April Sawicki is a 19 year old woman from New York who lived during high school in a broken down motor home in a vacant lot at the edge of town her father won in a poker game. Her mother left her father when she was young, then her father left April at 16 to fend for herself when he went to live with his girlfriend and the woman’s son. 

April, a budding singer-songwriter, ran away by stealing a neighbor’s car, and went on adventures up and down the east coast playing in bars and coffee shops and gradually and serendipitously finds connections and forms deep relationships she lacked growing up. 

April’s story is the invention of talented writer, novelist and essayist Allie Larkin. Larkin’s book, The People We Keep, tells the story of April’s growth from a lonely, confused teen to a young evolving woman who learns to trust once again in deep relationships.

Not just another conversation with a writer. Larkins book is also a tale of perseverance and heart. The backstory of The People We Keep is also about a writer who refused to simplify her work to make it more formulaic and commercially mass-market palatable. In essence, Allie Larkin stood by her own sense of her work and her protagonist.

Her other novels include Stay, Why Can't I Be You, and Swimming for Sunlight. Her fifth novel, Home of the American Circus, is expected to be published this year. She lives with her husband Jeremy, and dog Roxy in San Francisco. 

In our conversation not only does Allie talk about holding fast to her belief in her story and her characters, but she unveils her writing process, how much she loves dogs and how important they are to her writing, and how she has developed awareness and workarounds for her Attention Deficit Disorder. 

Like her main character, Allie also is a musician and there are several places where art and reality overlap. 

Besides being a talented writer Allie is a wonderful human. She has just started the Truehearts Collective, an online community of writers, musicians and artists to talk about their daily struggles living the creative life.
Links:
Instgram: https://www.instagram.com/allielarkinwrites/
Web: https://allielarkinwrites.com/
Books: https://allielarkinwrites.com/allie-larkin/
Musician Peter Mulvey: https://www.petermulvey.com/
Musician Chris Pureka: https://www.chrispureka.com/

Website: https://christianrward.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianrward/

I met singer-songwriter Reese Mayfield here in Raleigh last fall. Friends had invited me to what has become known as the Five Points Music Festival. It's a gathering of local musicians performing on an impromptu stage set up in the driveway of someone's garage. it's a fundraiser for a local school.

Reese was one of the musicians performing that day. As the various musicians worked through their sets of covers and original music, I became intrigued by Reese, the youngest of the musicians.

She's an 18-year-old high school senior with a pedigree in music; her father played in various bands growing up and still plays today. Reese's parents have supported her and encouraged the Raleigh native each step of the way in exploring her creative talents.

In our conversation, Reese reveals how she got started in music with a drum kit at age 2 and took off from there. She plays piano, violin and is self-taught on guitar. While she loves learning chords on those instruments her real love is singing. She explains how she uses poetry to bring words from her heart that sometimes become songs.

She talks about how the experiences of her young life feed her creativity in music, painting, and poetry. She also talks about performing locally and her plans to pursue music in college and possibly beyond.

We talk about the significance of social media for musicians today in promoting their work.

Reese is a bubbly, vibrant, and sweet young woman who is making the most of her passions. She even sings a couple of her original songs. 

Links:
Reese's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reese._.mayfield/
Reese's website: https://www.reesemayfield.com/
Reese's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@reese._.mayfield/featured

Website: https://christianrward.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianrward/

What I know about trauma is that nearly all of us carry something in our psyches. Almost everyone you know has some part of their past that overwhelmed their emotional capacity to understand and process it and became trauma. Not all trauma is the horrific kind of rape or shooting or a tragic accident. These are the kinds of events plastered across the news that garner the most public attention.  Sometimes the experiences are more subtle but no less hurtful. 

I've known today's guest, Gordon Darr, for three decades. But what I didn't know about my friend is astounding. For most of Gordon's adult life, from age 19 to only a few years ago, Gordon kept quiet about an experience so horrific but which he buried so deep inside him,  that, as he says, "changed the trajectory of my life." 

As Gordon shares in this episode of Interesting Humans, a visit to a highly respected physician at the University of Michigan, turned into a traumatic nightmare that impacted all aspects of his life for the next forty-plus years.  As a 19-year-old UM student,  he visited a doctor who was then head of the University of Michigan's University Health Services, Dr. Robert Anderson, for what he was told was gonorrhea. He didn't see Anderson in a patient room, but in his office, where the doctor allegedly sexually molested him, not once but three times before Gordon canceled further visits. He confided in a UM nurse practitioner, who dismissed his concerns.  When Gordon brought it up with a few other students whom he thought might also have had similar experiences with Anderson, they refused to talk about it. 

Anderson, who died in 2008, was the subject of a probe by the University of Michigan police, who turned their investigation over to the Washtenaw County prosecutor. Anderson was accused of sexually assaulting hundreds of Michigan students, mostly men and many of whom were UM scholarship athletes, during his time as head of health services from 1968 until he retired in 2003. Anderson was never prosecuted despite the statements from hundreds of former UM Students because, according to the County Prosecutor, the statute of limitations on the alleged offenses expired. The University has proposed a $490 million settlement to Anderson's alleged victims. 

The case bears an uncanny resemblance to similar cases at Michigan State, Ohio State, and the University of Southern California where innocent and sometimes naive students and student-athletes were sexually assaulted by medical authorities under the guise of appropriate medical examinations. 

He reflects on how the experience impacted his interpersonal relationships in his career, his marriage and divorce, and even to how he raised his two daughters. 

I hope you connect with this kind, humble man who shares for the first time on a large scale publicly the details of this one terrible event and its impact across the decades of his life.  Gordon's is a tale of deep hurt and of redemption through hard work done in counseling and with the help of close friends, and eventually through the blending of his passion for music and teaching in the founding of his successful

Website: https://christianrward.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianrward/

Trailer for Gordon Darr, a victim of Dr. Robert Anderson, the doctor at the University of Michigan who allegedly sexually molested hundreds of students and student-athletes as head of the UM's University Health Services. Anderson was never prosecuted but the University has proposed a $490 million settlement to more than 1,000 alleged victims of Anderson, who died in 2008. 
Gordon tells his complete story and weaves the thread of how his experience of being sexually molested affected his entire life. Coming soon to the podcast. 

Website: https://christianrward.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianrward/

Andrew Lafferty is a 20-year-old stand-up comedian learning the craft. He wants to become a comedy writer. 

After graduating from high school during the pandemic, he now the University of Pittsburgh, where he studies political science. 

Now three years into his journey as a comedian, Andrew has made people laugh everywhere from basements in the dorms at Pitt to tents, to clubs from Ann Arbor to Maine to LA. He has appeared at the Gotham Comedy Club in Manhattan and at improvs and Jazz clubs in LA. He opened for a rock band and even appeared on Wheel of Fortune this past spring. 

In this episode, Andrew talks about the genesis of his desire to become a comedian, growing up with a funny dad, and how leaving home opened his eyes and helps fill the pages on which he writes his comedy. He explores the craft of becoming a comedian and about how being dumped by a girlfriend gave him usable material for his routines. Every new experience is fodder for his punchlines. 

He is thoughtful, self-deprecating, and, as you will see, very funny. 

You can find Andrew:
website: https://andrew-lafferty.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrew.lafferty.9406
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrewlaffertyy/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4Qi6h1WjeqZ_Igq9l0kVwA/featured

Website: https://christianrward.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianrward/

When Kassondra and Will Lambert’s son Ethan was about two he was diagnosed with an extremely rare genetic disorder referred to as KAND. The couple had noticed early in their son’s life that he wasn’t progressing physically as expected. Ethan was unable to hold a bottle himself and wasn’t starting to verbalize took them more than two years to finally get a diagnosis of this disease so rare only about 300 people worldwide are affected. 

Uncovering Ethan’s condition set the couple on a nearly impossible journey through the maze of hospitals and labs and testing and health insurance reimbursement that often bankrupts well-meaning families, not to mention the emotional roller coaster of trying to raise a toddler with multiple physical challenges. Kassondra’s story is one of frustration and compassion that includes a $6000 wheelchair and jumping through the same hoops time and time again with big insurance companies and caregivers. This was true, she says, even though she had navigated social services in her job as a foster care advocate.

In our conversation, Kassondra talks about how difficult it was to get Ethan diagnosed and why the diagnosis is such an important piece of information in the world of health insurance reimbursement. 

Kassondra also talks about how she turned to social media to find emotional support and community as a parent of a child with such a rare and often fatal progressive neurodegenerative disorder. She found others on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and connecting with other parents helped her and Will find the emotional ground to keep going.
LINKS:
KASSONDRA on
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kassondra.lambert
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kassondra_lambert/
What is KAND: https://www.kif1a.org/blog/what-is-kand/
Ethan's campaign on Help Hope Live: https://helphopelive.org/campaign/19147/

Website: https://christianrward.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianrward/

When I was a kid I would often accompany my parents on Saturdays to a store that was both a grocery and department store, a bit like Costco is today. Sometimes my father would give me some cash and I would hotfoot it to the toy section to grab one of the latest models of these miniature cars called Hot Wheels. I was obsessed with building my collection. I would make my purchase and then was faced with the immediate question that I realize now was a precursor to similar questions I would ask as an adult.

What do I do with what's left? 

Most often I would go straight to the jewelry counter and purchase with what change I had some cheap piece of costume jewelry for my Mom. I don't know why this was my pattern and perhaps there are deeper aspects and another set of questions. The point is that I had choices each time:

Give what was left back to my father;

Make this purchase for my Mom,

Save it for another day. 

Which do you think would have been the smartest?  How you answer that question has a lot to do with your philosophy about this thing we call Money. The Saturday trips to the store with my parents helped form my lifelong relationship with money, along with observing how they spent and spoke about money in our household. And, like a lot of people, my relationship with money is strained at best. 

Today's guest, Mark Willis, takes a stand against the many commonly held myths about money. In fact, Mark, a certified financial planner and the founder and principal in his own firm Lake Growth Financial, is a paradigm breaker. He is the host of the popular financial podcast, Not Your Average Financial Podcast, in which explores and challenges widely held as fact ideas about finances. 

In today's conversation, Mark offers a counterintuitive approach to our relationship with money. He challenges whether a house is an asset or a liability, whether it's smarter to defer taxes to retirement, and even the sacred cow of 401(k) as the best place to park our money for retirement. He questions the worship of "financial gurus and money personalities" on network television and social media who prescribe mainstream money views without question. 

But Mark is no heartless bean-counter. He starts each relationship with prospective clients with a deep examination of that client's fears, concerns, and history with money. He even tells us that financial conversations, if done right, "should feel like those best late-night conversations about life." 

Today's conversation is a wide-ranging and enlightening look into the work of a heart-based financial planner whose central tenet is a Bank On Yourself philosophy that puts the most value into our own deeply held desires about money in our lives rather than following the herd. So hold on. You’re probably going to get uncomfortable because this conversation strikes at the heart of how our core beliefs about money are really core beliefs about our lives. 

Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Mark Willis.

Mark Willis website  l Facebook l online community l podcast
Bank on Yourself principles and founder Pamela Yellen

Website: https://christianrward.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianrward/

Pablo Picasso said, “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” I was thinking about Picasso’s words during my conversation with today’s guest, Haven Tunin, a young potter I met at a show in Ann Arbor last fall. 

Haven comes to pottery by way of discovering a gift for art, specifically painting and drawing, during high school. In college, she fell in love with pottery. She recently decided that her passion for pottery is so great she intends it to be the way she makes a living. 

Since she started throwing, Haven has become fascinated by the way pottery feeds her creative drive. She can come to the potter's wheel, she says, and even if she’s not in an especially great mood, working the clay begins to lighten her. She loves listening to rap music as she works creating unique mugs, bowls, vases, and lately, sculptures, which she talks about. 

She also talks about the business of art which is something a lot of creatives who want to make a living off their craft discover is not easy. Haven learned through trial how to account for her supplies and price her work. 

Though young, Haven has the presence of an older soul too. She has a perspective that seems to be borne out of maturity. For example, Haven takes each piece to its maximum form but also says, “Not every piece is destined for this world” meaning, she knows the pieces can also fail their promise and that’s okay. You can always start over. 

Haven is as engaging and funny and humble as any artist I’ve met. I am encouraged by her perspective on art, creativity, and the world. I hope you are as well. 

Links:
Haven on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/haven.tunin/
On Shopify: https://haven-tunin-studios.myshopify.com/
Intro & Outro Music by Wildes: https://www.wildesmusic.com/

Website: https://christianrward.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianrward/

What, really, are the qualities of a good man today?  Toughness? Grit? Courage? The reliability of the one who comes home after a long day at the office, even if that office down the hall or in the basement, and earns the money that pays bills then expects dinner to be on the table? Is it simply the man who takes out the trash? 

What sorts of exchanges are men and women making in the day to day bargaining of marriages and partnerships and how are they changing? What models do we have of good men in today’s Instagram-worthy world? 

I started this podcast as a way to capture pieces of extraordinary conversations with ordinary people. I don’t travel in the same circles as Joe Rogan so the discussions I have are with friends and colleagues who lead “ordinary” lives. Yet they often yield extraordinary wisdom. These people share insights that seem to carry Universal weight. 

A couple weeks ago I had just such a conversation. Clint Roe, a colleague, who appears in today’s episode, shared some things going on in his life and I shared some things about my life. During the conversation Clint revealed that he grew up one of three kids in a single-parent household led by his mom. In today’s episode, Clint wonders about the impact of growing up without a dad, nor close male role models, on him, his 26-year marriage and on his kids. 

As a single dad Clint has been reflecting on how to convey what he believes are the true core qualities of good men and how to be that to his two sons and daughter and in today’s meme-driven society.

Clint isn’t holding himself up as a  paradigm of a great man; In fact you might think he has  antiquated ideas about men.  In our conversation, Clint reflects on his experiences in the military, the failure and triumphs in his marriage and his parenting and come up with a story about what he thinks being a good man is about. 

In 1990 the poet Robert Bly wrote a NYTimes bestselling book about men called Iron John. It was an immensely popular book about the fable of Iron John.  I’ll read the first paragraph of the original preface. He says:

“We are living at an important and fruitful moment now, for it is clear to men that the images of adult manhood given by the popular culture are worn out; a man can no longer depend on them. By the time a man is thirty0five he know that the images of the right man, the tough man, the true man which he received in high school do not work in life. Such a man is open to new visions of what a man is or could be."

What Bly wrote more than 30 years ago is again appropriate. I believe that aside from a few numbskulls who think a man is being a tough guy and treating women as objects instead of equals, a lot of men are confused about how to be. The images I grew up with — the Marlboro Man, the Archie Bunkers, Hulk Hogans, the James Bonds — don’t work anymore. Nor do the men expressing their feminine sides. 

This confusion coincides with a cultural shift that impacts both men and women. Men are confused about their roles in families, in romantic relationships, as parents and in the workplace. 

Today is the first of what I hope will be more conversations about men and women and their interdependence in this changing world.  Clint is open and even gets a bit choked up. He reveals mistakes, how numb he was to the news of his absent father’s death when he was just eight and how a mix between old fashioned values with a nod toward modernization has helped him find his pl

Website: https://christianrward.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianrward/

We’ve all heard about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, often referred to — and even minimized in today’s lexicon  -- as PTSD. It is a psychiatric disorder that sometimes occurs in people who have experienced or witnessed a horrific event, such as a natural disaster, a serious accident, a terrorist act (think 9/11) war or combat or rape, or who have been threatened with sexual violence or serious harm. Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers may have come across PTSD in the form of combat fatigue or shell shock. But trauma doesn’t just befall combat veterans. 

In today’s podcast episode, Dr. Tanner Wallace, in her most transparent and beautiful self, explores how trauma experienced as a child from abuse or neglect impacts our lives as adults in our relationships with our spouses and lovers, our children, our friends, and colleagues. Unrealized trauma experienced as children wreaks havoc on our adult lives, often toxifying the very relationships we hold the most dear. 

“Trauma is always context-bound,”  she says. 

Tanner spent 20 years studying human development before she pivoted to work exploring the nature of childhood trauma. The pivot came about as a result of big problems in her second marriage and her parenting in which Tanner’s own trauma resurfaced from sexual assaults as an adolescent and teenager and some abuse at the hands of a parent. 

The realization sent Tanner off on a completely new path, utilizing what she learned about human development. She created a platform called the Relational Healing Lab. She uses her podcast and Instagram to talk the language of childhood trauma. Tanner has unlocked the voices for thousands of childhood trauma survivors. 

Ultimately, Tanner says, you can heal from childhood trauma through the right kind of work. I’ll let Tanner explain. In our conversation, Tanner is brutally honest about her own struggle to heal and what she learned about the immense difficulties of healing. 

This conversation is very personal and that is probably why it is among the most transformative conversations I’ve ever had on Interesting Humans. For the past six months, I’ve been in therapy to address some difficult challenges in my personal life.  I’ve uncovered my own unrealized childhood trauma caused by neglect from my parents, including anger and violence from my father, who is now deceased.  I’m so grateful the universe sent Tanner across my radar. She offers insight, hope, and love on the way to finding peace for childhood trauma survivors. I hope you enjoy meeting Dr. Tanner Wallace.
Links:
Dr. Tanner Wallace's podcast: Relational Healing Podcast
Dr. Tanner Wallance on Instagram: @drtannerwallace
Gabor Mate film: The Wisdom of Trauma (to be released December 2021)
Richard C. Schwartz, founder of Internal Family Systems approach to trauma therapy
Pete Walker, From Surviving to Thriving, a book on addressing childhood trauma
Justin Martin, IFS therapist
Intro and outro music provided by WILDES

Website: https://christianrward.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianrward/