Beneath The Story

Kyrus (Ky) Keenan A. Westcott is a comedian, content creator, mental health advocate, and host of The Vibe With Ky Podcast. Through humour and candid storytelling, he has built a community of nearly three million followers and helped make conversations about ADHD more accessible.

Summary

Diagnosed with ADHD at 35, Ky Keenan Westcott spent much of his life believing he wasn't trying hard enough. Receiving a diagnosis brought answers, but also grief, anger, and a new understanding of his past.

In this episode of Beneath The Story, we talk about what happens after a late ADHD diagnosis, from learning to understand emotional regulation and rejection sensitivity to recognizing how these patterns affect relationships.

We also explore the role of therapy, the difference between understanding our struggles and taking responsibility for them, and why Ky refuses to describe ADHD as a superpower.

Our conversation moves into comedy, social media, toxic positivity, and the freedom that comes from being honest about who we are, including the parts that aren't always easy.

It's a conversation about ADHD, but also about something much broader: how our understanding of ourselves can change the way we live.

Episode Links

Website - https://thevibewithky.com/

Instagram - @thevibewithky

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/thevibewithky

Chapters

00:00 Meet Ky Keenan Westcott

03:09 Recognizing ADHD in hindsight

06:08 Grief and relief after diagnosis

07:05 Social media and changing ADHD awareness

12:40 What happens after diagnosis?

16:36 ADHD, relationships, and rejection sensitivity

21:42 Medication, therapy, and personal responsibility

28:40 Finding community and removing the mask

34:01 Comedy and making people laugh

39:38 Honesty, toxic positivity, and social media

46:57 Relationships and self-reflection

51:34 Ky's current projects

54:12 Presence, productivity, and self-compassion

Stephanie James is a psychotherapist, author transformation coach, filmmaker, international speaker and host of the Igniting the Spark podcast. Drawing on decades of clinical experience and spiritual exploration, her work focuses on helping people navigate change, understand the stories and patterns shaping their lives, and develop a deeper relationship with themselves.

Her latest book, Your Big Fat Juicy Life (and Everything After), explores life, death and the full spectrum of human experience, including what it means to live more fully in the face of uncertainty.

Summary

Stephanie James has spent much of her life exploring the relationship between our inner lives and the way we experience the world.

In this conversation, Stephanie shares some of the experiences that shaped her own life, including the breakdown of her family when she was a teenager and the belief that followed that she needed to earn love. She talks about a pivotal experience at a Sufi school where she was told simply to “stop trying,” and how that moment began to change the way she understood herself and her life. 

We also talk about anxiety, attachment to outcomes, the stories we carry about ourselves, and what happens when we stop trying to control how life and other people respond to us. Stephanie shares the story of an injured eagle that became an unexpected lesson in letting go, along with some of the ways she works with difficult emotions, anxiety and the practice of returning to the present moment. 

We talk about nature, surrender, self-compassion and the difference between trying to change what we are experiencing and learning to be with what is already here. 

Episode Links

Website - https://www.stephaniejames.world/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/stephaniethespark/

Carly Rowena is a creator, mentor and entrepreneur who has spent the last 15 years sharing her life online. After building businesses, becoming a mother and creating a life in the UK that she had worked hard for, she began to question whether it was still the life she wanted.

Eventually, Carly and her husband sold their home, packed their family into six suitcases and moved to Costa Rica. Today, she shares what it looks like to change your mind, follow your curiosity and build a life that feels more like your own, while helping other women do the same.

Summary

Carly Rowena had built a successful career, several businesses and a family life in the UK when she began to question whether the life she had worked hard to create was still the life she wanted.

In this conversation, Carly shares the path that eventually led her family to sell their home, pack six suitcases and move to Costa Rica, and what happened when many of the things she was afraid of losing actually did fall apart. We talk about rebuilding her business, learning to value her own work, motherhood and the difficulty of choosing yourself when other people need you.

We also talk about never knowing what you want to be when you grow up, following curiosity instead of forcing yourself into one path, allowing your interests to change, and why not everything you love needs to become a career. Carly shares what living in Costa Rica has taught her about community, raising children, living with less, and how much becomes visible when some of the noise and distraction disappear.

Episode Links

Website - https://www.carlyrowena.com/

Instagram -  @instagram.com/carlyrowena

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

02:24 Not Knowing What You Want to Be

10:17 Writing Children's Books

13:53 Social Media, Success & Authenticity

16:18 Moving to Costa Rica and Rebuilding a Business

20:03 Motherhood and Choosing Yourself

23:21 Why Choosing Yourself Matters

31:00 What Costa Rica Changed

34:01 Raising Children Differently

36:45 Community, Loneliness & Living More Slowly

41:47 Living With Less

47:26 What's Next

48:40 When the Life You Built Starts to Change

53:24 Creativity, Possibility & AI

57:58 Closing

Alena Turley is a somatic therapist located in Sydney, Australia, a Hapkido black belt and business alchemist whose life has taken her through extraordinary adversity, single motherhood, homelessness, martial arts, entrepreneurship and the long process of rebuilding a life after surviving a violent attack. After reaching rock bottom in 2005, she began a very different chapter, one that would eventually shape both the life she lives and the work she does today.

Summary

In this conversation, Alena and I talk about what happens when the ways you've learned to survive and succeed begin to become the very things you need to question.

We talk about the experiences that shaped her early adulthood, surviving a violent attack, single motherhood and homelessness, and the importance of community in helping her find her way forward. Alena shares the unexpected role martial arts played in her life, and how learning to pay close attention to the body became part of a much larger shift in how she understood herself.

We also talk about surrender and why it can't always be forced, the move from overachievement toward creating more space, and how easily we can become accustomed to overriding what we know and what our bodies are telling us.

At the centre of the conversation is self-trust: what happens to it through adversity and conditioning, how often we look outside ourselves for answers, and the ongoing practice of learning to trust what we notice again.

Episode Links

Website - https://www.alenaturley.com/

Instagram - @alenaturley

Podcast - Unboxable - Somatic Self Development

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Alena's Journey

02:32 Alena's Broad Spectrum Career Path

05:03 The Significance of Attention to Detail

16:54 Breakdowns as Doorways to Growth

55:57 Building Self-Trust and Self-Compassion

Ryan Macleod is a designer, entrepreneur, community builder and the founder of Citizen Design Build on Vancouver Island. A Red Seal carpenter with a degree in the social sciences, Ryan has built a company that brings together construction, design, apprenticeship and community development. Much of Citizen’s work today is done in partnership with First Nations communities, creating not only buildings, but opportunities for Nation members to train and build careers within the trades. Before construction, Ryan spent years touring and recording as a musician, and that creative life has never really left him. He is deeply interested in philosophy, spirituality, and the ways the things we build, from homes and businesses to communities, shape how we live.

Summary

In this conversation, we talk about his work with First Nations communities through his company, Citizen Design Build, and why the company began bringing apprenticeship and trades training directly into its construction projects. For Ryan, the building itself is only part of the work. What matters just as much is what remains in a community when the project is finished.

We also talk about communication, and how often we communicate from our own understanding rather than considering what the person in front of us actually needs to hear. That same question shows up in Ryan's approach to design. How do you understand the people you're building for well enough to create something that actually belongs to them?

From there, the conversation goes into some less obvious places. Ryan talks about mindfulness, learning to become more comfortable with discomfort, and the space that can open up when we don't immediately react to what we're feeling. We talk about how that has changed the way he makes decisions, works with people and thinks about business.

There is a thread running through much of our conversation about responsibility. Not in a heavy way, but in the very practical question of what happens when the decisions we make are guided by the effect they'll have on other people, rather than simply by what is easiest or most profitable.

Episode Link

https://www.citizenbuilding.ca/ 

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Ryan McLeod and his background

02:18 Ryan’s childhood and early influences in construction and music

04:20 The role of design and envisioning in Ryan’s career

08:16 Communication as a core skill in community building

12:40 The importance of understanding the recipient in communication

15:00 Using construction for transformational change

16:13 Practical and ethereal ways of capacity building

20:09 Learning from mistakes and the value of transformative learning

23:50 The importance of slowing down and spaciousness in decision-making

30:17 Creating space for self-awareness and discomfort

36:12 The impact of social media and digital distraction

40:19 Parenting with consciousness and communication

50:19 The impact project with the First Nations community

56:22 Impact-driven business and impact principles

01:04:36 Reimagining a conscious future in design and impact

Leila Chambers (de Bruyne) is the co-founder of Flying Kites, a Leadership School & Teacher-Training Center serving 16,000 students in rural Kenya. A lifelong advocate for the power of education, Leila has raised more than $25 million to support critical services and expand opportunity for marginalized children, with a particular focus on girls, and her work has recognized by the Longines Women of Courage and Vision Award, The Obama Foundation's Girls Opportunity Alliance, and Bono's Herstory initiative, highlighting female leaders and activists promoting gender equality.

As a writer, Leila's work has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, TED, Forbes and Motherly. Her debut novel, Eliza is a sultry and darkly funny exploration of desire, aging, and motherhood.

Summary

We talk about the early years of Flying Kites and what Leila had to learn about trying to create change in a community that wasn't her own. But we also talk about becoming a mother and raising three children, the ways her ambitions and understanding of herself have changed, and what it has meant to build a life around work that began when she was barely an adult.

And then there is writing. Leila shares the long and often uncertain process of writing and publishing her first novel, Eliza, and what it has been like to begin something entirely new after being known for one body of work for so long.

Episode Links

https://flyingkites.org/

Instagram @instagram.com/flyingkitesglobal

Instagram @instagram/leila.debruyne

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Leila and her impactful work

01:53 The origins of Flying Kites in college

05:58 First trip to Kenya and the impact on Leila

08:55 Building the organization brick by brick

12:07 Challenges and lessons from community work

16:01 Transformations in the community over 20 years

19:57 Empowering girls and women through education

26:03 Mentorship, leadership, and team building

33:08 Balancing motherhood, impact, and personal growth

38:58 Writing the book: inspiration, challenges, and process

50:10 Overcoming rejection and trusting the process

59:56 The importance of self-awareness and authenticity

01:10:02 Reflections on community, culture, and impact

01:15:00 Looking ahead: future projects and hopes

01:16:02 Closing thoughts and gratitude

Norm Hann is a professional stand-up paddleboarder, wilderness guide and expedition leader who has spent more than two decades exploring some of the world’s most remote coastlines. Much of his life and work has been shaped by British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest and his relationship with the Gitga’at community there. His conservation work is featured in the award-winning documentary STAND.

Summary

Norm and I talk about the unlikely series of decisions that took him from teaching high school in Ontario to guiding in the Great Bear Rainforest, where a place and its people gradually changed the direction of his life.

We talk about his adoption into the Gitga’at Raven Clan, the 400-kilometre paddle he undertook to help protect the coast from a proposed oil tanker route, the people who have influenced him, and what decades spent outside have taught him about how he wants to live.

Episode Links

https://www.normhann.com/

Instagram @instagram.com/normhann

Watch STAND, the award-winning documentary featuring Norm and the Great Bear Rainforest

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Norm Hann's Background

02:10 Norm's Childhood and Love for Outdoors

03:58 Journey from Ontario to the West Coast

09:11 Connection with First Nations and the Great Bear Rainforest

14:58 Decisions, Challenges, and Personal Growth

21:56 The Healing Power of Nature and Awe

30:04 Norm's Guiding Philosophy and Mentorship

40:03 Expeditions, Paddleboarding, and Environmental Advocacy

50:10 Living a Seamless Life of Connection and Purpose

01:00:10 Future Plans and How to Connect with Norm

Traver Boehm is the author of the books Today I Rise, Man UNcivilized and 28 Days In Darkness. He’s a two-time TEDx speaker, men’s coach, and the founder of the UNcivilized Men’s Movement. He’s helped men all over the world to become UNcivilized as they wake up to the power of their hearts, the brilliance of their bodies, and the wisdom of their souls so they can blaze their own path by uniquely blending both the primal and the divine within them.

Most recently, Traver completed an extraordinary 49-day dark retreat and released his latest book chronicling his first such journey, 28 Days In Darkness.

He is dedicated to doing his part to help end the suffering in men, and the suffering caused by men, by guiding them through their own journey into an actualized version of masculinity.

Summary

Of course, I wanted to know what happens to a person in 49 days without light. What comes up when so much of the outside world disappears.

But I was just as interested in what happened when he came back out.

We talk about what Traver encountered in the darkness, the fears and old pain that surfaced, and what the experience showed him about identity, relationships, and our need for one another.

We also get into the ache we so often try to get rid of, what happens when the person we’ve known ourselves to be starts to fall away, and learning to live without needing to know exactly what comes next.

Here’s my conversation with Traver Boehm.

Episode Links

https://traverboehm.com/

https://www.manuncivilized.com/

Instagram @traverboehm

And all podcast platforms: The UNcivilized Podcast with Traver Boehm

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Traver Boehm and His Journey

03:03 Facing Fears and Life Transformations

06:01 The Dark Night of the Soul

09:07 The Power of Choice and Responsibility

12:04 The Dark Retreat Experience

15:06 The Importance of Human Connection

17:51 Lessons from the Dark Retreat

21:09 Emerging from Darkness and New Beginnings

38:15 The Epidemic of Loneliness

46:17 Facing Darkness: A Personal Journey

52:19 The Weight of Time in Solitude

01:00:28 Emerging from Darkness: Transformation and Growth

01:08:17 The Holy Ache: Connection and Authenticity