Welcome to Your Story is Your Strength Podcast!

Join us for Episode 12: "The Next Chapter." I'm Sarah Locke, your host, sharing my journey with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and how it transformed my life. From hiking Mt. Washington to founding Locke’s Promise, Inc., we're building a community and driving change.

Discover how we’re raising awareness, funds, and hope for those living with MS. Together, we climb, grow, and make a difference. 🧡

Tune in and own your story!

This podcast is about how people's stories or journeys through their lives, events and activities are their strengths.

Hosted by Sarah Locke, MS advocate and ambassador. She is joined by guest, Julie Stamm, who was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in 2007 and became a person on a mission to educate, advocate and support others with chronic illness. She is also a mom, an author and an MS warrior.

We take the time to talk about Julie's experience with MS, the different kinds of MS, the challenges of living with a progressive condition, and the projects that Julie has been involved in to raise awareness and inclusion for people with diverse abilities and messaging it all toward explaining it to children. She takes the fear out of the topics and lets the conversation flow as children are amazing, thoughtful and insightful little humans with feelings and worries too.

The overall message is that telling one's story is a way of showing strength, vulnerability and courage, and that spreading MS awareness is important because a cure is on the line. Take a listen!

Welcome to "Your Story, Your Strength," a podcast that delves into the journeys and experiences that shape us. In Episode 10, titled "MS Ambassadors Unite," host Sarah Locke is joined by the dynamic Kris Inman. Kris, a former emergency communications professional turned speaker and yoga instructor, brings a wealth of knowledge and passion to the conversation about Multiple Sclerosis.

Their lively exchange is filled with enthusiasm and mutual respect as they are both MS Ambassadors for the National MS Society and ooze orange as they spread awareness about MS to their local communities. Chris commends Sarah's impactful Dragon Talks presentation on YouTube and acknowledges her remarkable story of resilience and achievement. The genuine connection between Sarah and Kris shines through, creating a warm and engaging atmosphere for listeners.

Join us on this episode as Sarah and Kris explore the power of storytelling, finding strength in adversity, and the importance of making a positive impact. Thank you for tuning in to "Your Story, Your Strength" - where every story has the power to inspire and uplift.

I'd like to share a very recent story that most definitely has made me stronger, as the most painful ones typically do. I wasn't going to publish a podcast this week as it's coming off a holiday however I must share as it's weighing heavily on my mind.

My partner was verbally assaulted in the grocery store on Thanksgiving day. She had run out to get us coffee and whip cream for our pie. we'd overlooked it and pie just isn't pie without whipped topping.

She was proud of herself and excited to be going to the grocery store. A place she hasn't been in probably 4 years. She masked up as that's how she feels safest and entered the store.

I'd like to discuss embracing the concept of disconnecting to Connect and Prioritizing Quality Connections by Doing Less. Now if you know me you know that this is a personal challenge as I am always looking to be online, building schedules, creating to do list and keeping active and busy. But as we are quickly approaching the HOLIDAY SEASON with Thanksgiving approaching and soon after Christmas and I wanted to take a moment and point out that we don’t have to buy it all, cook it all, or DO it all.

I'd like to discuss our words, how we use them, what we think they say and what they might be saying to others.

Words hold so much power and have an incredible impact on our lives. They shape our thoughts, emotions, and relationships. However, what we think we are saying may not always convey the same meaning to others. Today I want to explore the profound influence of words, the importance of kindness, and the need to educate ourselves for effective communication.

Words have the ability to uplift, inspire, and heal. They can also cause harm, spread negativity, and create misunderstandings. The impact of our words goes beyond our intentions. They have the power to shape perceptions and influence behavior. Therefore, it is crucial to be mindful of our choice of words and their potential consequences.

Things that make YOU and things that make YOU STRONGER.

Let me be clear, you can FEEL broken, but you can never BE broken. We are the best versions of ourselves, and no one can be us better than us, right? Let’s hold that as fact for this discussion.

I was raised to Rise up, above all the teasing and taunting through middle school, all the struggles I felt I was having personally during high school and the difficulties that college put in front of me. What I now know, through therapy and exercises of learning who I really am, is that it wasn’t to just swallow the fears, anxiety and pain but to learn from it all, the teasing said something about the others doing the teasing, to learn for my errors, mistakes, past experiences... but never let them break me.

I'd like to talk about Relationships. All of our relationships. Those we have with our close friends and families to those that we made in high school and college and those we are now making online and on social media. My relationships mean something, every single one of them ties me to an experience, a time in my life, something that built me up or made me stronger for having met that person or better for having them in my life.