Other People's Shoes

Season 24: Lost & Found | Guest: Tom Sö

What happens when the noise finally stops?

For years, Tom Sö knew how to keep moving.

Work harder. Chase success. Make more money. Push through whatever was happening internally and keep going.

From the outside, that can look like ambition.

From the inside, it can become exhausting.

Eventually, Tom reached a point where pushing harder was no longer working. The life he had built could not quiet what was happening underneath it.

And then came a sentence that changed his trajectory:

“I need help.”

Season 24 of Other People’s Shoes, Lost & Found, explores the things we lose that cannot be replaced by simply buying another one—identity, purpose, hope, direction, faith, or even our sense of who we are.

Tom’s story brings another possibility into that conversation:

What if we become so surrounded by noise that we lose the ability to hear ourselves?

In “Silence Mode,” Tom and I explore the road from striving and suppression toward vulnerability, meditation, healing, stillness, and learning to relate differently to the thoughts constantly competing for our attention.

Because sometimes getting found does not require another answer.

Sometimes it requires enough silence to finally hear the question.

Tom Sö is the founder of MiddleWave® and the owner of Awakened Energy Healing.

For more than a decade, Tom has worked in areas including trauma healing, meditation, energy work, mindfulness, and spiritual growth. His own journey through emotional struggle, meditation, and seeking help has shaped the way he now works with others.

MiddleWave® was created around a challenge familiar to a lot of us:

How do we quiet a mind that never seems to switch off?

Tom’s work focuses less on eliminating thoughts and more on changing our relationship with them creating enough space to recognize what is happening internally and respond with greater awareness instead of simply reacting.

In “Silence Mode,” Neil and Tom explore:

🔇 What happens when external success does not match what is happening internally

🏃 The danger of believing the answer to every problem is simply to work harder

💰 What chasing money and achievement can provide and what they cannot

🫀 The moment Tom finally acknowledged that he needed help

🧠 Why our thoughts do not necessarily have to control our attention or our decisions

🧘 How meditation became part of Tom’s journey toward stillness and greater self-awareness

🤝 Why asking for help can be an act of strength rather than weakness

🌊 The thinking behind Tom’s MiddleWave® approach to meditation and mind training

🔁 How patterns, conditioning, and mental noise can quietly shape the way we experience life

👟 What it means to spend less time lost inside our own heads and become more present for the life happening around us

And underneath the entire conversation sits a question:

When everything inside us is demanding our attention, what might we discover if we stop long enough to listen?

Silence is not the absence of something. Sometimes it is where we finally notice what has been there all along.

We spend a lot of life trying to turn the volume up.

More achievement.

More productivity.

More distraction.

More answers.

But there are moments when finding our way forward may require the exact opposite.

Quiet.

Space.

Honesty.

And enough courage to admit that we do not have to navigate everything alone.

Maybe going into Silence Mode is not about escaping life.

Maybe it is about finally becoming present enough to live it.

🌐 Website

📸 Instagram

Tom’s work through Awakened Energy Healing and MiddleWave® focuses on meditation, healing, mental patterns, and developing a healthier relationship with the thoughts constantly competing for our attention.

Thank you, Tom, for being willing to talk honestly about what happens when pushing harder stops working—and for reminding us that sometimes one of the strongest things we can say is:

I need help.

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Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and continue walking with us through Season 24: Lost & Found.

Every story is an invitation to hear another point of view and see life from a different perspective.

If “Silence Mode” made you think about the noise in your own life, the things competing for your attention, or whether it might be time to stop trying to carry everything alone, we’d love to hear from you.

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Sometimes getting found starts by turning down the noise.

Season 24: Lost & Found | Guest: Mia Godfrey

⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: This episode discusses childhood trauma, abuse, addiction, grief, death, loss, and emotional pain.

What if surviving is only the beginning?

For much of Mia Godfrey’s life, survival was something she became very good at.

Growing up in Romania under communist rule, Mia experienced poverty, trauma, instability, and pain at an early age. Alcohol eventually became one of the ways she learned to escape what she was carrying.

But leaving one place does not necessarily mean leaving everything behind.

Mia would experience profound loss, including the death of her first husband and later the illness and loss of her sister. Through grief, addiction, faith, therapy, and the difficult work of finally confronting what had been buried, Mia began discovering that simply getting through another day was not the same thing as truly living.

Season 24 of Other People’s Shoes, Lost & Found, explores what happens when people lose something deeper than possessions—identity, purpose, hope, direction, faith, or the life they thought they would have—and what they discover as they begin finding a new way forward.

For Mia, getting found meant becoming willing to look honestly at what she had survived, the ways she had learned to numb the pain, and the possibility that the hardest parts of her story could become something more than wounds she carried.

The title “More to Life” is a nod to Steven Curtis Chapman’s More to This Life and to the question underneath this entire conversation:

Is simply making it through life really all there is?

Mia’s story suggests there is more.

Welcome to “More to Life.”

Mia Godfrey is an author, speaker, Bible counselor, and life coach whose story has been shaped by trauma, addiction, grief, faith, healing, and starting over.

Her memoir, Buried, Not Broken: A Memoir of Survival, Sisterhood, and Starting Over, grew from experiences Mia spent years carrying quietly and from a promise connected to her sister.

Today, Mia uses her story to remind others that being buried beneath painful circumstances does not mean we are permanently broken by them.

Sometimes the things we thought would remain hidden become the very things that help someone else feel less alone.

In “More to Life,” Neil and Mia explore:

🇷🇴 Growing up in Romania under communist rule and the experiences that shaped Mia early in life

🍷 How alcohol became a way of escaping pain rather than actually processing it

🧳 Why changing circumstances or geography does not automatically leave trauma behind

💔 The devastating losses Mia experienced and what grief revealed about the pain she had been carrying

🎭 What happens when we become good at surviving while quietly struggling underneath the surface

🧠 The role therapy played in helping Mia confront things she had spent years trying to bury

🙏 How faith became part of Mia’s journey toward healing, purpose, and a different way of seeing her story

📖 Why telling the truth about her life eventually became Buried, Not Broken

🌱 The difference between being buried by circumstances and believing those circumstances have broken you

👟 What it means to move beyond simply surviving and begin asking what life can still become

And underneath the entire conversation is a question that sits right at the heart of Lost & Found:

What if finding your way forward does not require forgetting what happened but discovering that what happened does not get to decide what your life becomes?

Being buried is not the same thing as being broken.

There are seasons when life can leave us feeling covered by grief, trauma, addiction, disappointment, or loss.

But sometimes what feels like burial may actually be the beginning of something being planted.

Survival can keep us here.

Healing can help us discover why we are still here.

And maybe that is where we begin finding that there really is more to life.

🌐 Mia Godfrey Website

📸 Mia Godfrey on Instagram

📖 Buried, Not Broken: A Memoir of Survival, Sisterhood, and Starting Over

Learn more about Mia, her story, writing, coaching, speaking, and the message behind Buried, Not Broken.

Thank you, Mia, for trusting us with the difficult parts of your story and for reminding us that what has been buried does not have to remain hidden and what has been hurt does not have to remain broken.

👟 Other People’s Shoes Website

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Subscribe to Other People’s Shoes wherever you listen to podcasts and continue walking with us through Season 24: Lost & Found.

Every story is an invitation to look closer, listen longer, and see life from a different perspective.

If “More to Life” made you think about something you have survived, something you have buried, or whether there might still be more waiting on the other side of what you have been through, we’d love to hear from you.

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Thank you for walking in Other People’s Shoes. 👟🩵

Maybe getting found begins when we stop asking only how we survived and start asking what we are still here to become.

Season 24: Lost & Found | Guest: Dean Sikes

⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: This episode discusses childhood sexual abuse, trauma, suicide, suicidal thoughts, and emotional pain.

Sixty seconds can feel permanent.

At 15 years old, Dean Sikes experienced sexual abuse. In the aftermath, he made himself a promise: he would never tell anyone what happened.

He kept that secret for 22 years.

The abuse was over in a moment.
The silence lasted decades.

Then an unexpected encounter with the person who abused him brought everything Dean had buried back to the surface.

Season 24 of Other People’s Shoes, Lost & Found, explores what happens when people lose something deeper than possessions—identity, purpose, hope, direction, faith, or the life they thought they would have—and what they discover as they find a new way forward.

For Dean, finding his way forward meant confronting something he had spent years trying not to face: what happened to him could not be changed, but it did not have to control the rest of his story.

Today, Dean has spent more than three decades carrying a message of hope to young people around the world:

You matter.

But what happens when pain has been with you for so long that it begins to feel permanent?

And can healing change what something means without changing what happened?

Welcome to “Permanent.”

Dean Sikes is an author, speaker, and longtime advocate for young people who feel unseen, unheard, or without hope.

Since 1993, Dean has spoken at thousands of events in schools, churches, Teen Challenge centers, prisons, and communities around the world, sharing the You Matter message with millions of people.

His work centers on helping young people understand their value, confront hopelessness, discover purpose, and recognize that the painful chapters of their lives do not have to become the final chapters.

Dean's message comes from more than three decades of ministry—but it also comes from his own experience with trauma, secrecy, shame, forgiveness, and healing.

In “Permanent,” Neil and Dean explore:

🕰️ How an experience lasting only moments affected Dean for decades

🤐 Why Dean decided at 15 that he would never tell anyone about the abuse

🎭 What happens when we become skilled at hiding pain while appearing okay to everyone around us

🏠 The unexpected encounter with his abuser 22 years later that forced Dean to confront what he had buried

🧠 Why emotions we refuse to deal with can eventually begin dealing with us

🗣️ The importance of bringing hidden pain into the light instead of carrying it alone

🙏 The role Dean's faith played in his journey toward healing

🔓 Why forgiveness became connected to freedom without pretending that what happened was acceptable

❤️ Why Dean has dedicated his life to reminding young people that they matter

🌱 How something that shaped your story does not have to permanently define your identity

And underneath the entire conversation is a question that sits right at the heart of Lost & Found:

What if the thing you thought would mark you forever doesn't get the final word?

“You matter.”

Two simple words.

But for someone who feels invisible, ashamed, hopeless, or convinced that their story has already been written, they can mean everything.

🌐 Dean Sikes / You Matter | 🩵 You Matter | 🎧 The YouMatter Podcast

Learn more about Dean's speaking, books, resources, and the You Matter mission to bring hope to young people and help eradicate hopelessness.

Thank you, Dean, for trusting us with your story and for reminding people that what happened to them does not have to be where their story ends.

👟 Website | 📘 Facebook | 📸 Instagram | 𝕏 X | 🎬 TikTok

If “Permanent” made you think about something you have carried, something you have kept hidden, or the possibility that your past does not have to permanently define your future, we'd love to hear from you.

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Season 24: Lost & Found | Guest: Elke Scholz

What if the person you spend the most time with is also the person you are hardest on?

For Elke Scholz, anxiety wasn't always something she could easily identify or explain. It could show up as exhaustion, fear, self-criticism, overthinking, or simply the feeling that something wasn't right.

And somewhere along the way came a painful description: your own worst enemy.

But what happens when that relationship begins to change?

Season 24, Lost & Found, explores what happens when people lose something deeper than possessions—identity, purpose, hope, direction, faith, or the life they thought they would have—and what they discover as they find a new way forward.

In this conversation, Elke and I explore anxiety, the way we speak to ourselves, the importance of curiosity, and what it might mean to stop constantly fighting the person in the mirror.

What would it look like to become your own best friend instead?

Elke Scholz is a registered psychotherapist, author, expressive arts consultant and educator, and EMDR therapist whose work centers around anxiety, resilience, creativity, and emotional well-being.

Her professional experience gives her tools for helping others understand what is happening beneath the surface, but this conversation goes beyond credentials. Elke also shares from her own experiences and what she has learned about the relationship we build with ourselves.

Because knowing how to care for other people doesn't automatically mean we know how to extend that same care inward.

🧠 Recognizing Anxiety
Anxiety doesn't always introduce itself clearly. Elke talks about becoming aware of what is happening emotionally and physically instead of simply assuming something is wrong with us.

🗣️ The Voice We Live With
We spend every day listening to our own internal dialogue. The question becomes whether that voice sounds like someone who is for us or someone constantly working against us.

🔎 Choosing Curiosity
Instead of immediately judging a feeling, reaction, or difficult moment, Elke encourages curiosity. What is happening? Where is this coming from? What might I need right now?

❤️ Offering Yourself Compassion
We often give patience and grace to people we love while withholding those same things from ourselves. Becoming your own best friend doesn't mean avoiding responsibility. It means learning to respond to yourself with honesty without cruelty.

🎨 Finding Tools That Help
Elke shares how creativity, expressive arts, awareness, and practical tools can help us process what we're carrying rather than simply trying to push it away.

👟 From Worst Enemy to Best Friend
Perhaps getting found isn't always about discovering someone new. Sometimes it's about changing the relationship with the person who has been walking with you the entire time.

There is a difference between challenging yourself and constantly attacking yourself.

A best friend doesn't tell you that everything you do is perfect. A best friend can tell you the truth, challenge you, encourage you, sit with you when things hurt, and still refuse to abandon you.

Maybe we deserve to learn how to do some of that for ourselves.

The person you've been fighting might also be the person you need to learn how to stand beside.

🌐 Visit Elke Scholz | 📚 Explore Elke's Books | 🧠 Anxiety Warrior Project | ▶️ YouTube

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If this conversation gave you a different perspective, we'd love to hear from you. Your review helps more people discover Other People's Shoes and the stories being shared here each week.

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Maybe becoming found begins when you stop treating yourself like the enemy and start learning how to be your own best friend.

Season 24: Lost & Found | Steve Wormer

What if confidence isn’t about convincing everyone else that you have it all together?

What if it’s simply learning to believe that you’re worthy enough to take the next step?

In this episode of Other People’s Shoes, I sit down with Steve Wormer, founder of the You Are Worthy Network, for a conversation about confidence, empathy, action, and what happens when we begin seeing value not only in ourselves, but in the people around us.

Steve’s mission is to enlighten people, heal hearts, and bring hope into their lives. Through the You Are Worthy Network, he creates space for people to share their stories, reflect on what they’ve walked through, and hopefully discover that their story still has value.

And maybe that’s where confidence begins.

Not with arrogance.

Not with having all the answers.

But with knowing who you are and being willing to move.

🧭

There’s a difference between believing in yourself and believing you’re better than everyone else.

Steve and I unpack the line between confidence and arrogance, and how healthy confidence doesn’t require us to diminish another person in order to feel secure ourselves.

Real confidence can actually make room for empathy.

It allows us to listen, remain curious, and recognize that the person across from us is carrying a story every bit as important as our own.

🧭

Steve shares a quote during our conversation that stopped me in my tracks:

“Vision without action is simply hallucination.”

We can dream.

We can plan.

We can talk about what we want our lives to become.

But eventually, something has to move.

The vision needs a step.

And sometimes that step doesn’t have to be huge.

🧭

That brought us to one of the great lessons from the movie What About Bob?

Baby steps.

You don’t have to fix everything today.

You don’t have to know exactly where the road ends.

Sometimes confidence looks like having enough courage to take one small step, and then another.

Maybe getting found doesn’t happen all at once.

Maybe we find pieces of ourselves along the way.

🧭

Steve and I talk about:

• The difference between confidence and arrogance
• Why empathy creates genuine human connection
• Recognizing your own worth
• Turning vision into action
• Why sharing our stories can help bring healing
• Creating spaces where people feel heard and valued
• The power of taking baby steps
• How confidence can change the way we move forward

🧭

Steve is the founder of the You Are Worthy Network, where he works to uplift others by giving people a place to share their stories, heal, reflect, and encourage one another.

📘 You Are Worthy Network Facebook Community

▶️ You Are Worthy Network on YouTube

🧭

👟 Website | 📘 Facebook | 📸 Instagram | 𝕏 X | 🎬 TikTok | 🎧 Apple Podcasts

🧭

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Sometimes the biggest change begins with the smallest step.

🎙 Fore!

On a golf course, that word is a warning.

Something is coming.

Pay attention. Protect yourself. Get ready.

But life doesn't always shout “Fore!” before something comes flying toward us.

For Kym Coco, there was no way to fully prepare for losing her husband, Stephen “Steve” Thompson. After Steve became seriously ill, the two of them realized their time together was limited. Their priorities changed. Schedules became simpler. Mornings became sacred. They chose to spend the time they had loving one another and writing together.

Steve's transition on November 24, 2023, changed the course of Kym's life.

This season of Other People's Shoes, Lost & Found, explores what happens when we lose something deeper than possessions. Identity. Purpose. Hope. Direction. Faith. Even the life we thought we'd have. More importantly, we're asking what we discover as we begin finding a new way forward.

For Kym, that road has included writing, movement, yoga, and a familiar place where you learn very quickly that not every shot goes where you planned: the golf course.

So what happens when life doesn't give you a warning?

When nobody yells “Fore!” before the thing that changes everything?

And after the impact, how do you find the courage to take another swing?

Kym Coco has spent much of her life exploring the connection between the body, mind, and spirit.

With bachelor's and master's degrees in sports kinesiology, Kym's search for optimal health eventually led her to yoga, where she discovered not only greater physical strength and balance, but a way to quiet an overactive mind.

That journey also introduced her to Stephen “Steve” Thompson.

Their friendship became a marriage in 2011, and together they traveled, taught, and shared what they were learning about living with greater clarity and purpose. Their work eventually became the book It Just Makes Sense: 7 Principles for a Joyful and Stress-Free Life.

Kym later created Swagtail, blending her experience in kinesiology, yoga, business, and her love of golf. In 2021, she published The Flexible Golfer.

Then life changed.

Only months after the book's release, Steve became seriously ill.

Knowing their remaining time together might be short, Kym and Steve intentionally shifted their lives toward what mattered most: each other.

Today, Kym continues carrying what they built together while learning what it means to move forward without the person who had walked beside her for so many years.

🕰️ What changed when Kym and Steve realized their time together was limited

🏌️ The role golf has played in giving Kym somewhere to keep moving, focusing, and finding herself again

💔 The difference between preparing for someone's death and actually living in their absence

🧭 What it means to find a new direction when the life you expected is no longer available to you

👣 How grief changes the way we walk without necessarily ending the journey

“Sometimes life doesn't shout ‘Fore!’ before impact. It just happens, and then we have to decide how we're going to take the next step.”

🌿 Swagtail | 📖 Miracle on the Mountainside: A True Story of Tragedy Transformed into Life's Greatest Gift

Kym's newest book, Miracle on the Mountainside, honors Steve's bold life and the remarkable story they shared.

👟 Website | 📘 Facebook | 📸 Instagram | 𝕏 X | 🎬 TikTok | 🎧 Apple Podcasts

Subscribe to Other People's Shoes wherever you listen to podcasts and continue walking with us through Season 24: Lost & Found.

Sometimes understanding another person's journey begins simply by being willing to walk in Other People's Shoes.

If Lost & Found has made you think differently about loss, grief, identity, or what it means to find your way forward, I'd love to hear about your experience with the season.

⭐ Leave a review for Other People's Shoes

Your words help more people discover these conversations and remind us that none of us walks through life entirely alone.

Season 24: Lost and Found | Guest: Cory Young

Would you rather is a dangerous game to play.

So, let’s play.

Would you rather give up walking or give up the hobby you’re most passionate about?

For most of us, it’s just a question.

For Cory Young, something close to that choice became his life.

This season of Other People's Shoes, Lost and Found, explores what happens when we lose more than something we can replace. Identity. Purpose. Hope. Direction. Faith. Sometimes even the life we thought we'd have. Through each story, we’ll discover that being lost doesn’t always mean the story is over. Sometimes losing what we knew is where we begin to find who we’re becoming.

At just 20 years old, a surfing accident left Cory paralyzed from the neck down.

The odds were staggering: roughly a one-in-a-million chance of breaking his spine and about a one-in-one-hundred chance of being left with permanent spinal damage requiring a wheelchair.

Cory didn’t choose the accident.

He didn’t choose what came with it.

But he still had choices to make.

How do you choose your hard when hard has already chosen you?

Welcome to “Choose Your Hard,” an episode of Lost and Found.

Cory Young is an inspirational speaker, mentor, coach, disability adviser, and advocate whose life changed dramatically after a surfing accident at age 20.

In the years that followed, Cory faced addiction, depression, anxiety, PTSD, financial hardship, and the difficult process of figuring out who he was and what life could still become.

Today, nearly three decades after his accident, Cory has built a life filled with purpose, marriage, travel, service, and a desire to help others navigate their own adversity.

His vision is to create a global ripple effect of hope, emotional fitness, service to others, and a genuine love and appreciation of life.

In “Choose Your Hard,” Neil and Cory explore:

🏄 The surfing accident that changed Cory’s life at just 20 years old

🎲 The incredible odds surrounding the spinal injury that left him paralyzed

🥊 What it really means to choose your hard when the hard wasn’t your choice

🧠 Why finding a new perspective can be difficult, but necessary

🌊 Whether life truly goes on after a life-altering accident

🎯 How Cory began finding purpose again after losing the future he expected

👟 Why moving forward doesn’t necessarily mean getting back what you lost

🔥 How Cory continues to chase the feeling of being fully alive

And underneath the entire conversation is a question that sits right at the heart of Lost and Found:

When life takes something you never thought you would lose, how do you decide what is still worth chasing?

“Choose your hard.”

📘 Facebook | 🎬 YouTube

Learn more about Cory Young, his story, mentoring, speaking, growth mindset development, water safety advocacy, and his mission to create a ripple effect of hope and appreciation for life.

👟 Website | 📘 Facebook | 📸 Instagram | 𝕏 X | 🎬 TikTok | 🎧 Apple Podcasts

If Lost and Found has made you think about something you’ve lost, something you’re still searching for, or the hard you’re making in your own life, we’d love to hear from you.

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Thank you, Cory, for sharing your story and allowing us to see life from a different perspective.

Thank you for walking in Other People's Shoes. 👟🩵

Season 23: The List | Guest: Greg Pihs

What if forgiveness is something we have to grow into?

All season long, The List has asked us to think about the names we carry. The people who hurt us. The people who disappointed us. The people whose names we might rather cross out than forgive.

For our season finale, Greg Pihs brings us face-to-face with one of the hardest questions of the entire season:

Can we grow beyond what someone did to us without pretending it didn't hurt?

Greg's person on The List is someone many of us would find incredibly difficult to forgive. We're not going to tell you who. That's part of the story you need to hear for yourself.

But much like so many conversations this season, Neil walks away wondering:

How on earth do you forgive that?

Welcome to “Growth,” the season finale of The List.

Greg Pihs is a U.S. Marine veteran, NLP trainer, bestselling author, and founder of the 4th Dimension Mastermind.

After surviving a deeply traumatic childhood and navigating life after multiple combat deployments, Greg dedicated his life to understanding the way our minds shape the reality we experience and how we can begin taking that power back.

He is the bestselling author of The Power In The Pain and creator of Step Into Your Power. With this live breakthrough experience, participants confront limiting beliefs, including literally walking across fire.

Today, Greg works with entrepreneurs, coaches, and leaders to help them reprogram their identity, own their stories, and build lives rooted in personal power.

In “Growth,” Neil and Greg explore:

🌱 Why forgiveness may be something we grow into rather than arrive at overnight

🧠 How our beliefs and internal stories shape the way we experience pain

🎒 What happens when childhood trauma follows us into adulthood

🇺🇸 The impact of Greg's experiences as a U.S. Marine and multiple combat deployments

🔥 Why confronting limiting beliefs can require us to walk directly toward what scares us

👟 How we can acknowledge what someone did without allowing it to define the rest of our lives

📝 The person on Greg's list and the difficult road toward forgiveness

💭 What it means to develop a growth mindset around pain, hurt, identity, and healing

🌱 How our deepest pain can become part of our growth without becoming our identity

And underneath the entire conversation is the question that has followed us throughout this season:

What do we do with the names that are hardest to take off our list?

“Maybe forgiveness isn't where growth ends. Maybe growth is how we get there.”

🌐 Website | 📸 Instagram

Learn more about Greg Pihs, The Power In The Pain, the 4th Dimension Mastermind, and his work at Power In The Pain.

👟 Website | 📘 Facebook | 📸 Instagram | 𝕏 X | 🎬 TikTok | 🎧 Apple Podcasts

If The List has challenged you to think differently about forgiveness, empathy, or one of the names you've been carrying, we'd love to hear from you.

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Twenty-three seasons have brought us here.

We have talked about the names we write down, the names we hold onto, the names we struggle to forgive, and sometimes the hardest name of all: our own.

Maybe we don't finish The List because every name suddenly disappears.

Maybe we finish because we've grown enough to stop letting the list determine how we walk forward.

Thank you, Greg, for helping us close this season with a conversation worthy of the journey.

And thank you for walking through The List with us.

Thank you for walking in other people's shoes. 👟🩵

Close your eyes for a moment.

Only do that if you are not driving right now.

How do you picture your forever?

For Oriana Sparks, forever looked like sitting on a dock, sipping a beer, and growing old beside the man she loved.

Then, only days after giving birth to their third child, her husband was tragically taken from her.

The dream disappeared in a moment.

The future she had pictured was gone.

How do you rebuild after that?

How do you forgive the person responsible for taking your forever away?

And when life leaves you asking why, how do you learn to sit still long enough to hear what your heart truly needs?

Oriana Sparks is a mindfulness facilitator, speaker, and coach based in Toronto.

For more than 20 years, mindfulness has been her anchor through everyday stress and life’s deepest challenges.

After becoming a widow only days after giving birth to her third child, Oriana turned to meditation, breathwork, fitness, and yoga. These practices became more than healthy habits.

They became lifelines.

Through grief, resilience, and rebuilding, she discovered a truth that now sits at the heart of her work:

Self-love is not indulgence.

It is discipline.

And it is what gives us real freedom.

With a B.A. in Psychology, a decade of experience in corporate communications, and certifications in yoga and mindfulness facilitation, Oriana blends the science of the mind with the practice of slowing down, becoming present, and learning to live again.

In this episode, Oriana shares the future she once imagined and what happened when that vision was suddenly taken from her.

She and Neil explore grief, forgiveness, mindfulness, self-love, and the difficult questions that do not always come with simple answers.

Why did this happen?

How do you forgive?

How do you move forward without leaving the person you lost behind?

And how do you slow down long enough to be honest about what really matters?

Oriana introduces the practice of taking small, intentional pauses before entering a meeting, conversation, or meaningful moment.

Ask yourself:

Why am I here, and what is truly important?

What do I want to give in this moment?

What do I want to receive?

How do I want to feel?

How do I want others to feel?

These questions help us step out of autopilot and become more present with ourselves and the people around us.

Sometimes healing does not begin with a big breakthrough.

Sometimes it begins with one breath.

One pause.

One honest question.

“Self-love isn’t indulgence. It’s discipline, and it’s what gives us real freedom.”

✨ Visit Oriana Sparks Joy

Walk with us as we continue exploring the names, wounds, and questions we carry on The List.

Sometimes the hardest question is not who hurt us.

It is what we do with the life that remains.

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Share this episode with someone who may be walking through grief, forgiveness, or a season filled with unanswered questions.

One story can change the way someone walks.

⚠️ LISTENER WARNING

This episode contains a raw and detailed conversation about depression, grief, self-hatred, suicidal ideation, access to a firearm, and a specific suicide plan. It also discusses the death of someone by suicide. Some listeners may find this episode difficult or triggering. Listener discretion is strongly advised.

If you or someone you know is struggling in the United States, call or text 988 or connect through the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Conversations are confidential, and support is available anytime, day or night. If someone is in immediate danger, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency department. (988 Lifeline)

Season 23: The List

The hardest name on The List was mine.

For years, I have sat behind this microphone and asked people to tell the truth about the hardest parts of their lives.

This time, I handed the microphone to someone else.

For the first time in the history of Other People’s Shoes, Dr. Amy Watson steps into the role of host. She asks the difficult questions, and I become the guest.

There is no one else’s story for me to hide behind.

One Sunday morning at the beginning of April, something inside me began to unravel. Depression, grief, shame, and self-hatred became a downward spiral.

One week later, I was sitting in a hotel room in Portland, Oregon, confessing to my wife, Elizabeth, that I had made a plan to take my handgun and end my life.

That sentence is difficult to write.

It was even harder to say out loud.

I borrowed the title Hate Myself from NF because those two words gave language to something I had been afraid to admit.

The hardest person on my list to forgive was me.

Dr. Amy Watson is a trusted friend, a previous guest of Other People’s Shoes, and the host of Wednesdays with Watson. Through her work, Amy creates honest conversations about trauma, mental health, faith, healing, and the hope that can still be found after tremendous pain. (Wednesdays With Watson)

In this episode, Amy does something no one has ever done before.

She takes my chair.

She becomes the host of Other People’s Shoes.

With compassion, understanding, and a willingness to ask questions I might otherwise avoid, Amy helps me walk back into one of the darkest moments of my life.

This time, I am the one being asked to walk honestly in my own shoes.

In this deeply personal conversation, Amy and I discuss:

The Sunday morning when my emotional spiral began

The depression and grief I had been carrying quietly

When suicidal thoughts became a specific plan

Sitting in a Portland hotel room and finally telling Elizabeth the truth

The fear and shame that made asking for help feel almost impossible

What it was like to struggle while continuing to encourage other people

Why I trusted Amy to take control of my show

The role my faith played while I was struggling to hold on

Why the hardest person on The List to forgive was myself

The people and promises that reminded me there were still things worth living for

This is not a polished story with an easy answer.

It is a retelling of what happened when the person who normally asks the questions finally had to answer them.

It is raw.

It is vulnerable.

It is real.

Most importantly, I am still here to tell it.

The title of this episode was inspired by NF’s song “Hate Myself.”

I did not choose it simply because it sounded dramatic.

I chose it because it was honest.

During that period of my life, I was not only fighting depression. I was fighting the belief that I was a burden, a failure, and someone who could not be forgiven.

I have spent years encouraging people to believe that their stories matter.

In this episode, I have to confront the fact that I had stopped believing my own did.

The artwork for this episode was created for me as a gift by Amy’s friend, Hollis.

Before we began recording, Amy told me that Hollis had died by suicide.

That news forever changed the way I see this picture.

What was already a meaningful representation of Other People’s Shoes now carries a weight I cannot fully explain.

It reminds me that we do not always know what someone is carrying.

It reminds me why conversations about depression, suicide, grief, and mental health cannot remain hidden behind shame.

It reminds me that every pair of shoes holds a story, including the stories that ended before we were ready to say goodbye.

We share Hollis’s artwork with gratitude for the gift she created and with tenderness toward everyone who knew and loved her.

When I look at it now, I see a reminder that there are still people to reach for, truths to speak, steps to take, and things worth living for.

“The hardest person on my list to forgive was me, because there were moments when I truly hated myself.”

🎙 Wednesdays with Watson

🎧 Wisdom From Watson

🤟🏼 Hand Model

Every person has a story.

Sometimes the story we most need to hear is the one someone is most afraid to tell.

Thank you for giving me the space to tell mine.

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This was the most difficult episode I have ever shared.

My hope is that telling the truth about my darkest moment will help someone else feel less alone in theirs.

If this conversation encouraged you to speak honestly, ask for help, or check on someone you love, please consider leaving a review. Your words may help another person find this episode when they need it most.

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You may hate where you are. You may even hate yourself. But your life is still worth living.

Please stay. Your story is not over.