Thriving Adoptees - Let's Thrive

As adoptees our most overwhelming fear is that of another rejection. Ann and I explore the insights have helped her overcome this and other fears in life-changing moments. Join us as we dive deep into her biggest aha moments and listen in for your own epiphanies.

Ann Kief and her husband live in the Florida panhandle. Her professional life was mainly focused on education, leadership and college administration. She taught at the university, college and grade school levels as well as in numerous parks and recreation settings. She has written professionally, as well as dabbled in writing children’s literature. She and her husband have also enjoyed pursuing their entrepreneurial interests in several businesses. Her greatest joy and fulfillment, however, has been as a wife, mother and grandmother.

Ann Kief lived half of her childhood in Germany and the other half in Northern Virginia. She has a BS from Southern Illinois University and MS from Indiana University. She has written professional articles and co-authored a nationally distributed professional management aid book. She believes this is an inspirational book of amazing occurrences along the journey of discovery blending families and countries. Whether adopted or not, readers will be drawn into the twists and turns of the thought processes, relationships, and research.

https://www.facebook.com/BlessedByAdoptionBook/

https://www.instagram.com/blessedbyadoptionbook/

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

https://blessedbyadoption.com/

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Understanding WHY we do the things we don't want to do often initiates stopping doing them. So please stick with my lengthy set up this episode - it's well worth it. Lynn and I explore adoptees' concern for other people's  thoughts about us including why it triggers are own insecurities. What's wrong with me is perhaps the most common questions we ask ourselves. Listen in for some  more empowering questions in this profound episode.

Here's the link to the book I mention in the podcast https://www.amazon.com/Missing-Link-Sydney-Banks-ebook/dp/B07FN6CYPB

Lynn Deiulis was placed on adoption at the age of nine months. Her adoptive parents were advised to raise her as their own and forget where she had come from. Her parents followed this advice, and adoption became an uncomfortable topic. Her mother would answer Lynn’s adoption questions, but the emotion in her mother’s eyes eventually made Lynn stop asking. Lynn grew up not knowing how or whom to ask her many questions. As an adult, Lynn found and met some of her paternal and maternal birth family members and was able to learn much about the genetic and familial information she grew up without. As a result, she has been able to piece together more of her story.

Lynn holds a Bachelor of Arts in Child and Youth Care and enjoyed a twenty-five year career in adoption services. Lynn has worked with many members of the adoption triad (children, birth parents, adoptive parents) as well as foster care and kinship families. She co-facilitated support groups where adult adopted persons, and birth parents, could freely share their unique stories and learn how and where to get some of their questions answered.

​Her personal and professional journey sparked a passion to write a book that offers an opportunity for children to learn the unique details of their adoption or kinship stories, and helps adults talk to children about how they came to be living together as a family or living with another family. She also hopes the book will help professionals who work with children living through all phases of the adoption or kinship journey. Lynn resides in Northern Ontario, where she enjoys spending time with her husband and family, especially her grandchildren.

The relationship between the author and the illustrator has a unique quality. Krista Donnelly and Lynn are birth half sisters who met each other as adults in 2018. Separated by the adoption process, Krista and her three full sisters grew up not knowing that two older half sisters existed. When Lynn decided to write this book, she reached out to her “new sister” who is a talented graphic designer. Krista brought the book’s characters to life while building a relationship with Lynn at the same time. Krista learned about the impact on Lynn of growing up as an adoptee, while Lynn learned about the impact on Krista of discovering she had two birth half sisters she never knew existed! Their new mutual understanding of the impact of adoption has enriched this book. Lynn and Krista hope this book will help children and families talk about these unique stories long before the children become adults.

Links to buy the book and more: 

https://www.whatisyourstorybook.com/

https://www.facebook.com/whatisyourstorybook

https://twitter.com/AuthorLynnD

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCampCrQmQomhUskZ8-9fzcg/featured

https://www.instagram.com/authorlynnd/

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Trauma experts talk about neuroplasticity as our brain's ability to change but they don't explain how to harness it. It's a lot simpler than it seems. Lightbulb moments start change. So how do have more lightbulb moments? By listening to other people's lightbulb moments. By remaining open as we listen. Being aware of when our old beliefs are blocking new ideas like bouncers block new people coming into a nightclub. Suni shares some of her lightbulb moments about her birth mother, forgiveness and understanding to catalyse lightbulb moments for you. Listen in and listen up. 

Here's a bit about Suni and her book:

After ignoring her own adoption story for 50 years, SUNI MILLER ZMICH journeyed alongside the interviewees as they described their stories, connecting on an elemental level, her unanticipated reward was she could clearly see herself in the mirror for the first time in her life. She is the mother of two daughters, a retired accounting and finance manager, and a transient ex-army brat poised for the next adventure. Practically empty nesters, she and her husband, Kurt, live in Minneapolis. For Now. When I first started Through the Lens of Ourselves,I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to accomplish.​

I am an adoptee. After conducting many interviews, my personal journey melded with the interviewees. I learned that ALL members of the adoption triad yearn for familial connection. In listening to the birth mothers, I was surprised at my own reaction. For years, I had harbored resentment about my own birth parents and would not fully invest myself emotionally with my adoptive parents. But after allowing myself to see through the lens of the birth parents in my book, I felt safe enough to become closer to my adoptive parents.

My hope is that my book will bring peace to to those who are still traumatized by their adoption experience. I will forever be grateful to the individuals who were brave enough to share their stories with me. They nourished my soul and I hope their stories will feed the world.

Listening to the stories of others touched by adoption healed me.

My hope is that my book will also heal you.

You know that quiet voice that whispers to you when you first wake up in that fuzzy space between sleep and full consciousness - where your dreams and reality collide? I would sometimes hear those little nudges to examine my adoption.

Here's the link I to the Dragon story mentioned https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7stT4OQoFGU

Here's links to her website with links to Amazon etc:

https://www.sunimillerzmich.com/

Here are links to her social media:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068780925549

https://www.instagram.com/sunimillerzmich/

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

The adoption world is trauma obsessed. I believe we should be trauma informed and healing obsessed. Michelle does too. We go deep on holding the energy to heal, allowing and expressing our emotions. There's a place underneath those emotions that's already and always whole, untouched by the trauma let's go there. And unveil who we truly are. Adoption is a spiritual journey. But not in a woo woo way, just a path that reveals who we are when we see that.

Here's a bit about Michelle :

This is my Foster Adoption Journey. One morning, sometime after my forty-third birthday I realized I wanted to be a Mom.
In this book you'll hear about my foster children, how I had to let go, and whom I fell in love with.

EXCERPT:
Now I appreciate that you might think any normal woman would want kids in her twenties or thirties, but I didn’t really. My husband and I were busy with career, traveling and partying and, well, I just forgot to have kids. I never heard my biological clock ticking and now my alarm was ringing, and ringing loudly! ... My hubby and I decided to adopt through foster care, but had no idea what we were in for! This is my story.

https://www.amazon.com/Bedrooms-Journey-Frustration-Parenting-Adoption-ebook/dp/B006SJN504?ref_=ast_sto_dp

https://www.facebook.com/michelle.vandepas

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

In a first for the podcast this lovely couple provide an incredible insight into what goes on for birth parents, how they kept going (and together) despite being riddled with emotion and how our suffering connects us. We explore the deep insights they had along the way that have shifted their focus on to Michael.  Because relationships start with us. How we are. Doing our own work makes us better.

Find out more about their book and download it free:

 https://bertauski.com/expectations/

https://www.amazon.com/Expectations-Adoption-Story-Bertauski-Tony/dp/1951432169

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

How do we get through the toughest stuff? When a life-threatening medical condition, an alcoholic husband, and a traumatic special needs adoption shatter that dream, there are only two choices—crumble or change the narrative. We go deep on how we do that covering topics such as resilience, epiphanies and eye opening insights. Inspirational.

A young girl dreams of the perfect life—marriage, children, and a career—her happily ever after. Valerie learned to embrace the unimaginable to create an extraordinary life.

Valerie Cantella is an award-winning, multipassionate communications and public affairs professional living a life beyond her wildest dreams. She is the author of Off-Script: a mom’s journey through adoption, a husband’s alcoholism, and special needs parenting. She shares her journey as a mother of teens with mental health issues, the struggles of special needs parenting, the effect of alcoholism on a marriage, and how she learned to embrace the unimaginable to create an extraordinary life.  

Valerie calls herself a recovering perfectionist and is passionate about using her experiences to help others. She volunteers with organizations supporting those with mental health and substance abuse issues and serves on the County’s Behavioral Wellness Commission.   

Her love of writing began when her stubby little fingers learned to form letters, and those letters made words that crafted sentences. From those sentences, she wrote short stories, articles, poems, and even two books for her grade school author showcase. Valerie later turned to journalism and a career in communications.  

She is the mom of three adult children–a biological son, an adopted daughter, and a bonus son by marriage. Valerie and her husband Tom live in Santa Barbara with their exuberant yellow lab, Charlie. When she isn’t writing or speaking, you will find her walking at one of their beautiful beaches.   

Her mantra: I will look forward. I will trust God. Today is a new day.  

https://valeriecantella.com/

https://www.facebook.com/vcantella

https://www.instagram.com/valeriejcantella

https://www.linkedin.com/in/valerie-cantella/

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Conversations oil our understanding of other people's perspectives and our relationships with them. They also give us a comparison to our own perspective if we are brave enough to go there. Why does that matter? Because shifts in our perspective power the insights to help us to better lives with less anger and resentment. Listen in as we go deep on conversation, communication and much more.

Julie Ryan McGue is an author, a domestic adoptee, and an identical twin. She writes extensively about finding out who you are, where you belong, and making sense of it.

Julie’s debut award winning memoir Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging (She Writes Press) came out in May 2021. It is the story of her five-year search for birth relatives. Her weekly blogs That Girl, This Life and monthly column at The Beacher focus on identity, family, and life’s quirky moments. 

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Julie received a BA from Indiana University in Psychology. She earned a MM in Marketing from the Kellogg Graduate School of Business, Northwestern University. She has served multiple terms on the Board of the Midwest Adoption Center and is an active member of the American Adoption Congress.

Julie splits her time between Northwest Indiana and Sarasota, Florida. She is the mother of four adult children and has three grandsons. If she’s not at her computer, she’s on the tennis court, or out exploring with her Nikon. Julie is currently working on a collection of personal essays.

https://juliemcgueauthor.com/

https://www.facebook.com/juliemcguewrites/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-ryan-mcgue-a246b841/

https://www.instagram.com/julieryanmcgue/

https://twitter.com/juliermcgue

Here's a link to the podcast episode I refer to https://thriving-adoptees.simplecast.com/episodes/primally-wounded-or-fundamentally-unwoundable-with-nick-mabey

Here's a link to another episode on the primal wound  it's recording of a webinar

https://thriving-adoptees.simplecast.com/episodes/whole-healing-my-primal-wound-webinar-recording

Here's a link to a video of that webinar 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnz7I7V_IOQ&t=162s

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

What comes after the fog? What helps us navigate that? What do we do to feel good? Adoptee Paul and I go deep for answers, because that's where the priceless gems are hidden. Those priceless gems are  insights that move us to a better, happier place. We both loved this conversation and hope you love it too. If you don't we will give you your money back. Hold on a minute - we're giving you these priceless gems free! Enjoy....

Here's a bit about Paul:

Paul Kimball, a biracial adoptee, explores his own abandonment issues as he searches, and eventually reunites with his birth parents. After a seemingly joyous reunion, his birth mother, a Caucasian professional cellist, rejects him. This causes him to seek out his Armenian birth father, who along with his extended family, accepts him as one of their own.

Paul's birthparents met at the Hollywood Methodist Church in 1961. Vahe had immigrated from Iraq to California, while Wendy gave cello concerts throughout the United States. After Wendy became pregnant, they decided to have an abortion in Mexico, and upon arrival, changed their minds. As directed by her parents, Wendy had her baby in secret in Fort Bragg. Vahe was told that the baby had been aborted.

After one week with Wendy, Paul was given up for adoption. He was placed in foster care through Children's Home Society for four and a half months. Being biracial, Paul was considered a "Hard to Place" baby. The Kimballs, a wonderfully liberal Berkeley family, decided to adopt Paul. On Paul's first birthday, November 22nd, 1962, he was officially adopted three hours before the assassination of President Kennedy.

Paul became a professional French Horn player, conductor and music teacher. He had always been deeply moved by the cello, especially the recordings of Jacqueline Du Pre. Music was his life, and cello his therapy.

After marrying and becoming a father of two daughters, Paul searched for his birthmother. Upon learning that she was a cellist, he was even more determined to meet her. After several months and false leads, he found her name in the Musician's Union directory. This led to a three-hour phone call with birth mother, Wendy.

Paul and Wendy met in L.A. and had a beautiful three-month reunion. That summer, she went to New York to play in an orchestra. While there, she made the decision to keep Paul a secret. She was afraid of being thought of as a "slut." She stopped all communication. When the horrors of 911 happened, Paul left one last message on her phone. This led Wendy to contact his mother in law, and let her know that Paul must never contact her again.

In shock, Paul decided to search for his birth father. With some clues provided by Wendy, including his last name, Paul tracked down Vahe through his brother Vasken. On Christmas day, Vasken announced to his extended family that Vahe had an unknown son, much to their astonishment. That evening, Paul called Vasken who handed the phone to Vahe. The first words that Vahe said to him were "Son, I love you!"

For twelve years, Vahe, Paul and the extended Armenian community got to know and love each other.

Paul kept tabs on Wendy through her summer orchestra's website. One summer he noticed that she wasn't listed. He learned through a facebook message that Wendy had died a few years earlier.

Paul found her gravesite, but no marker, just grass. He decided to design one for her. When the marker was completed, he visited it alone, in tears, while listening to cello music. Paul's adopted parents, and Vahe passed away. His adopted father committed suicide three days after his mother passed while looking at her pictures.

Now that his parents were gone, Paul continued to contemplate his abandonment issues. The realization that we are all human beings, adopted or not, and that we are all a part of nature, has brought much comfort and healing.

https://www.facebook.com/paul.kimball.14

https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-All-Human-Beings/dp/1977236197

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Most of us adoptees tell ourselves a tough story about ourselves. A story that we are not good enough. Adoptee Lisa has taken what she's learned - and continues to learn - into helping fellow adoptees as a therapist. Listen in as she shares her learnings with great clarity and hope. Let Lisa guide you to the light at the end of the tunnel - being the hero in your own story.

Here's a bit about Lisa from her website:

Lisa Floyd, NCC, LMHC-A

Adult Parent-Child Relationships

Adoption Therapy Specialist

Certified Brainspotting Therapist

Is your mom impossible to please? Is your dad emotionally unavailable? Do you feel like the outsider in your family? I specialize in Adult Parent-Child Relationships and how to find healing from dysfunctional relationships when you are an empath. I am a fellow empath, so I understand the challenges of feeling everything more deeply. I can guide you to see your sensitivities as gifts that can help you to develop stronger boundaries and healthier relationships.

I employ a strengths-based approach in therapy which focuses more on your internal strengths and resourcefulness and less on weaknesses, failures, and shortcomings. I am a certified Brainspotting therapist. I am also informed about Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB). I enjoy working with those who have experienced relationship issues, emotional neglect, and codependency.

As an adult adoptee, I am passionate about working with other adoptees and helping heal all members of the adoption constellation. I completed the National Adoption Competency Mental Health Training for Mental Health Professionals through Center for Adoption Support and Education. I have contributed to the books The Adoptee Survival Guide (2015) and Adoption Therapy: Perspectives from clients and clinicians on processing and healing post-adoption issues (2014). I have also been a speaker at the Indiana Adoptee Network Conference (2018).

I completed my Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Indiana Wesleyan University. I currently hold an Associate License for counseling in Indiana, and I am pursuing becoming fully licensed. Feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]

​https://www.greenhouseindy.com/lisa-floyd

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-floyd-877503131/

https://www.facebook.com/GreenHouseIndyCounseling/

https://twitter.com/counselingattgh

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Shifts happen when we see through the story we've been innocently telling ourselves about ourselves. After setting the scene Vin and I go deep into self love in what's one of our most profound conversations here on Thriving Adoptees. We go deep because that's where the most valuable shifts happen. I'm loving that depth. Vin loves that depth. We love the fact that you do too. Shifts change lives. Listen in for your own shifts. Born in India, adopted at 10 months, raised in Australia, Vin is a true one off. 

He runs a Facebook group where adoptees and adopters can learn from one another in a friendly and no conflict environment.

Connect with him at:

https://www.facebook.com/CrZyPhOtOgRaPhEr

Here's the link I mention to Vin's earlier interview https://thriving-adoptees.simplecast.com/episodes/vin-adoptees-emotional-rollercoaster

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.