The Independent Life

None of us are free from the potential of being homeless. On this Disability Dojo episode, Tony talks about housing. Centers For Independent Living are highly invested in ensuring that they work to find housing for people with disabilities by offering transition and diversion services, along with information and referral services. The number request related to these services is housing. Affordable...

Shirley Bloodworth is 92 years young. She has spent her life making active change for those who often cannot advocate for themselves. Shirley is part of a community concerned for older adults, Community Coalition for Older Adults (CCOA), who got together through community collaboration and advocated to build a senior recreation center. It exists to provide all kinds of programs to promote independ...

On today’s dojo episode, Tony talks about how to address stress through our brain; how we can conceptualize stress, recognize our perspectives about stress, how we can rightsize stress in terms of how we think about it. Tony will walk through different cognitive ways we can learn to manage our stress: internal and external control, self-awareness, perspectives, how to address fear, how to help cop...

Mark D. Bennett is the principal of Uniting by Design LLC, a consulting firm with a mission to help leaders unite organizations that deliver superior results, earn ethical reputations, and adapt to change.  He left the practice of law for graduate study in counseling psychology and family therapy. Then, he began to work with a wide range of organization disputes as a full time mediator. These disp...

This is part 2 of a 3 part series on stress and how to deal with it effectively. In this episode, Tony dives into actionable ways to process stress in healthy ways, such as: physical activity healthy eating healthy sleep patterns and habits meditating and journaling having positive social support systems engaging in art and music volunteering and being of service to others random acts of kindness...

Mira Gaitanis is an artist and an advocate who happens to have low vision. Currently, she is Junior pursuing a major in Media and Communication Studies at Florida State University. She likes to stay involved on campus with The Center for Leadership and Social Change and their programs, which includes Service Scholars.  On this episode, we have the privilege of hearing Mira share her story, her exp...

This is the first part of a 3 part series about the topic of stress- why its important to pay attention to our stress and what it may be telling us. In the following two episodes, Tony will be getting into actionable and healthy ways to manage stress.   References: Stoic Philosopher Seneca  Robert Sapolsky: Physiological Effects of Stress  General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)    If you have topics yo...

Jane Johnson is back on the podcast this week for a special State Of The Union episode on what the independent living network has been up to within this past year and what we can expect, as we’re gearing up for the end of the year and the beginning of the legislative session. For those joining us for the first time, Jane Johnson, the Executive Director for the Florida Association for Centers For I...

Education is needed but often not sufficient in to getting where we want to go. On this dojo episode, Tony talks about how we should look at it is a social determinant of health, given how our level of educational attainment predicts how long we will live, our resiliency to chronic disease, and quality of life. From his perspective, Tony sees education as being as much of an academic or profession...

Brianna Chesteen M.S., is the Founder and Executive Director of the Health Education and Training Center of Gainesville, Inc.(H.E.A.T.). Brianna is a Health Educator from Ocala, FL who is passionate about informing and educating others about public health. Brianna holds a master’s degree in Health Education and Behavior from the University of Florida. Brianna enjoys learning and teaching how behav...

What would your personal mission statement be? Mission statements can give us clarity and be the north star that helps to guide us. And when you do identify what your mission is, declare it, call it out into a statement- make it something that you can say to yourself on a daily basis. Having a mission statement means having a vision for the future and a path forward, which now allows you to set go...

On this episode, Tony gets to know Zach, who is currently in his second year of college and has a lot to share on what has allowed him to be successful in his academic journey. Zach talks about his experiences with school during his K-12 years and his transition into college- the struggles he experienced in his first year, the lessons he’s learn, and how he’s carrying them forward.  He talks about...

Why are we here? This is a question that helps Tony identify his true mission. When Tony thinks about here and where we are, he zooms ..out a lot. He does so to keep himself grounded and it helps him to put perspective on the problems and issues that he finds challenging and continuously allows him to appreciate the life he’s been given. Humans are made up of the elements that come from the core o...

James is a founder of an organization call “Be Able, Be Fit” which used physical activity, as a way to work on people’s physical health but also gets into their mental and emotional health and really working on their mindset. The mission of his organization is to promote a place where people with all different kinds of disabilities, can come for encouragement, support, camaraderie, and community....

Who am I? Who are you? A person has many different aspects to who they are, not just disability, but all these various aspects, such as, nationality, race, the gender they identify with, the roles they fill in the life, their job, their talents, etc. For Tony, the answer to this question drives everything that he does- the way he thinks, the way he speak, the way he behaves. It’s a question he ask...

In this powerful episode, Max Gastelum and Isaiah Swaysey, two alumni from this year’s Youth Leadership Forum, join Tony in an inspirational conversation. Through immense courage and bravery, they talk about important and rich areas regarding transformation- moving from a place of not being well and not doing well, to transforming and evolving into a place of hope, aspiration, and having a new out...

People with disability report a lower quality of life, more consistently than people without disabilities. Quality of life is declining in many demographics in our country but when we look at disability- it is more magnified and that’s what we call a health inequity and health disparity; it’s not consistent with the general population so it’s important or us to take a look at that and find ways fo...

Tony Delisle and Sarah Catalanotto participate in a Health Equity Collaborative call with Tobacco Free Florida. In this conversation about smoking cessation and populations with disabilities, they discuss the prevalence of smoking rates and people with disabilities, in comparison to the average population. In this conversation, we talk about smoking cessation efforts; many who joined the call are...

Join us weekly in conversation with Tony, as he reflects on topics and ideas related to living an independent life.    If you have topics you'd like for us to discuss with our community and listeners, leave a comment or contact us at cilncf.org@gmail.com ! We'd love to have guests participate with Tony on our Disability Dojos- so if that person is you, reach out and let us know! For More Informati...

Jose Morales is the ADA Manager at the Center for Independent Living in Jacksonville. On this episode, Tony  and Jose share a conversation where he talks about the importance of being ourselves, being authentic to who we are in our true nature, and when we do that, it brings us to a place of empowerment where we can then create the synergies needed in our lives to live up to our fullest potential....

There’s an art and science to service. How do we make peace in the world? How do we make the world a better place? How do we promote independent living? The disability dojo aims to create a safe space for discussing these questions: how can we learn more about these issue areas, how can we best improve and be the best version of ourselves, and what is our role in helping out others?   If you have...

“Health equity” will be achieved when every individual has the same opportunity to attain their full health potential because there is equal access to equal health care based upon equal need. Dr. Laura Guyer’s career has been dedicated to the mitigation of health disparities that are associated with social, economic, racial, and educational disparities and elimination of barriers in the health car...

The Disability Dojo is an opportunity for us to take some space and to really think about important questions, identify issues, and take stock in some issues worth contemplating and relevant to our mission towards understanding more about what it means to have a disability to live independently, and to be the best version of ourselves that we can be. Each week, Tony will use this space to examine...

On this episode, we welcome back Dr. Vincent Venditto, Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy. Tony and Dr. Venditto begin by reflecting on where we were in the pandemic when they first connected in January and where we are with the pandemic today. Dr. Venditto shares his perspective on where we are in the life cycle of this pandemic and di...

On this episode, Tony takes us back to our mission with the purpose and our intentions for The Independent Life podcast: providing a lens to what it’s like to have a disability and to live independently. In Season 1, we strived to accomplish this by talking to people with disabilities in order to gain insights into their lives through their lived experiences. We hoped that by doing so, we could bu...