The Human Experience

⚠️ Content Warning: This episode contains discussions of the loss of a child, grief, and traumatic death. Listener discretion is advised.

In this episode, Jennifer sits down with Stephen Panus - author, speaker, and bereaved father - to hear the story of August 9, 2020: the day his 16-year-old son Jake was killed as a passenger in a reckless car crash that changed everything. Stephen shares, with extraordinary candor and vulnerability, what it means to lose a child suddenly and without warning, from the out-of-body shock and the long months of survival mode, to the slow, deliberate work of learning to walk on. Together, he and Jennifer explore the nature of grief as a life sentence rather than a finish line, the spiritual transformation that emerged from his darkest years, and the breathtaking way Jake's legacy has continued to live - through scholarships for Lakota youth in South Dakota, a football scholarship at the University of South Carolina, and the arrival of April, the daughter Stephen believes Jake always knew was coming. This is a conversation about love that doesn't end, hope that refuses to surrender, and what it truly means to show up, for both the people we've lost and the ones still here.

📍 This episode was recorded in Fairfield, Connecticut.

Stephen Panus is an author, storyteller, mentor, and coach driven by purpose, resilience, and the unwavering belief that we can turn pain into positive change. As the author of the best-selling book Walk On, he shares his deeply personal journey following the tragic loss of his 16-year-old son, Jake, who was a passenger in a vehicle tragically killed in a reckless and senseless car crash in the summer of 2020. Through telling his story, inspirational speaking, and leadership development training, Stephen inspires others to find strength, create meaning, and hold tightly onto hope in life’s most difficult moments. His debut novel, The Circles We Carry, will be published on December 4, 2026.

Website: www.stephenpanus.com

Facebook / X / LinkedIn: @stephenpanus

Instagram: @stephenbpanus

Book: Walk On

Here is what stayed with us long after this conversation ended:

• Grief is a life sentence, not a phase. Stephen doesn't offer false comfort around timelines. Five years out, grief still rears up - at football games, in grocery store aisles, in quiet moments that catch him off guard. What changes isn't the loss; it's the capacity to carry it.
• Vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness. Raised to get up and move on, Stephen discovered that his willingness to speak openly about his grief - to cry, to say he wasn’t okay - became the very thing that helped others find their own way through.
• Helping others was his path back to purpose. When meaning felt impossible, Stephen found it first at a scholarship ceremony at the University of South Carolina, looking into a young man’s face and feeling joy for the first time. Service became the bridge between survival and living.
• Jake’s legacy didn't end with his death, it grew. Three scholarships now carry Jake's name: for Lakota children in South Dakota, walk-on football players at USC, and inner-city youth in Bridgeport, CT. Each recipient carries a piece of Jake forward. For a bereaved parent, Stephen says, that is everything.
• The arrival of April felt like a message from Jake. Since age three, Jake had insisted he had a sister, drawing her in crayon family portraits before she existed. When April arrived at their door years after Jake’s death, with curly hair and a left-handed swing just like his, the family felt something undeniable: Jake had always known.
• You can't say the right thing, so just show up. When asked how to support someone in grief, Stephen’s answer was simple: don’t worry about finding words. Show up. Mow their lawn. Sit in silence. Cry with them. Presence is the only gift that actually helps.
• We all carry invisible backpacks of suffering. Stephen’s framework for extending grace in a fragmented world: imagine everyone you meet is carrying an invisible backpack filled with their own pain. That reframe alone, he says, is enough to move from judgment to compassion.

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⚠️ Content Warning: This episode contains discussions of suicide, suicide loss, grief, and mental health. Please proceed with care.

What happens when the story you've built your grief around turns out to be a different story entirely? In this deeply moving episode, Jennifer sits down with Lisa Sugarman, author, mental health advocate, crisis counselor, and suicide loss survivor, in Salem, Massachusetts, to talk about one of the most profound and disorienting experiences a person can face: learning, decades later, that her father had died by suicide.

Lisa was ten years old when she lost her father - the person she describes as her best friend and her whole world. For 35 years, she grieved him and his sudden death. Then, at 45, the same age her father was when he died, she learned the truth. What followed was not just a second wave of grief, but an entirely new kind of reckoning, one that forced her to revisit every memory, every conversation, and every piece of the story she had carried inside her for a lifetime.

Lisa and Jennifer explore what it means to grieve someone twice, the particular and layered weight of suicide loss, the courage it took Lisa's mother to carry this secret alone for 35 years, and how Lisa ultimately transformed her pain into a life of advocacy - becoming a crisis counselor with the Trevor Project, a facilitator with Samaritans, and the creator of the Help Hub, one of the most comprehensive mental health resource platforms available today.

This is a conversation about truth, compassion, and what it looks like to turn the heaviest thing you carry into something that helps others carry theirs.

📍 This episode was recorded in Salem, Massachusetts.

Lisa Sugarman is an author and three-time survivor of suicide loss. A passionate mental health advocate, she serves as a crisis counselor with The Trevor Project and as a storyteller with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), where she uses her lived experience to help others find healing through connection and community.

She's the Founder of The HelpHUB™, the most inclusive and comprehensive free online destination for mental health resources, tools, treatment options, crisis hotlines, and content designed to support the diverse needs of every community. Lisa is the author of Surviving: Finding Hope After Suicide Loss (2026), How to Raise Perfectly Imperfect Kids and Be OK With It (2019), Untying Parent Anxiety (2017), and LIFE: It Is What It Is (2014). She also cohosts The Survivors Podcast, a show that provides candid conversations and real stories of survival for anyone impacted by suicide or mental illness.

Lisa is also a facilitator for Safe Place, a virtual support group for survivors of suicide loss hosted by Samaritans Southcoast in Boston, where she also serves as a board member. She is a contributor to the Mental Health Television Network (MHTN), and her writing has appeared in Calmerry, Healthline Parenthood, Grown & Flown, TODAY Parents, Thrive Global, LittleThings, The Washington Post, and Psychology Today. A former nationally syndicated columnist, Lisa continues to write widely on topics of suicide, grief & loss, and mental health and wellness. Lisa lives and writes just north of Boston. Learn more at TheHepHUB.co.

🌐 Website: TheHelpHUB.co

📘 Facebook: facebook.com/thelisasugarman

📹 YouTube: youtube.com/@thehelphubonyoutube

📱TikTok: tiktok.com/@thehelphubontiktok

📸 Instagram: instagram.com/thehelphub.co

💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lisa-sugarman

Here's what stayed with us long after this conversation ended:

• Suicide grief is its own category of loss. Unlike other forms of grief, losing someone to suicide layers on shame, guilt, the unanswerable why, and a kind of reckoning that never fully closes. Lisa describes it as a spiral staircase - you move up and down it unpredictably, and the only way through is radical grace for wherever you happen to be standing that day.
• You can grieve someone twice. When Lisa learned the truth about her father's death at 45, every feeling from age ten rushed back in an instant. Grief, she reflects, lives in the body, and learning a new truth about an old loss can restart the whole process from minute one. This is not a failure of healing, it’s part of it.
• Secrets kept out of love still carry weight. Lisa's mother bore 35 years of silence to protect her daughter. Lisa holds no resentment. Instead, she sees her mother's choice as one of the most extraordinary acts of love she has ever witnessed. And the 12-year conversation that followed the truth being revealed became one of the most beautiful chapters of their relationship.
• The people who seem the happiest can be carrying the most. Lisa's father was joyful, adventurous, deeply present, and also privately struggling in ways no one around him could see. This is not an anomaly, it’s a reminder that we cannot rely on surface presentation to gauge the depth of someone's pain, and that checking in matters even when everything looks fine.
• Grief does not end, and that's okay to say out loud. Our hustle culture wants us to process, tidy up, and move on. Lisa pushes back: grief is not a box you check. Naming that truth without apology is, itself, a form of liberation. When we stop waiting to be done grieving, we can finally meet ourselves where we actually are.
• Knowledge is protection, not burden. When Lisa finally told her daughters about their grandfather's suicide, she wasn't passing down trauma, she was giving them the tools to understand their own mental health landscape. Families that speak openly about mental illness, she believes, raise children who are more likely to seek help when they need it.
• Compassion is showing up exactly where someone is. When asked what compassion means to her, Lisa's answer was grounded and precise: true compassion is meeting someone in their actual moment, without an agenda, without a fix, and holding space for whatever form that moment takes.

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What does it mean to carry a country inside you — one you were forced to leave before you were old enough to understand why? In this deeply moving episode, Jennifer sits down with Ana Flaster, Cuban-American author of Property of the Revolution, to explore the story that shaped her entire life: fleeing Cuba as a child in 1967, arriving in the snowy mill town of Nashua, New Hampshire with one suitcase and a family that refused to let loss have the last word.

Ana recounts the visceral moment she stood outside her childhood home in Havana as a banner was nailed across the door reading "Property of the Revolution", and the decades of storytelling, grief, humor, and resilience that followed. She and Jennifer dive into what it truly means to be a refugee (not just an immigrant), the multi-generational Cuban household that became Ana's entire world and moral compass, and how the women of her family rewrote their trauma into a survival story rooted in pride and laughter.

They also explore the realities of how the Cuban Revolution has been romanticized and misrepresented in American classrooms, the unique identity struggles of being Cuban American in a country that doesn't always know how to hold that complexity, and why Ana believes stories are the only real antidote to division. This is a conversation about belonging, memory, and what we owe the people who carried us here.

📍 This episode was recorded in Concord, New Hampshire.

Ana Hebra Flaster was just shy of her sixth birthday when her family fled post-revolutionary Cuba, in 1967, and settled in Nashua, New Hampshire. She graduated from Smith College and was a software consultant before beginning her writing career. Her essays have been published by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe, among other national print and online media. Her commentaries and storytelling have aired on national broadcasts of NPR’s All Things Considered and PBS’s Stories from the Stage.

Property of the Revolution, her first book, has won early recognition in several international writing competitions, including being shortlisted in the 2023 Restless Book’s New Immigrant Writing Prize and the 2022 Cintas Creative Writing Fellowship, and first place in the 2025 International Book Awards (Creative Nonfiction) and the 2025 Discovery Book Awards (Nonfiction overall). After forty years in the Boston area, Ana recently moved back home to southern New Hampshire with her husband, Andy, and their Havanese pups, Luna and Beny Moré.

📘 Facebook: facebook.com/anahebraflaster

📸 Instagram: @anahebraflaster

✉️ Substack: anahflaster.substack.com

📖 Book: Property of the Revolution — available wherever books are sold

💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/anahebraflaster

🌐 Website: anacubana.com

🐦 X / Twitter: @AnaHebraFlaster

Here's what stayed with us long after this conversation ended:

• Stories are not just nostalgia, they are survival. For Ana's family, retelling the stories of Cuba wasn't about living in the past. It was how they processed grief, preserved identity, and gave their children something solid to stand on. The stories kept them alive in ways no amount of material stability could.
• Children sense injustice before they have the words for it. Standing outside her locked Havana home at age five, Ana didn't have the vocabulary for revolution or displacement, but she knew something deeply unfair had happened. That early, wordless recognition never left her, and it became the driving force behind her life's work.
• The refugee experience doesn't end at arrival. Ana draws a sharp and important distinction between immigration and refuge: refugees flee, often with nothing, knowing they will likely never return and may never see their loved ones again. That particular grief doesn't resolve. It travels with you, and it shapes every generation that follows.
• The women who spin the survival story are also the ones quietly grieving. Ana's mother, grandmother, and aunt transformed their trauma into a story of triumph — "We beat Castro, look at us go." But behind closed doors, they were crying in dark rooms. Both things were true at once: the resilience and the grief. Holding that complexity is how they protected their children.
• History written by the victors can silence an entire community's truth. Ana encountered the romanticized version of the Cuban Revolution in her own college economics classes, and she pushed back. The propaganda around figures like Fidel and Che has obscured what most Cubans actually wanted and what they actually lost. Telling the fuller, more complex story is itself an act of resistance.
• We are drowning in data and starving for wisdom. One of the most striking lines of the conversation: "We're drowning in data and starving for wisdom." Ana sees storytelling, especially from older generations, as the antidote to the noise, fear, and tribalism that fragment us. Wisdom lives in the stories we no longer have time to sit still for.
• Start with the human, not the label. Ana's message to high schoolers — and to all of us — is the same: before you try to figure out someone's politics, ask who they are, what they've been through, what they care about. That's where common ground lives. The extreme version of what happens when we don't? She watched it happen in Cuba.

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What happens when you stop looking for love and start finding yourself? In this episode, Jennifer sits down with author and New Hampshire transplant Abby Rosmarin in Concord, NH, to talk about the year that changed her life: 2023, the Year of Dating Herself.

After a string of tumultuous relationships that left her gaslit, depleted, and sitting in a bathtub wondering how she got there, Abby made a radical decision — to spend an entire year intentionally single, intentionally present, and intentionally devoted to her own company. The result? A healing journey she never could have predicted, a book, and a relationship she never knew was possible.

From solo concerts and dining alone for the first time to impulsive ear piercings and sunrise coffee dates by the lake, Abby shares the raw, funny, and deeply human story of what it looks like to truly date yourself — awkwardness, check-engine-light moments, and all. She and Jennifer also dive into the pressures women face around singlehood, the power of therapy and self-reflection, codependency and healing, and what it really means to show up for yourself before you can fully show up for anyone else.

📍This episode was recorded in Concord, New Hampshire.

MEET ABBY ROSMARIN

Abby Rosmarin is the author of The Year of Dating Myself: How My Solo Tour Healed More Than Just My Heartbreak. Her work has been featured in the Huffington Post, Bustle, the Bangalore Review, and others.

CONNECT WITH ABBY

• Book: The Year of Dating Myself
• Instagram

• Your story doesn’t start in a vacuum. The patterns in our adult relationships almost always trace back further than we think. Recognizing those echoes, without shame, is the first step toward changing them.
• Dating yourself is an act of intention, not circumstance. Abby didn’t just “be single”, she committed to a structured, year-long practice of taking herself out, showing up for herself, and treating her own company as something worth investing in.
• Self-care doesn’t have to be grand. Some of Abby’s most meaningful moments were a $5 coffee and a sunrise at the lake. Romanticizing the small things is a skill and a gift you can give yourself any day.
• You’re not being watched as closely as you think. One of the most liberating lessons of solo adventures? Nobody is paying as much attention to you as your anxiety says they are. Do the thing anyway.
• Codependency is quiet — until it isn’t. Abby reflects on how deeply her sense of identity had become wrapped up in romantic relationships, and how the year of dating herself helped her find, and keep, her own ground.
• Loneliness is real, and it’s survivable. Being intentionally single doesn’t mean you won’t miss romantic love. It means you learn you can miss it and still be okay.
• You don’t have to wait until rock bottom. Dating yourself isn’t just for the heartbroken. Whether you’re in a relationship or not, carving out time to be with yourself makes you a better partner, friend, and human.
• Compassion is curiosity. When asked what compassion means to her, Abby’s answer was beautifully simple: instead of painting someone with a one-dimensional brush, get curious about what they might be carrying.

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What happens when the dream you've chased your entire life finally comes true—only to discover it's not actually what you wanted after all?

In this conversation, host Jennifer Peterkin sits down with Cheryl Johnson, a woman who has moved 45 times across 8 states, visited all 50 states, and learned that life's greatest gifts often come disguised as detours.

Cheryl's story begins at age 8 on an airplane, helping flight attendants pick up trash and dreaming of a glamorous life in the skies. For over a decade, she applied relentlessly to airlines, facing rejection after rejection until her tenacity—and some creative phone book detective work—finally paid off.

But becoming a flight attendant during the chaos of 1980s airline deregulation was just the beginning. Marriage, motherhood, financial struggles, and personal challenges tested Cheryl in ways she never anticipated. Through constant moves, difficult relationships, and moments when she didn't know where help would come from, Cheryl discovered something profound: the job she'd dreamed about since childhood wasn't her calling. Motherhood was.

Now settled on 8 acres after a lifetime of motion, remarried for 25 years, and deeply invested in family history, Cheryl reflects on what it means to let go of what you thought you wanted in order to embrace what life is actually offering you.

This is a story about tenacity and transformation, about the courage to pivot when circumstances demand it, and about learning that true compassion means getting down in the hole with people rather than just throwing them a rope from above.

📍This episode was recorded in Manassas, VA

CONTENT WARNING

This episode contains discussions of:

• Domestic violence and physical abuse
• Attempted suicide

MEET CHERYL JOHNSON:

With a life marked by a broad array of cultural experiences and extraordinary circumstances, Cheryl Johnson has found her greatest lessons outside of a traditional classroom. Her unique path, which includes relocating countless times and navigating the distinct challenges of being married to a person who was blind, has equipped her with a rare perspective. Cheryl invites you to explore her motivational story of adaptation, proving that every twist and turn is an opportunity to learn and grow.

CONNECT WITH CHERYL:

LinkedIn

1. Tenacity pays off—but flexibility matters more: Cheryl chased her flight attendant dream relentlessly, but her willingness to pivot when life demanded it brought her the most fulfillment.
2. Dreams can change, and that's okay: What you want at 8 (or 18, or 28) doesn't have to define you forever. Cheryl discovered motherhood was more satisfying than her childhood dream career.
3. Moving doesn't have to mean losing relationships: Cheryl made lifelong friends in Alaska after only 5 years and reconnected 20+ years later as if no time had passed.
4. Assumptions about disabilities are often wrong: Cheryl's blind first husband downhill skied, rode bikes, walked everywhere, went hunting, and mowed lawns—defying every stereotype.
5. Religious/spiritual differences in marriage create significant challenges: The rift between Cheryl's deep faith and her first husband's lack of it was a constant source of conflict.
6. Financial naivety can have devastating consequences: Giving their lender all their savings the night before closing left them with nothing during a vulnerable time.
7. Domestic violence often escalates: The first incident of physical abuse (thrown up stairs) was a warning sign—15 years later, it escalated to near-fatal violence.
8. Divine intervention shows up in unexpected ways: Cheryl's youngest daughter saying "Jesus told me to come home" saved her mother's life.
9. Community and family support are survival necessities: Without her parents and family, Cheryl would have been homeless multiple times.
10. Age gaps in relationships aren't automatic deal-breakers: Cheryl (38) and her second husband (25) have been married 25 years and built a stable, happy life together.
11. Transformation is the goal of learning: Cheryl's mantra is that learning isn't about acquiring information—it's about allowing experiences to transform you.
12. Travel changes how you see the world: Pictures can't capture the feelings, culture, and experiences of being in a place—you have to be there.
13. Compassion means getting in the hole with people: Referencing Brené Brown, Cheryl defines compassion as not just helping from a distance, but climbing down into someone's struggle with them.
14. You can't preserve what you don't share: Despite living incredible stories, Cheryl's own children don't remember events they were central to—oral storytelling and recording matter.
15. Every season has its purpose: From constant travel to settling on 8 acres with too many dogs, each season of life offers different gifts.

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⚠️Content Warning: This episode contains detailed discussions of childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, physical abuse, substance abuse, and suicide. Listener discretion is strongly advised.

In this powerful episode of The Human Experience, host Jennifer Peterkin sits down with Ruth Carroll—a survivor whose story spans decades of unimaginable abuse, yet who now stands as a beacon of hope and resilience.

Ruth's story begins in the innocence of childhood, with memories of happy Christmases and playing in the front yard. But at age six, when her parents divorced without explanation, everything changed. Moving in with her grandparents at seven, Ruth entered a world of psychological, physical, and sexual abuse.

From there, Ruth's life became a devastating cycle: constant abuse, relocations every six months that prevented her from forming friendships, a near-abduction at 15 that nearly ended in murder, running away at 16 to escape into an 18-year abusive marriage, and even encounters with demonic worship and threats against her life.

Yet through it all—through two suicide attempts, years of being told she was worthless, and a nervous system perpetually on high alert—Ruth found unexpected gifts: a calling as an EMT where her trauma became her superpower, the strength to learn karate and car mechanics to prepare her escape, and ultimately, a relationship with God that anchored her healing.

Now remarried for the right reasons, a professional photographer, and the author of a memoir, “Held By His Hands”, Ruth shares her story - not for shock value, but to tell even one person: You don't have to live like this. You are not alone. There is a way out.

This is a story of survival, resilience, and the evergreen journey to true healing.

📍 This episode was recorded in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

From the age of seven to thirty-five, Ruth’s life was shaped in shadows—learning how to survive before she ever learned how to feel safe. Ruth walked through years of abuse, silence, and fear, carrying wounds no one could see. She escaped with her life, but I did not escape alone. God met her in the darkest places, lifted her from what tried to destroy her, and taught her heart how to breathe again. What was meant to break her became the soil where faith and healing took root. Ruth’s story is one of survival, surrender, and the quiet power of grace.

Purchase Ruth’s Memoir - Held By His Hands

Ruth’s Facebook

Held By His Hands Facebook

Ruth’s Instagram

1. Abuse creates distorted normal: When abuse starts in childhood, victims have no baseline for healthy relationships—everything abusive becomes "normal."
2. Abusers isolate their victims: Constant moving, controlling money, disabling cars, and cutting off support systems are all tactics to maintain power.
3. Strangulation is a red flag for lethality: Non-fatal strangulation is one of the strongest predictors that an abuser will eventually kill their victim.
4. Trauma can become a gift in unexpected ways: Ruth's history of trauma gave her unique resilience as an EMT—her different baseline allowed her to help others in crisis.
5. Healing is not linear and takes time: Ruth didn't begin true healing until her 50s, after multiple failed relationships and years of codependency.
6. You don't need to understand everything to escape: Ruth learned karate, car mechanics, and saved money without a clear plan—she just knew she needed skills to survive.
7. Building community is important: The church gave Ruth her first understanding that she was loved and that the abuse wasn't her fault.
8. Children need to be told what's happening: Ruth's parents never explained the divorce—this lack of information left her feeling abandoned and confused for decades.
9. Breaking codependency requires solitude: Ruth needed five years living completely alone before she could enter a healthy relationship.
10. You can break generational cycles: Ruth gave her children the boundaries and values she never received, even though she felt like she was failing them.

IF YOU ARE IN CRISIS:

• National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
• National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673
• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988

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For this milestone 100th episode, we're doing something special—host Jennifer Peterkin hands over the mic to her friend, Kesh Witmer, for an intimate conversation about the journey behind The Human Experience podcast.

In this raw and reflective episode, Jennifer opens up about the three-year odyssey of creating this show, from publishing her first episode at 11:50 PM on January 31st, 2023 (cutting it close to her self-imposed deadline) to interviewing guests across the world. She shares the deeply personal reasons behind her commitment to in-person interviews, how her grandfathers' stories inspired the podcast, and why she believes everyone has a story worth telling.

Jennifer also reveals the evolution of her relationship with travel, from leveraging her podcast as a way to see the world to discovering that solo adventures gave her more confidence than anything else in her life. Plus, she unveils an exciting new venture: The Human Experience Legacies, a curated interview service designed to preserve family stories as heirloom keepsakes.

This is a celebration of 100 episodes, countless miles traveled, and the beautiful realization that sometimes our dreams are already happening—even when they don't look exactly like we imagined.

1. Everyone has a story worth telling: You don't need trauma or drama—being alive means you have experiences that matter and they are doors to connection.
2. Dreams happening ≠ dreams perfected: Your dreams may already be coming true even if they don't match your original vision. Don't let perfectionism blind you to your progress.
3. Confidence comes from doing: Solo travel, launching a podcast, or any challenge teaches you that you're capable of more than you thought—and you don't need anyone's permission.
4. In-person connection is irreplaceable: There's something sacred about physically bearing witness to someone's story that can't be replicated virtually.
5. Preserve stories before it's too late: Voices, laughter, emotion—these disappear when people pass. Recording stories in real-time is a gift to future generations.
6. Compassion is about being present: You don't need to fix, advise, or relate—sometimes compassion means simply bearing witness and sitting in lament with someone.
7. Travel expands your worldview exponentially: Leaving your bubble and experiencing how others live teaches you that "maybe my life experience isn't the only one that matters."

• Episodes 57 & 58 - Alisa’s Story
• Episode 22 - Susan’s Story

"Our stories are always gonna be the thing that capture our humanity, so they're always worth telling." - Jennifer Peterkin

"If I want to do it, I can do it... Nothing is holding you back except yourself." - Jennifer Peterkin

"You're alive, so you have a story. The problem is that we feel like things have to be so dramatic or, unfortunately, traumatic for them to be worth telling." - Jennifer Peterkin

"Just because the vision you have in your head about what your dream is, just because that doesn't fully get realized, doesn't mean that your dreams aren't happening and they aren't a reality." - Jennifer Peterkin

"When somebody is in need of compassion, they don't need fixing. They need a soft place to land." - Jennifer Peterkin

"I think lamentation is something that we are very uncomfortable with because there is no quick fix for it... I think that it is an act of compassion itself. And I also think it's an act of worship when we can sit with somebody and just try to feel this depth of sorrow for their pain and not try to do anything else with it." - Jennifer Peterkin

"Just because you're not in the exact place you thought you would be when all of these things are happening doesn't negate the fact that they are happening." - Jennifer Peterkin

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In this insightful podcast, host Jennifer Peterkin interviews Blair, an individual diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder, to shed light on this widely misunderstood condition. Blair shares personal experiences of being perceived as different from an early age and the internal struggles faced in social settings. The conversation highlights the significant impact of schizoid disorder on one's life, including potential links to homelessness and the difficulties in seeking help. Blair's story, particularly his journey to writing a book about his experiences, serves as a beacon for raising awareness and encouraging interventions to improve lives similarly affected.

📍 This episode was recorded in Lawrence, Massachusetts

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Show Notes:

In this deeply reflective episode of The Human Experience, host Jennifer Peterkin visits lifelong New Yorker Tony Stewart, who shares an intimate story of love, creativity, and grief.

Tony recounts meeting his wife, Lynn Kotula—an accomplished painter—and building a life together rooted in art, exploration, and storytelling. He opens up about Lynn’s cancer diagnosis, the emotional and practical realities of caregiving, and the profound ways illness reshapes relationships.

Through honesty and vulnerability, Tony reflects on grief, resilience, and how sharing personal stories—through writing and community—can become a powerful tool for healing and connection in the aftermath of loss.

📍 This episode was recorded in New York, New York.

Key Takeaways:

● The podcast’s mission centers on courage, vulnerability, and the power of personal storytelling.

● Tony shares his life story and relationship with his wife, Lynn, and their shared experiences in New York City.

● Reflections on city life versus country life and how place shapes identity.

● The story of how Tony and Lynn met, including their age difference and creative partnership.

● Lynn’s career as an artist and the challenges she faced in the art world.

● Tony’s background in filmmaking and software development at the intersection of creativity and technology.

● The impact of Lynn’s cancer diagnosis on their marriage and daily life.

● Using CaringBridge to communicate updates and maintain social connection during illness.

● The emotional toll of caregiving and the importance of honest communication.

● Storytelling as a means of processing grief and fostering understanding.

Tony Stewart’s Bio:

Tony Stewart has led a multifaceted career spanning film, technology, and storytelling. He has made award-winning films for colleges and universities, written software praised by The New York Times and The New York Daily News, designed a grants-management system used by three of the world’s five largest charities, and led the development of an international standard for advertising transaction messaging.

Tony is the author of the memoir Carrying the Tiger, which won two Gold Medals at the 2025 Global Book Awards. Inspired by the healing process of writing his memoir, Tony studied with David Kessler and is now a Certified Grief Educator.

He and his late wife, painter Lynn Kotula, traveled extensively through India and Southeast Asia, embracing local cultures, food, and life off the beaten path. Today, Tony continues to share stories that explore love, loss, and resilience.

Connect with Tony Stewart:

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonystewartny/

📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61570889459153

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonystewart/

📰 Substack: https://tonystewartauthor.substack.com

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In this deeply moving episode of The Human Experience, host Jennifer Peterkin sits down with Rebecca (Becky) Faye Smith Galli in her Maryland home for a powerful conversation about loss, resilience, faith, and the courage to keep moving forward.

Becky shares her life journey marked by profound hardship, including the death of her teenage brother, raising children with special needs, divorce, and sudden paralysis from transverse myelitis—a rare spinal cord inflammation that left her wheelchair-bound just days after her marriage ended. Through it all, Becky reflects on grief, uncertainty, and the strength she found through faith, family, community, and storytelling.

She also discusses founding Pathfinders for Autism, navigating evolving autism awareness, and how writing became both a lifeline and a calling—allowing her to connect with others and offer hope through shared experience. Becky’s story is a testament to compassion, perseverance, and the belief that life can still be good—no matter what.

📍 This episode was recorded in Timonium, Maryland

Key Takeaways:

● Personal experiences of profound loss and lifelong grief.

● The impact of a sibling’s death on family dynamics and identity.

● How different family members grieve in different ways.

● The challenges and rewards of raising children with special needs.

● Coping strategies for repeated adversity and unanswered questions.

● The importance of community, support systems, and shared understanding.

● The evolution of autism awareness and access to resources.

● Balancing personal health challenges with parenting and purpose.

● The role of faith, optimism, and mindset in resilience.

● Storytelling as a powerful tool for healing, connection, and hope.

Rebecca (Becky) Faye Smith Galli’s Bio:

Rebecca (Becky) Faye Smith Galli is an author and columnist who writes about love, loss, resilience, and healing. After surviving a series of life-altering losses—including the death of her 17-year-old brother, her son’s degenerative illness and death, her daughter’s autism diagnosis, divorce, and paralysis from transverse myelitis—Becky discovered an unexpected but prolific writing career.

In 2000, The Baltimore Sun published her first column about playing soccer with her son—from the wheelchair that inspired her long-running column, From Where I Sit. Her website now houses over 400 published columns.

Becky is the author of Rethinking Possible: A Memoir of Resilience (2017) and Morning Fuel: Daily Inspirations to Stretch Your Mind Before Starting Your Day (2024). She continues to publish Thoughtful Thursdays—Lessons from a Resilient Heart, sharing insights that help others stay grounded in hope.

A Morehead-Cain Scholar at UNC Chapel Hill, Becky previously worked at IBM, where she received the Golden Circle Award for marketing excellence. She lives in Lutherville, Maryland, outside of Baltimore. Her guiding belief: “Life can be good—no matter what.”

Connect with Becky Galli:

🌐 Website: www.BeckyGalli.com

🌐 Website: www.RebeccaFayeSmithGalli.com

📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chairwriter/

🐦 X (Twitter): https://www.x.com/chairwriter

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-faye-smith-galli-061501a/

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chairwriter/

📌 Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/chairwriter/

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