Becoming Real with Dr. Lori

Can we trust each other again? In this episode of Becoming Real, Dr. Lori talks with Dr. Debbie Plummer, national thought leader on social trust, DEI, and belonging. Together, they explore what it means to stay curious in a divided world, how we rebuild trust across our differences, and why belonging begins with the courage to listen differently. Show Notes: https://drloristevic.com/can-we-trust-e...

The SAVE Act is being framed as a bill about election integrity and proof of citizenship. But for many women, especially married, divorced, remarried, or older women, “just bring proof” is not always simple. In this episode, Dr. Lori talks with attorney Patricia J. Schraff about how women’s names, birth certificates, marriage records, and legal identity can collide with voting access. They discuss...

Most of us picked up whatever we know about money from watching our parents, winging it in our 20s, and hoping for the best. We were taught just enough to get by — but not nearly enough to get ahead. The real conversation — investing, building wealth, understanding what your money can actually do for you — that one largely got skipped. And for women especially, it got replaced with a story that mo...

Someone tells you that you look beautiful today. What do you do? If you're like most women, you immediately tell them about the sale rack, the dry shampoo, and the bad lighting. Studies show that only 22% of compliments between women are actually accepted — and women accept compliments from men nearly twice as often. And research finds that women who do accept compliments are actually rated more n...

The advice on prostate cancer screening has swung back and forth for years. Test, don't test, wait, ask your doctor. And all that contradiction leaves a lot of men doing the one thing they shouldn't. Nothing. Even former President Biden, with all the medical scrutiny in the world, was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer, in part because the guidelines say men over 70 don't need routine screenin...

He had no symptoms. He was healthy, in good shape, and the only reason anyone tested him at all was a routine physical he needed to renew a racing license. This week my husband Jay sits down with me to talk about prostate cancer from the patient's side. Not the clinical version, not the tidy version, but what it actually felt like to hear the word cancer when nothing in his body had warned him it...

There is no small talk in a cancer waiting room. I learned that sitting in one for thirty-three days in a row, waiting through my husband's radiation treatments for prostate cancer. I went in thinking I knew something about fear. I came out understanding something else entirely, and it had almost nothing to do with cancer. It had to do with us. With what we are capable of with each other, and how...

You have voices in your head that talk to you all day long. But here's what most of us never stop to ask: whose voice is it, really? In this episode, Dr. Lori Stevic-Rust — clinical health psychologist with over 40 years of experience — unpacks the truth about the voices in our heads. They aren't one nagging "inner critic." They're a whole crowd: the cruel ones we inherited and never stopped payin...

In this episode of Becoming Real with Dr. Lori , Dr. Lori talks with Dr. Melodie Yates about the emotional reality of Alzheimer’s caregiving and the slow grief of dementia. After spending 16 years caring for her husband through Alzheimer’s disease, Melodie brings an honest, deeply human voice to a journey that is often loving, lonely, exhausting, and sacred all at once. Together, Dr. Lori and Melo...

What if the people holding your life together don't even know they're doing it? In this episode of Becoming Real with Dr. Lori , psychologist Dr. Lori Stevic-Rust explores the quiet, often invisible support system that carries us through our hardest moments — and why naming it is one of the most powerful things you can do for your own healing and growth. These aren't your official caregivers. They...

How can they possibly think like that? If you've asked that question lately — about a family member, a friend, someone you used to feel close to — this episode is for you. The truth is, we don't come to our beliefs the way we like to think we do. We don't gather the facts, weigh the evidence, and arrive at a thoughtful conclusion. Most of the time, we feel our way into a belief first, and then we...

I became real in August of 1988. On my first day as a clinical intern at Henry Ford Hospital, I walked into Room Three and met a young man named Nelson — and nothing I had been trained to do prepared me for what happened next. This episode is the story underneath this entire podcast. It's about imposter syndrome, yes. But more than that, it's about the moment we face a choice: put the mask back on...

About this episode What does it mean to become real in a world that keeps rewarding performance? In this first solo episode of Becoming Real with Dr. Lori , I talk about why this podcast exists, what it means to become real in a noisy world, and why honest conversation still matters. In this episode: Why this podcast was born out of restlessness How grief and joy can live side by side Why division...

This is not another podcast full of quick tips and polished advice. This is an invitation to something more honest than that. Something happens when we stop pretending — when we put down the performance and start paying attention to what we actually know, feel, and need. Things begin to change. Dr. Lori Stevic-Rust is a clinical health psychologist with over 40 years in the therapy room, and she's...