And Then Everything Changed: Recent Episodes
Ronit Plank
Take a deep dive into a featured guest’s personal history; the pivotal moments of their childhood and adulthood that defined them and the crucial and sometimes painful decisions they made that forever changed the course of their lives. Each episode of And Then Everything Changed is an intimate conversation; sometimes funny, sometimes profound. Hosted by Ronit Plank.
And Then Everything Changed is on hiatus for a bit while I work on two new limited series podcasts. I've enjoyed these last two years of creating this show and meeting so many guests who remind me that we can survive and learn and grow after contending with challenges we never thought we'd have to face.
My two new podcasts are The Body Myth and Let's Talk Memoir which do have similar themes to And Then Everything Changed. I'll be interviewing guests and getting to the heart of their personal experience and their creative work.
If you have struggled with feeling good in your body and wonder why after all these years you still can't find peace, you will like The Body Myth. And if you are a memoir lover, reader, or writer you will enjoy Let's talk memoir.
If the trailers for these shows sound intriguing to you please head over to your podcast platform, search for The Body Myth and Let's Talk Memoir and hit subscribe.
The first episodes drop in just a few weeks.
Thank you for being an And Then Everything Changed listener. I hope you'll join me for Let's Talk Memoir and The Body Myth podcasts, too!
Follow me on Instagram: @ronitplank
Subscribe to Let’s Talk Memoir: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lets-talk-memoir/id1612365112
Subscribe to The Body Myth: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-body-myth/id1613426285
Laura Formentini was in Ethiopia when her son Blaise died by suicide. An empath like her, he had difficulty connecting to the material world and day to day life often felt overwhelming for him. Though it took years and has been painful, she has come to accept and honor her son’s choice to no longer be here. Humanitarian work and sponsoring more than 40 kids in 18 years enabled her to survive her grief and transform it into a healing force in the world. She truly believes it is possible to turn dark into light even while experiencing loss. Laura joins the last episode of And Then Everything Changed to tell Blaise’s story and talk about her new book Twentyone Olive Trees: A Mother’s Walk Through the Grief of Suicide.
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
Connect with Laura:
Laura's Website: www.lauraformentini.com
Laura's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorlauraformentini
Laura's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorlauraformentini/
Connect with Ronit:
For more about this episode click here! https://andtheneverythingchangedpodcast.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlankCreative/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAlSZFpcksgdHopmBLUXfLA
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
When Shelly Snow Pordea reached out to church leaders about the sexual abuse she suffered as a child she found no support, no advocacy; instead the process of telling her story to church elders revictimized her. She would come to discover her experience was all too common. In the Independent fundamental baptist movement her family was part of, patriarchy was in full force and misogyny ran rampant. There was a dress code, gender roles were rigid, and women had to be submissive. Shelly was taught that as a girl she was inherently dangerous, the sexualization of women and children was their own fault, and that she was responsible for the way men treated her. Without any education but the curriculum the church offered and isolation from the outside world, it took her and her siblings years to break away from the community in which she was raised. She has now made it her mission to speak out about the church’s harmful practices. In this episode she shares her story and her advocacy work, her thoughts on the Josh Duggar case, and reflects on how being an artist helped save her.
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
Connect with Shelly:
Shelly's Website: www.shellysnowpordea.com
Shelly's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shellysnowpordea/
The Hug Who Had No Arms: https://www.amazon.com/Hug-Who-Had-No-Arms/dp/1735012017
Tracing Time: The Past Outlines A Legacy: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1943526532
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here! https://andtheneverythingchangedpodcast.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlankCreative/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAlSZFpcksgdHopmBLUXfLA
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
Keema and Tekla Waterfield were raised by a young single mother in Southeast Alaska after their father left the family. With very little money but a passion for music and art, their mother moved them frequently in pursuit of her education, gigs, and new relationships. “Music festival brats” from a young age, Keema and Tekla reveled in summer trips to watch their mother perform with her friends and also sing beside her; those gatherings would become the most stable facet of their childhoods.
As the sisters grew, art and their at-times traumatic childhood led each of the sisters on different paths. Keema wrote Inside Passage, a new memoir about her nomadic Alaskan childhood, the toll her upbringing took on her, and the effect it had on her relationship with her mother. Tekla became a singer-songwriter whose most recent release, "New Skies" landed in the NACC Top 30 Folk Album Charts in October of 2021.
On this episode of And Then Everything Changed they share their perspective on their childhood, how each of them grappled with their father leaving, and why art has always been central in their lives.
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
Connect with Keema:
Keema's Website: https://keemawaterfield.com
Link to Keema’s memoir Inside Passage:
Ronit’s review of Inside Passage: https://therumpus.net/2021/08/inside-passage-by-keema-waterfield/
Connect with Tekla:
Tekla's Website: www.teklawaterfield.com
Tekla's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teklawaterfieldmusic/
Connect with Ronit:
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here! https://andtheneverythingchangedpodcast.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlankCreative/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAlSZFpcksgdHopmBLUXfLA
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
Limi Marie Bauer was born into the cult where her parents met via an arranged marriage. They raised Limi in the Unification Church, known as the Moonies in popular culture, and Limi knew from a young age she would grow up and have an arranged marriage herself. As she got closer and closer to her wedding day she began to rebel and step away from church, but at 19 she married a man she’d met only three days before her wedding. It wasn’t until she heard her children talking about being in the cult that she realized she could no longer stay. In this episode Limi shares her experience of the Unification Church’s power dynamics, dogma, and how because of its many front organizations it is able to hide in plain sight. Today she’s working on a memoir about growing up in and leaving the Moonies and active in the #IGotOut movement for cult survivors.
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
Connect with Limi:
"The Champion" a short story for #igotout (high-demand group survivor stories) https://youtu.be/m1TP-ZMhfMg
Website: www.limimariebauer.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/limibauer
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/writingwithlimi/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@writingwithlimi?
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here! https://andtheneverythingchangedpodcast.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlankCreative/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAlSZFpcksgdHopmBLUXfLA
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
Laura Davis, celebrated author and advocate, joins And Then Everything Changed for episode 100! When Laura’s groundbreaking first book, The Courage to Heal was released decades ago it was the first of its kind to document hundreds of women’s stories of sexual abuse. In it, Laura shared her own story of being sexually abused by her grandfather, showed women it was possible to heal from this trauma, and called out the patriarchy. As she helped hundreds of thousands of women and her star rose, a rupture began in her own family. Her mother refused to believe Laura about the abuse she’d suffered, and when Laura came out as lesbian her family rejected her.
Laura relocated across the country and found a supportive community, a loving relationship, became a mother, and wrote and published many more books. Then, toward the end of her mother’s life, she told Laura she was moving to live near her and Laura faced the prospect of caring for and being in relationship again with her mother who had hurt her so many years before. In this episode Laura shares what it was like to write her new memoir, The Burning Light of Two Stars: A Mother-Daughter Story about how she reconciled with the mother who betrayed her and came to care for her in her final days.
Also in this episode: Laura’s tips for writing about traumatic experiences, where the boundaries are when writing about family experiences, and what all memoir writing needs.
Connect with Laura:
You can buy The Burning Light of Two Stars wherever books and audiobooks are sold.
You can also read the opening chapters of The Burning Light of Two Stars at: www.lauradavis.net/chapters
If you’re an aspiring writer or want to use writing as a tool for healing or self-discovery, you can learn about Laura’s online writing workshops and in-person domestic and international retreats here: www.lauradavis.net
Direct links to buy The Burning Light of Two Stars:
Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/books/the-burning-light-of-two-stars-a-mother-daughter-story-9781954854161/9781954854161
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Burning-Light-Two-Stars-Mother-Daughter/dp/1954854218/
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-burning-light-of-two-stars-laura-davis/1139198069
Indiebound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781954854161
Get Your Signed Copies Through Bookshop Santa Cruz: https://www.bookshopsantacruz.com/burning-light-two-stars-get-it-signed)
Want a Discount When You Buy in Bulk for Your Book Club or Organization?
For bulk sales: https://www.porchlightbooks.com/product/burning-light-of-two-stars-a-mother-daughter-story--laura-davis?variationCode=9781954854161#full-description
Other info can be found in her press kit: https://bit.ly/3illC9Y
Connect With Ronit:
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
For more about this episode click here! https://andtheneverythingchangedpodcast.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlankCreative/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAlSZFpcksgdHopmBLUXfLA
This week is the 100th episode celebration for And Then Everything Changed! I started the podcast on Halloween of 2019 with my first guest, Paul who took a chance on a new show and a new host, and we created one of my favorite episodes to date. Since then, I've gotten to interview people in recovery, survivors, social justice leaders, and so many talented authors. On my website ATECpodcast.com you can go check out and listen to my previous episodes, each categorized by topic, so you can listen to what moves you first! Thank you for tuning in and for being a part of the ATEC community!
Below are links to the 15 most listened-to episodes:
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- A Living Person Among the Dead featuring Paul Boardman
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- From Downward Spiral to the Other Side featuring Ashlee Brown
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- Everybody Knew featuring Christine McLean
- The COVID-19 Experience- Surviving Coronavirus, Bonus Episode 3
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- Living Through the Loss of a Spouse featuring Mark Schutter
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- A Family Survival Story: Prosthesis, Recovery, and Resilience featuring Rosalie
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- My Salinger Year and a Second Chance at Love featuring Joanna Rakoff
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- Mother to a Child Born with Differences: From Pain to Advocacy featuring Jaclyn Greenberg
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- The Power of Advocacy After Childhood Trauma featuring Johnny Crowder
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- The Duality of the Gift of Coming to America Baktash Ahadi
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- Unschooling OUrselves Akilah Richards
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- The Toll of Mental Illness and Finding A Path Forward featuring Debbie Lechtman
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- Hollywood Park Mikel Jollett
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- Becoming the Person You’re Meant to Be After Childhood Violence, Drugs, and Neglect ft. Treveal Lynch
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- A life of Meaning After Profound Loss Jacqueline Genovese
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here! https://andtheneverythingchangedpodcast.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlankCreative/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAlSZFpcksgdHopmBLUXfLA
When Jen Kiaba was growing up in the Unification Church, known as the Moonies in popular culture, a main mantra was “absolute faith, absolute love, absolute obedience” which did not leave most people much room to question authority. Violence was not condoned but children were often hit, and as she came of age and noticed other contradictions, she didn’t have a safe space to process her feelings or make decisions that were right for her. Finally, when she faced an arranged marriage like that of her parents, she knew she had to leave. And when she did, she lost everything: her community, her family, and the only structure she had ever known. Slowly, slowly, she rebuilt her life and today she is an artist and activist who educates others about cults, coercive control, and high control groups. Jen believes cult education is vital because people from a broad range of backgrounds and experiences are vulnerable and she sees similarities between cults and American workplaces, such as amazon, everywhere. In this episode she shares her story, helps identify cult tactics, and offers an inside look at how these groups take root.
Connect with Jen:
https://jenkiaba.com
https://instagram.com/jenkiaba
https://facebook.com/jenkiaba
https://twitter.com/jenkiaba
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
For books and information on cults visit Dr. Janja Lalich's site: http://cultresearch.org
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here! https://andtheneverythingchangedpodcast.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlankCreative/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAlSZFpcksgdHopmBLUXfLA
Suzanne Najarian had been married for two decades when she realized the sexual desire between her and her husband had all but disappeared. From the outside their relationship they had no deeper sexual connection. She began to study the nature of desire and had what she describes as a cataclysmic awakening which altered her relationship, her sense of self, and how she wanted to live. Soon, she ended her marriage and dove deep into a spiritual, sacred, and sexual practice that transformed her. Today Suzanne is a sex, love, and relationship coach who helps women and men tap into the sacred, spiritual, and sexual life force within them and integrate that energy into all areas of their life.
Connect with Suzanne:
Website: www.suzannenajariangoodson.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suzanne.najarian.goodson/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wholeselfessence/
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here! https://andtheneverythingchangedpodcast.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlankCreative/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAlSZFpcksgdHopmBLUXfLA
When he was growing up, Treveal Lynch’s father was out of the picture, his mom was addicted to drugs and he faced emotional trauma almost on a daily basis. As a teenager he began using drugs and alcohol too, unable to escape from the patterns he grew up around. It wasn’t until he was arrested and found himself standing trial that he realized the way he was living no longer felt right.
In this episode, Treveal shares the story of his childhood and how he came to the decision that he needed to change his life for the better. He is now a faith-based community leader, author of the new book "What Is Enough”, & founder of a self-development company built on his philosophy that we and our possibilities are one and the same; everything we hope to be tomorrow we already are today. Using his own story as guide, he helps individuals revive hope for their lives and reclaim their purpose.
Connect with Treveal:
Treveal's Website www.iamthepossible.com
Treveal's Facebook https://www.facebook.com/treveal.lynch
Treveal's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamthepossible/
Free Self-Worth/Self-Discovery Workbook https://www.myworthworkbook.com/free-download
What Is Enough: “How to lighten your load and find what makes you happy” https://bit.ly/mywhatisenoughbook
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here! https://andtheneverythingchangedpodcast.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlankCreative/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAlSZFpcksgdHopmBLUXfLA
When Allison Hong Merrill was growing up in the slums of Taiwan her family was riddled with cycles of alcoholism and domestic violence. She couldn’t imagine a different life until she met Mormon missionaries, began attending church, and witnessed, for the first time, families who cared for one another. She became more and more active in the church and eventually fell in love, moving to the US to be with her American husband. But soon after, he abandoned Allison, took her money, and left her alone in her new country with no resources.
In this episode, Allison, whose new memoir Ninety-Nine Fire Hoops is out this month, shares how she found strength, created a new life for herself, and what her past has helped her understand.
Connect With Allison:
Ninety-Nine Fire Hoops on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Ninety-Nine-Fire-Hoops-Allison-Merrill/dp/1647421896
Allison's Website: www.allisonhongmerrill.com,
Allison's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allison.hong.merrill
Allison's Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/xieshou
Allison's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/allisonhongmerrill
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here! https://andtheneverythingchangedpodcast.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlankCreative/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAlSZFpcksgdHopmBLUXfLA
Sonia Frontera, a collaborative divorce lawyer and author of divorce and relationship-related books, survived a 7-year toxic marriage. She married at 24 and on the flight to her honeymoon right after the wedding, her husband became a whole new person. He went from a loving man to a violent controlling one. For years she suffered behind closed doors because of fear of judgement from her family and the Church but when she finally had enough, they divorced. She has now been happily married for 21 years and helps other women navigate divorce and regaining independence from their toxic relationships.
She is a domestic violence advocate and shares that domestic violence is not just physical violence. Her books include workbooks to follow along with, so the reader can find the answer themselves.
Domestic Violence Hotline: 1.800.799.SAFE
Connect with Sonia:
Website: www.soniafrontera.com
Sonia’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sistersguides/
Sonia’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/FronteraSonia
Author of Solve the Divorce Dilemma: Do You Keep Your Husband or Do You Post Him on Craigslist?
and Relationship Solutions: Effective Strategies to Heal Your Heart and Create the Happiness You Deserve
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here! https://andtheneverythingchangedpodcast.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlankCreative/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAlSZFpcksgdHopmBLUXfLA
A few months after Myriam Steinberg turned forty, she decided she couldn’t wait any longer to become a mother. She made the difficult decision to begin the process of conceiving a child without a partner. With her family and friends to support her, she picked a sperm donor and was on her way.
But Myriam’s journey was far from straightforward. She experienced the soaring highs and devastating lows of becoming pregnant and then losing her babies. She grappled with the best decision to make when choosing donors or opting for a medical procedure. She experienced first-hand the silences, loneliness, and taboos that come with experiences of fetal loss. Unafraid to publicize her experiences, though, she found that, in return, friends and strangers alike started sharing their own fertility stories with her. Although the lack of understanding and language around fetal loss and grief often made it very hard to navigate everyday life, she nonetheless found solace in the community around her who rallied to support her through her journey.
In this episode Myriam shares her story, how her graphic memoir came to be and what her life is like now years after her fertility journey began.
Connect with Myriam:
www.cataloguebabynovel.com
Myriam's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/catalogue_baby/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cataloguebaby
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@myriam_writes
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/myriam.steinberg
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here! https://andtheneverythingchangedpodcast.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlankCreative/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAlSZFpcksgdHopmBLUXfLA
Calling all romantics, writers, and memoir lovers--this episode is for you! When Joanna Rakoff, best selling author of A Fortunate Age and My Salinger Year (now also a movie starring Sigourney Weaver and Margaret Qualley), took a job at a storied New York literary agency back in her twenties she had no idea her experience there answering letters addressed to J.D. Salinger about Catcher in the Rye and assisting the author himself would shape her life for decades to come. In this episode we dive deep into the book that would change everything for her career and Joanna tells the story of marrying the wrong man, reuniting with the right man, and how they found a life together long after she thought they had missed their chance.
Connect with Joanna:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joannarakoff/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/joannarakoff
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joanna.rakoff
Website: http://www.joannarakoff.com/
Watch My Salinger Year here: https://www.amazon.com/My-Salinger-Year-Margaret-Qualley/dp/B08XST93XK/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=My+Salinger+Year&qid=1629149640&s=instant-video&sr=1-1
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here! https://andtheneverythingchangedpodcast.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlankCreative/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAlSZFpcksgdHopmBLUXfLA
When Scott Medlin returned from his second deployment to Iraq he didn’t realize he was suffering from PTSD, but knew something was wrong. He experienced confusion and anger and struggled with alcohol and didn’t know how to get back to who he was before entering the marine corp. Though he never regretted his decision to serve his country he often felt he was on an emotional rollercoaster. As he began to work on himself he came to understand that humans are not machines and the brain is not built for the kind of stress that combat brings. His need to protect and give back led him to the police force where he has served since then but in January 2020 he learned the scope of mental health issues and the suicide rate among cops. In this episode Scott shares what he’s learned about trauma and its effect on law enforcement, and how in writing his new book and lecturing he has become an advocate for mandatory mental health support for officers.
Connect with Scott:
Scott's Book: 101 Health Tips For Police Officers: How To Be Physically, Mentally, Spiritually, and Socially Fit For Duty https://bit.ly/101HealthTipsForPoliceOfficers
Scott's Youtube: https://bit.ly/LawEnforcementMotivation
Scott's Book: Mental Health Fight Of The Heroes In Blue: How To Mentally Survive Working as a Police Officer https://bit.ly/MentalHealthHeroesBook
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here!
Youtube
When Danielle Simone Brand began researching cannabis years ago she had no idea she would become a full-fledged canna-mom and even write a book about how helpful weed can be to mental and physical health and to a sense of well-being so many mothers miss while raising their families. Her book Weed Mom, The Canna-Curious Woman's Guide to Healthier Relaxation, Happier Parenting, and Chilling TF Out, is made for busy moms and debunks the “lazy stoner” stereotype and details the health benefits of weed and how it can help with pain, sleep, anxiety and improve sex. The book also covers the types of cannabis products available, the status of legalization in the U.S. and the history of incarceration for marijuana possession and its impact on brown and Black communities. In this episode, Danielle joins me to share her story of quitting alcohol, diving into the world of cannabis, and becoming a full fledged weed mom.
Connect with Danielle:
Instagram @daniellesimonebrand
Facebook @WeedMomAuthor
About Ronit‘s book When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/book/
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here!
Youtube
A quick message to say hi and thank you for tuning in to And Then Everything Changed which is nearing its second birthday and 100 episodes! It's been a privilege to interview guests of all ages, backgrounds, nationalities, and experiences and learn how they became the compassionate and resilient people they are today.
With my book When She Comes Back just published and my short story collection Home is A Made-Up Place due out this spring, plus some exciting projects in the works, the podcast will go to an every-two-week format. I have many episodes in the works including 2-part interviews with beloved authors, anniversary swag, and book giveaways coming soon!
-You can find more out about my latest articles, my memoir and even listen to a sample of the audiobook here: https://ronitplank.com/book/
-And you can subscribe to my monthly newsletter here: https://ronitplank.com/blog/
-And you can follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
Thank you so much for tuning in to And Then Everything Changed!
When she least expected it writer and teacher Jacqueline Genovese became a mother after her older sister made her guardian of her two children before she lost the battle with cancer. Jacqueline built a life for her new son and daughter and soon, a third child, while managing her career and nurturing her marriage. Over the next few years she would lose another sister and then her mother to cancer and her marriage would end.
As her children grew she became fascinated with the toll a life of service can take, especially for those in medicine and the military. Today she is Executive Director of the Medicine & the Muse Program at Stanford and teaches War Literature & Writing class for military affiliated students where she focuses on the intersection of literature and medicine and the power of writing to lift and support military veterans and help them process what they have been through. In this episode Jacqueline shares the story of adopting her sister’s young children, holding space for the trauma doctors and veterans experience, and what she’s learned about loving through loss.
Connect with Jacqueline:
Stanford Profile
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here!
Youtube
In 2018 Artisha Bolding was working 50- to 60-hour weeks and becoming more and more unhappy. She was unsettled and frustrated in her marriage and thinking of leaving her husband and knew she wanted a different career path. As she worked more and more, her health began to suffer but though she became very sick she continued to put in long hours. Soon she was hospitalized with heart and lung complications and nearly lost her life. Through her hospitalization and long recovery her husband did not leave her side and she realized she wanted to save their marriage. Today they are still together and happier than ever, she’s left the job she hated behind, and now she helps other women find their passion and live more peacefully. In this episode we talk relationships, health, and what to do when change comes calling.
Connect with Artisha:
ArtishaBolding.com
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here!
Youtube
Gender equality advocate and author of the book I Took Her Name, Shu Matsuo Post grew up in a very patriarchal society. Through Japanese media and at school he grew to understand what was expected of him as a man. He didn’t learn about feminism and gender equality until he met his wife who helped him grasp what being a feminist meant. She didn’t want to take his last name so when they got married they combined their last names, but in Japan where they now live that isn’t recognized so, he decided to take her name. As his worldview became more and more feminist he noticed all the ways sexism affects life in Japan, from the language to the absence of paternity leave. In this episode Shu shares the story of becoming a full-fledged feminist, his views on toxic masculinity, and what changes he’s pushing for in Japan.
Connect with Shu Matsuo Post:
Amazon page:https://geni.us/ITookHerName
Website: shumatsuopost.com/en
Book website: itookhername.com
Instagram @shumatsuopost
Facebook @ITookHerName
YouTube @ITookHerName
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here!
On a summer night in 1969, Judy Temes’ mother and a father, both physicians, packed their car for what was supposed to be a family vacation. Only this was no vacation. They were escaping Hungary's totalitarian regime. The tourist visas that gave them safe passage across the East-West divide came at a high price. To ensure their return, one of their two children would have to be left behind and that was Judy. For five years she lived with her grandmother in a tiny village in Hungary wondering why her parents had gone without her and if she would ever see them or her brother again. In this episode, Judy discusses her new book Girl Left Behind, what finally arriving in America to a family irrevocably changed was like, and how her life has become one rich with all that she dreamed of during those many years she was left waiting and alone.
Connect with Judy:
My author website is: https://judytemes.wixsite.com/judy-temes
Facebook:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/judytemes/
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Stefanie Bonastia was about 15 years old when her eating disorder began. She was a shy, creative girl with anger she wasn’t aware of and wanted to gain a measure of control over her life. What began as anorexia became bulimia and later purging through exercise. She struggled mostly in secret but eventually left college and sought in-patient help. Her eating disorder ultimately spanned 25 years and she felt her relationship with food was so broken that she would never have normal hunger and satiety cues, never be able to feel sane around food. But she discovered it is possible to heal your relationship with food even after years of failed attempts.IIn this episode she shares her story, how she made peace with her body, and the work she does to help others find that same health and peace.
Connect with Stefanie:
www.iamstefaniemichele.com
To download free diet culture recovery guide
Follow on FB/IG: @iamstefaniemichele
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For decades and decades, Robert Miller had a dream he didn’t pursue. Though he’d played music in his early twenties he left the industry to get his law degree and start a family. He often thought about playing in a band again but he didn’t act on that until he was seriously injured by a car while riding his bike. He needed 8 hours of surgery to repair his broken neck and arm but, in a huge stroke of luck, his spinal cord was intact. For Robert that was a sign. At the age of 60 he put together a band, began playing festivals and concerts, and now, 9 albums and over 4 million video views later, he is living the life he feels was gifted to him when his world changed the day of his accident. In this episode, Robert shares his story, his perspective on his life before reuniting with music and after, and offers advice for making a dream come true.
Connect with Robert:
- Website: www.projectgrandslam.com
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/projectgrandslam
- YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/PGSjazz
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/projectgrndslam
- Store: www.thePGSstore.com
- Spotify:
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Most of Leah Carey’s memories growing up are black spots. Her dad was an alcoholic and he was abusive to her and her mom. He would tell her how unhappy he was with her mother and that Leah should at all costs avoid growing up to be like her. He discussed his sex life with Leah, talked about her body in a sexual way, and exposed her to sexual content in the home. Even when she moved out of the house their relationship remained very strained and Leah increasingly felt like she was shrinking inside and that she needed to disappear. As an adult she took a trip that would mark the beginning of her sexual awakening. She had her first experience with a woman, learned about tantric sex, and began to heal from the trauma that had marked most of her life. Today Leah is a sex and intimacy coach and host of the podcast Good Girls Talk About Sex whose mission it is to empower women into being equal co-creators of their sexual experience.
Connect with Leah:
- Website - www.LeahCarey.com
- Podcast - www.GoodGirlsTalk.com
- Instagram - www.Instagram.com/GoodGirlsTalk
- Facebook private group - www.Facebook.com/groups/GoodGirlsTalk
- YouTube -
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After her son Jimmy died of a cancer rarely found in children, Margo Fowkes found that what helped her through her profound grief the most was other people leaving space in the world for him. She discovered support in loved ones talking about Jimmy and sharing their experience of losing him. She founded the Salt Water community to help people heal and live after their own devastating loss--a child, a sibling, a spouse, a parent, a close friend-- and to provide a safe harbor where those grieving can find comfort, support and tools to survive their loss and rebuild their life. In this episode Margo shares Jimmy’s story and talks about how she’s navigated a grief that she has come to understand will forever come in waves.
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Website
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Michael Arterberry grew up in a home ravaged by the violence and mood swings of his alcoholic father. In order to protect Michael, his mother signed him up for as many sports as she could and he excelled. His coaches became like his dads, his teammates, his siblings, and the accolades he got for his performance prevented him from abusing alcohol, drugs, and people. The trauma he and his siblings experienced altered their lives forever and each of them learned to cope differently: some with alcohol, some with denial. In this episode Michael shares the story of how he survived his childhood while protecting his mother as best he could, when he truly understood the severity of what his whole family had endured, and the clarity and strength that enables him to help support young people who have also survived difficult homes.
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Website
Youth Voices Center
Shake The Dirt
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For years Laurel Anne Stark put her mental health aside and focused only on work. She drove herself to exhaustion the way so many self-employed women do: never cutting herself slack, never asking for help, yet determined to focus only on work and being productive. Then one day she began digging into research about the wellbeing of the self-employed. She found that 3 out of 4 entrepreneurs suffer from a mental health issue which is further compounded for women in business because of the wage gap, sexual harassment, and the lack of gender parity. Because of these inequities, many women avoid or leave the workforce which further reduces women’s representation and influence. Laurel changed the way she lives and works and is now on a mission to help create better mental health infrastructure for women in the workplace and build a new culture that supports and lifts them.
In this episode:
- Laurel's Story
- Why she founded Resurgo.Co
- How she helps female entrepreneurs through her business
Connect With Laurel:
Laurel's LinkedIn
Resurgo.Co Facebook
Resurgo.Co Instagram
Resurgo.Co Twitter
Resurgo.Co
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Phoebe Pilaro spent her early childhood on a commune in the Redwood forest in the Santa Cruz mountains with very little adult supervision. Her parents had an unstable relationship and her father, likely bipolar and manic, was kicked out of the commune. Phoebe and her mother soon set off to other places and though her mother was a social and happy woman, she never set up boundaries during Phoebe’s childhood, gave her advice on growing up, or taught her about sex and protection. During her teenage years Phoebe did anything she wanted-- drinking, smoking weed and having sex. She was about to turn 16 when she found out she was pregnant and had 2 STDs and she became suicidal. She couldn't see a way forward and decided that ending her life was the only option for her. But then, something shifted and she decided she wanted to become a new person.
In this episode:
- Phoebe's story
- How she dealt with the anger she discovered she had with her parents
- How she came to forgive them both
- What parenting is like for her now that she’s a mom of two teenagers
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Dhyana Levey, creator of the podcast Generation Cult, knew she was growing up on a kind of commune in California but didn’t realize it was a cult until she was much older. Though her memories of childhood are often difficult, her curiosity about what her family was involved in spurred her to investigate. Soon after, she began pursuing interviews with other cult survivors gathering information, and attending the International Cultic Studies conference. Dhyana joins me to share what she’s learned about cult mentality, abuse, and the heavy burden of fear and alienation many cult survivors experience.
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Generation Cult Spotify
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Author Lily Dunn’s father joined Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s movement about the same time that And Then Everything Changed host Ronit Plank’s mother followed him to India. They both grew up in the shadow of Bhagwan (also known at Osho, the guru at the center of Netflix’s docuseries Wild Wild Country), each with a parent more devoted to his teachings and the lifestyle he extolled than to them. Lily shares some of what she witnessed at the Rajneeshee house she visited on weekends and she and Ronit discuss how their relationships with their father and mother respectively irrevocably changed when they chose freedom over parenting. In this special episode to mark the release of Ronit's memoir When She Comes Back and Lily's forthcoming memoir, the authors discuss their books, writing about family, and how watching Wild Wild Country which became a media sensation affected them.
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Website
A Wild and Precious Life
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Diana Kupershmit and her husband had no warning that their first baby Emma would be born with a rare genetic disorder that would leave her profoundly physically and intellectually disabled. A young couple who had been high school sweethearts, they tried to grapple with the devastating news. When a social worker familiar with their case suggested they give Emma up for adoption, they decided she would be better off.
But soon, pregnant with her second child and wracked by regret and concern over news of Emma’s declining health, Diana realized she needed to get her daughter back.
In this episode Diana shares the story of emigrating to the US from Soviet Ukraine in 1979 along with millions of other Jews escaping systemic discrimination, meeting her true love, and how first their profound sorrow about Emma and then their profound love for her shaped their life.
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Website
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Sabrina Osso describes her childhood as stolen. Her father was abusive to her mother and she witnessed violence and endured trauma for 15 years. She was an extremely quiet child, was bullied in school, and her fear of both home and school created almost incapacitating difficulty for her. By high school she was suicidal but wouldn’t get help until college when a friend urged her to seek therapy.
Through years of hard emotional work she began to heal, finally realized her dream of becoming a dancer, and founded a company whose mission it is to certify homes and establish procedures to facilitate eviction in the event of domestic abuse. Violence stole so many years from her when she was too young to escape, but Sabrina has created a passionate life of advocacy, courage, and the confidence that she is worthy of love, contentment, and peace.
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Osso Safe
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Kelly McMenamin and Katie McMenamin are sisters and organizational specialists dedicated to helping others organize according to personality. After years of disagreeing with one another on how to declutter and whether to file or pile, they co-founders PixiesDidIt! After 10+ years of field research, they discovered that how you organize is hardwired in your brain and organization isn’t about making it perfect. It's about finding stuff when you need it. They created an assessment that calculates personality and harnesses individual strengths and preferences to transform living spaces into ideal places. On this episode Kelly and Katie help usher in spring and share some of their best tips for smoothing out the edges in pandemic-weary people and homes.
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PixieDidIt! Website
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Andrea Wilson Woods was barely an adult herself when she got legal guardianship over her 8-year old sister Adrienne after their mother called to say she no longer wanted to be a mother. An actress trying to make it in LA, Andrea worked hard to make ends meet while they navigated their new relationship in which Andrea became Adrienne’s mother first, her sister second, and her friend third.
Then, when Adrienne was 15 and experiencing profound pain she was diagnosed with stage IV liver cancer. Andrea focused on giving her sister who was now her daughter the best 147 days she could in the time she had left. From meeting Jay Leno to spending the day with Dave Navarro of Jane’s Addiction, Adrienne made every moment count. As she lay dying, Adrienne taught Andrea how to live and Andrea found the strength to change her own life. This episode of And Then Everything Changed is a story of motherhood, adulthood, sisterhood, and discovering who you are meant to be.
Connect With Andrea:
Website
Better Off Bald - A Life in 147 Days book
Blue Faery Adrienne Wilson Liver Cancer Association
Cancer U Online Membership
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For years, even as Laila Tarraf continued to feel disconnected from others, her belief that any vulnerability would make her soft dictated her personal life and her work as an HR leader. The firstborn child of Lebanese parents, she was encouraged to step up and take care of the family from a young age. She sometimes resented that role but then she met and married her husband and became a mother and began a new life. A year into their marriage he had a serious motorcycle accident, was prescribed pain pills, and never stopped taking them. Over the next six years they never discussed the topic of his drug and alcohol abuse; his dependence and their marital disconnect went unsaid. Their marriage began to collapse and soon after he overdosed on opioids. It wasn't until her mother was dying that Laila was able to better understand her history with co-dependent relationships, deal with the death of her husband, and be at her mom's bedside as her life ended. Her experience informed her leadership, her mothering, and her approach to the unexpected. Her new book Strong Like Water is out now.
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Purchase Strong Like Water via Laila’s Website or on Amazon
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Kenneth Scott’s mother had lupus while he was growing up and though they were living off of food stamps and SSI in section 8 and she was facing great hardship as a single parent she never let the rest of the family see her struggle. When she remarried, Kenneth gained siblings but his stepdad and he went head-to-head and he witnessed his new father emotionally and physically abuse his mom throughout their relationship. Sports became Kenneth’s escape, a way to cope with the trouble he saw at home and he soon excelled at football. He became #34 in the nation and had a plan to do 3 years of college football and then go to the NFL. But when he got to college the abuse he’d witnessed and the frustration he’d felt as a child surfaced and threatened the life he was building. With the support of his football program and coach he went to therapy to work on his anger issues and live the life he wanted for himself.
He gave back to the community, fell in love, and was so close to making his NFL dream come true. But after suffering two serious injuries he realized he would need to make a tough decision; he would need to set a new course for his life.
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Even from an early age Dr. Lynette Louise knew she would grow up and have heaps of children. The victim of domestic abuse she understood all too well that what she experienced growing up was not okay and that she would protect her own children at all costs. But as a young mother she faced unreliable and unsafe partners and the challenge of navigating the foster care system and securing adequate schooling for her autistic and neuro-atypical brood. And even more painfully still, she had to confront her own shortcomings and bad relationship patterns. In her desire to keep her promise to her kids she did the hard emotional work she needed to, went back to school and got her doctorate in psychophysiology, and developed a powerful system to help retrain the brain to help the most neuro-atypical children reach breakthroughs.
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Website
Brain & Body Website
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Before Kim Hooper endured pregnancy loss herself she wondered if women experiencing miscarriages might have had a part to play in their loss—maybe they didn’t eat the right things or didn’t manage stress well, maybe it was their fault. As her own losses began accumulating and she understood the randomness of miscarriage, the unpredictability of pregnancy overwhelmed her and fear took over. As her sense of control over her body and her future seemed to spin out she grappled with questions of whether or not she was cut out to be a mother, if she deserved a baby at all. Years passed and as she began to understand her grief better and let go of blame, she saw that she wasn’t ready to give up on having a baby and tried again. She is the co-author of the new book All the Love: Healing Your Heart and Finding Meaning After Pregnancy Loss and joins And Then Everything Changed on the eve of her book release to share her story, discuss the harmful clinical language around pregnancy loss, and how to best support grieving parents. Connect With Kim:
All The Love Book
Kim’s Website
Kim’s Instagram
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For Kacee Hoffer, finding a new identity was not easy. After stepping away from almost 12 years of diving she found it hard to find other passions, fill her time, and treat her body with compassion.
She started diving at nine years old and had been a high performing division 1 athlete at Boise State, and that's all she knew. Everything she did was connected to diving and her social life outside of the sport was almost non-existent. But during her sophomore year of college she was assigned a new coach who had no compassion for the athletes and pushed them to perform while injured and past what they could take.She began feeling depressed, anxious, and even experiencing black outs. She knew her career as a diver needed to end.
She now coaches children and encourages their parents to enjoy the sport for what it should be: fun. Her book, “From Athlete to Human Being” tells the story of athletes that transitioned out of sports. She also coaches transitioning athletes on how to close that chapter of their life.
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Website
Podcast
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Katherine was in second grade when her mother called attention to her weight, a moment that impacted the rest of her life. From that day on her insecurities about her size and an endless cycle of shame about her body took over. She learned that a thin body was ideal and began to believe that the smaller you could get, the more valuable you would become. She chased down diet after diet and felt that she had to apologize for being ‘fat’, doing everything she could to get skinny. But when she did lose the most weight she ever had before she found she was the unhappiest that she had ever been in her life. It was this pivotal moment that she realized that body weight and her happiness did not depend on each other.
Her journey of self-acceptance began in 2020, after she was laid off and had time to reflect on her deep-rooted beliefs and find clarity on her path. She decided that she did not want to hate herself forever and needed to break away from the behavior that was now second nature. She became active in the Body Positivity movement, launched the podcast “It’s Okay to Love Yourself”, and is now a leadership development coach who encourages women of all sizes to love themselves.
Connect With Katherine:
Podcast
Website
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Award-winning international travel and culture journalist, author, speaker, playwright, screenwriter, movie and theatre critic, opera librettist, and theatre director Judie Fein believes everyone has a mission in life even if they don’t know what it is and part of that mission is to become whole, as whole as they were at birth. Her own experience overcoming a trauma in childhood and her interest in story has moved her to dig into her family history, visit her ancestral homeland, and create a life rooted in expression, accountability, and curiosity.
In this episode she shares what she’s learned about the nature of family through emotional genealogy and relationship epigenetics, the elements essential to writing memoir, and what her life is like now in a post-family world.
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Website
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Episode Resources: Deep Travel Ted Talk
Transformative Travel Blog
After suffering a massive stroke caused by a previously undiagnosed vascular malformation, Lafiro A. Gomez III became parayzed and utterly dependent on his family for care. He entered rehabilitation and worked on recovering some of his strength but was unable to carry out many basic functions on his own. Facing infections, deteriorating kidney function, and amputations he grew weary and depression shaped his days. Until loved ones encouraged him to begin writing again and he did. Using his thumb and an iPhone he created new worlds with characters that came alive and reminded him that nothing is impossible. Now the author of the novels Parachute Island and The Variants he joins And Then Everything Changed to tell his story, share his writing process, and reflect on what he’s learned about himself through the challenges he’s faced.
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Website
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At a young age, Alli Spotts-De Lazzer learned about the connection between food and body weight and was only 9 years old when she started dieting. For most of her life, she equated weight with purpose and worth and fought to overpower her body’s instinct to get the nutrition it needed to keep her healthy. After battling anorexia nervosa and avoiding treatment for years she finally reached the point where she wanted to be held accountable for her actions. She decided to share her experience with a therapist and begin to heal her relationship with weight and food. And when she did she was able to see her body and all bodies as a vessel to carry our mind, organs, and everything else that makes people who they are.
Now, Alli is a licensed professional clinical counselor, LMFT, and a certified eating disorder specialist. She helps others overcome their battle around eating disorders and hopes that her new book, MeaningFULL: 23 Life-Changing Stories of Conquering Dieting, Weight, & Body Image Issues which tells not only her own story of recovery, but also the stories of others. It’s Alli’s hope that these accounts will encourage body acceptance and positivity and create a new dialogue about what good health means.
Connect With Alli:
MeaningFULLread Website
Therapy & Counseling
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The first time Natajia Miller, who grew up in the Bahamas, was stopped by police for Driving While Black she was en route to graduate school in Georgia, her mother in the passenger seat right beside her. After being pulled over, confronted by and racist and threatening language and police dogs, she and her mother were taken to the police station. There she was told that without paying a hefty bail she would not be released. The next time she was pulled over the arresting officer did so for a minor incident the arresting officer brought her into the station, put her in shackles, and she spent a night in jail.
Not only did she feel ashamed, her life irrevocably changed that day. She knew that she would never be viewed or treated as equal in America because of the color of her skin. In this episode
Natajia, who is now a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Consultant, shares her story, offers actionable steps on how to be an authentic-ally rather than a performative-ally, and weighs in on how much work there is to do.
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Website
Youtube
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When Annamarie Saarinen’s newborn daughter Eve was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect she didn’t know that 1 in 100 babies are born with similar conditions and 40% of those are serious and require intervention in early stages of life. What’s more Eve, like so many babies, almost missed getting diagnosed in time because there was no regular congenital heart defect screening for newborns on the Recommended Uniform Screening Panel for newborns. Weeks and then months unfolded with Eve in the NICU until she was old enough to have the heart surgery that would save her life.
Annamarie’s experience set her on a life-changing course to transform the way the medical community approaches heart defects in babies. She co-founded The Newborn Foundation to develop policies, programs and technologies to improve early diagnosis, health outcomes and access to care for mothers and babies and has drafted more than 40 pieces of health legislation, authored more than 200 policy briefings and co-authored numerous published manuscripts on the importance of technology in advancing early detection and treatment of neonatal and pediatric health conditions. In celebration of Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week, Annamarie shares Eve’s story, the work she’s doing through the pandemic to help get care to babies in resource poor settings, and her belief that those of us that have the means and the ability have to do all we can to make sure that the dreams and wishes other families have aren’t out of reach.
Connect With Annamarie:
Newborn Foundation Instagram
The Bloom Standard
Newborn Foundation Website
Email - annamarie@newbornfoundation.org
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Six years before George Floyd's death triggered national reaction to brutality and racism in policing, Phillipe Holland was shot 14 times by officers in Philadelphia.
Phillipe never thought he would go public with the details but after the deaths of Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and George Floyd he no longer felt he had a choice. While Phillipe has had nonviolent interactions with police chants of Blue Lives Matter and All Lives Matter don’t sit well with him and hopes that by telling his story more people will understand the danger and inequality Black people face.
In this episode he shares what his life was like in 2014 as a twenty-year-old student working several jobs just before he got shot, how the violent assault unfolded, and its aftermath.
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When Hunter became an amputee at just 4 years old his parents, Rosalie and Michael Mastaler, had to negotiate a host of feelings including guilt, grief, and worry for how their son would adapt. The loss of his lower leg altered their lives and how they cared for him but Rosalie and Michael soon realized that the most powerful tool they could offer Hunter was resilience. They understood that they had to avoid feeling sorry for Hunter so he wouldn’t in turn feel sorry for himself. Hunter is now 10, is a competitive swimmer, and has been able to connect with other amputees and differently-abled children, as well as travel across the country to attend various conventions and events. Though losing his limb was a painful experience, one that has forever changed his and his family’s life, they have been able to learn more about their strengths, cope with their differences, and become closer as a family than ever before. Connect with Rosalie: Instagram Facebook Website Connect With Ronit: For more about this episode click here! Instagram Facebook
For 18 years, Johnny Crowder did not speak about the struggles he was enduring at home, partially because when he was young, he believed that abuse was normal, and partly because he wasn’t ready to break away from the patterns of self-harm he’d used for years to negotiate his trauma. But in 2011 he started advocating for mental health and sobriety and began working with NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. By the time he graduated from high school Johnny was diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and OCD. Because he was unhappy with other mental health resources available, he created Cope Notes in 2018 with the goal of offering daily text messages that provide mental and emotional health support as a first step to recovery. Today he’s a 28-year-old suicide and abuse survivor, touring musician, TedX speaker, host of The Cope Notes Podcast. He has fully embraced his role of mental health advocate and though he wishes he didn’t have to endure what he experienced growing up, is grateful he can use his story to help others get the support they need. Connect with Johnny: Instagram Facebook LinkedIn Website Episode Resources: National Alliance on Mental Illness Instagram National Alliance on Mental Illness Website Connect With Ronit: For more about this episode click here! Instagram Facebook
The hardest moment in Mark Schutter’s life was when he had to walk out of the hospital room where his wife had just died, knowing he would go back to their empty house alone. Mark and his wife met in college and were married for five years over which time she was diagnosed with cancer twice.
Mark was her main anchor; in charge of her state of mind and health through her battle. His 20s were full of sleepless nights, fear of loss, and the weight of being the sole care provider, yet he had few resources to support him. Though he felt broken he also believed that men were not supposed to express their feelings and he tried to carry on without help.
Several years later Mark remarried and with his wife’s encouragement and insight began to acknowledge the pain he’d experienced. He’s worked with a therapist—something he never would have done years ago—and has just completed a memoir, Cowboys Are Not Supposed To Cry, for people who have loved and lost, and need help moving on, especially men, who like Mark, may not always know how to allow themselves to be vulnerable.
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Jaclyn Greenberg did not know she had contracted Cytomegalovirus (CMV) during her second pregnancy until her 34-week check-up when doctors discovered her baby was not growing correctly, had fluid in his brain, and had an enlarged heart. Jaclyn was rushed to the hospital to have an emergency C-Section and after she delivered Henry spent that whole summer practically living in the NICU.
Because Henry’s brain stopped developing between 30 and 32 weeks his medical team didn’t know what he would ultimately be capable of, or even if he would live. Jaclyn’s sense of guilt overwhelmed her and she entered a deep depression. She stopped visiting the hospital as often and when she was at work or with her other child, relied on others to take care of Henry in ways that she felt unable to.
Then, one day she began to feel better and she realized she wanted to enjoy the life she had with her family life and stop trying to fix what could not be fixed. Jaclyn became an advocate for her son and began insisting on getting medical care with doctors who see beyond Henry’s disabilities and treat him like a whole person. Jaclyn is now a mother of three and has made it her mission to battle the stigma the differently-abled face, educate others, and spend quality time with her husband and her children, all of whom look out for each other unconditionally and remind her every day how far they have come as a family.
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For Diane Windsor and her son, the anti-vaxx movement represents the difference between life and death. In June 2018, he was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and needed immediate treatment. He and Diane had had a strained relationship because of his ongoing battle with addiction, but they found common ground as they battled for his survival.
He endured multiple rounds of Chemo, a round of Car-T Cell Therapy, and full-body radiation, which wiped out all the childhood vaccinations he once had and left him extraordinarily immunocompromised and vulnerable to diseases to which he had previously been immune. Diane had never entirely understood the anti-vaxx movement, but with her son’s health now under threat, her anger grew. He went into remission, and Diane wrote the YA novel Stuck, which tells the story of two best friends, Angie, who is immuno-compromised due to leukemia, and Cassidy, who is unvaccinated.
Now two years later, Diane and her family are still fighting to keep her son healthy and mend their relationship. She hopes that writing Stuck and sharing her family's story helps others realize the truth about how crucial vaccines are to the immuno-compromised.
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Just 8 hours after giving birth, Crystal Webster had to say goodbye to her newborn daughter, Madelyn Elizabeth who she had unknowingly passed a genetic disorder on to. The next five years of Crystal’s life were consumed by a debilitating sense of loss. Doctors told her that the only way that she would get pregnant again was through IVF treatments, but after three failed rounds, she realized she needed to find a way to start living again even if she would never realize her dream of a biological child.
When she was finally ready to move on with her life, putting all of the baby toys and blankets in a closet, out of sight, felt wrong to her: they were not meant to be hidden away like that. It was then that Crystal had the idea to create a community and launched Sharing Solace whose mission is to help grievers feel less alone through their healing process. The gifts from Sharing Solace are meant to be sent from one person to another when it no longer serves them. Each necklace and keychain comes with an inner token to be worn as long as one needs, and then passed on to someone else who needs support.
Madelyn is still an only child, and although Crystal and her husband may never start a family, Crystal now lives her life in a way that brings her joy and has written a book to help others recover from their traumas and losses.
Connect with Crystal: Website
Confessions Of A Griever Book
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One morning David Richman woke up and realized how unhappy he truly was. While he loved his twin children, his great job in the financial industry, and his friends, he spent most of his time behind his desk, was out of shape and a smoker, and was in a very abusive relationship with an alcoholic partner.
He decided he wanted to live his life for himself and no longer please other people and he embarked on what he describes as a self-empowerment journey. He took his two young children, left his toxic marriage, set goals for himself, and nine months later had stopped smoking, started running, and completed his first Ironman Triathlon.
During this new stage of his life, he received a call from his sister June who told him that she had been diagnosed with brain cancer. Not long afterward, June lost her fight again cancer. Three days after she passed away, he ran for 24 hours straight at the American Cancer Society 24-hour Relay For Life and brought his 9-year old children along who each ran 31 miles that day.
To work through his trauma from his sister’s passing David decided to write his book Cycle Of Lives: 15 stories, 5000 miles, and A Journey Through The Emotional Chaos of Cancer about how people talk about and process cancer. He found that the loss around cancer seems to be a unique kind of grief and that people who believe their stories are nothing more than ordinary are actually the most extraordinary.
Connect with David: David’s Website Cycle of Lives
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By the time Sofia Husnain moved to America at age 11 she’d already been through more than most children her age. She was born in Pakistan and raised by a single mother in a male-dominant society, and because women were not treated as equals, Sofia’s mom had to work hard to keep them safe. They lived most of their life in extreme poverty and fear and Sofia and her sister had no male influence which impacted their relationships as they grew older.
Although life in the US was easier in many ways, Sofia hit her first rock-bottom at the age of 20 when she was diagnosed with an incurable autoimmune disease. Her second rock-bottom came just two years later when her father with whom she’d had limited contact told her that she was not his daughter. After years of searching for herself and being wrapped up in the wrong crowd, Sofia decided to alter her trajectory and opted for an arranged marriage to a man who represented the tradition and comfort she was missing.
In September 2020 she launched the platform Woman Disrupted to support women who have been shaken to the core by adversity and abuse but despite their challenges, have survived. In this episode Sofia shares her story and her vision for helping women who have been hurt change their lives.
Connect With Sofia:
Facebook Woman Disrupted 2021 Event
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For more about this episode click here!
And Then Everything Changed is taking this week off for the holiday. I hope you have a good holiday and here's what's coming up in December!
At just 24 weeks of gestation, Mike and Gaby Grinberg unexpectedly welcomed their 11-ounce baby, Lana Rose into the world. Gaby hadn’t encountered red flags throughout her early pregnancy but severe severe preeclampsia and HELLP Syndrome struck halfway through and caused Lana to be born a micro-preemie –at the time the second smallest micro preemie ever born at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis.
Lana spent 6 months in the hospital in the NICU unit and when Gaby and Mike were finally able to bring her home she needed an array of medical equipment and round-the-clock care to keep her healthy and improving. In addition to the stress of new parenthood and a child in need of special care, Gaby lost her job. She and Mike felt the strain in their marriage but knew they would stay together and resolved to do whatever it took to help their family thrive.
Together, in 2017, they started a fully digital marketing company, Proofpoint, so they could stay home to raise Lana who has grown stronger and healthier every day, and build a company with commitment to the values they hold dear. In this episode Gaby and Mike who have a new podcast Mixing Business With Pleasure share their experience of learning how to advocate for themselves and Lana and what life is like for their family five years later.
Connect With Gaby and Mike Grinberg:
Gaby’s LinkedIn
Mike’s LinkedIn
Proofpoint Marketing Website
Mixing Business With Pleasure Podcast Instagram
Proofpoint Marketing Facebook Page
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here!
The strongest person Samuel Burwell knew was his father who was his sole parent after Samuel’s mother passed away when he was just 6 years old. Raised by his father and a community of family and friends Samuel learned that hard work and taking care of one another were what help people survive and endure even what seem to be the most hopeless of times.
Throughout his life and up until his death Samuel’s father strove to make a name for himself, create a way forward for his children, and leave a legacy for his family. Even in his last year of life when he was sick from diabetes and suffering from liver damage he refused to slow down and continued building a way forward for his children. When he died in July 2019 Samuel, now a father himself, grieved in isolation, without words for his loss. A year passed and then Samuel admitted his sadness was profound and that he needed to accept help. And when he did he was able to honor his father, continue his legacy, and show up as a parent himself.
Connect With Samuel:
Podcast
Youtube
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For more about this episode click here!
After hitting emotional rock bottoms several years ago sisters Dana and Sharon Sberro realized that they no longer wanted to give in to the societal pressure to be perfect they’d felt for years. Facing a darkness they had not known before, they decided to dig deeper and embrace their flaws instead of trying to cover them up. And when they did they discovered their mission.
Together, they formed We Are Suzelle a platform focused on self-love and self-discovery and dedicated to sharing vulnerable content that they believe the world needs right now. In this episode, Dana and Sharon join Ronit from The Netherlands and Israel to talk about their lowest point, how they reclaimed themselves, the truth about social media, and what everyone should know before entering significant relationships.
Connect With Dana and Sharon:
Website
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For more about this episode click here!
This week will be And Then Everything Changed's podcast anniversary! What's in store for episode 50, thank yous, where to find the podcast on social media, and info on reaching out about your story!
Emily Davis knew from a very young age that she saw and felt heard things others didn’t. Throughout the day and even more so at bedtime she had a sense of spirits and magic around her and beings trying to communicate with her. Then, in senior year of high school Emily got into a dangerous relationship with a man that would last for nearly 5 years. During this time his abuse became worse and her intuition and spiritual gifts seemed to disappear. It wasn’t until after they’d married and had 2 children that she was ready to accept help and finally allowed a family member to call the cops.
Once Emily escaped and had a true chance to rebuild her life the way she wanted to, she started to tap into her dormant spirituality and dive deeper into her clairsentience. Emily created a new life for herself and is now a spiritual empowerment coach who focuses on helping people discover their purpose through unblocking and accessing their own intuition and magic. She’s the host of the podcast Perceptionists Anonymous, where she dives into metaphysical concepts and is author of the book Damsel No More, which is designed to help anyone who has been through a traumatic relationship to help break free from old patterns and anxiety and live an empowered life.
Connect With Emily:
Website
Podcast
Podcast Instagram
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For more about this episode click here!
In January 1999, Quan Huynh shot and killed a man in Hollywood. He received a prison sentence of fifteen years to life in a state that, at the time, did not parole prisoners with life sentences. Quan had been a member of a violent and ruthless Vietnamese street gang, and behind bars, he spiraled out of control.
Until he discovered a new path—one that prompted him to commit to self-reflection, truth, and personal responsibility. After spending twenty-two years in and out of correctional institutions, Quan was paroled from his life sentence in 2015, and created his first company six months later.
He’s now the post-release program manager for Defy Ventures, a nonprofit helping those with a criminal past transform their lives through the journey of entrepreneurship. In his new book, Sparrow in the Razorwire Quan who has received the Peace Fellowship Award for his work with Alternatives to Violence Project, explores how he transformed his life from inside a place many see as the end of the road. For every book sold, a copy will be donated to an incarcerated Entrepreneur in Training (EIT) through the Defy Ventures program.
Connect With Quan:
Website/Memoir
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here!
About 8 years into her marriage Heather Vickery had the realization that she was married to the wrong sex. She and her husband were great parents to their four children but she knew something in her intimate relationship with him didn’t feel quite right. As the truth became clearer and clearer, she understood she’d have to harness her courage, follow her heart, and live her life authentically.
Practicing gratitude and embracing bravery helped see Heather through this giant transition in her life and ignited a passion within her to help others experience that tremendous power. She has now written two books: Shift Your Focus,a journal for professionals to learn more about how they can bring more positivity and less negativity into their lives and Grow Grateful, a gratitude journal for kids and families. She is also the host and executive producer of the Brave Files, a podcast in which she interviews people who, like her, have stepped out of fear into bravery. In this episode, Heather shares the incredible science behind gratitude and how it reduces anxiety, depression, and can even be preventative against heart attacks and heart disease and she shares her personal story of change.
Connect With Heather:
Website
Podcast
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For more about this episode click here!
Britt East didn’t know any other experience growing up but that of abuse and his family’s legacy of intergenerational trauma. Without a mentor or trusted teacher to guide him, he spent his childhood alone, struggling to find his identity. Without structures in place to help him navigate his way as a gay man, he moved through the world void of a sense of self. For a while, he lived in a state of fury and took on the mindset of a fighter who needed to beat everything around him down. It wasn’t until he found himself in his first long-term relationship that Britt finally took off his mask and discovered his voice.
Now a speaker and author of the new book A Gay Man’s Guide to Life, Britt hopes to help others recognize that being marginalized does not mean you might not marginalize others, most people are complex mixtures of privilege and adversity, societal homophobia is alive and well and that even gay men need to confront their own prejudices. In this episode, Britt shares the story of how curiosity and empathy saved him and how he became the person he was meant to be.
Connect With Britt:
Website
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For more about this episode click here!
September is National Suicide Prevention Month and Debbie Lechtman, an Israeli and Costa Rican writer and jeweler based out of Los Angeles, is using her platform to bring awareness to mental health.
Debbie was always interested in jewelry but didn’t make it her full-time work until 2018 when she finally began to feel healthy again after her body had been weakened by gastroparesis. But as soon as she was regaining physical strength her lifelong battle with depression began to spiral out of control. For years she tried to keep her personal life out of her art but in early 2019, Debbie realized she couldn’t continue treating her mental health and her artistic life as two separate entities.
She had grown up without mental health support or resources, without a family dialogue around mental illness, but as her jewelry business grew and her stress increased Debbie knew she had to confront her depression head-on. Now, she uses her social media platform to bring awareness to mental health and suicide prevention. In recent years she’s also incorporated her Jewish identity into her work and promotes Jewish education and the fight against antisemitism.
For Debbie burying her background and her experience is no longer an option. On this episode she joins Ronit to talk about remaining true to herself and to her mission and how she will continue to shed light on mental health and Judaism and fight for what’s right.
Connect with Debbie:
Website
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For more about this episode click here!
Rachel Coleman is on a mission to help women break free from the social constructs surrounding body image and diet culture. Even as a teenager she found herself fascinated with how people, especially women, internalized the messages of diet culture and the ways they took it out on their bodies; she witnessed her mother and grandmother constantly body shame themselves and disparage the way they looked and knew she didn’t ever want to fall into the same patterns.
Rachel took her passion to help women become free from this negative messaging and now holds over 15 years of experience in treating Eating Disorders. She is also the co-host of the podcast Mom Genes, where she aims to bring awareness to diet culture and help people stop blaming their bodies so they can make the most of the unique genes they naturally possess.
Rachel’s mission is to educate as many people as possible to take the important first steps to self-love by embracing the body they have and find peace with who they are.
Connect with Rachel:
Website
Podcast
Podcast Instagram
Resources:
Associated for Size Diversity and Health
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For most of her life, Vanity Dawson faced what felt like a never-ending cycle of abuse. Her mother was cruel and her stepfather began molesting her at the age of ten. In an effort to protect her siblings Vanity endured his abuse for years but by the time she was 14 she could no longer survive at home. The only way to save herself, she decided, was to run away, and she did, multiple times.
She soon wound up in foster care and when she aged out of the system she found herself in yet another abusive household where she was nearly killed. It wasn’t until Vanity enlisted in the Military that she began to see a different future for herself. She realized her purpose in helping others and became a victim advocate for others who have been sexually assaulted.
Today Vanity is the founder of Take My Hand LLC and Delicate Flowers Inc, where she works to guide foster care youth, help women heal from trauma, and train people on sexual assault prevention and bystander intervention. In this episode, she joins Ronit to talk about the dark moments of her childhood and young adulthood that helped make her the resilient woman and fearless mother she is today.
Connect with Vanity:
Website
Life After Trauma
Personal Instagram
Delicate Flowers Inc. Instagram
Take My Hand LLC Instagram
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here!
An accomplished woman who seemingly had all the boxes of her life checked, Simi Krishnan could not have predicted how her world would irrevocably change just after she immigrated to the US. While experiencing the culture shock of leaving her UK home, her beloved father passed away and she had to fight the consulate to fly back with her daughter and be at her mourning mother’s side
Once there, Simi got the news she had cervical cancer. She pushed on, compartmentalizing her grief and soon recovered from her surgery and cancer-free, got pregnant. But her pregnancy was fraught with pain and complications, and after her son’s premature birth she lost him, too.
Beset with this new heartache, Simi drew her family close and went inward to heal. She came to the realization that she would never be completely whole again but that too was part of living. In this episode Simi shares her story and how she has learned to take care of herself and her family in a way that honors what they’ve gone through and what they feel and how their new life nurtures them.
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For more about this episode click here!
Colleen Rosenblum never suspected her teenage daughter had been battling a severe eating disorder from the early age of 12. She ate meals with the family and did well academically. But then, one day when Colleen was trying to talk with her on the way home from school her daughter screamed out, “Mom, can’t you see I’m starving myself?!” and their family’s life irrevocably changed.
Colleen scrambled to find the help and resources she needed and began a years-long battle against the unrelenting disease that nearly claimed her child. She discovered that when people learn your family is grappling with an eating disorder you become almost contagious and she ultimately lost some friends because of it. She learned that eating disorders are tenacious, affect the whole family, and leave a permanent mark.
After years of treatment and hard work her daughter who is now in her twenties and recovered has given Colleen permission to share their story. In this episode Colleen shares how she navigated these difficult years, the guilt she feels that never completely goes away, what signs to watch out for in loved ones struggling with eating disorders, and how her daughter is now thriving.
Connect with Colleen:
Website
Podcast Episodes
Youtube
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For more about this episode click here!
Mikel Jollett, frontman of the indie band The Airborne Toxic Event and author of the new memoir, Hollywood Park, spent his early years with his brother in an orphanage at the Synanon cult not knowing he had a mother and father of his own. Then, one day his birth mother returned to take them away from Synanon and give them a home. Unfortunately, this new arrangement created a further level of harm for the brothers and they suffered emotional abuse and deprivation at her hands. Over the next few years they would endure poverty, isolation, and constant uncertainty about their future and safety. The only bright spot was their father, a recovering heroin addict who became part of their life when he got out of prison and whose new wife Bonnie became the mother they had always needed. In this episode, Mikel joins Ronit to talk about early trauma and it’s lasting legacy, the search for family, and who we invent to survive; how for years though he tried to undo the abuse and absence of his childhood he wasn’t able to make lasting changes until he faced his fears head-on. Hollywood Park is his memoir and also The Airborne Toxic Event’s new album, the story of how Mikel not only survived but became the person he was meant to be. Connect with Mikel: Hollywood Parkway: A Memoir Website Twitter Instagram (Mikel’s) Instagram (Celadon, his publisher) Connect With Ronit: For more about this episode click here! Instagram Facebook
When bombs reached her home in Zagreb, Croatia in 1991, Ana Tajder, the daughter of actress/artist Jagoda Kaloper and architect Radovan Tajder, fled to Vienna to escape the war and soon made Vienna her home.
Though her parents were artists Ana rejected a life of creativity, choosing instead to pursue her MBA. But after nearly a dozen years working in marketing and advertising and for the UN, she began to experience depression, anxiety, and an overwhelming sense of burnout. While home nursing herself through the flu one day she began to write and all at once rediscovered a passion she had forgotten. Soon after her first novel From Barbie to Vibrator was published in Croatia in 2008 and Austria in 2009. In 2010, she was awarded the prestigious Austrian State Grant for Literature for her second novel Titoland.
In this episode Ana who is now a journalist and author, a podcaster and mother, shares her story of the painful scoliosis surgery she endured as a teenager, losing her home and country to war, and how she created a life for herself she wouldn’t trade for anything. Though she witnessed her husband battle cancer and lost her mother to lung cancer, Ana feels blessed and grateful for where she is today. She believes the ultimate goal in life is to find the one thing you’re meant to do and she wouldn’t change hers for anything, regardless of the experiences she’s gone through.
Connect with Ana:
Website
Podcast
Podcast Instagram
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For more about this episode click here!
In 2011, Lisa Keefauver’s husband passed away, leaving her a single mother to their 7-year old daughter. Just a few years later, Lisa sat by her close friend’s side as he succumbed to complications from Muscular Dystrophy. After these back-to-back losses Lisa, who has spent nearly 2 decades as a clinical social worker and narrative therapist, was inspired to gain a better understanding of how grief works and how she could support herself, her daughter, and others during their times of loss. As the founder & CEO of Reimagining Grief and host of the podcast, Grief is a Sneaky Btch, she has taken her experience overcoming deep personal loss and made it her mission to provide guidance to others when it comes to bereavement. In this episode, she unveils the common misconceptions about grief-- a topic so often misunderstood and ignored in our culture and communities yet something every person will experience in their lifetime, explains why the Stages of Grief model may not be helpful for healing, and takes a closer look at how we can show up for ourselves and for loved ones in these challenging times. Connect with Lisa: Website Facebook Instagram Twitter Pinterest Grief is a Sneaky Btch Podcast Stopped By For A Cup Of Coffee Article Dive in and Breathe Deep Article Connect With Ronit: For more about this episode click here! Instagram Facebook
Aspen Matis and her husband Justin had only been married three years when he went missing. On a cold November morning, he kissed Aspen goodbye and left to attend the funeral of a close friend but never came back. She and Justin had met walking from Mexico to Canada when she was thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, using the 2,650-mile journey to help her reclaim her body and spirit after being raped freshman year of college. Aspen's first memoir Girl in the Woods is the story of that experience and her recovery which she wrote to heal and help spread awareness of the prevalence of campus assault. Her new memoir Your Blue is Not My Blue-A Missing Person Memoir is the story of how in searching for her husband she discovered a deeper purpose. In this episode, Aspen shares what she's learned about happiness, the role creativity and writing have played in recognizing her place in the world, and how she's moved from a feeling of powerlessness to strength. Rape is the only violent felony that is almost never prosecuted. Only 3% of rape cases end in conviction **Between one in four and one in five female students will be raped during their undergraduate educations. Connect with Aspen: Website Rape Abuse & Incest National Network Connect With Ronit: For more about this episode click here! Instagram Facebook
Just before she went off to college Ashlee's younger brother died in an ATV accident. With her soon-to-be-divorced parents grieving and her own uncertainty about how to cope with loss, she decided to leave for freshman year. Struggling once she was there, she dropped out and found work to help make her way while she figured out her future. Within the next year, her mother would die by suicide and Ashlee spiraled into alcohol abuse and drug use. Unable to cope with her grief, Ashlee spent several years without hope and in a self-destructive cycle. But then like a light had turned on inside her, she decided that she didn't want to lose her girlfriend, she didn't want to stay trapped in a pattern of self-destruction, and she was ready to move on and build the life she wished for. She rekindled her love of writing, enrolled back in school, made the President's List, and believes words are the most therapeutic a person has. In this episode, Ashlee talks about her losses and difficult years, her losses, and how she climbed her way out of her downward spiral. Connect with Ashlee: Website Instagram Connect With Ronit: For more about this episode click here! Instagram Facebook
Five trips to detox, two inpatient rehabs, two outpatient programs, and getting fired from her dream job as a journalist for an alternative newspaper didn't ultimately keep Erica C. Barnett from drinking again. She didn't experience a "rock bottom" moment that kept her from relapsing, a point of no return like the kind portrayed in movies and novels. It wasn't until she lost almost everyone and everything she cared about that she was finally able to stop. Sober now for over five years, Erica joins Ronit to talk about her new memoir Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery, share what she's learned about addiction, triggers, and twelve-step programs, and why she, like so many who have faced substance abuse, will always need to actively do the work of recovery. Connect with Erica: Quitter: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery Website Facebook Instagram Connect With Ronit: For more about this episode click here! Instagram Facebook
Her whole life, Natalie Que had learned to ignore the misgivings she'd felt about the Mormon church in which she'd grown up with her four sisters. And then, at the age of 29, she met a woman who had successfully left the church, and in one afternoon, Natalie's world blew wide open. She realized that she'd been living her life in contrast to what she truly felt and believed and would never be able to go back. Her new understanding catapulted her apostasy, a massive transition within her marriage, and a deep knowing that her integrity would never let her stay in a religion where she felt had been lied to. In this episode, Natalie recounts the rules of her upbringing and how she finally and permanently rejected them, what she and her husband went through when she left, and what she's created for herself and her children now, more than a decade later. Connect with Natalie: Website Podcast Instagram TikTok YouTube Connect With Ronit: For more about this episode click here! Instagram Facebook
Financial and home stability eluded Barbara Majeski’s family when she was growing up but even when they were shuffled between parents, she and her three siblings always had great love. From an early age, Barbara took extra care of her younger brother Steven who was born with a genetically inherited neurological impairment called Fragile X, watching over him and keeping him safe. She was fourteen when urgent family circumstances threatened to separate her from Steven and that’s when she pledged to take care of him and protect him forever, ultimately raising her three children to also look out for him. Her commitment to Steven anchored her during her fight with stage 3 cancer and inspired her to keep going even when she didn’t think she had anything left. In this episode, Barbara, now cancer-free for four and a half years, shares her and Steven’s story, how serving others has changed her life, and what she’s gained from the most difficult things she’s gone through. Connect with Barbara: Website Instagram Connect With Ronit: For more about this episode click here! Instagram Facebook
With women physicians losing childcare during the pandemic, gender equity in medicine has taken a giant step back. Healthcare workers that were once overworked are now exhausted and facing supply shortages. And COVID-19 which should never have been a political issue has become one. The healthcare system needs a reboot, says Dr. Shikha Jain a board-certified hematology and oncology physician and the founder and chair of the Women in Medicine Summit and that reboot needs to be intentional. She has made it her mission to work toward closing the gender gap in healthcare and nurture voices and organizations that need amplifying. In this episode, Dr. Jain shines a light on the myriad ways equity in medicine needs to improve, offers best practices for staying healthy this summer, and shares non politicized resources for coping with COVID. Connect with Shikha: Website Instagram Twitter Episode Resources: Women In Medicine Summit IMPACT Connect With Ronit: For more about this episode click here! Instagram Facebook
Juan Aleman spent his latchkey childhood missing his father who left when he was a baby. Besides spending a summer here and there with his father all he knew about him were the memories his older sisters shared of a man who had a drinking problem and hurt their mother. Juan joined the army and had begun a family of his own when he and his father who was newly sober reconciled. At last, Juan got to know the man who had left him and they forged a close connection in the time they had left together. In this episode, Juan shares the story of how he forgave his father for leaving, what parenting means to him, and how after years of drinking he got sober himself. Connect with Juan: Website Podcast Connect With Ronit: For more about this episode click here! Instagram Facebook
A feminist before she knew what feminism was Lisa Butler grew up wondering why she and her mother were members of a strict Pentecostal church on the south side of Chicago, one that stripped women of their freedom and asked them to give up their power to the pulpit. Lisa was a smart and motivated student with dreams for her future but had to put them on hold when she got pregnant at 16. Now a licensed clinical social worker with a special interest in the physical and emotional effects of chronic stress that black women experience living in dangerous neighborhoods, she works in private practice and has also mentored teen moms in Chicago to help them think critically and help better care for themselves. In this episode, Lisa shares her views on oppression, how a lack of basic resources like jobs, quality healthcare, and education have perpetuated the cycle of poverty, and the work she's doing on What’s Left Behind, her documentary highlighting the moms and families of murdered young people lost to gun violence in Chicago. Connect with Lisa: Website Connect With Ronit: For more about this episode click here! Instagram Facebook
A reading of some of the names of black people slain by police violence or hate crimes.
podcastblackout #BlackLivesMatter
After the breakdown of her marriage, Rebecca West was ready to start her new life but reminders of her previous one filled her home. That’s when she realized she would have to transform her space to break free from her old story and reinvent herself.
What began as a fresh interior became a new career, a new relationship, and the conviction that living spaces influence and reinforce what we believe about ourselves and the world and even how other people treat us.
In this episode Rebecca shares her own story of self-discovery, what growing up on the move in an army family taught her about home, and offers inspiration for creating an environment that can nurture and support us through times of stress.
Connect with Rebecca:
Happy Starts at Home Book
Seriously Happy Homes Website
Business Coaching Website
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here!
As a Coronavirus survivor, Lukus Estok was proud to be able to donate his blood plasma to help search for a cure to Covid-19.
Because the FDA had announced on April 2, 2020, it was updating its guidelines on blood donations from gay men, decreasing the abstinence period for men who had sex with other men from 12 months to 3 months to better meet the demand for blood during the coronavirus pandemic, Lukus was cleared to donate. Abstinent for 3 months, he arrived at the hospital for his appointment eager to contribute his plasma for antibody studies and proud to finally be treated like every other blood donor but was turned away because he was gay. Lukus’ story soon got picked up by Good Morning America, Inside Edition, and The Daily Show and he has found himself very publicly speaking about who he is and why the FDA needs to take a closer look at their blood-donation deferral period for gay men.
In this episode Lukus, a returning guest from bonus episode 3, Surviving Coronavirus, joins Ronit to talk about his donation experience, using his newfound platform to effect change and share some very good news.
Connect with Lukus:
Lukus on Good Morning America
Lukus on The Daily Show
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here!
A little message to share some great news, updates on the podcast, and episodes in the works. Plus And Then Everything Changed is now available on iHeart Radio as well as iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Podbean!
The Unschooling Movement might seem new but it is the oldest kind of learning, says Akilah Richards of Fare of the Free Child podcast; one that recognizes learning differences in children and encourages curiosity, empathy, and independence.
Whereas traditional school models can rely on conformity, competitiveness, and one-size-fits-all curricula, Unschooling strives to create nurturing spaces where students can be themselves, work in community, and collaborate to pursue the information they need because of their genuine interest. During this pandemic time when kids are trying to navigate remote learning and so many parents are worried about their children falling behind and growing disenchanted with schoolwork, Akilah joins Ronit to talk about what Unschooling looks like, how she and her family have made it work, and how this unconventional model fosters compassion, confidence, and a lifelong love of learning in children.
Connect with Akilah:
Website
Akilah’s Resources
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As a young woman, Jan Capps rejected the evangelical church in which she was raised and found refuge from her deteriorating family life by working with immigrant farmworkers and farmworker women to help them create more just and equitable lives in the US.
Committed to pursuing a career in public health, Jan moved to Guatemala to work as a community organizer for a health program so she could better understand the poverty and inequity for so many living in Central America. Upon her return to the US, she met a man that she thought shared her vision and commitment, with whom she had a child and married. After a decade of planning with her husband to realize what she thought was a joint dream -- to embark on a great adventure to move to Latin America with their daughter -- and just three months before they were set to leave, her husband backed out of the trip. Within weeks he backed out of the marriage.
Jan eventually decided to continue the journey without him and took a position as a clinic administrator for a small non-project organization in rural Guatemala and moved with her daughter to a Maya village for a year. As a single mother, working full time as an immigrant in a poor country, she was faced with the consequences of her commitment, the paradox of privilege when trying to blend in, and what it means to have dreams change.
Connect with Jan:
Email: visita.de.pajaro@gmail.com
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When she developed the body kindness approach Rebecca Scritchfield, a well-being coach, registered dietitian nutritionist, and ACSM certified exercise physiologist, ditched diet culture and its fear-based control forever.
Alarmed by the dangerous degree to which the health and the weight loss industry have become enmeshed and how their messages about body size and sexiness lead to weight cycling, disordered eating, and anxiety, Rebecca rejected her field’s traditional view of what fitness and wellbeing look like. A champion of fat activism and the health at every size movement, her work shines a light on this much-needed culture shift and promotes body kindness and autonomy for all.
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Website
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The creators of the climate change symphony and film Terra Nostra knew their work had to unflinchingly acknowledge the impact of climate change while also leaving room for hope.
Their multimedia creation is a musical and visual history of the earth’s evolution, its last 150-year human-led demise, and a powerful call to action. For this episode marking the 50th anniversary of Earth Day Susan Lubetkin scientist and musician and Christophe Chagnard musician and climate activist discuss the relationship between climate change and the current pandemic, how people do change their behavior and act when they are personally impacted, and share some of their favorite movements from Terra Nostra.
For more Info. on Terra Nostra:
Terra Nostra
Christophe Chagnard
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New Yorker and restauranteur Lukus Estok contracted coronavirus in late February just before the full impact of the pandemic hit the New York area. As his illness hung on, his symptoms improving and then worsening again, he grappled with many unknowns as well as the physical, psychological, and emotional toll the virus took on him. Now healthy again, Lukus shares his coronavirus recovery story, what life is like in the US epicenter for this crisis, and offers insight for an uncertain time.
-This is bonus episode 3 in The COVID-19 Experience series-
Lukus Estok is a husband, dog dad, and restauranteur. He lives in NYC and dreams of the day when he will once more be able to travel. You can find him on Instagram.
Many thanks to Lukus for sharing his story and to Sergio Llorian for helping to make this episode possible.
For more on this episode visit ATECpodcast
When Baktash Ahadi and his family fled Afghanistan in the early 1980’s they were shot at by Soviet Gunships on their way to Pakistan and sheltered at a refugee camp there for years while they awaited approval to emigrate to the U.S.
Soon after arriving in the small town of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Baktash worked hard to assimilate. He gave himself an American-style nickname and spent his childhood rejecting the parts of himself and his family that seemed too Afghan.
Until 9/11 when tensions between his birth country and his adopted country escalated and he found himself the only Afghan student at his college with a painful decision to make: Speak his truth as an Afghani-American and risk standing out or stay silent. The choice he made marked a turning point in his life. From there on out he embraced his birth country and his past as well as what it meant to him to be American. He joined the Peace Corps, became a combat interpreter in Afghanistan for three years, and now teaches American diplomats about Afghan culture and life for the State Department, intentionally bridging his two home countries, both of which he has gratitude for.
Connect with Baktash:
Website
Stories of Transformation Podcast
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Laura Powers knew from a young age that there was something about her that was different. She seemed to see and feel things others did not and at night her mind teemed with images and thoughts and voices that wouldn’t let her rest.
Tired of being treated differently and labeled “crazy”, she tried to tamp down and ignore her natural abilities. But by early adulthood, she recognized her clairvoyant, empathic, and telepathic abilities were gifts and began harnessing their power in her work and life.
In this episode Laura helps identify extrasensory perception, explains what intuition is, and shares what she’s learned about helping others tap into their own psychic abilities.
Connect with Laura:
Website
Healing Powers Podcast
Laura’s Amazon Author Page
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Within months of getting married to him, Meredith Cherry’s husband’s controlling behavior escalated and she soon became the victim of sexual, physical, emotional, and financial abuse.
Their home was remote with few neighbors or resources nearby and because her husband was the sole possessor of the keys to their one vehicle, Meredith had no way of leaving. The years passed and Meredith lived on guard and in fear, her lifelong dream of owning a horse and being free receding until the day she was able to enact her escape plan, drive to safety, and start over.
Now the proud owner of Apollo, a Peruvian Paso-Mustang Palomino, Meredith travels across the United States on horseback raising awareness about domestic violence, and she is finally living life the life she wanted.
Domestic Violence Resources:
Meredith’s Webpage Of Resources
National Domestic Violence Hotline
DomesticShelters.org
Connect with Meredith:
Meredith’s Website
Have Horse Will Travel Podcast
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In this bonus episode a physician, a social worker, and an eating disorder specialist answer COVID-19 listener questions, share best practices for lockdowns and sheltering-at-home and offer mental health support recommendations and resources to help mitigate stress during this period of isolation and extreme departure from routine. For their time and expertise many thanks to Dr. Kemia Sarraf, an Internist and Public Health professional, Lisa Butler LCSW, and Jessica Barker, a researcher and consultant in the mental health field with a focus on eating disorders. Much appreciation to previous And Then Everything Changed guests Becky Aud-Jennison and Monique Caradine for helping to make this episode possible.
-This is bonus episode 2 in The COVID-19 Experience series-
Episode guide:
-00.00 Dr. Kemia’s work, secondary trauma in first responders, and a background on COVID-19
-38:12 COVID-19 questions and answers with Dr. Sarraf
-66:55 Self-care questions and answers with Lisa Butler
-97:36 Managing eating disorders during sheltering-at-home with Jessica Barker
Resources mentioned in this episode:
National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 800-273-8255
www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org
National Domestic Violence Hotline 800-799-7233
www.thehotline.org
www.zencare.co
www.openpathcollective.org
www.therapyforblackgirls.com
About this episode’s guests:
Dr. Kemia Sarraf is an Internist and Public Health professional who left clinical medicine more than a decade ago to start a public health initiative for children in her community focused on working with and teaching children in schools and community organizations to “Eat Real, Move More” through programming in the kitchen, gardens and playgrounds. Kemia is also a trauma specialist and executive coach who melded these two disparate fields into a coaching paradigm specifically for physicians and other professionals who are experiencing high levels of chronic toxic stress and secondary trauma (aka “Burnout”) in their workplace. She is the CEO of Lodestar Consulting and Executive Coaching.
Find Kemia here: lodestarpc.com
Lisa Butler is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in private practice. For over 20 years she has worked with women and girls to help facilitate emotional healing. She specializes in mother-daughter conflict, self-esteem, forgiveness, shame and anxiety. Lisa believes that most of our challenges begin with our thoughts about ourselves, others, and the world. She uses cognitive and dialectical behavior therapies to teach clients how their thoughts/feelings inform their behaviors and life choices. She believes that helping people recognize the power of their thoughts is key to emotional wellness. Lisa is also the Producer/Director of What's Left Behind, a documentary highlighting the moms/and families of murdered young people in Chicago. Lisa is a Ford Scholar and a graduate of University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration.
Find Lisa here: www.lisabutlerlcsw.com
Jessica Barker is the Founder of Exert-ED Services, where she offers research, coaching, networking and consulting in the mental health field with a focus on eating disorders. She enjoys working with clients, clinicians, researchers and businesses to reach the goals they identify as important to them by integrating research, clinical perspectives and patient perspectives. Her research is exercise in eating disorders as well as the ethics of mental health treatment. Jessica is a member of the Academy for Eating Disorders and is active on their Social Media Committee.
Find Jessica here:
www.exert-ed.com
Instagram: exert_eatingdisorders
Cult leaders arranged for Benjamin Risha's mother, a woman of Jewish descent, and his father, of Lebanese descent, to be married. Their marriage, and his birth, was intended to be a sign of peace between Arabs and Jews.
The Church leaders hoped to show him off as a sort of street credit to garner legitimacy with other fundamentalist churches in the South and Midwest. As such he was the favored ‘adopted’ son of the cult leaders, where he lived in luxury in a mansion, rode around in limousines, and traveled all while wearing expensive clothes. But he grew up without knowledge of his biological mother who had escaped ‘The Church’ when he was six months old and whom he wouldn't learn about until he was a teenager. He was raised instead by seven mothers throughout his adolescent years.
As Benjamin and his friends came of age they were punished for their innate curiosity about the opposite sex and he regularly saw them abused, beaten, and kicked out of their community. When the US Government seized the Church's assets Benjamin got a glimpse of the world beyond his community for the first time and began to understand that it was not the enclave he had been raised to believe. Once he learned his father's whereabouts Benjamin contacted him and they planned his escape.
Connect with Benjamin:
Benjamin's Website
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In this bonus episode guests from Milan, Los Angeles, Copenhagen, New York, and Taiwan share what they are going through during the rapidly unfolding COVID 19 crisis. How they first learned about the coronavirus, what their government is doing to handle the outbreak, what life is like now, and the advice they have for getting through these social distancing times.
Featuring consultant/professor Cesare Spadacini, writer/performer Dannah Phirman, the founder/CEO of VoiceBoxer Sergio Llorian, retired teacher Sharon Schiller, and comedy podcaster/teaching artist Pei-Lan Ku.
Produced by Ronit Plank, Interstitial music by Aitan Plank
-This is bonus episode 1 in The COVID-19 Experience series-
Links mentioned in this episode:
Games, activities, and songs for kids during quarantine can be found at Mike Phirman’s Instagram: @mphirm
Pei-Lan Ku: https://www.orchid-consulting.com
You can follow And Then Everything Changed and connect with Ronit on
And Then Everything Changed
In order of appearance:
Cesare Spadacini is 35 years old and lives in Milan where he works as a consultant and professor of accounting at Bocconi University.
Dannah Phirman is a writer/performer based in Los Angeles. She is the co-creator, executive producer, and star of Hulu’s The Hotwivesseries. Most recently she has acted on American Princess, Black Monday and Veronica Mars. She voiced the title character on the long running PBS series WordGirl and starred on Adult Swim’s Newsreaders. She has appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and Mad TV. Her writing credits include Marry Me (NBC), It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX), I’m Sorry (TruTV), Showtime’s Black Monday.
Sergio Llorian is an American currently living in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is the Founder and CEO of VoiceBoxer, which specializes in multilingual remote meetings and presentations with simultaneous interpretation.
Sharon Schiller is a retired NYC high school teacher of English, Speech and Theater, an actress, a ballroom/latin, blues, rock, and country-western dancer, and the doting, proud aunt of this podcast creator.
Pei-Lan Ku is Teaching Artist currently based in Taiwan who focuses on dance, art and art appreciation and a comedy podcaster...“Telling my stories, my way!”
Attempted suicide rates and suicidal ideation among LGTBQ+ kids is significantly higher than among the general population.
In part, this is because the messaging they’re given in the world around them doesn’t resonate with who they are, and evidence shows that if they receive any support to counter that – either at school or home – their risk of suicide decreases substantially. When Morgan Walsh and Keiko Feldman recognized there was a need for representation in school libraries they took matters into their own hands and created Gender Nation to work directly with California public schools to fill school libraries with books LGTBQ+ kids can identify with.
On this episode, Morgan joins Ronit to talk about how her own family’s journey inspired her to co-found this nonprofit which now has a thriving booklist curated with input from educators, Gender Spectrum, PTAs and principals and also shares some of her favorite recommendations for books that offer messages of support and inclusivity.
Connect with Morgan:
Gender Nation Facebook
Gender Nation Instagram
Gender Nation Website
Episode Resources:
It's Okay to Be Different by Todd Parr
George by Alex Gino
The Bravest Knight Who Ever Lived by Daniel Errico
Raising My Rainbow by Lori Duron
Connect With Ronit:
For more about this episode click here!
Sam Ssemaganda’s early years were molded by witnessing his mother struggle to maintain a foothold in their rural Ugandan village after the death of his father.
The sharply patriarchal society in which they lived dictated that her income, crops, and home revert to her late husband’s family and that she, under the system of widow inheritance should also become the property of her brother-in-law. After years of refusing to comply, his mother was forced out of her marital home but ordered to leave Sam behind where he would soon be raised as an afterthought, pining for the only parent he’d ever known. Finally, after five years apart Sam returned to his mother--his lifeline--whom he'd worried he'd never see again.
She imparted in him the importance of education and her love of storytelling and took care of him for the next five years until she grew ill and died of HIV/AIDS. Watching her grow weak and suffer awoke in Sam the need to learn more about the disease that took his mother and to fight against the patriarchal system that wreaked havoc on their life together.
Now a male women activist, a journalist, the founder of Black Candle Media, and a poet, Sam shares his call to action to all men and tells the story of how he came to be thankful for the gifts his painful early life bestowed on him.
Connect with Sam:
Enough | Poetry for Social Change
New Vision Article Featuring Sam
Connect With Ronit:
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Tahmina Watson could not have predicted she’d become a US immigration lawyer when she began her career as a barrister in the UK, but she soon realized helping people become citizens was her purpose in life. And when the Trump administration released its executive orders on immigration in 2017 she saw her assistance was direly needed.
She went to work immediately and established the Washington Immigrant Defense Network and helped mobilize Airport Lawyers to directly assist distressed families and passengers. Three years later and she and her team have learned that under the current administration parents and children continue to be separated, virtually anybody is deportable, and the immigration crisis is not over.
In this episode, Tahmina talks about how this is the calm before the storm, that immigrant issues are everybody’s issues, and the ways even lay people can help.
Connect with Tahmina:
Learn for about Tahmina Here!
Tahmina Talks Immigration Podcast
Washington Immigrant Defense Network
Airport Lawyer
American Immigration Lawyers Association
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For more about this episode click here!
Raeshal Solomon's son was 9-months old and she was $400,000 in debt when she got a phone call from a debt collector that would change her life.
That was the day she began writing what would become her first book to teach families about managing money. What started out as a way to heal her relationship with money and educate her own children soon became a personal mission to reach a million children and help protect them from the same mistakes she made.
Several years and eight books later Raeshal has whittled down her debt to $40,000, become a regular guest speaker in schools, and launched a new podcast with her sons for families to listen to and learn about fiscal responsibility together.
Connect With Raeshal:
My Little Banker
And Then Everything Changed listeners can use the code "And Then" at checkout to receive a discount on their My LIttle Banker book purchase.
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For more about this episode click here!
After facing complications delivering her first child including an emergency C-section and being separated from her newborn son during his 9-day hospitalization in the NICU, Allison Hare began to lose her way. A DJ and a public speaker who had always been comfortable expressing herself, she now struggled with her confidence and sense of self. Soon she began searching for relief through shopping, diet plans, a hyper-focus on her BMI and, as her body dysmorphia became more acute, cosmetic surgeries to satisfy her new determination to become flawless. After the birth of her second child in which she was able to advocate for the experience she wanted, she attended a seminar that awakened the powerful, dynamic part of her that she had forgotten. Now a podcaster and a podcast coach with a Ted talk on her bucket list, Allison is determined to be true to herself and to help other women find their voice. Body Dysmorphic Disorder affects 1.7% to 2.9% of the general population — about 1 in 50 people. This means that more than 5 million people to nearly 10 million people in the United States alone have BDD. It’s possible that BDD may be even more common than this, because people with this disorder are often reluctant to reveal their BDD symptoms to others. 𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐬: Prevalence of BDD 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐀𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧: Podcast Instagram Facebook LinkedIn YouTube 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝗪𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐑𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐭: For more about this episode click here! Instagram Facebook
Sandra Etherington had experience with Myers-Briggs assessments and knew how effective they were in understanding what made different people tick but it wasn’t until she put Myers-Briggs to work within her own family that she realized how helpful they could be in personal relationships, too. Fortified with a clearer view of her loved ones’ personality traits and new ways to interact and relate to her husband and children she was able to more effectively navigate parenting-style differences, better care for her kids, and diffuse conflict in a more meaningful way.
In this episode, Sandra shares how she utilizes Myers-Briggs to help families add a rational layer to their relationship so they can keep the peace, build trust, and show loved ones they are cared for and truly understood.
Connect with Sandra:
Family Personalities
Family Personalities Podcast
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For more about this episode click here!