Bold Becoming

Driving with high school friends, the car rolled four times. Fate intervened to save his life when his friend’s mom, and nurse, diverted the ambulance from bringing him to the nearest hospital, getting him straight to one that could properly treat his trauma. With a TBI (traumatic brain injury), Daniel began stepping into his uncertain future. Hear about what it’s like when your life might never g...

TRIGGER WARNING—Rape Shannon is a self-admitted under-assertive woman. And life’s given her enough low blows to force her to become a different version of herself. When she was 20 she was raped by an acquaintance. It was the kind of incident where she knows how many times she said “No,” but it still took two years before she realized it was rape. Find out how deep and long lasting the damage from...

Jyoti is a young, smart, high-performing, American born and raised Punjabi woman. Depression and anxiety were foreigners to her until an uncle from India migrated to the USA and lived in her family’s home. He quickly went from being tolerable to an unbearable tyrant. Jyoti protected herself by working three jobs to stay away from home. His emotional abuse eventually lead her to becoming suicidal....

Leeanne Brennan is an artist who realized she’d left part of herself behind after becoming a mom and making it big as a commercial artist. Not only had she lost touch with her internal drive for art—the drive that’s disconnected from anything other than personal desire—motherhood wasn’t cutting it either. She landed in a dark and desolate place with no hope and no idea where the way out was. She d...

From the age of two, Shell Lightning Spirit didn’t think about regular stuff kids think about. Now was she allowed to talk about what she was thinking. Add to this, drowning when she was seven and seeing what it was like on the other side. Shell lived between a rock and a hard place as she grew up and tried to make sense of life. To cope, she withdrew into a tight, tiny ball of a person until one...

Tina Brandau 1.0 was a high-achiever loving life in the corporate fastlane and a jet-setting mover and shaker. But one day she became Tina 2.0. She went from a 40-year-old to functioning like a 3-year-old and it took ten years to become Tina 3.0. Tina was going to be in a marathon when one day, out on a run, a tree fell on her and she got a TBI (traumatic brain injury).  What impact did this have...

TRIGGER WARNING—RAPE Cara Lynn was an 8 years old when she was raped. Her mom didn’t find out the whole story until she was 15. She was raped a few more times and is also a survivor of a relationship with domestic violence. When her first child was born, she found out she was the product of a rape, and this then explained everything—rape is who she was. But Cara Lynn never let these assaults break...

Angela McCullough was a smart, successful, and happy high achiever. She made it her mission to break the stereotypes about her life trajectory and potential as a Black woman from Detroit. But when breast cancer in her early thirties brought her face-to-face with her own mortality, priorities turned into mirages as new ones became the foundation for the next version of herself.  Find out how Angela...

Jenny had addiction in her family but didn’t know it when she was little. She became an alcoholic herself, then stopped during her marriage. But after the divorce, as a way to deal with the pain of shared parenting and single parenthood, Jenny started drinking again. Find out how her thirteen-year-old daughter caused her to stop cold turkey. And then how three years later, Jenny was able to step u...

Susan Brown grew up in a small town in Mississippi. She made her escape after leaving college with enough credits for 1.5 degrees but not enough in one area to graduate. She and a friend went to Florida, shared an apartment, worked, and explored independence. But when her friend left, Susan couldn’t pay the rent on her own and made a bold decision after soul-searching for the right answer. Instead...

Leonaura has always been ambitious: good at setting and achieving goals. She became a doctor. She became a mom before her age deadline. But then she stopped working because her son was critically ill. This all made sense and she managed these unexpected changes.  But after her second son also required her to stay at home because of critical and chronic health problems, Leonaura reduced her self-id...

Michelle Hammer began to sense that things were off in her teens. Her inner voice conversations took a turn and became more problematic. She got on some meds and didn’t tell her mom exactly what was going on. She was misdiagnosed as having bipolar when actually she has schizophrenia. Once she was properly diagnosed in college things became easier for her, knowing what was actually going on.  Find...

Verne McInnis is proving to be true the words she heard God speak: “I give my toughest battles to my strongest soldiers.” She had a pretty good childhood and was even happily married to her best friend. But at age twenty-one her world began to unravel. Her mom told her that she was adopted, then died before Verne could ask all the questions she needed to ask. Less than two years later her husband,...

Check back soon.

Life in the fast lane as a mom woman leader in medicine wasn’t working out so well for Erin Hurley on the homefront. Charting on her own patients from the room where her four-year-old was hospitalized wasn’t the kind of mom she wanted to be. Demands on time, energy, and the impact on family relationships and finances are significantly different for women than men in medicine. The extra time, and e...

Today’s interview is not about our guest’s identity transition but rather how some of his clients experience it in conjunction with retirement. Michael Sissison, a clinical psychologist in South Africa, has helped many people who were fine, but unexpectedly lost their sense of identity when they retired. He describes retirement as a rite of passage and how it can negatively impact identity because...

 TRIGGER ALERT: suicide attempt description   The day Jennifer attempted suicide every single body part hurt. Even her eyelashes. Growing up in a family with a narcissistic mother, her identity was nipped in the bud. Jennifer’s every thought and action was predicated on how it would impact her mother rather than herself. Later, as an independent, working professional, she realized she couldn’t eve...

Marla Green had a calling: become a nurse practitioner. She specialized in oncology until in an accident, her life changed on a dime. She lost her career to disability and has been struggling to regain a sense of meaning and purpose while also to regain financial independence. Wracked with unbearable pain she can’t count on herself the way she used to. She’s also found it disconcerting and surpris...

Both Jen Kline Clark and her husband’s work was going well. Their kids were also doing well and they’d finished reading all the Harry Potter books. But then at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, out of the blue her husband needed a wheelchair. Things went from bad to worse and he averted an amputation and death. Because of this, mortality motivation kicked in. Jen changed her attitude about her...

It’s been eight years since Shawn Whittemore and his wife, Cynthia, had their world turned upside down. They lost their son, Noah, when he was 32 weeks gestation. He stopped moving when the umbilical cord strangled him. Once at the hospital, Shawn and Cynthia had to make a million on the spot decisions. Thus began their journey of being parents of a deceased child. Learn how Shawn’s parenting role...

Motherhood catapulted Arielle into questioning everything and filled her with self-doubt. Postpartum depression and pelvic floor pain catapulted her onto a journey to discover her true self. Postpartum rage added fuel to the fire. Physical pain kept her from doing things she loved, things that also protected her mental health like running and a passionate relationship with her husband. Postpartum...

Russell’s heart was missing a valve. He had surgery at twelve-days-old, and a few more over the years. This condition kept him from doing many things kids do. He had strength and endurance challenges. He lived with fear of getting hurt. His physicality revolved around protecting his chest and not damaging anything internally. His identity loss was the form of an identity nipped in the bud. Instead...

This is a double feature episode. Part 1 is about growing up and how he landed in prison. Part 2 is about prison life and how he became a new man in prison, and got paroled, with the help of prison staff attesting to his transformation. Jorge tells his story with spectacular clarity and it’s filled with a treasure trove of takeaways. A sequel is forthcoming, to cover his reintegration into ci...

50-year-old Jorge Bautista never intended to return to freedom. At age 18, he was given 30 years to life and sent to Pelican Bay State Penitentiary. This supermax prison houses those the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation labels “the worst of the worst.”  He’d taken the life of a rival gang member after one of them killed his best friend. He quickly adapted to the inner rules...

Eighty-one-year-old Liz worries about what will become of her son when she and his father die. Eric, their son, has schizophrenia. He got ill when he was 17 and has been disabled ever since. He cannot function independently in society and needs people to look after him. The beginning years were “very rough.” Liz and her husband tried all help available, and Eric never came back to himself. He’s a...