And Then Everything Changed

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.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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. 

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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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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. 

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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. ⁣