Finding Fertile Ground: Communicate for Change

Read more about Amira and see photos on this blog post. Amira Stanley is a mindset & intention coach, end-of-life doula, and anti-racism educator and community activist. She grew up Black and gay in mostly small cities or towns, has lived with pain from hip dysplasia and lost a huge amount of weight so she could have hip replacement, supported her beloved husband through his transition, and ha...

Read more and view photos here . Lisa Schroeder is a mother, grandmother, chef, restaurateur and author devoted to providing better-than-authentic renditions of traditional home-cooked dishes at her popular, award-winning restaurant, Mother's Bistro & Bar. Lisa is an incredibly hard worker, as all executive chefs are, and she had to work twice as hard as a woman in the kitchen, to be take...

This week on the Finding Fertile Ground podcast, I interview Melissa Pierce, who I met through Rock Voices Portland, a 140-voice strong rock choir led by my friends Mark and Caley Barstow. Rock Voices’ theme is “healing through song,” which Melissa and I discuss on this podcast.  Melissa was faced with a huge crisis in her 40s: she lost her beloved husband unexpectedly and became a single mom in t...

Read the full blog post and view photos . This week on the Finding Fertile Ground podcast, I interview Ruth L. Schwartz, a writer, teacher, and consciousness-shifter. Ruth has published eight books and taught at six universities, and now she runs the Conscious Girlfriend Academy , the leading global program supporting lesbians and queer women to date wisely and love well. Ruth was born to parents...

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. I hope you’ll join me in signing the AAPI Visibility Pledge to support Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. After launching my second podcast, Companies That Care , I’ve started alternating each week. This week I interview Christine Cariño, a queer nonbinary immigrant from the Philippines. Her grit and resilience story led to her life’s...

This week I interview Nono Osuji, a first-generation American whose parents immigrated from Nigeria. Nono is a writer, producer, and actor. She is living with lupus, which is hard enough. She’s also living with being “Broke, Gifted, and Black,” the title of her podcast. We had a gritty, deep-down conversation about race in this country.  Nono is the youngest in her family, born to her parents afte...

View photos and more details here .  Murielle Fellous bounced back after a depression while raising three teenagers as a single mom and living with Hepatitis B. Originally born and raised in France, she founded the "Single Moms Doing It All" coaching practice and podcast.  Muriel grew up near Paris, raised to be “very proper.” For example, she was trained not to speak too loudly on the s...

Visit Fertile Ground Communications on Patreon and find out how you can support my work. I’ve turned away several white guys on my podcast. When I started this podcast, I wanted to invite people who do not get a platform to share their stories. I’ve interviewed 50+ people, including 38 women, 24 people of color, 12 immigrants, 12 who identify as LBGTQIA+, and only 7 men.  Dr. Chuck Bergman is the...

If you like what you hear today, visit my Fertile Ground Communications page on Patreon and find out how you can support my work. Shannon Whaley overcame sexual abuse and assault, a toxic childhood, and drug and alcohol abuse. Shannon had a troubled childhood full of sexual abuse and trauma. She doesn’t remember how old she was when it all started. It was just life. She had no safe person to tell...

If you like what you hear today, visit my Fertile Ground Communications page on Patreon and find out how you can support my work. Brigitte Ayoub is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants. She grew up experiencing the challenges of finding her place as an American with Arab roots. Right after leaving her corporate job to start her own business in April 2018, her dad died…then her mom was diagnosed...

Read more about Stefanie and view photos here. Stefanie Michele suffered with eating disorders including bulimia, binge eating, and orthorexia for 20 years. She was born the oldest of three in an Italian family with strongly defined gender roles. Her father was overweight and always dieting. As he got larger, he tried to control his kids’ weight. She ended up dieting to the point where she became...

Note: this episode contains adult content. Leah Carey tried to be a “good girl” for decades before waking up sexually in her early 40s. She had a rough childhood. Her dad was an alcoholic and emotionally abused Leah and her mom. He spoke to Leah sexually about her body and told her she was fat and ugly. Later he said he was going to lock her in her room until she was 30 and break the kneecaps of a...

Support the Finding Fertile Ground Podcast on Patreon ! Warning: This episode contains adult content. Madeleine Black  survived a gang rape at age 13. Since I was sexually assaulted at 13 as well, we had a tender conversation about how this experience changed our lives. Madeleine was born to two survivors. Her dad survived the Holocaust and her mum had her neck broken in a childhood surgery and wo...

Trigger warning: This episode contains some mature content. View photos and read more info here . This week I launch my “Healing Herself” series with four women who have survived body issues, sexual assault, shame, and trauma. Elena Joy Thurston is an LGBTQ speaker, trainer, and founder of the Pride and Joy Foundation, dedicated to reducing the rate of suicide and homelessness in the LGBTQ communi...

Cindy Van Arnam has faced a lifetime of mountains…starting when her dad passed away when she was 16 years old. For 23 years, she created a “mountain” in every choice she made about her life. From cocaine addiction and abusive relationships, to travelling to foreign countries without a plan, she was always seeking a way to make life hard for herself. She finally understood she was the mountain that...

My final “Writer on Resilience” is Marianne Monson . I discovered her through Frontier Grit : The Unlikely True Stories of Daring Pioneer Women , on my top books list in 2017 . She also wrote Women of the Blue and Gray: Civil War Mothers, Medics, Soldiers, and Spies and Her Quiet Revolution: A Novel of Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon . Marianne’s books contain rich stories of diverse women. Born in Bosto...

This week my third “Writer on Resilience” is Julie Lythcott-Haims, writer, speaker, and former corporate lawyer and Stanford dean. Her first book was How to Raise an Adult , an anti-helicopter parenting manifesto. I read her moving and inspiring second book, Real American: A Memoir , which was my top nonfiction read for 2020. She has a third book coming out in April: Your Turn: How to Be an Adult...

The second “Writer on Resilience” is one of my favorites, Sujata Massey . Born to an Indian father and a German mother, Sujata's family immigrated to the US when she was five. She found it difficult to make friends, experiencing prejudice and xenophobia. She was glad to put high school behind her when she started at Johns Hopkins.  Sujata was lucky to get a job as a features reporter straight...

“There was no part of me back in high school that ever thought I could be a writer…When I headed off to university, one of the criteria I used for picking my courses was that there was no essay requirement. And I graduated without writing a single essay.” Cathy Marie Buchanan is the first author in my “Writers on Resilience” series. She has published three historical novels: The Day the Falls Stoo...

Photos and more detail on my website AmiCietta Clarke is a motivational speaker, writer, certified holistic health and empowerment coach, and attorney…plus mom to twins! After overcoming a rare autoimmune disease by changing her diet and lifestyle, AmiCietta founded Clean Body Living , a holistic health coaching practice. AmiCietta and her family escaped the coup and civil war in Liberia when she...

Carol Gavhane survived secondary infertility and pregnancy loss, ending up with two children from seven pregnancies. Pregnancies were not the only loss she experienced. Her sister died when Carol was just 27 years old. Carol’s son Henry arrived early and small and had a NICU stay. As a Korean-American raised by a single mom who spoke limited English, Carol had a hard time fitting in as a girl. Car...

This podcast episode contains some explicit language. I had a lively conversation with Court Wakefield (they/them), a digital marketing leader and host of the For Folx Sake: Cultivating Inclusive Communities podcast. After surviving life as a queer in the Bible belt, Court and their wife Hollis underwent three rounds of in vitro fertilization followed by 97 days with their baby in the NICU. Hollis...

Madison Ways is a junior in high school, trying to figure out her life after the death of her father. “My friends didn't understand my grief and weren't very nice at a time when I needed them most,” said Madison. “As a result, I lost many of them.” Madison is my youngest guest yet. As a child, she was very close to her mom and dad and she loved to dance (tap and hip hop). She described h...

Lauren DeVera is a positive psychology practitioner, yoga + mindfulness teacher, movement artist, podcaster, and life coach. Daughter to Filipino immigrants, Lauren grew up with six older half-siblings and never felt like she fit in. Now she realizes that feeling manifested in a positive way because she is passionate about creating space for other people to feel like they belong. When her parents...

Mx. Harris Eddie Hill (they/them) is host of the Transection Podcast . A seasoned LGBTQ+ advocate, Harris is an incredible resource for learning how to support transgender and nonbinary loved ones.  If someone comes out to you as trans or nonbinary, you’ll want to be prepared so you don’t risk damaging your relationship or contribute to their mental health challenges.  Before Harris knew they were...