🍁 Leave It Behind: Fall in Love with You” series 🍁

Follow The School of Hard Knocks and add it to your library so you never miss an episode.

About Our Guest:

Janus Valeo works at the intersection of lived experience, deep listening, and systemic understanding. Rather than isolating events or reducing behavior to single causes, he traces how family dynamics, culture, trauma, belief, and environment interact over time. He holds conflicting truths without simplifying them, revealing patterns that remain invisible when stories are told in fragments.

A healed victim and a former perpetrator, Valeo now dedicates his life to directly reducing childhood sexual abuse. He works openly and responsibly with men navigating patterns of harm, focusing on accountability, healing, and measurable, lasting change. The aim is to reduce recidivism at its source by addressing root causes, not just managing outcomes. The standard is simple: if this work prevents even one child from experiencing what he did, it has done its job.

Rather than hiding from his past, Valeo committed himself to studying his own and others.’ Through years of listening, research, and lived experience, he has identified a recurring foundation beneath much sexual harm: intergenerational family trauma. This trauma often manifests as emotional, psychological, physical, and sexual boundary violations, frequently normalized, concealed, or misunderstood within families and communities.

His own life was fractured early. Like many, he did not recognize harm as harm when it first occurred; he learned its language before he learned its cost. One childhood moment, however, took root. A Sunday School teacher told a story of a traveling merchant who was robbed and mocked for his tears.

The merchant explained that he wept not for what was taken, but because he understood the causes that led the men to steal. The thieves stopped. They sat together, ate, and cried. That story endured.

Valeo’s work lives in that same space, where accountability and compassion are not opposites, where understanding does not excuse harm but helps prevent it, and where healing, when joined with service to others, can interrupt cycles that have persisted for generations.

His mission is not redemption through words, but the reduction of harm in the real world, one conversation, one man, and one honest reckoning at a time.

Because a man at peace harms no one... Janus Valeo 

How to reach Janus:

https://www.youtube.com/@Janusvaleo

“This is the place we get unstuck from trauma, and grounded in our healing”.

🍁 Leave It Behind: Fall in Love with You” series 🍁

Follow The School of Hard Knocks and add it to your library so you never miss an episode.

About Our Guest:

Christina Stephens is a wife, mom, and proud grandmother who has walked through addiction, trauma, and deep personal brokenness, and found lasting healing through her faith.

She has dedicated the past six years to working with survivors of trafficking at Refuge for Women North Texas, serving five of those years as Program Director.

Today, she serves as Director of Programs, mentoring and supporting directors nationwide.

Christina is a graduate of Lifestyle Christianity University and will soon complete her Bachelor of Arts in Religion with an emphasis in Pastoral Care.

She has been a writer her entire life, sharing her story and encouragement through Substack, and has a devotional set to be published in 2027.

She is passionate about using her story to bring hope, healing, and freedom to others, believing that God can redeem every part of our past for a greater purpose.

How to reach Christina:

https://substack.com/@thecourageousvoice

“This is the place we get unstuck from trauma, and grounded in our healing”.

🍁 Leave It Behind: Fall in Love with You” series 🍁

Follow The School of Hard Knocks and add it to your library so you never miss an episode.

About Our Guest:

Tracy grew up in Nashville Tennessee and now lives in northern Illinois. She’s a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a Christian, biblical perspective. 12 years ago she walked away from the gay lifestyle after 27 years due to her faith and obedience to God's word.

How to reach Tracy:

Facebook: Tracy Rugg

“This is the place we get unstuck from trauma, and grounded in our healing”.

Rebuilt Series: Season in Blooming 🌸

Follow The School of Hard Knocks and add it to your library so you never miss an episode.

About Our Guest:

Kris D. Roberts is a native of NW Pennsylvania though he spent most of his life residing between Florida and Pennsylvania. Kris had his first film role as a background actor on a large project that filmed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After that project Kris decided to again relocate to South West Florida to pursue film opportunity. Kris returned home to NW Pennsylvania, after 5 years in Florida, as a more established and disciplined actor. Now with 39 total credits ranging from small independent projects to larger television series, eg., Cobra Kai, Kris now aims to work in the North East markets with a focus on crime drama whether television or featured film

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13578539/bio?item=mb1393218

How to reach Kris:

Facebook

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13578539/?fbclid=IwRlRTSAT9pgxwZG9mBWZkaWQWUNSrVe_pwe9NcAhBQUftAY5VJfOgoWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR7zIBtPmTMOJLN5MaelRLYk_GDCOHz8dsCh6Z3-EdetlJyjKu1cPJqqVh1sNQ_aem_J3wADbPJ3ik-dhMcS0eAoQ

“This is the place we get unstuck from trauma, and grounded in our healing”.

Rebuilt Series: Season in Blooming 🌸

Follow The School of Hard Knocks and add it to your library so you never miss an episode.

About Our Guest:

Annie Emprima is a U.S. Army veteran, metaphysical trauma researcher, and founder of the EMPRIMA Method™. Her work bridges lived experience with emerging science, helping people understand how trauma shapes the body, mind, and life trajectory. Her path wasn’t traditional—it was built through personal and professional experience, turning adversity into a framework for healing, leadership, and personal evolution.

How to reach Annie:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/annieemprima/

“This is the place we get unstuck from trauma, and grounded in our healing”.

Rebuilt Series: Season in Blooming 🌸

Follow The School of Hard Knocks and add it to your library so you never miss an episode.

About Our Guest:

Dan shares how chronic pain and autoimmune struggles led him to rethink diet, folic acid, seed oils, omega-6, and the spiritual connection to healing—and how his new lifestyle helped him regain strength and do things he once thought were impossible.

How to reach Dan: 

@undumethod

“This is the place we get unstuck from trauma, and grounded in our healing”.

Rebuilt Series: Season in Blooming 🌸

Follow The School of Hard Knocks and add it to your library so you never miss an episode.

About Our Guest:

After overcoming childhood challenges with her legs and vision, she pursued optometry—but purpose led her somewhere unexpected. Today, she shares her journey of faith and reinvention as an author, actress, and apostle.

How to reach Veryl:

Apostle Veryl Howard for IG, Tik Tok, Facebook.

Web page www.verylhowardministries.net

“This is the place we get unstuck from trauma, and grounded in our healing”.

Rebuilt Series: Season in Blooming 🌸

Follow The School of Hard Knocks and add it to your library so you never miss an episode.

About Our Guest:

Liberty has just published her first book entitled Redeemed Years: From Narcissistic Darkness to Light after she experienced a Christian marriage to an abusive, Narcissistic partner. She seeks to help others find encouragement and freedom, emerging from the darkness of abusive relationships into the light of healing, healthy relationships and peace from God.

How to reach Liberty:

Shinefromyourshadows.com

IG is shine_from_yourshadows

FB https://www.facebook.com/https://www.facebook.com/share/18RApdgDcs/

“This is the place we get unstuck from trauma, and grounded in our healing”.

Rebuilt Series: Season in Blooming 🌸

Follow The School of Hard Knocks and add it to your library so you never miss an episode.

About Our Guest:

Yvette Salva knows what it means to rebuild a life from the ground up. Once a homeless stripper battling addiction, she is now 22 years sober, a keynote speaker, gym owner, author, and powerful example of what can happen when you stop starting over and commit to doing the work.

In this episode, Yvette shares the truth about addiction, sobriety, discipline, and transforming your identity—especially for women over 40 who feel stuck or believe it may be too late to change. Her story is proof that your past does not disqualify you from creating a strong, meaningful future.

This conversation is raw, motivating, and rooted in one simple truth: lasting change doesn’t come from waiting until you feel ready. It comes from deciding that you’re done abandoning yourself.

How to reach Yvette:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yvettesalvafitness

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yvettesalvafitness

“This is the place we get unstuck from trauma, and grounded in our healing”.

Rebuilt Series: Season in Blooming 🌸

Follow The School of Hard Knocks and add it to your library so you never miss an episode.

About Our Guest:

Some of the experiences that shape us most deeply are also the ones people feel the least comfortable discussing.

In this episode of The School of Hard Knocks, we explore the power of creating safe spaces for honest conversations about mental health, addiction, domestic violence, alternative lifestyles, parenting choices, and grief. After the unexpected death of her younger sister, my guest also found herself speaking more openly about loss and the complicated reality of learning to live alongside it.

Together, we discuss why sharing our stories matters, how stigma keeps people suffering in silence, and what can happen when someone finally hears the words, “You are not alone.”

Whatever you may be carrying, this conversation is a reminder that your story deserves to be heard—and that healing, hope, and life on the other side are still possible.

How to reach Jess: Facebook

“This is the place we get unstuck from trauma, and grounded in our healing”.