year Anniversary Reflection 🎉 In this Season 3 finale and one-year anniversary episode of Hidden Chapters , I find myself looking back at everything this first year has held. What started as a simple idea to create space for storytelling has grown into something far deeper than I ever expected. Through every conversat...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, start there, it’s the foundation for everything in this episode. 🎙️  Episode Summary PART 2 In Part 1, Laura Engel shared what happened in 1967: the pregnancy, the unwed mothers’ home in New Orleans, the forced goodbye, and the fifty years of silence that followed.  In Part 2, everything changes.  In 2016, Laura submit...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! 🎙️  Episode Summary PART 1:  Laura Engel was seventeen when she got pregnant, unmarried, in Mississippi in 1967.  Her family sent her to an unwed mothers' home in New Orleans for five months.  She signed papers she didn't want to sign. She then came back home to her parents house and was expected to just keep going on with her life.    She did tha...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! 🎙️ Episode Summary:   At 28, Dan MacQueen was living his best life in London- working in tech, traveling in Europe on weekends, active and untethered.  Then a string of worsening headaches led to an optometrist appointment that uncovered a dangerous buildup of pressure in his brain caused by a non-cancerous cyst.  What followed was emergency brain surgery,...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! 🎙️  Episode Summary What does real inclusion actually look beyond good intentions and surface level awareness?  In this episode, I get to sit down with educator, author, and accessibility advocate Jenna Udenberg, founder of Above and Beyond with U,  for an honest conversation about  disability, ableism, and what true advocacy requires . Jenna shares her exp...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! 🎙️  Episode Summary Divorce doesn't just end a marriage, it unravels an identity. In this episode, I sits down with Brenda Bridges, Certified Divorce Financial Analyst, coach, and author of Sh!t, I'm Getting Divorced , for a conversation that goes well beneath the legal paperwork and into the emotional terrain most people aren't prepared for....

Send me a message via text or voicemail! 🎙️  Episode 9 Summary What happens when the life you built around being busy suddenly stops? For Chip Scholz, that answer came in the form of a stroke. One morning in Jacksonville, Florida, a man who had spent over a decade coaching leaders, logging 200 nights a year in hotels, and billing into the seven figures, woke up and couldn't find his words. In...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! 🎙️  Episode Summary  Noah May has been navigating anxiety and depression since age 12. In this episode, he opens up about his mental health journey, the coping strategies that have helped him, and how podcasting became a meaningful outlet for connection, expression, and growth. From his early struggles to finding community and purpose, Noah shares what it’s...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! 🎙️ Episode Summary:  In this inspiring episode, Laura Bratton shares her journey of losing her sight at a young age and how she navigated anxiety, grief, and depression while learning to embrace life on new terms.  From her earliest memories of uncertainty to the lessons she’s still learning today, Laura opens up about the slow, ongoing process of emotional...

Send me a message via text or voicemail! 🎙️  Episode Summary In this deeply moving episode, Mick shares his journey of navigating unimaginable grief after the loss of his son, the raw and authentic prayers that sustained him, and how his faith in God has transformed over 14 years. Mick also opens up about building his podcast from the ground up without financial compensation, trusting God every st...