The Stone in My Shoe Podcast - Honest conversations about the hidden patterns shaping our lives.

Have you ever wondered how much of who you are was actually chosen? Identity is hard to separate from history, because a story you have carried since childhood does not announce itself as a story. It simply feels like you.

In this episode of The Stone in My Shoe, Debbie speaks with Candice Olivier, co-founder of Socially Empowered VA and a social entrepreneur who believes business should build something worth leaving behind. Born in London, raised in Zimbabwe and now living in Australia, Candice has spent ten years in therapy learning to live alongside CPTSD.

Her stone is the victim story, and she locates it with unusual precision. What she carried, she says, was never what happened to her. It was that there was no one there for her. That single sentence explains the life of service she built afterwards, the years she worked for free, and why she now has someone else in her business handle every conversation about money.

Together they explore what it means to integrate a story rather than push it away, why Candice does not expect to be healed and finds that a relief, and how she deliberately calls in joy alongside the work. She also shares two exercises that changed how she sees herself: writing her own eulogy, and asking five honest friends how they would describe her.

What you will hear

• How a childhood wound quietly becomes an adult identity

• Why the people who always help are often the ones nobody helped

• What emotional healing looks like when you stop expecting to be finished

• How limiting beliefs about money shaped what she let herself charge

• Why she built a structure around a pattern instead of relying on willpower

• The eulogy exercise, and what she found when nothing she had achieved appeared in it

If you have done the work, can name exactly what happened to you, and still find the story running your decisions, this conversation is an honest place to sit for an hour.

A note before you listen: this episode includes Candice's account of childhood neglect and abuse, parental addiction, the sexual assault of a minor, and domestic violence. She speaks about all of it plainly and without graphic detail, but please look after yourself.

Connect with Candice Olivier

Website: https://www.sociallyempoweredva.com/

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

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

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/candice-jade-olivier-0549b145/

Socially Empowered VA on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/socially-empowered-va/

Connect with Debbie Thompson

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

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

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@stoneinmyshoepodcast

Website: www.thestoneinmyshoe.com

Have you ever looked at a life you worked hard for and quietly wondered when it stopped being yours? Self-abandonment rarely arrives as a crisis. It usually arrives as being reasonable, for years.

In this episode of The Stone in My Shoe, Debbie speaks with Kim Costa, a realtor, author, speaker and creator of Lifestyle Foundations and the Wheel of House Assessment. With more than thirty years in residential construction, design and real estate, Kim helps people recognise when their homes no longer reflect the lives they are living.

Kim's own stone was conforming to what everybody else needed from her, no matter what her gifts were. She is a creative who spent decades doing the books for a family business because someone had to, on a forty acre horse farm that was magazine worthy and nowhere near the life she actually wanted. It took a bolting horse, a broken back and a refused invitation from The Oprah Winfrey Show before she began to listen.

Together they explore how people pleasing turns into a loss of identity, why the childhood lesson that pretty girls are not athletic can decide the next forty years, and how to tell the difference between genuinely outgrowing something and simply giving up. Kim also shares the practical inventory she uses with clients: walking through your own home, room by room, and asking honestly what you feel standing in each one.

What you will hear

• How self-abandonment begins with a reasonable decision rather than a dramatic one

• Why people pleasing is often about being needed rather than being liked

• What it costs to build an identity around the role other people require

• How a small childhood belief can quietly shape decades of choices

• Kim's room by room method for taking an honest inventory of your life

• Why finding yourself again in midlife is a course correction, not a failure

If you have been wondering why you do not feel like yourself anymore, or why a life that looks good from the outside does not feel like yours, this conversation is a gentle place to begin.

Connect with Kim Costa

Website: https://lifestylefoundations.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kim.e.costa

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

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimecosta

Connect with Debbie Thompson

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

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

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@stoneinmyshoepodcast

Website: www.thestoneinmyshoe.com

Have you ever felt stuck without knowing why? Limiting beliefs and subconscious patterns can quietly shape what we think is possible, even when life looks fine from the outside.

In this episode of The Stone in My Shoe, Debbie speaks with Giorgia Bettili, clinical hypnotherapist, dream coach and founder of Lucid Mind Hypnotherapy. Giorgia shares how leaving Italy in her twenties began a much deeper journey: questioning the beliefs and expectations she had absorbed, recognising that her thoughts were not her identity, and learning to feel at home within herself.

Their conversation explores how beliefs formed in childhood or reinforced by society can remain long after they stop being useful. Giorgia reflects on meditation, life in Buddhist monasteries and the subconscious patterns that shaped her identity. Through mindfulness, self-compassion and curiosity, she began to relate differently to her inner critic and open up a different way of seeing her life.

What you will hear

• How limiting beliefs can narrow the possibilities we are able to see

• Why a thought can belong to you without defining your identity

• What it can mean to question expectations you never consciously chose

• How mindfulness and self-compassion can change your relationship with difficult thoughts

• Why small, repeated shifts can support personal growth and greater authenticity over time

• How a career change or other life transition can raise deeper questions about identity and purpose

If you have been wondering how to change limiting beliefs, why you feel stuck in life or whether the rules guiding you are really yours, this conversation offers a thoughtful place to begin: with curiosity rather than judgement.

Connect with Giorgia Bettili

Website: https://lucidmindhypnotherapy.com/

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

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lucidmind.therapy/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucidmindhypnotherapy

Connect with Debbie Thompson

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

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

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@stoneinmyshoepodcast

Website: https://debbiethompson.lovable.app/

Why does your sense of self-worth disappear the moment there's nothing left to point to?

Have you ever finished a day with nothing "produced" and felt strangely uneasy about it, like the day didn't quite count?

In this episode of The Stone in My Shoe, Debbie Thompson sits down with Connie Kwan, a former Silicon Valley product executive who spent over twenty years in leadership roles at companies including Microsoft and Atlassian, to talk about the belief she's carried since childhood: that her worth comes from what she does.

Connie traces this belief back to growing up in Hong Kong, where achievement was simply the language everyone around her spoke, through immigrating to Canada and needing something legible to be recognised by, and into two decades of a career that rewarded exactly this pattern with promotions, paycheques and praise. Seven years after stepping away from traditional corporate life to build something of her own, she's honest about what hasn't disappeared: the quiet audit she still runs on herself, and the moment she realised the real work wasn't a new career — it was identity change at the root.

This is a thoughtful conversation about self-worth, achievement and what it actually takes to stop needing proof that you were enough today.

What you'll hear:

• Why growing up between Hong Kong and Canada shaped Connie's relationship with achievement

• The contradiction of being entrepreneurial while calling yourself "a very low-risk person"

• What it looks like to still audit your own worth, seven years after leaving the system that used to do it for you

• Why she believes real purpose has no guarantee attached to it

• What she means by "getting rid of my stone"

Sometimes the hardest part isn't leaving the job that measured you. It's learning to stop measuring yourself.

Connect with Connie Kwan

🌐 Website: https://conniekwan.com/

📰 Newsletter (STORYHabits): https://conniekwan.substack.com

💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/conniekwan

✖️ X: x.com/ConnieKwan_

🎙 Product Maestro: productmaestro.com

Connect with Debbie Thompson

📘 Facebook: facebook.com/thestoneinmyshoe

📸 Instagram: instagram.com/thestoneinmyshoe

▶️ YouTube: youtube.com/@stoneinmyshoepodcast

🌐 Website: debbiethompson.lovable.app

If this conversation resonated with you, please follow the podcast, leave a review and share it with someone who may need to hear it. Every conversation helps another person recognise the stone that's been quietly shaping their own journey.

Why do we keep saying yes to things we don't want to do, even when it leaves us feeling resentful and exhausted?

Have you ever agreed to something before you'd even decided if you wanted to? Said yes to a hug, a favour, a plan not because you wanted to, but because saying no felt harder than just going along with it?

In this episode of The Stone in My Shoe, Debbie Thompson sits down with Kirsty Tait, founder of Confidence in Connection, to talk about the quiet, everyday ways we abandon ourselves in the name of being liked.

Kirsty shares a moment from a retreat that changed everything: “I didn't know I didn't have to hug people.”

That single sentence unravelled something much bigger. Kirsty realised she'd spent years letting people override her in small, easy-to-miss ways without ever understanding she had a choice. Together, Debbie and Kirsty trace this pattern back to a childhood memory, through years of over-giving in friendships, and into the moment Kirsty finally understood that belonging was never something she needed to earn.

This is a thoughtful conversation about people pleasing, setting boundaries, self-worth and relationship patterns and what changes once we notice we've been carrying them.

In this episode you'll hear:

• Why we unconsciously say yes when we mean no.

• How a childhood memory can quietly shape a lifetime of people pleasing.

• The difference between being kind and seeking approval.

• Why setting boundaries often starts with something as small as a hug.

• How self-abandonment develops without us ever noticing.

• What Kirsty now understands about belonging and self-worth.

Sometimes the hardest part isn't saying no.

It's realising you were always allowed to.

Connect with Kirsty Tait

🌐 Website: https://confidenceinconnection.com/

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

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirstytait/

Connect with Debbie Thompson

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

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

▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@stoneinmyshoepodcast

🌐 Website: https://debbiethompson.lovable.app/

If this conversation resonated with you, please follow the podcast, leave a review and share it with someone who may need to hear it. Every conversation helps another person recognise the stone that's been quietly shaping their own journey.

Self-abandonment rarely feels dramatic. It looks like calling something fine, long after part of you already knows it isn't.

Have you ever stayed somewhere — a job, a relationship, a version of yourself — long after you first felt it wasn't right? You knew something wasn't working, yet naming it out loud felt harder than simply enduring it.

In this episode of The Stone in My Shoe, Debbie Thompson sits down with Amala, a former medical scientist and humanitarian worker who spent over a decade with organisations including the United Nations, the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders, working across more than ten countries, many of them active conflict zones. After a career spent serving others in some of the world's most demanding environments, Amala found herself asking a quieter question: when do I get to matter too?

That question became the beginning of a long, unglamorous unlearning.

That same pattern, she explains, ran through much more of her life than one job. From the age of seventeen, she lived inside a marriage that shaped nearly every choice she made — what to study, where to live, who to become — until, thirteen years later, one small decision to do something for herself became the first crack in a habit she hadn't fully recognised.

Amala also opens up about surviving a hotel bombing in Jakarta, and the fear she didn't let herself feel until she had safely landed on the ground. She talks candidly about the physical and emotional toll of years spent in conflict-zone humanitarian work, and the eight months it took her to find her feet again afterwards.

This is an honest, unhurried conversation about identity, self-worth, service, and learning to include yourself in your own circle of care — not as an act of selfishness, but as the missing piece that makes everything else sustainable.

In this episode you'll hear: 

• Why Amala kept telling herself a job was fine long after she felt it wasn't

• What thirteen years inside someone else's rules taught her about trusting her own voice

• Surviving a hotel bombing in Jakarta, and the fear she didn't let herself feel until she was safe

• What genuine humanitarian work in active conflict zones actually costs, physically and emotionally

• The eight months it took her to find her feet again afterwards

• Why she believes real alignment, once it arrives, never asks you to look back

• The sanctuary she's building for women in France, and what it means to finally include yourself

• Why noticing is always the first step, long before you know what to do next

• What “walking the way of love” means to her now, after everything she's carried

Whether you're navigating a job that no longer fits, a relationship you've quietly outgrown, or simply wondering why you keep calling things fine that aren't, Amala's story offers an honest, unhurried way of understanding what might be happening beneath the surface.

Sometimes the hardest part isn't leaving.

It's admitting you already knew.

About Amala

Amala is a former medical scientist and humanitarian worker who spent over a decade with organisations including the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and Doctors Without Borders, working across more than ten countries, many of them active conflict zones. She is now building Maison de Rêve, a sanctuary and pilgrimage experience for women in France centred on rest, reflection, and reconnecting with one's own voice.

Connect with Amala

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

▶️ YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/@avanyathizephyra

Connect with Debbie Thompson

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

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

💼 LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-thompson-b3b1b715/

▶️ YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/@stoneinmyshoepodcast

🌐 Website:  https://debbiethompson.lovable.app/

Why do we keep repeating the same painful relationship patterns, even when we desperately want things to change?

Have you ever found yourself attracting the same kind of relationship, making the same decisions or feeling trapped in patterns you can't explain? You know something isn't working, yet understanding it with your mind doesn't seem to be enough to change it.

In this episode of The Stone in My Shoe, Debbie Thompson sits down with Dr Judith Swack, biochemist, immunologist and creator of Healing from the Body Level Up (HBLU). After building a successful scientific career, Judith found herself asking a deeply personal question: "I'm a smart woman. Why can't I figure out why I keep attracting emotionally unavailable men?"

That question became the beginning of a journey that challenged everything she believed about healing.

Judith shares how growing up with abuse and neglect created unconscious beliefs that shaped every area of her life, from relationships to career. Rather than seeing trauma as simply something that happened in the past, she explains how the beliefs and protective strategies formed through those experiences continue influencing our choices long after the events themselves are over.

Together, Debbie and Judith explore the difference between the conscious and unconscious mind, why many people remain stuck despite years of personal development, and how healing begins when we recognise the invisible patterns we have been living by.

This is a thoughtful conversation about trauma, emotional healing, identity, purpose and learning to understand ourselves with both curiosity and compassion.

In this episode you'll hear:

• Why we unconsciously repeat the same relationship patterns.

• How childhood trauma shapes adult beliefs and behaviours.

• The hidden protective strategies that once kept us safe.

• Why understanding your mind isn't always enough to create change.

• The difference between conscious and unconscious healing.

• How emotions carry valuable information rather than simply getting in the way.

• Why hyper-independence often develops after childhood neglect.

• The role purpose, intuition and the body can play in healing.

• Why recognising your "stone" is often the first step towards lasting change.

Whether you're struggling with difficult relationships, healing from childhood trauma, questioning long-held beliefs or simply wondering why certain patterns keep showing up in your life, Judith's story offers a compassionate way of understanding what may be happening beneath the surface.

Sometimes the hardest part isn't changing.

It's seeing what has been quietly shaping us all along.

Connect with Dr Judith Swack

🌐 Website: https://www.hblu.org/

📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Healing-from-the-Body-Level-Up-HBLU-90737451478/

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

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judith-a-swack-ph-d/

▶️ YouTube: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judith-a-swack-ph-d/

Connect with Debbie Thompson

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

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

💼 LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-thompson-b3b1b715/

▶️ YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/@stoneinmyshoepodcast

🌐 Website:   https://debbiethompson.lovable.app/

If this conversation resonated with you, please follow the podcast, leave a review and share it with someone who may need to hear it. Every conversation helps another person recognise the stone that's been quietly shaping their own journey.

Some of our deepest wounds don't come from dramatic moments—they come from the quiet absence of feeling truly seen.

In this deeply honest conversation, Claira J shares how growing up longing for emotional connection with her mother shaped the way she viewed herself, her relationships, and her worth. For years she searched for validation outside herself, believing she had to earn love by becoming who everyone else needed her to be.

As a performer, singer, and vocal coach, Jay eventually discovered that finding her voice wasn't just about standing on stage—it was about learning to trust herself, stop self-abandoning, and choose herself in the smallest everyday moments.

This conversation explores what happens when we stop waiting for someone else to give us the love we've always needed.

If you've ever struggled with people-pleasing, questioned your worth, or felt caught between who you are and who others expected you to be, you'll find yourself in this conversation.

In this episode, you'll hear about:

• Mother wounds and their lasting impact

• Self-abandonment and people-pleasing

• Learning to trust your own voice

• Why validation from others never truly heals us

• Choosing yourself without guilt

• Healing through curiosity, compassion, and self-awareness

• Finding freedom from old relationship patterns

Sometimes healing doesn't begin when someone finally understands us.

Sometimes it begins when we finally understand ourselves.

👤 Guest Links

Instagram (Coaching): https://www.instagram.com/clairajcoaching/

Instagram (Music): https://www.instagram.com/clairajmusic/

CONNECT WITH DEBBIE

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/thestoneinmyshoe/ 

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

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-thompson-b3b1b715/

Youtube-  https://www.youtube.com/@stoneinmyshoepodcast

Website - https://debbiethompson.lovable.app/

Have you ever realised you've been working so hard to belong that you've slowly lost connection with yourself?

In this heartfelt conversation, Debbie Thompson sits down with Ramona Kossowan to explore the quiet moments that often become life's biggest turning points.

For many midlife women, an identity change doesn't begin with a crisis. It begins with a quiet feeling that something no longer fits.

Ramona shares how years of striving, saying yes, and fearing she might miss out eventually led her to recognise a deeper truth: the life she was creating no longer felt aligned with who she really was. Instead of forcing outcomes, she began listening to her intuition, letting go of what felt wrong, and discovering an unexpected sense of relief.

This episode is for women navigating identity, finding yourself, life transitions, people pleasing, relationship patterns, and that quiet feeling that you've spent so long looking after everyone else that you've forgotten what you truly want.

In this episode we explore:

• Identity and identity change

• Finding yourself again after years of putting others first

• People pleasing and relationship patterns

• Emotional healing through self-awareness

• Self-worth beyond external validation

• Authenticity and living in alignment

• Personal growth through self-trust

• Letting go of fear and embracing purpose

• Choosing peace over constant striving

• Recognising the patterns that keep us disconnected from ourselves

Sometimes transformation doesn't begin by becoming someone new.

Sometimes it begins by giving yourself permission to stop abandoning who you've always been.

👤 Guest Links

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

Website: www.ramonakcoaching.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramona-kossowan-380ba66a/

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

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ramonakcoaching

CONNECT WITH DEBBIE

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/thestoneinmyshoe/ 

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

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-thompson-b3b1b715/

Youtube-  https://www.youtube.com/@stoneinmyshoepodcast

Website - https://debbiethompson.lovable.app/

Have you ever looked at your life and quietly wondered… "How did I get so far away from myself?" 

In this deeply honest conversation, Audra Phelps shares how years of living within clearly defined roles slowly left her disconnected from herself. As a wife, mother and committed member of the Mormon church, she did everything she believed was expected of her—until anxiety, curiosity and unexpected life changes began asking questions she could no longer ignore.

Rather than one dramatic turning point, Audra describes a series of quiet awakenings: returning to university, discovering supportive friendships beyond her church community, moving overseas, and finding enough space to examine beliefs she had never questioned before.

This episode is for women navigating a midlife identity shift, life transitions, people-pleasing, emotional disconnection, or the quiet feeling that the life they've built no longer reflects who they truly are. It's a conversation about finding yourself again, learning to trust your inner voice, and creating a life that feels aligned with who you are today.

In this episode you'll hear about:

• Living through roles that slowly eclipse your sense of self.

• The connection between anxiety and unexamined expectations.

• Why creating physical and emotional space can change your perspective.

• Learning to trust your own inner voice.

• Rebuilding identity with curiosity rather than certainty.

Every turning point begins with one honest question.

Topics Covered

• Midlife identity shift

• Finding yourself again

• Women trusting their intuition

• Identity beyond roles

• Emotional disconnection

• Anxiety and self-awareness

• Life transitions for women

• Personal transformation story

• Midlife awakening

• Self-discovery after 40

• Building a life aligned with your values

• Faith transition and identity

Every turning point begins with one honest question.

Perhaps this conversation will help you ask your own.

👤 Connect with Audra Phelps

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

Website: https://mamaaudra.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/audra-phelps-b422786a/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61571178607920

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Mama-Audra

CONNECT WITH DEBBIE

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/thestoneinmyshoe/ 

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

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-thompson-b3b1b715/

Youtube-  https://www.youtube.com/@stoneinmyshoepodcast

Website - https://debbiethompson.lovable.app/