Ellen was nineteen years old and six weeks married when a Marine came to her door to tell her that her husband had been killed in Vietnam.

She told him he was a murderer and that he didn't dare come inside.

What happened after that is the part nobody prepared her for. Her family was embarrassed by her. Her friends wanted to go get a beer and she wanted to know what happens to us when we die. She turned to her husband's best friend, which made everything worse, and then she spent months being what she calls wild, because she had decided she was not going to be a widow and she was not going to mourn. And underneath all of it, the night before he died, she had started seeing things. A being. A message about an eagle's wing. She was certain she was losing her mind.

She was not losing her mind. She was becoming a mystic, and it would take her years to accept that.

A heads up on this one: we talk about the death of a spouse in war, grief, an affair, the death of a partner during surgery, cancer, divorce, and there's one brief moment where Ellen says that in the months after her husband died she didn't want to be alive.

Something to chew on this week: Was there ever a moment when you were told "that's not how it works," and some part of you knew better? Did you listen to them, or to yourself?

FIND ELLEN

• Website: https://ellenmlaura.com/
• Her podcast, Enter the Mystic's Garden (free): https://ellenmlaura.com/enter-the-mystics-garden-podcast/
• Blossom Joyfully: https://blossomjoyfully.com/
• Her Substack: Velvet Realms
• Her books, including The Shaman's Bulldog and her memoir Love in the Shadow of Saigon, are on Amazon

IF YOU NEED SUPPORT

• 988 - Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, call or text, US, 24/7
• findahelpline.com - free, confidential support in over 100 countries
• What's Your Grief - whatsyourgrief.com - grief resources for all kinds of loss
• The Dougy Center - dougy.org - grief support, including for young people
• Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS) - taps.org - 800-959-TAPS - support for families grieving a military death

The stories and views shared on Anchor Moments belong to the people telling them. I'm not here to agree, correct, diagnose, or decide who's right. Take what helps, and leave the rest.

Anchor Moments is a show about the moments that split a life into a before and an after, and who we became on the other side. New episodes every Wednesday.

Got a story? anchormomentspod.com
Instagram + TikTok: @anchormomentspod

Dr. Emily Hill has been asking the same question since her twenties: why am I here?

On paper, she already had the answer. A PhD in computer science, a professorship built perfectly around a growing family, work she was genuinely good at and genuinely loved. And still, a quiet pull kept telling her to leave it - with no plan, no safety net, and five kids counting on her.

This is the story of what happened when she followed that pull. Emily walks us through the reinvention that came next: leaving the career she loved, building a business from nothing, watching a lot of it come apart, and finding out what actually carried her through when the plan didn't. Her answer, again and again, was faith and a stubborn inner guidance she learned to trust - the belief that everything in life is happening for us, not to us, if we're willing to look at it from the light instead of the shadow.

She is, by her own description, an agent of change: a seven-figure founder, a former professor, a funeral singer, a mom of five. By the end of our conversation, Krista crowns her the Queen of Reframe. We get into how she found her faith, the identity work of shedding a lifetime of people-pleasing, why she believes a business can't grow past the capacity of its owner, and what it looks like to keep going when the numbers say stop.

If you've ever built the "right" life and felt like a stranger inside it, this one is for you.

This week's question: Emily's whole practice comes down to one reframe - that everything is happening for you, not to you. Think of the hardest thing you're carrying right now. What might shift if you looked at it as happening for you? Come tell us on Instagram.

Find Dr. Emily: Dr. Emily Hill holds a PhD in computer science and works at the intersection of business, tech, AI, and identity.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emhill07
emhill.com
https://elev8tek.com/

A little disclaimer: The stories and views you hear on this show belong to the people telling them. They aren't always mine, and that's kind of the point. I'm not here to agree, correct, diagnose, or decide who's right. My job is to listen, to hold space, and to let each person's experience stand as theirs. Take what helps you, and leave the rest.

Content warning: This episode includes honest discussion of business hardship and financial pressure - a business coming apart, debt, and hard decisions - alongside faith and matters of spirituality. Please take what helps and leave the rest.

If you're struggling, you're not alone:

US and Canada: Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7.

International: Find a helpline in 200+ countries at findahelpline.com.

Love the show? The best way to help Anchor Moments grow is to share this episode with the one person who came to mind while you listened, and to follow or subscribe so the next story finds you too. If you have a minute, a rating or review helps more than you'd think.

Come say hi:
Instagram: @anchormomentspod
TikTok: @anchormomentspod
Web: anchormomentspod.com
Got a story to share? anchormomentspod.com or email [email protected]

You're part of someone's story, so carry that with kindness.

This week it's just me. Last Wednesday of the month means I drop one of my own anchor moments, and this is the one I've hinted at for a long time and never actually told you: where my Live List really came from.

It started at the lowest point of my life. I was seeing my therapist multiple times a week, seeing a psychiatrist for med management, and still struggling to get out of bed. I made peace with the end, and honestly, it was the first peace I'd felt in a long time. The only thing I couldn't reconcile was how to leave my husband and my kids. So I gave myself a five-year window and started writing down everything I needed to do first. A list of things to do so I could go.

Then every single item started teaching me something I didn't expect. "Don't eat out for 30 days" turned out to be the first time in my life I learned to say no. Taking my seven-year-old zorbing down a mountain, ending up underwater, and deciding I'd drown so he could live, then watching the GoPro and realizing I could've held him up with one hand the whole time, taught me I don't have to martyr myself to be a good mom. I call that the power of AND now.

I sat with every item the same way: hand on my chest, eyes closed, one breath, asking do I want this, and does it feel heavy or light. If it felt light, it stayed. That same list is how I ended up going away to heal, checking into inpatient treatment on my fortieth birthday, and it's why one of my daughters sat me down, turned up a Billy Joel song, and told me to put the phone down and go take care of myself.

Somewhere in the middle of all of it, the list to die quietly became my list to live. It was never really about the list.

I'm two years in, three to go, and I'm not going anywhere anymore. If you've ever been at the end of yourself, this one's for you.

What's one thing you'd put on a list to live? Not a bucket list. One small, honest thing that would keep you here. Tell me. @anchormomentspod on socials.

A note before you listen: These are my stories and my reflections. Take what helps and leave the rest. My stuff is my stuff, I've done the work, and I'm still here on purpose, so no one needs to carry any of this on my behalf.

Content note: This one is honest about a season when I wanted to die. It names suicidal thoughts and planning plainly, and it moves through getting help, inpatient treatment, and coming back. Nothing is graphic, but it's a heavier one. If today's not the day, that's okay. Take care of you and come back when you're ready.

Support resources (always here):

• US: Call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, 24/7.
• International: findahelpline.com (200+ countries) and Befrienders Worldwide at befrienders.org.

If this one resonated: Send it to the one person you thought of while listening. Then follow Anchor Moments wherever you're listening so the new episodes find you, and if you have a minute, leave a rating or review. Word of mouth is how this little show keeps going and I would greatly appreciate it.

Have a story to share? Everybody has one. Head to anchormomentspod.com, fill out the intake form, and get on the calendar. Or just say hi at [email protected].

Find the show:

• Instagram: @anchormomentspod
• TikTok: @anchormomentspod
• Web: anchormomentspod.com

You're part of someone's story, so carry that with kindness.

Mike Poliwoda's dad sat him down when he was young and told him to grow up and take responsibility. Mike did. He's been doing it ever since, and for a long time he resented every second of it.

If you've ever performed a version of yourself so well that you lost the real one underneath, this one's for you.

Find Mike: In February 2025 he won an International Impact Book Award for speculative fiction for Saviour Machine, which hit bestseller status on Amazon in Canada. His fifth book, The Performed Man, is the one we get into here. Browse everything he's written: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Mike+Poliwoda&i=stripbooks

Substack (Beerbohmtastic): https://mikepoliwoda.substack.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mike.poliwoda LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-poliwoda-78a9459

A little disclaimer: The stories and views you hear on this show belong to the people telling them. They aren't always mine, and that's kind of the point. I'm not here to agree, correct, diagnose, or decide who's right. My job is to listen, to hold space, and to let each person's experience stand as theirs. Take what helps you, and leave the rest.

Content warning: This episode includes honest discussion of depression, hitting rock bottom, and suicidal thoughts, along with substance use, a relationship breakdown and separation, job loss and financial pressure, and the weight of young and single parenthood. Please take care of yourself however you need to.

If you're struggling, you're not alone:

US and Canada: Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7.

International: Find a helpline in 200+ countries at findahelpline.com, or reach Befrienders Worldwide at befrienders.org.

Love the show? The best way to help Anchor Moments grow is to share this episode with the one person who came to mind while you listened, and to follow or subscribe so the next story finds you too.

If you have a minute, a rating or review helps more than you'd think.

Come say hi: Instagram: @anchormomentspod TikTok: @anchormomentspod Web: anchormomentspod.com

Got a story to share? anchormomentspod.com or email [email protected]

You're part of someone's story, so carry that with kindness.

I didn't meet Jennifer through the podcast. I found her the way a lot of you probably will, scrolling on a hard day, underwater in my own life, when her content stopped me cold. It was the mornings. The getting-out-the-door. The meltdowns nobody films. It helped me before she was ever a guest.

Jennifer is an autism parent coach raising a neurodivergent daughter, and neurodivergent herself. Somewhere in the years of fighting for her kid, for the evaluation, off an eighteen-month waitlist, through school districts and IEPs, she figured out the thing that changed everything: you cannot regulate your child from an empty, frayed nervous system. So she starts with mom. Not as a bubble bath you earn, as the foundation the whole house sits on.

In this one she gives us the images I can't put down. Survival mode is a boat with a hole in it, and you're bailing water as fast as you can, and the answer was never to bail faster, it was to patch the hole. A child mid-meltdown has a prefrontal cortex that's gone offline, like a router unplugged, and you can't reason your way in, you can only help plug it back in. And her daughter's autism isn't a diagnosis she's afraid of, it's an insight.

We talk about the 160% she used to pour into the wrong rooms until it burned her out, and what it looks like now that she points that same energy at what actually fills her. We talk about losing your temper and coming back to repair it, about mom guilt, and about why regulating yourself isn't selfish, it's the whole job. I got called out, in the best way, and I shared more of my own story than I planned to.

If you're a parent white-knuckling the morning, or just a person running on empty and calling it strong, this one's for you.

Find Jennifer: She's The Autism Parent Coach on Instagram, @theautismparentcoach. She offers one-on-one coaching and a membership community for moms raising neurodivergent kids.

A little disclaimer: The stories and views you hear on this show belong to the people telling them. I'm not here to agree, correct, diagnose, or decide who's right. Take what helps you, and leave the rest.

Content warning: This episode includes discussion of parental burnout and survival mode, raising a neurodivergent child, meltdowns, losing your temper and repairing it, mom guilt and shame, mental-health treatment, and chronic illness.

If you're struggling, you're not alone:

US: Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7

International: Find a helpline in 200+ countries at findahelpline.com.

Autism and caregiver support: The Autism Society's National Helpline can help you find local services and navigate a diagnosis, autismsociety.org. And if you're the caregiver running on empty, that counts as a reason to reach out too.

Love the show? Share this episode and follow or subscribe so the next story finds you too. If you have a minute, a rating or review really helps too.

Say hi: Instagram: @anchormomentspod TikTok: @anchormomentspod Web: anchormomentspod.com Got a story to share? anchormomentspod.com or email [email protected]

You're part of someone's story, so carry that with kindness.

Morgan was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at seven years old. Her sister was five. Her brother came a few years later, also with CF.

The message she got - from every clinic appointment, every doctor, every parent - was: do your treatments, take your medications, do everything right, and you'll make it to the therapy that saves your life. She believed it completely. And she built an entire identity around believing it.

This episode is about what that does to a person over twenty years. How it keeps you alive and quietly shapes you into someone who can't tolerate what she can't control, who doesn't know how to have needs, and who checks every box because that's the only way she knows how to feel okay.

It's also about what happens when the therapy actually comes. When Tricafta arrives and within days you're breathing differently than you ever have. And then your mind gets a little quiet, and you look back and go: oh. That's why I'm this way.

If you've ever built your whole life around an if-then belief - if I do everything right, then I'll be okay - this one's for you.

This week's question:

Morgan and her sister had the exact same disease and completely opposite reactions to it. One followed every rule. One refused all of them. Which one would you have been? Come tell us at @anchormomentspod.

Find Morgan: Morgan's Instagram

Want to learn more about cystic fibrosis or support the research that made Tricafta possible? The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is at cff.org.

A little disclaimer: The stories and views on this show belong to the people telling them. They aren't always mine, and that's kind of the point. I'm not here to agree, correct, diagnose, or decide who's right. Take what helps you, and leave the rest.

Content warning: This episode touches on childhood illness and medical trauma, life expectancy and mortality, anxiety and mental health, and the death of a beloved childhood mentor.

If you need support, you're not alone:

• US: Call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, 24/7)
• International: findahelpline.com (200+ countries) or befrienders.org
  
  Love the show? The best way to help Anchor Moments grow is to share this episode with the one person you thought about while you were listening, and to follow or subscribe so the next story finds you too.Instagram: @anchormomentspod | TikTok: @anchormomentspod | anchormomentspod.com Got a story? anchormomentspod.com or [email protected]

  You're part of someone's story, so carry that with kindness.

Morgan was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at seven years old. Her sister was five. Her brother came a few years later, also with CF.

The message she got - from every clinic appointment, every doctor, every parent - was: do your treatments, take your medications, do everything right, and you'll make it to the therapy that saves your life. She believed it completely. And she built an entire identity around believing it.

This episode is about what that does to a person over twenty years. How it keeps you alive and quietly shapes you into someone who can't tolerate what she can't control, who doesn't know how to have needs, and who checks every box because that's the only way she knows how to feel okay.

It's also about what happens when the therapy actually comes. When Tricafta arrives and within days you're breathing differently than you ever have. And then your mind gets a little quiet, and you look back and go: oh. That's why I'm this way.

If you've ever built your whole life around an if-then belief - if I do everything right, then I'll be okay - this one's for you.

This week's question:

Morgan and her sister had the exact same disease and completely opposite reactions to it. One followed every rule. One refused all of them. Which one would you have been? Come tell us at @anchormomentspod.

Find Morgan: Morgan's Instagram

Want to learn more about cystic fibrosis or support the research that made Tricafta possible? The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is at cff.org.

A little disclaimer: The stories and views on this show belong to the people telling them. They aren't always mine, and that's kind of the point. I'm not here to agree, correct, diagnose, or decide who's right. Take what helps you, and leave the rest.

Content warning: This episode touches on childhood illness and medical trauma, life expectancy and mortality, anxiety and mental health, and the death of a beloved childhood mentor.

If you need support, you're not alone:

• US: Call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, 24/7)
• International: findahelpline.com (200+ countries) or befrienders.org
  
  Love the show? The best way to help Anchor Moments grow is to share this episode with the one person you thought about while you were listening, and to follow or subscribe so the next story finds you too.

  Instagram: @anchormomentspod | TikTok: @anchormomentspod | anchormomentspod.com Got a story? anchormomentspod.com or [email protected]

  You're part of someone's story, so carry that with kindness.

This week it's just me. Last Wednesday of the month means I drop one of my own anchor moments, and this one is on the lighter side, because anchor moments can be good ones too.

I'm telling you about my two first loves. The first was a weird off-brand troll doll named Norfin that I got one Christmas instead of the troll I actually asked for, and then loved so hard he went grey, matted, and bandaged. He held me through every lonely night of a childhood where I felt unseen. The second was a blind prom date that started as a total disaster and turned into the man I've been married to for more than twenty years.

It's a story about the things and the people that hold us together when no one else sees us, and about the slow, stubborn realization that it was never about the doll being pretty or the start being perfect. It was about being chosen.

If you've ever had a blanket, a doll, or a person you couldn't let go of or never let go of you, you'll appreciate this feel good story.

This week's question (come answer on Instagram): What was your Norfin? The doll, blanket, or worn-out thing that held you when you couldn't hold yourself yet. Tell me what it was and whether you still have it. @anchormomentspod

A note before you listen: These are my stories and my reflections. Take what helps and leave the rest. My mom is an angel and did the best she could. My stuff is my stuff, and I've turned out pretty great, so no one needs to carry any of this on my behalf.

Content note: This one is warm and chill, but we do touch on childhood loneliness, feeling unseen, abandonment feelings, and the loss of my dad. Nothing graphic or explicit. If today's not the day, that's okay. Take care of you and come back when you're ready.

Support resources (always here):

• US: Call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, 24/7.
• International: findahelpline.com (200+ countries) and Befrienders Worldwide at befrienders.org.
  

Spread the word: Send this to the one person you thought of while listening. Then follow Anchor Moments wherever you're listening so the new episodes find you, and if you have a minute, leave a rating or review. Word of mouth is how this little show keeps going.

Have a story to share? Everybody has one. Head to anchormomentspod.com, fill out the intake form, and get on the calendar. Or just say hi at [email protected].

Find the show:

• Instagram: @anchormomentspod
• TikTok: @anchormomentspod
• Web: anchormomentspod.com
  

You're part of someone's story, so carry that with kindness.

Jean doesn't look like her story. She's little, she wears pink, she's got these curls, and then she opens her mouth and you realize this is a woman who has buried almost everyone she loved and come out the other side as someone new.

In this episode, Jean takes us from a strict, loving childhood in Staten Island to a college pregnancy that got her kicked out of her family, to the slow and graceful loss of her mother, the fast and brutal loss of her father, and then the sudden death of her husband in a hotel room a few states away, on what was supposed to be one of the best days of her life.

What she found out after he was gone changed everything she thought she knew. There's grief here, there's a stretch that honestly plays like a crime show, and there's a red bird.

We talk about betrayal, what it means to pour love back into yourself, and why she protects her rituals fiercely.

This week's question: Jean had nothing left to lose, so she knocked on her late husband's drug dealers' doors and demanded her money back. No backup, no plan, just nerve. If you were that far past the edge, would you knock on the door, or find another way out? Come tell us on Instagram!

Find Jean: Instagram @thewokewidow (https://www.instagram.com/thewokewidow/). She's writing a book and offers sound baths, breath work, and Reiki.

A little disclaimer: The stories and views you hear on this show belong to the people telling them. They aren't always mine, and that's kind of the point. I'm not here to agree, correct, diagnose, or decide who's right. My job is to listen, to hold space, and to let each person's experience stand as theirs. Take what helps you, and leave the rest.

Content warning: This episode includes discussion of the death of a parent, terminal illness and hospice, the sudden loss of a spouse, infidelity, addiction and substance use, and heavy grief. Please take care of yourself however you need to.

If you're struggling, you're not alone:

US: Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7.

International: Find a helpline in 200+ countries at findahelpline.com, or reach Befrienders Worldwide at befrienders.org.

Love the show? The best way to help Anchor Moments grow is to share this episode with the one person who came to mind while you listened, and to follow or subscribe so the next story finds you too. If you have a minute, a rating or review helps more than you'd think.

Come say hi:

Instagram: @anchormomentspod

TikTok: @anchormomentspod

Web: anchormomentspod.com

Got a story to share? anchormomentspod.com or email [email protected]

You're part of someone's story, so carry that with kindness.

In this episode, I talk with Khushnum - a therapist and mentor - about what happens when your worth gets wired to your performance before you're old enough to know it's happening.

Khushnum grew up believing she was only as good as what she could produce. She became a high achiever, a fixer, the one who reads the room before she had the words for any of it. And even with all the training, all the modalities, all the language for what she was doing, the pattern kept running underneath. It took her body stopping her - and a long stretch of sitting in the quiet she'd spent her whole life avoiding - to start asking who she was without the performance.

We talk about over-functioning, the difference between healing and just collecting more knowledge about yourself, what it actually looks like to give something to yourself instead of checking a box, and why she's not afraid to get in the muck with the people she works with.

Khushnum isn't standing at a tidy ending. She's still in it, a few steps further down the path. That's exactly what makes this one worth sitting with.

A few things we get into:

• Worth that's tied to producing, and where that starts
• Why "I exist, and I'm worthy" is harder to say than it sounds
• The one small non-negotiable you give to yourself every day
• Being in it with people instead of handing down answers

Find Khushnum: https://www.instagram.com/khushnum_stevens/

Resources relevant to what was shared:

If you're running on burnout or feeling like you've lost yourself somewhere in everything you do for everyone else, you don't have to sit in that alone.

For mental health support and finding a therapist: SAMHSA Helpline: 1-800-662-4357 (free, confidential, 24/7) Psychology Today therapist finder: psychologytoday.com

If you are in crisis or having thoughts of suicide: 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988 Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741

International listeners: findahelpline.com (200+ countries) befrienders.org

Have a story for Anchor Moments? [email protected] | anchormomentspod.com