Human Amplified

At five years old, Mike Hutchinson learned a lesson that would quietly shape the rest of his life: relationships can disappear. What followed was decades of wrestling with questions many adoptees know well. Who am I? Where did I come from? Why was I given away? And how do those questions affect the way I connect with other people? Mike shares the reality of growing up in a closed adoption, the emo...

Grief is often associated with death, but loss has a way of showing up throughout life in places we don't always recognize. For Heather Burwell, the sudden loss of her husband while raising a young son became the beginning of a much larger exploration of grief, healing, authenticity, and what it means to keep living after life changes in an instant. Heather shares why she believes grief extends be...

When Meg Smidt married her husband, she became a mother to five children almost overnight. What followed was not only a crash course in parenting, but also an education in relationships.  Over the next two decades, Meg navigated blended family dynamics, co-parenting challenges, military deployments, adult children, in-laws, friendship changes, and the many transitions that reshape the people...

Growing up with alcoholic parents doesn't just affect childhood. It can shape the stories people tell themselves about love, worthiness, responsibility, and belonging long into adulthood. Katrina Lelli, life coach and mother of four, shares how growing up in an alcoholic home influenced her relationships, fueled her struggles with alcohol and codependency, and left her searching for validation in...

Divorce is often treated as the end of a relationship, but for parents, it's also the beginning of a new one. While many families navigate conflict, custody battles, or years of lingering resentment, some parents make a different choice. Not because the divorce was easy, but because their child's well-being matters more than winning, being right, or holding onto old hurts. Ed Rosenberger shares ho...

What happens when a marriage ends but the friendship remains? For Aly and Ed Rosenberger, divorce wasn't the end of their family. Instead, it became the beginning of a different kind of relationship. Today, they share holidays, communicate daily, support one another's relationships, and co-parent their son without a formal custody arrangement. Along the way, they've navigated difficult conversatio...

Children are remarkably good at filling in the blanks. When a parent leaves, the explanation isn't always clear, but the story a child tells themselves about that absence can linger for decades. For Mal Foster, growing up without a father shaped everything from his sense of self-worth to the way he approached relationships, health, and personal growth.  His story offers a thoughtful look at h...

Trigger Warning: This episode contains discussions of childhood abuse, depression, suicide attempts, suicidal ideation, psychiatric hospitalization, and suicide loss. Anger is often treated as something to suppress, control, or overcome. What we talk about less often is what might be hiding underneath it. Robin Land reflects on childhood abuse, depression, suicide attempts, a year spent in a psych...

It's easy to assume the way we see the world is the way it really is. What if we're actually seeing it through a lens shaped by our strengths, fears, experiences, and unconscious habits? In this conversation, Corey Hatfield explains how character strengths influence the way we think, connect with others, and make sense of the world. We discuss anxiety, cognitive dissonance, mindfulness, and the ch...

Long before launching the Hey Human podcast, Susan Ruth built her career around storytelling. As a songwriter, artist, and creative entrepreneur, she spent years exploring what motivates people, what shapes their beliefs, and why some conversations bring us closer while others drive us further apart. In this conversation, Susan reflects on the importance of being heard, what she learned from inter...

I’m your host, Brandi Fleck, and this is Human Amplified.  We’re on a mission to revamp society by amplifying your humanity.  We tell highly personal, experiential stories sprinkled with expert advice to uncover humanity at its most raw and messy, yet beautiful. We challenge you to dig deep, crack open, and spark your inner badass.  If you’re looking for connection, improved relatio...

We’re on a mission to revamp society by amplifying your humanity. THE WAY SOCIETY & (COUNTER) CULTURE IS...STARTS WITH YOU. Yes, the messy, but also the beautiful parts. So grab your cuppa Joe and settle in.  We’re gonna dig deep into our humanity to get real and raw about who we are and why. What we uncover will challenge you, but then it’ll spark your inner badass to blaze that next tra...

I’m going to be flying solo to talk to you about the 6 helpful habits to finding your purpose. This is a lesson in using introspection to nurture a relationship with yourself through 6 habits that are tools, which will help you reconnect with your true core self and values. Once you reconnect in that way, finding your purpose in life becomes much easier, leading to more positive experiences and fu...

Season 2 of the On Being Human podcast wraps up after running in parallel with natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic, and civil unrest. Host, Brandi Fleck, and Sound Engineer, Ryan Sauls reflect on the impact, the making of the music that underscored people's powerful stories, and how the voices were the most important part. We reflect on the highlights of the season, shout out to all the amazi...

Belinda Harvey learned early that some people experience America differently than others. Growing up in South Central Los Angeles, she witnessed gang violence, lived with constant uncertainty, and learned not to expect help when police were called.  Those experiences stayed with her as she built a successful career in corporate America, raised a son of her own, and watched the events of 2020...

Purpose didn't arrive all at once for Wendy Yates. It emerged through creativity, service, entrepreneurship, and a willingness to start over when life wasn't aligned with who she wanted to become. Wendy shares how growing up in a military family, rebuilding her life after divorce, and building a design business from scratch shaped her understanding of purpose, community, and meaningful work. We di...

For much of her life, Lori Reising was trying to understand a feeling she couldn't quite explain. Adopted as an infant through a closed adoption, she grew up surrounded by love. Yet underneath that love was a persistent sense of abandonment, a question of belonging that followed her into adulthood and shaped the way she moved through relationships, loss, and healing. Lori reflects on the impact of...

When life falls apart, people often reach for something bigger than themselves. But why? Mike Hutchinson looks at why faith becomes an anchor during hardship, beginning with what the Bible says about faith before moving into deeply personal stories of bipolar disorder, infertility, adoption, anger, and unanswered questions. Rather than offering easy answers, he examines how faith, action, and resi...

Faith is one of the most common words in our vocabulary, yet it's also one of the least defined. Depending on who you ask, faith is belief, trust, hope, optimism, religion, or simply something deeply personal. Those definitions often overlap, but they don't always mean the same thing. Mike Hutchinson, a theology student, pastor-in-training, and host of The True Presbyterian podcast, explores how C...

Spiritual abuse often doesn't look like abuse at first. It can sound like guidance, accountability, or faith while quietly replacing your own judgment with fear, shame, and control. Sarah Gates spent decades in conservative evangelical churches where manipulation was framed as spiritual authority. She shares how religious trauma affected her sense of self, why leaving wasn't as simple as walking a...

What happens after a near-death experience? Popular culture often tells us people emerge with complete clarity, renewed purpose, or an entirely different outlook on life. But reality is often more complicated. When filmmaker and podcaster Greg Tilton survived a car accident that first responders expected to be fatal, he walked away with injuries that eventually healed. The emotional impact, howeve...

Sometimes the project you start isn't just something you make. It changes the way you see yourself. When Michelle Liter found herself wondering what came next after years of raising her family, she returned to the one thing that had always been part of her identity: creating. That decision led her to write and illustrate her first children's book, but along the way, it also reshaped how she though...

Cannabis has long been one of the most misunderstood plants in modern healthcare. While CBD has become increasingly mainstream, confusion about how it works, whether it's legal, and what it can actually do continues to shape public perception. CBD educator Neal Thompson shares how a career in the cannabis industry led him to become passionate about helping people separate myths from facts. Learn a...

Grief doesn't end after the funeral. It follows you into ordinary moments, changes the way you think, and asks you to build a life that no longer looks the way you expected. When Laurah Jurca unexpectedly lost her husband, she was thrust into a reality no one prepares for. Twelve days later, her mother also passed away.  She shares what it felt like to experience two devastating losses back t...

One ordinary afternoon by a resort pool changed Valerie Moss's life forever. While on her honeymoon in Mexico, she was suddenly called to help a toddler who had been pulled from the water unconscious. With no medical background beyond CPR training, she stepped in. The child survived, but the story didn't end there. Years later, Valerie shares how that experience reshaped the way she thinks about p...