Episodes

Dr. Michael Sapp will discuss the importance of looking at mental health as a public health emergency with our host, Elaine Miller-Karas, a world-reknown trauma therapist. The impact of traumatic experiences on individual and community health is widespread. According to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2021), “Traumatic events and loss are common in people’s lives.” There is a need to quickly establish programs that provide timely psychological counseling and intervention to alleviate anxiety...

Natalia Valevska will share her insights from living within their beloved country, Ukraine, during the Russian invasion of February 2022. She will discuss her experiences and work with EdCamp Ukraine, an association of over 40,000 teachers, including her association with the Trauma Resource Institute. She will describe how, out of her despair over the war; she began helping with the resiliency support meetings co-sponsored by EdCamp Ukraine and the Trauma Resource Institute. She will express her...

Curious about something? Google it. But is curiosity simply information seeking? According to Perry Zurn and Dani S. Bassett, what gets left out in the conventional understanding of curiosity are the relations between ideas and between people. Curiosity, say Zurn and Bassett, is a practice of connection. It connects ideas into networks of knowledge and it connects the knowers themselves, both to the knowledge they seek and to each other. Zurn and Bassett—identical twins who write that their book...

What do you say to the parents of a recent high school graduate who was just killed when the car she was riding in collided with a truck? Or to a son who asks you to do everything possible to save his cancer-ridden mother even though she has opted for hospice? Or to a patient when she informs you, with complete sincerity, that she can’t change into a hospital gown…because she’s a zebra? While finding the right words is a crucial part of every doctor’s job, according to Dr. Jay Baruch it’s often ...

Even before Covid, parenting was hard. According to physician, writer, and father of three young children, Andrew Bomback, “From day one, parenting can feel like a version of ‘we are flying the plane as we build it.’” Bomback investigates the emergence of an immersive, all-in approach to raising children that has made parenting a competitive (and often not very enjoyable) sport. He considers the high costs of commercialized parenting (from the babymoon on), the pressure on mothers to have it all...

With a practical approach that weaves together Eastern medicine, western psychology, and African ancestral principles of spirituality, author Lindsay Fauntleroy teaches you how to use the elements to improve physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Experiences such as heartache, anxiety, and procrastination are signs that one of the elements is out of balance within you. Discover how to regain your footing, tap into your latent potential, and find your flow with journal prompts, flower...

Many of us suffer from nightmares, and those generated by trauma are among the most insidious and frightening. Whether it is Big T trauma such as abuse, violence, or oppression, or a small trauma such as microaggression, a fender-bender, or minor surgery, these events can stretch their sticky fingers into our night dreams and haunt our daylight hours. Some Traumas are acute, and others are chronic, some we have experienced personally, and other traumatic legacies reverberate down through the gen...

Bob Doppelt, the coordinator of the International Transformational Resilience Coalition (ITRC) will discuss why community-based initiatives that use a public health approach to build population-level mental wellness and transformational resilience are important approaches to combat widespread harmful mental health and psychosocial problems generated by the climate emergency. In September 2023 alone, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Florida experienced devastation to their communities from hurricanes. Extr...

A $702 billion global diet/nutrition and weight loss industry shows that people worldwide are devoted to achieving maximum health and their desired bodies. Yet mainstream approaches are failing these individuals, and sadly, science supports this. Intent on gaining the “health,” “confidence,” and “happiness” that diets promise, consumers keep trying. Along the way, they often become sad and frustrated, believing they’re failing when they’re not. They need a legitimate, alternative path. In this e...

We are more similar than we are different! There is more beyond our own beliefs, we all have blind spots. Presenting a groundbreaking new paradigm for understanding a variety of perspectives, Granddaughter Crow will share with listeners her ideas outside the dogma you may have previously been taught. By exploring your own pre-existing beliefs and the themes various spiritual and cultural traditions all share, you can heal thoughts that may be hurting you and others. She will share her ideas in h...

“I think this is what Nelson Mandela meant by the ‘rainbow nation’. Learning about how to stabilize the nervous system is equality and is beyond nations, culture, religion, and ethnicity.” Community Resiliency Model Teacher, South Africa The Trauma Resource Institute (TRI) has brought their ideas about healing the wake of traumatic experiences to Asia, Europe, the Mid-East, the Caribbean, Africa, Central America, North America, and the United States. They have created projects to help underserve...

Carey Sipp, leader of strategic partnerships with PACEs Connection and Kelly Purcell, Well-Being Consultant and CRM teacher with Ground. Connect. Empower. LLC will share how strategic partnerships and involvement with local resiliency initiatives alongside CRM can work to create lasting systematic change. Carey and Kelly will highlight how counties in North Carolina are using both the PACEs Connection Cooperative of Communities and CRM to impact multiple sectors within a community and how that c...

Dr. Tara Well will share the elements of Mirror Meditation which she describes as an in-depth exploration into the power of reflections. She will share the benefits of Mirror Meditation reported by practitioners and students, including: • Illuminating their ability to solve problems • Providing perspective on their experiences • Validating hunches and intuition • Building a vault of creative ideas • Fostering gratitude Based on research from neuroscience and psychology, Dr. Well will discuss: • ...

Sara Cook will share her extensive experience working with people affected by conflict internationally and in Northern Ireland. She is the United Kingdom representative to Women Mediators Across the Commonwealth. Those working in the fields of peacebuilding and humanitarian aid are known for providing desperately needed support to people affected by conflict, war, natural disaster and inequality all over the world. However, there are few structures and services in place to support the psychosoci...

Dr. Glenn Schiraldi will share his latest book: The Adverse Childhood Experiences Recovery Workbook: Heal the Hidden Wounds from Childhood Affecting Your Adult Mental and Physical Health. He will explore the links between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), which occur in the first eighteen years of life, and health outcomes in adulthood. We will discuss the overview of the ACEs research and the principles, self-managed skills, and professional treatments that effectively restore inner wholene...

These are the facts: 1 in 4 women globally experience domestic violence. On average, it takes 7 times for most survivors to successfully leave an abusive relationship. But behind the statistics are human beings. One Saturday morning, Beverly Gooden was woken up by her husband shoving her off their bed for no discernible reason. Despite her quick thinking and even quicker footsteps, he caught her, his sudden anger inexplicable. No words were exchanged. He began to strangle her as he had done many...

Reena Patel believes in the words of Resmaa Menakem when he stated, “Resilience is built into the cells of our bodies. Like trauma, resilience can ripple outward, changing the lives of people, families, neighborhoods, and communities in positive ways. Also, like trauma, resilience can be passed down from generation to generation.”—Resmaa Menakem (2017). Reena Patel and Elaine Miller-Karas will discuss how adversity is not destiny, and even when faced with suffering and trauma, human beings can h...

Today’s show will focus on the topic of courage, connectedness, and resiliency. The question of courage has been in the public debate sparked by Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony in front of the January 6th Committee. Many have spoken about the bravery of women over the ages to speak out about moral principles being breached when others have kept silent. Ms. Hutchinson’s bravery and that of other women like civil rights leader Rosa Parks are examples of women who had the courage to speak up. The qu...

COVID-19 exacerbated stress and trauma universally, creating a secondary pandemic that increased demand for mental health care in a system on the verge of crisis. An intense and immediate need for population well-being support resulted, and subsequent requests for resiliency training quickly followed. In response, Dr. Ingrid Duva and nurses in Georgia certified to teach the Community Resiliency Model (CRM) fast tracked efforts to share this mental wellness training program across their state. Th...

Shelly Sood and Nikhil Torsekar, husband and wife, will share that with an understanding of mental health conditions and receiving support and guidance, and accepting help, health, and life can be transformed. They navigated a harrowing, but ultimately redemptive journey with the growing understanding of Nikhil’s Bipolar condition. Shelly went through a challenging ordeal to get Nikhil to accept what was hiding in plain sight: and that he suffered from undiagnosed bipolar disorder. It nearly d...

We live in a world of violence and sometimes we can feel overwhelmed and helpless. From the streets of our town and cities like Chicago to the Genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia what lessons can we learn from peacemaking in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Lesley Carroll has been involved in peacemaking and healing the historical traumas of the past, she will share her wisdom of what she has experienced to bring solutions to respond to the violence in our world today.

After over two years of disconnection, frequent trauma, and grief, so many children are longing for connection, belonging, and the opportunity to process experiences. Meaningful conversations offer them all these gifts and more. They also reduce stress, burnout, and anxiety for adults. This session will introduce listeners to the power of back-and-forth-conversations with children, as a way of promoting resilience and healing for both children and adults. Delivered by a speech-pathologist, lectu...

Today’s show is about navigating a successful life as you age. Just over 34 percent of the US population is aged 50 and over, and the numbers are rising rapidly with the aging of the baby-boom generation. The numbers are projected to climb from 21.7 million in 2010 to 32.8 million in 2020 and then to 38.6 million in 2030. Crafting a meaningful and successful life over fifty well be explored with Ron Roel, the radio show host of 45 Forward, a nationwide internet talk radio show on VoiceAmerica.co...

In the United States, the nineteen children murdered in Uvalde now are tragically added to the 4,357 American children from the ages of one to nineteen who died from gun violence in 2020. After every mass shooting, the dialogue is the same, and the themes run fast and furious – gun control, the internet, and mental illness. How did this happen? Why did he do it? What can we do to stop the subterranean secret life of the web that spews hate adding fuel to disturbed and distorted thinking? While m...