AwareNow™: The Official Podcast for Causes

We often celebrate the courage it takes to overcome adversity, but what happens when overcoming isn't a choice? When life leaves us with circumstances we cannot change, strength takes on a different meaning, one rooted not in controlling what happens to us, but in discovering what remains within our control. In this deeply thoughtful reflection, we explore the quiet heroism of acceptance, the...

Forty years after receiving a letter that reduced her academic performance to a series of percentile rankings, Sonja Montiel revisits the shame she carried and the story those numbers failed to tell. As the daughter of immigrants navigating two languages and cultures, she reflects on what happens when schools measure a child's performance without understanding the person behind it. In this dee...

Young people are often spoken about, studied, and represented by others, especially when the conversation turns to mental health. Through Life at Your School, filmmaker Céd Hopkins is changing that dynamic by placing the camera, the story, and the creative responsibility directly into students’ hands. In this conversation, we explore what becomes possible when young people are not simply invited i...

Janet Huey believes film can do more than hold our attention. It can create space for conversations we have been taught to avoid. As an impact filmmaker whose work explores mental health, domestic violence, generational trauma, addiction, and survivor advocacy, Janet is interested not only in the stories we tell, but in what those stories can change once they are told. Featured in 'The Truth E...

Some stories are created. Others feel as though they have been waiting for us to become ready enough to carry them. For Gio Israel, what began as a search for connection became Seekers, a deeply personal journey across cultures, continents and generations to sit with those carrying ancient wisdom before that wisdom disappears. His work is not simply about preserving what elders know, but questioni...

Some people spend their lives following a pattern. Others find the courage to create their own. For Nancy Volpe Beringer, a journey through single motherhood, adult bullying and personal reinvention led her to earn a master's degree in fashion design at 61, become a finalist on Project Runway at 64, and discover a purpose far greater than fashion itself. Today, she's redefining what it mea...

There are experiences that divide our lives quietly into a before and an after, and cancer has a way of drawing that line without asking permission. For Christina Nicole Lynn Olson, breast cancer became more than something happening inside her body. It became a deeply personal journey through fear, change, identity and the complicated work of continuing to become yourself when so much suddenly fee...

For filmmaker Mike Coffey, living with cerebral palsy has shaped his perspective, but it has never limited his imagination. With his award-winning supernatural thriller One Eye Open arriving in select AMC theaters, he's bringing his vision to the big screen with a story designed to keep audiences on the edge of their seats. In this conversation, we explore the life behind the lens, the challen...

When JFo’s mother died, grief arrived as something enormous, unfamiliar and impossible to neatly explain. So JFo did what came most naturally: she began to draw it, eventually giving the thing she was feeling a face, a personality and a name, while her wife, JC Wilde, stood beside her as both witness and creative partner. What began in loss became Grief Monster, an illustrated exploration of what...

Twelve years ago, Daniel Matterson walked into a clinic as a young radiographer and walked out with a diagnosis that would change his life: multiple sclerosis. Rather than allowing that diagnosis to determine his future, he pursued a dream of becoming a doctor, turning his personal experience with MS into a professional purpose. Now, with a scholarship secured and a PhD beginning in September 2027...

Some people change the world by the roles they play. Others change it by refusing to play the roles the world has assigned them. RJ Mitte did both. Best known for his groundbreaking portrayal of Walter White Jr. in Breaking Bad, RJ was far more than an actor. Living with cerebral palsy, he became a powerful voice for disability representation, using his platform to challenge stereotypes, confront...

Some of the skills that save us are the same ones that later teach us how to see one another. For John Patterson, learning to move carefully through a world that did not always feel safe became something more than survival: it became a practice in curiosity, empathy, and understanding realities beyond his own. His story is a powerful reminder that what we endure can shape not only who we become, b...

There is a space between surviving and healing that rarely gets named. It is where endurance begins to loosen its grip, but recovery has not yet fully taken hold. In that in-between, we begin the quiet, difficult work of making room for life again. Featured in 'The Complex Edition' of AwareNow Magazine www.awarenowmagazine.com Written & Narrated by: Paul S. Rogers Music by: Peter Carva...

Suzanne Akullian and her husband, Leo, built a life in motion, filled with surfing, snowboarding, skiing, mountain biking and the freedom to simply go. Then multiple sclerosis began changing what movement looked like for Leo, and with it, the shape of the life they had always known. What began as Suzanne’s determination to help the man she loves hold onto his independence has grown into AxEL Mobil...

There are hearts we are born with and hearts we are given. Adolfo Lopez has known both. A heart transplant recipient, artist, father and founder of Abnormal Hearts, Adolfo has transformed a lifetime shaped by congenital heart disease into something larger than survival: a community built from scars, stories, art and the belief that what makes us different may also give our lives meaning. Featured...

Some stories entertain us. Others stay with us, changing what we understand about another person, a community, or even ourselves. As AwareNow joins New York Festivals in recognizing storytelling with the power to inform, connect and create change, I sat down with Rose Anderson to talk about the stories we choose to honor, why recognition matters, and what storytelling can still ask of all of us. F...

For years, Danielle Carpio carried the effects of complex trauma without having the language to explain what was happening inside her. Receiving a CPTSD diagnosis did not erase what she had endured, but it helped her understand that she was never broken and that her responses made sense in the context of what had happened. Now, as Complex Dani and the founder of the Healing & CPTSD Foundation,...

At just 18 years old, Reagan Murphree is helping bring people back to a corner of downtown Byron that was forever changed by a devastating fire in 2012. With Riverview Coffee, she’s building more than a coffee shop; she’s creating a place to gather, connect and believe in community again. And while the dream may be hers, Reagan is learning that some of the best things are never built alone. Featur...

At a time when so much seems designed to remind us of our differences, Jack McGuire asks us to remember what came first: our humanity. In this reflection, he explores humanity not simply as something we are, but as a choice we make through compassion, awareness and action. Because perhaps the future of our shared human story depends less on what divides us and more on what we choose to do for one...

For much of Wilson Lee’s life, hard work was more than a value. It was a measure of what it meant to do things right. But across 24 years in education, Wilson has learned that the strongest leadership does not ask us to choose between excellence and humanity, but to make room for both. Featured in 'The Unhidden Edition' of AwareNow Magazine www.awarenowmagazine.com Written by: Sonja Montie...

What we see of someone is rarely the whole of them. In a note his father never meant for anyone to read, Duff Archie discovered a side of living with MS that existed beneath the humor, resilience, and carefully protected strength. Thoughts on the Evening of... is a deeply personal reflection on identity, isolation, and the parts of ourselves that can disappear quietly, even while the people we lov...

Marge Wakefield grew up in Lake Linden, Michigan, a small town in the Upper Peninsula, where she came to know herself as a “Yooper” and, from a very young age, came to know something else she called “the shadow.” At nineteen, while studying piano in Philadelphia, she was hospitalized for the first time and saw the word “schizophrenia” written on her chart. What might have frightened someone else b...

Long before multiple sclerosis entered his life, Brian Wallace knew what it meant to fight for every inch—on the football field at the University of Michigan, where he played on four Big Ten championship teams and made three Rose Bowl appearances. Then, at just 27 years old, the opponent changed: Brian was diagnosed with MS, beginning a fight that has lasted nearly three decades and ultimately ins...

Sometimes the things we care for have a way of caring for us right back. For Krystal Duran, the creative force behind Plants with Krystal, nurturing plants became more than a passion—it became a place to hold grief, rediscover purpose, and connect with thousands of people navigating their own seasons of change. With her debut book, More Than Just A Plant, Krystal explores what happens when plant c...

Sir Bruno Serato is an internationally recognized chef, humanitarian, and founder of Caterina’s Club. His life changed forever when his mother looked at a hungry child and said, “If he’s hungry, feed him pasta.” Those few words became the foundation of a mission that has fed millions of children, housed hundreds of families, and reminded the world that compassion is often measured one person at a...