And Then Everything Changed

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

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

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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

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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

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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.

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Enough | Poetry for Social Change

New Vision Article Featuring Sam

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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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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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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.⁣