Belly of the Beast Life Stories

Dive into the incredible story of Jobi Manson, a surfer whose life changed forever when she misjudged a sandbar and broke her neck, leaving her paralyzed. In a moment of sheer willpower, Jobi managed to move and survive. Through years of healing and self-discovery, Jobi found solace in the ocean's healing powers. She became a coach, using the ocean as a centering and transformative tool for others. Join us as Jobi reflects on her accident, the shame she initially felt, and the profound realization that it was a homecoming, leading her to a new path in life. Prepare to be inspired by Jobi's journey of resilience and connection.

In this gripping episode, Scotty Brown takes us on a wild journey through his days as a drug kingpin in Chicago. From selling 50-pound bales of marijuana to living the rock 'n roll party lifestyle, Scotty's world eventually comes crashing down. After a psychotic break lands him in a mental institution, Scotty finds himself on a path to recovery and redemption. Now, decades later and sober, Scotty's work in addiction and recovery has touched the lives of thousands. Join us as Scotty shares his story of surrender, self-discovery, and the ongoing battle to stay on the right path. This is a tale you won't want to miss!

In this profound episode, Zaid Gayle shares his journey of spiritual awakening and self-discovery. Raised in a deeply religious family with ties to the Black Panther Party, Zaid's life takes a tumultuous turn when his marriage and non-profit face challenges. Struggling with fertility issues and a spiritual crisis, Zaid embarks on a transformative journey in Joshua Tree, where he explores the healing powers of "earth medicines." Through this experience, Zaid gains new insights into his relationships and learns to embrace the beauty of life's fragility. Join Zaid as he reflects on the importance of being present and letting go of control. Get ready for a soul-stirring episode you won't want to miss!

In this captivating episode, Harsh Verma shares his incredible journey from being an elite athlete to becoming the first non-Chinese national warrior monk at the renowned Shaolin Temple in China. After a botched knee surgery and a tumor removal, Harsh's recovery wasn't going as planned. Seeking alternative methods, he found himself at the Shaolin Temple, where he immersed himself in martial arts and the teachings of Zen Buddhism. Over four years, Harsh became fluent in Chinese and embraced the principles of Chan, Wu, and Yi - Buddhism, martial arts, and medicine. Listen as Harsh discusses his decision to leave the temple and his plans to spread the Shaolin message. Don't miss this inspiring story of transformation and perseverance!

In this inspiring episode, Sam Malik shares his journey of coming out and living his truth. Growing up in a straight man's world, Sam used overachievement as a mask to hide his sexuality. He faced the challenges of cultural differences and the constant presence of homophobia. Sam recounts the pivotal moment when he came out publicly, posting announcements simultaneously across social media platforms. After a three-hour bike ride, he opened his devices to find the acceptance and support he had always longed for. Tune in to hear Sam's powerful story and his recommendations for those considering coming out. Don't miss it!

Marcus Segal, former COO of eMusic.com, shares his journey of success, failure, and self-discovery. From being part of the booming tech world to facing the challenges posed by Napster, Marcus rode the rollercoaster of the industry. But when the company reached its breaking point, Marcus had to confront his inner critic and find a new path. Join us as we delve into Marcus' transformative experience in the Sahara Desert and how it ignited gratitude and purpose. Get ready to be inspired by Marcus' resilience and determination to give back to the startup community.

Step into the transformative journey of Zawadi, whose life took an unexpected turn when she lost her partner of 14 years and found herself homeless. From seeking refuge in the arms of a narcissistic abuser to living in a homeless shelter that felt like a jail, Zawadi hit rock bottom. But in that darkness, she discovered her voice and purpose. Join us as we explore Zawadi's incredible resilience, her path to finding light in the belly of despair, and how she now helps others see the beauty of life. Prepare to be inspired by Zawadi's story of rising from the ashes.

Join us on an incredible journey with Bill Barkeley, a deaf-blind adventurer who defies all odds. From summiting Mount Kilimanjaro to completing the Boston Marathon, Bill lives life to the fullest. Diagnosed with Usher Syndrome, he shares his experiences of accepting his condition and finding purpose through his adventures. As the co-founder of No Barriers, Bill helps others overcome obstacles and discover their true potential. Learn about the power of acceptance, the importance of a supportive rope team, and the profound impact of embracing challenges. Get inspired as Bill shows us that limitations don't define us – we define ourselves. Don't miss this extraordinary episode with Bill Barkeley.

In this episode, we dive into the incredible journey of Ryan Chen, co-founder of Neuro. At just 19 years old, Ryan faced a life-altering snowboarding accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. We explore the shock, pain, and resilience he experienced during his recovery. From giving up opioid pain pills to rekindling his love for athletics and racing in marathons, Ryan's story is one of perseverance and determination. Join us as we learn about his path to entrepreneurship and how he became a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree. Don't miss this inspiring episode with Ryan Chen of Neuro.

In this captivating episode, join Dr. Julian Gold, a 30-year physician and former mayor of Beverly Hills, as he shares his inspiring journey of battling Acute Myeloid Leukemia. From being a respected medical professional to becoming a patient, Dr. Gold had to navigate the challenges of his diagnosis and treatment. He emphasizes the importance of staying positive and focusing on recovery, while also shedding light on the role of caregivers, family, and community support. Discover Dr. Gold's daily rules of recovery and gain valuable insights into life after treatment.

Get ready for an incredible journey as we honor Martha Sternbach, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau. At 93 years young, Martha reflects on her heartbreaking experience during the Holocaust and the burden of guilt that came with surviving. Join us as we delve into her story, filled with resilience and gratitude, and discover the power of personal transformation. In this season of life, we bring you extraordinary stories that will inspire and remind you that even in the darkest moments, there is always hope. Tune in and find the courage for your own journey.

In this Beyond story, we revisit one of our earlier conversations with master healer Artie Wu to help us bring to life the liminal stage in our personal transformation pattern. I know this stage well, and I was able to recognize when I was in it, and how I created a vision board to let my soul guide my next big move in life. I'm sharing instructions on how to make yours and that exact vision board on the https://bellystory.com/s3e7 (website). Recognizing the threshold isn't a new idea. I've selected a poem that may connect to your soul from ancient Persian mystic, Rumi. We read poems dedicated to our listeners instead of advertising shills. Our stories are personal, designed for you to hear pieces of your own true nature reveal itself in every story. Wisdom for our Soul, Courage for your Journey. In Belly, we share our extraordinary life stories of personal transformation to let you know that you're not alone in yours and to inspire you to embrace every ounce of it. And Beyond stories helps us see the big picture, comprehending the patterns coming up. SHOULDER UP WITH US - 100% Advertising Free Your podcast is a safe and judgement free space. It's free of advertising and outside influence -- 100% listener powered. We dedicate a poem to folks in our community shouldering up with us. Consider a $5 donation at https://www.bellystory.com/support/ (BellyStory.com/support). Thank you for listening. I hope you're able to hear something meaningful. Warmly, David All Creator, Storyteller, Producer CO-CREATE OUR PODCAST To submit your extraordinary personal life story or to sign-up for new episode emails visit: https://www.bellystory.com/ (BellyStory.com)

In this very personal Beyond story, I wanted to share why it's so important to me that this podcast is not for sale. Why it matters that you, dear listeners and neighbors of the world, have a safe, judgement free space to listen, and notice what comes up. To do that, I take you back through my own pattern of storytelling; how I learned to tell stories by listening deeply to others tell theirs. Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh shares that listening to others, with compassion and without offering advice or actions, is itself a healing instrument that the world needs now. Our stories are personal, designed for you to hear pieces of your own true nature reveal itself in every story. Wisdom for our Soul, Courage for your Journey. In Belly, we share our extraordinary life stories of personal transformation to let you know that you're not alone in yours and to inspire you to embrace every ounce of it. And Beyond stories helps us see the big picture, comprehending the patterns coming up. ENABLE OUR MISSION - 100% Advertising Free Your podcast is a safe and judgement free space. It's free of advertising and outside influence -- 100% listener supported. It's not on the market, it's not for sale. A podcast where you can listen and hear what's coming up. We dedicate a poem to folks in our community shouldering up with us. Crossing the line, letting us know that we're heard with a $5 donation at https://www.bellystory.com/support/ (BellyStory.com/support). Thank you for listening. I hope you're able to hear something meaningful. Warmly, David All Creator, Storyteller, Producer CO-CREATE OUR PODCAST To submit your extraordinary personal life story, to sign-up for new episode email updates, to contact us or support our mission with a donation, visit: https://www.bellystory.com/ (BellyStory.com)

In this special New Year's Beyond story, David All looks deeper into the meaning of that sweet, familiar song, Auld Lang Syne, a poem attributed to Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns. Before you turn the page and burn the book on 2020, turn around and remember the 'Good old days' and all those days in between. Wisdom for our Soul, Courage for your Journey. In Belly, we share our extraordinary life stories of personal transformation to illustrate the nature of personal transformation. Beyond helps us go beyond personal stories to comprehend the overall pattern of transformation. ENABLE OUR MISSION Your podcast is a sacred space and judgment free zone. It's free of advertising and outside influence -- 100% listener supported. A podcast where you can feel safe to listen and know that you're not alone. Transformation is scary, but not a single butterfly has ever attempted to climb back into the cocoon. To keep us advertising free and support our mission to heal, inspire and shape lives with extraordinary personal life stories, chip-in $5 a month at https://www.bellystory.com/support/ (BellyStory.com/support). Thank you for listening. Warmly, David All Creator, Storyteller, Producer CO-CREATE OUR PODCAST To submit your story, sign-up for new episode emails, contact us or support our mission with a donation, visit: https://www.bellystory.com/ (BellyStory.com) Support this podcast

Season 3, Episode 3: Fatherlessness: The Consequences of Forging Checks Led to a Personal Life Transformation. Corey Cepeda's transformation to become a better man didn't happen overnight, but that journey did begin one night in a jail cell long ago. That night, on his knees on the coldest concrete floor in an intimate jail cell, he committed to ending his rough lifestyle, a typical example in the pattern of fatherlessness led him there. In the darkness of that oubliette, his soul noticed the light - his decision to forge checks meant that he would miss his first daughter's baptism. A kenshō moment where he glimpsed his true nature and like a seed that can't be unplanted, would change him forever. He grabbed the Bible, dropped to his knees, and started his process of transformation by surrendering. And asking for forgiveness from a higher power. Corey's determination and commitment to changing his life is an inspiring story of personal realization, clear awareness, and what it really takes to climb up a better man.   CONNECT DEEPER WITH OUR STORY For episode notes, a transcript, quotables, and to connect and learn more about our guest, visit: BellyStory.com/s3e3   OUR STORY Hey there, welcome to Season 3 of Belly of the Beast Life Stories with David All.  This third season of life is a rare collection of stories of men that grew up without a biological father around. It's helping me comprehend my own life story of fatherlessness, and showing folks that it's a pattern worth breaking to be a better man. At some point during this season, I'll share my own belly story, but until then, good men like Corey are standing for all of us to share their story, to inspire us and give us courage to reveal our own true nature. That's the purpose of this podcast as I comprehend it today: Wisdom for our Soul -- Courage for your Journey. This is your podcast for extraordinary personal life stories. Each story illustrates the nature of personal transformation. A change that forced us down into the dark, gooey stage of life where we found our purpose and climbed up a new person.   ENABLE OUR MISSION Your podcast is a sacred space and judgment free zone. It's free of advertising and outside influence -- 100% listener supported. A podcast where you can feel safe to listen and know that you're not alone. Transformation is scary, but not a single butterfly has ever attempted to climb back into the cocoon. To keep us advertising free and support our mission to heal, inspire and shape lives with extraordinary personal life stories, chip-in $5 a month at BellyStory.com/support. Thank you for listening. Warmly, David All Creator, Storyteller, Producer   CO-CREATE OUR PODCAST To submit your story, sign-up for new episode emails, contact us or support our mission with a donation, visit: BellyStory.com

At first glance, you might wonder why Christian Long, a man with multiple fathers, would be featured in a series on fatherlessness. Good question. It’s true that Christian has a biological father, but he was out of the picture before Christian was three years old and only emerged again when Christian was 25. Christian also had three stepfathers (and three different last names.) Thanks to his wife, he has a father-in-law… So there is no shortage of fathers in his life. What’s missing, though, was a dad – a safe, constant male figure in his life. The story of Christian’s father-void is still not over. At age 50, he’s still processing how his experience of fatherlessness has affected his temperament, his fears, and his relationships – especially his relationship with his own children. As he reflects, a deep, raw honesty emerges. It’s real. It’s is a place of acceptance. And it’s hopeful. OUR STORY Hey there, welcome to Season 3 of Belly of the Beast Life Stories. I’m David All. It’s another season of life here at the podcast. This third season is a very rare collection of stories by men who share the golden thread of growing up with an absent biological father and broke the pattern to be a good man. I’ll be sharing my own Belly story later this season. And let me tell you that a year ago, when we launched this show, I didn’t realize this was my Belly story. Wisdom for our Soul -- Courage for your Journey. Extraordinary life stories illustrate the nature of personal transformation. A change that forced us down into the dark, gooey stage of life where we found our purpose and climbed up a new person. Our podcast has a purpose — a mission to heal, inspire and shape lives with extraordinary life stories. Stand with us — Visit BellyStory.com to share your story, listen and subscribe, sign-up for episode updates and chip-in, and enable our mission.   EPISODE SUMMARY Part I - Christian reflects on having multiple fathers -- stepfathers and a biological father –- yet he had a dad-void. - Christian’s childhood memories of his biological father are so few, whatever in-person memories exist happened at or before the age of two. - Christian’s first stepfather insisted on adopting him. Years later, Christian realized the adoption was not based on love for him as a child; it was nothing more than a negotiation, a poker move of sorts. - Once a year, Christian visited his paternal grandparents, and once while he was there, he spoke with his father on the phone, though at the time, he didn’t know who he was. - Anger, often suppressed or masquerading as sarcasm, has been a constant companion of Christian’s. - The threat of violence from his stepfather left Christian on edge, scared, and looking for outlets away from home. - Christian describes a difficult time in his marriage when he moved out for a couple of months and how the responsibility he felt as a father helped pull him back home. Part II - Christian shares why he believes his children are what held his marriage together through a rocky time. - Christian reflects on the lines of a poem he wrote for his daughter, Berkeley. - Christian articulates why feeling love is so difficult. - Christian describes the work of healing from being fatherless. - Christian describes his online community of men who choose to be honest and vulnerable with one another. Part III - In some ways, Christina feels like he’s just beginning -- just beginning to discover himself, to feel. It’s never too late to start. QUOTABLES “The first thing that Christian said to me about his story was that it might not be a good fit for this season, because he still feels the deep wound of fatherlessness.” “The idea of thinking of who was my dad in an intimate, emotional, close way is a moving target for me.” “I was in a constant state of discomfort and also trying to protect my mother but doing it through sarcasm or one-liners.” “While I didn't take that violence out on people I cared about, that violence becomes passive but just as detrimental in other ways.” “My kids were my salvation. When I wasn't sure about me and I wasn't sure about my career, my skills, I wasn't sure about my marriage, whether I was lovable or could love in return, my kids, even at a young age, were my salvation.” “if there hadn't been kids, I don't think there would have been a way back. I don't think, for my wife, I would have been enough to bring back, and I don't think I would have felt there was a place to go back to.” “What I felt deep, deep, deep is that those kids were the way back, that my wife and I, our relationship was possible because those kids would bring us back together as a family.” “It was like I didn't know how to exist until they arrived.” “I have spent a lot of my life assuming and feeling that the people that I was meant to love or I was meant to feel their love were going to disappear.” “I look at the kids and I'm still in awe that my daughter really deeply loves me. And I'm still super intimidated and feel a pain, like a breaking, when my son doesn't need his dad.” “That just to be in a space where good human beings will talk deeply about what guides them and what they're challenged by... It's also just a helluva lot less lonely. You're not stuck in your lane. So I keep showing up. I keep welcoming them back.” “This is the moment. The past story doesn't have to be the next story.” “Identity, I think it's out in front of me. It's time to go lay claim. It's time to feel good. It's time to say this is the life that was meant to happen.”   LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR GUEST - Founder / Host of the "Oh, Sh*t" Sessions: a virtual gathering of 'good men' from around the world who come together each month to explore the "Oh, Sh*t" moments in their life -- now and in the past -- as well as to define the ways they are seeking to make a purposeful impact in their future. Interested to learn more / participate? Reach out directly via: longchristian@gmail.com - TEDx Indianapolis talk -- "Wonder, By Design": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R68Yhd--RY - We Are Unusual talk -- "Creating the Conditions for Wonder": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsA6LZpoJ3w - The WONDER Project (work) website: https://www.wonderproject.org/ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianadamslong/ - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianlong/ BE A PART OF OUR STORY - Enable Our Mission: BellyStory.com - Submit a Story: BellyStory.com - Listen for Free: BellyStory.com - Post a Review: BellyStory.com - @inourbelly on Instagram - @davidall on Instagram Email us: Belly@mountethos.com   This podcast is produced by MOUNT ETHOS: An All Purpose Storytelling Studio for the World's Finest Come on up and take a look: MountEthos.com

As with so many children in the world today, Leonardo Lightbourne (L.T. Bourne) grew up with an absent father. Watching from the window as his father drove away left L.T. feeling confused and heartbroken. As he grew, he became a people-pleaser, trying to win the favor of others so that they wouldn’t abandon him. This led to a lack of boundaries and some bad decisions.  Thankfully, L.T.’s best friend’s father served as a mentor and a positive influence in his life. Without his encouragement and guidance, L.T. is doubtful that he would be where he is today.  Upon completing university, he struggled to find employment...for months. He felt like a failure. During this low point of his life, L.T. began journaling, realized that he was suffering from parental abandonment issues, and he determined to work through them. From there, his book, It’s Not a Man’s World: How I conquered the Sins of My Father, was born. L.T.’s journey is full of lessons about boundaries, surrender, forgiveness, and empowerment. His story is a message of hope, of embracing your life right where you are, and of taking responsibility for your own narrative, no matter how rocky your start may have been.  → OUR STORY Hey there, welcome to Season 3 of Belly of the Beast Life Stories. I’m David All.  It’s another season of life here at the podcast. This third season is a very rare collection of stories by men who share the golden thread of growing up with an absent biological father and broke the pattern to be a good man. I’ll be sharing my own Belly story later this season. And let me tell you that a year ago, when we launched this show, I didn’t realize this was my Belly story.   Wisdom for our Soul -- Courage for your Journey. Extraordinary life stories illustrate the nature of personal transformation. A change that forced us down into the dark, gooey stage of life where we found our purpose and climbed up a new person.  Our podcast has a purpose — a mission to heal, inspire and shape lives with extraordinary life stories. Stand with us — Visit BellyStory.com to share your story, listen and subscribe, sign-up for episode updates and chip-in, and enable our mission.   → EPISODE SUMMARY Part I - L.T. remembers the day his father left. He was just a child. There was an argument with his grandmother; his mother was crying; and then his father drove away as L.T. watched from the window. - He knew his father was only 10 minutes away, yet he never came to visit.  - L.T. felt like he must have done something wrong. This led to him developing a people-pleasing personality. - Watching family sitcoms on TV showed L.T. that he was missing something in his life, that something was lacking in his family structure. - Father’s Day was especially difficult. Having to go to church and witness the celebration of happy father-child relationships was like pouring salt in a wound. - His own birthday was difficult to celebrate too. He felt like his birth must have been a mistake. Why should he celebrate his parents’ mistake? - Thankfully, L.T.’s best friend had an intact family, and his friend’s father became a mentor and father-figure to L.T.. He nurtured and encouraged L.T.. He even let him sit in on some lectures he gave his own son. - After university, it would be months before L.T. would land a job. He felt like a failure.    Part II - During that time of unemployment, L.T. started journaling. Through his writings, he recognized he had parental rejection issues he needed to work through. The book idea was born. - Writing his story helped L.T. drop the people-pleasing. Telling his story “gave me back my power as a man.” - Wisdom comes through pain. And telling our stories liberates us from the pain.  - When L.T. was able to surrender to the present moment, he was able to let go of the past. - L.T. realized that holding onto resentment was an act of insanity. - Forgiving his father allowed him to live a free, happier life.  - We don’t get a manual on how to do life, and we’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to hurt people as we’re trying to figure things out. We need to forgive one another so that we can all keep moving forward in our development.   Part III -When others hurt you, it’s not because of something you’ve done but because of something they’re going through. - No matter what your background, whether you had an involved father or not, you can control the narrative of your life. - L.T. now embraces his journey and recognizes that his rough start just makes victory that much sweeter.   → QUOTABLES “I had the fear of if I love somebody, then they're going to up and leave the minute I make a mistake or the minute I do something.” “Mentorship is a phenomenal thing. It has reaped so many benefits in my life...If that figure wasn't there, I don't think I would be in this position I am today...I definitely would have fallen victim to the environment that I was in.”   “Because I didn't feel worthy of love, I always felt like I needed to win people's love in my life. So I would always be the person you call, and I'm always there. I'm always available. I always want to go above and beyond for you because I didn't feel worthy… People would interpret this as being someone who is dedicated, who is committed, who is hardworking, but deep down, that wasn't who I was. I was suppressing my insecurities of feeling not worthy.”   “The darkest period brought about my greatest blessing in that I was able to journal, and from my journal, I was able to develop the idea of writing a book about growing up without a father. So that period brought about one of my greatest blessings and gave me a story that is relatable to a lot of people globally. So even though it's one of my darkest periods, it brought about my greatest blessing.”   “Writing a book gave me a voice of speaking and not worrying about what other people thought of me. I was able to be vulnerable. I was able to express myself in a way that I've never expressed myself before. And that destroyed the whole people-pleasing mindset and attitude… I'm not doing things to be accepted anymore. I'm telling my story because I want to be liberated. I want to live a life of not holding on to pain and regret. That moment of telling my story gave me back my power as a man.”   “There is no greater power than being completely at one with who you are. There is no greater power than that. And I have that now.”   “It just seemed like an act of insanity to be angry at my father's decision. That has already been made. But what am I going to do now about it?”   “Forgiving my father and learning how to develop a strong perception of why he left allowed me to live a free, happier life. It allowed me to love him for him and not his actions because I was able to see his actions as a product of the way he was raised and his environment as opposed to the person that he was.”   “People never hurt you because of what you do. They hurt you because of what they are going through.”   “An individual who has fully accepted himself, who has fully loved himself will never hurt you. They will always love you because they have come to peace with who they are.”    “When they show you hurt, show them love. Show them what they're missing in their lives so that one day that would gain some insight or they will have a revelation, or they will gain some introspection.”   “Respond to hurt and hate with love, and you will always win in the end.”   “Are you going to rise up and be victorious? Or are you going to fall down and play the victim? It's your choice — victor or victim. It's entirely in your hand.”   “I know now that to whom much is given, much is required, and that the strongest soldiers usually get the hardest battles and the hardest fight. And so I embrace that knowing that God has given me a strength that is far beyond the average human being, to carry emotional trauma and overcome emotional trauma and now be a beacon of wisdom to others.”   → LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR GUEST - It’s Not a Man’s World: How I Conquered the Sins of My Father by L.T. Bourne (get it on Amazon) - Website and blog: https://www.ltbourne.com/ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/iamltbourne - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iamltbourne - Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/iamltbourne - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamltbourne   → BE A PART OF OUR STORY - Enable Our Mission: BellyStory.com - Submit a Story: BellyStory.com - Listen for Free: BellyStory.com - Post a Review: BellyStory.com - @inourbelly on Instagram - @davidall on Instagram Email us: Belly@mountethos.com Produced by MOUNT ETHOS: One of the World’s First ALL PURPOSE Storytelling Studios

In this fourth episode of Beyond, David All tells us Joe Biden’s personal story of choosing the role and responsibility of fatherhood over all else, including his own ambitions in his career of public service.   Various examples from Joe's personal life story show a pattern of responsible fathering passed down from one generation to the next.   This is a portrait of fatherfullness, a glimpse into the rare pattern that we need more of in the world today to reverse the trend of fatherlessness.   ABOUT THIS PODCAST Wisdom for our Soul -- Courage for your Journey. In Belly, we share our extraordinary life stories of personal transformation to illustrate the nature of personal transformation. Beyond helps us go beyond personal stories to comprehend the overall pattern of transformation.   Stay tuned for Season 3 of Belly where we’re sharing real stories of men growing up with an absent biological father and the impact this has on their life.   Fatherlessness, the antithesis of fatherfullness, is the golden thread marking a childhood of grief, anger, and missteps, it’s a difficult pattern to break out of. But for David and these other men, we see a transformation from the adult boy to the man. A climb up from being born in the hole is the overall pattern of each of these stories. These are extraordinary stories you need to hear.   Visit BellyStory.com to listen, sign-up for new episode notifications and enable our mission.

Welcome to our third season of Belly of the Beast Life Stories.   Growing up with an absent biological father has a particular impact on men.   In Fatherlessness, I’ll tell you stories of men that share this experience.    A golden thread marking a childhood of grief, anger, and missteps; a difficult pattern to break out of. But for these men, a transformation from the adult boy to the man.   Their climb up from being born in the hole — that’s the overall pattern of each of these stories.   If you have a story to share, text me at (360) 968-6867 or email, david@inourbelly.com.   LISTENER COMMUNITY RESOURCES Text your name and email address to (360) 968-6867 for episode updates and exclusive content  Write a fair review about this show: https://bit.ly/bellyapple Our website: https://inourbelly.com David’s personal email: david@inourbelly.com Social Media (we’re open to help in these areas if you’d like to volunteer): Instagram.com/inourbelly  Twitter.com/inourbelly Linkedin.com/company/belly-of-the-beast-life-stories Facebook.com/inourbelly   GROWTH STORYTELLING ALLSTAY GROUP: David works with businesses and organizations to tell their stories in moments that matter to grow their business https://allstaygroup.com

Like rivers and streams filled with fragments of gold, there are nuggets of wisdom in the stories we hear.    Beyond is wisdom distilled to pure gold; simply listen and glimpse in to your own life journey.   Our advisor Artie Wu dives into his personal transformation to become a a master healer to more than 120,000 folks around the world. In one of the clearest examples I've heard, Artie describes what 'healing' is, why it helps folks live a fuller life, and his vision for a healed world.   Want to hear all our episodes first? Using your phone, listeners in the U.S. can text us at (360) 968-6867 with your name and email address.    EPISODE SUMMARY – Artie shares his “own phases as a caterpillar” and his transformation journey to find his bliss as a healer – Artie answers an important question: what is healing? – Artie talks about the mask that society gives girls of being “good girls” and boys of being “strong and competent” (and getting a pass on being “good”) – We stuff parts of who we are down into the Belly – and healing is the act of going down to recover that lost part of you   – Artie connects how most will refuse the “call” to recover this part of who they are and then life magically “puts them through the tumble cycle” to reconcile with that part of them in the belly – Pain from a traumatic experience, like getting hit hard on the football field and crying has a secondary and deeper wound when the boy is in the car getting screamed at by his dad for crying and that “boys don’t cry” – Boys have learned to cut off their ability to express emotion – Artie shares his 7-day healing program as a way to learn the tools to go back and recover these missing parts of you on your own  – What is “following your bliss” and why it’s so crucial for you right now – Artie ends our story with this beautiful quote, “But when you know the meaning of pain you’re going through, almost anything is bearable,” reminding you that you too are a butterfly and your bliss is calling you — but it still requires going into the cocoon phase of life   QUOTABLES “You know, I’ve went through my own phases of being a caterpillar. Jumping through the hoops of going to the right schools and doing sort of industry work and professional stuff that would be acceptable to the expectations that I had coding in my own mind and heart.”   “So the quick view of how I think about healing is that within every single one of us as we go through life. There will be parts of us that are valid, genuine card carrying parts of who we actually are as people just as we’re born. That we will feel are unacceptable to the world around us. And that’s an issue. An extreme if I’m in a society where being, say, divorced or homosexual or whatever will cost me my life because I could be executed under the law of that country, then if this is part of me that is like my sexual orientation or my religious affiliation could cause me to die or be killed, then that’s a part of me if I want to survive that, I have to stuff down.”   “And where you’ve stuffed that part of you is down in the belly, down in the deepest level of Guantanamo prison. And it can be argued that – healing is basically the act of going down into the lowest levels of the prison to recover that lost part of yourself.”   “And so there’s a sort of mysterious connection between healing as this whole natural process, this spontaneous process, if you will, of going into the belly of the beast that we all experience. I don’t believe there’s any master sort of torturer triggering all these things — it happens from our biology; Like a bird builds a nest and it’s beautiful.”   “And the whole healing process that I teach that I take people through is this journey of like, OK, so let’s figure out what it was? Where is it now? And how do we recover it back? Actually, teach this 7-day healing program where in 7 days. Oh, we don’t do the full recovery, But we teach you all the tools in that seven day workshop for you to do the recovery on your own.”   “And by day three (of the 7-day healing program), they find the missing part of them. They’re having this conversation with it and they’ve already started the recovery process.”   “That is where that road leads you is to finding and following your bliss. The thing you love to do natively even before you were born for no good reason. But when you follow it, you know it makes you happy. It unlocks all this power in you. It also, in hindsight, ends up being like you realized the meaning of purpose in your life. The reason why you’re on the planet in the first place. And as a happy byproduct, it rains down blessing on the life of the world around you.”   “A caterpillar, armies of caterpillars are just like hanging out on the tree leaves and they see butterflies fly by and they’re like, what the hell is that? And someone’s like and some butterfly stops , Picasso stops. Where are you? Oh, that’s fine for Picasso, but not for me. But that’s fine for Jonah, but not for me. It’s fine for Chip Conley, but not for me. Chip looks at you like, don’t you get it? You are me.”   “But when you know the meaning of pain you’re going through, almost anything is bearable.”     GUEST RESOURCES Artie Wu’s healing center: http://bit.ly/presidelife Facebook community: http://bit.ly/PresideFB On Instagram: http://bit.ly/artieIG   LISTENER COMMUNITY RESOURCES Text your name and email address to (360) 968-6867 for episode updates and exclusive content  Write a fair review about this show: https://bit.ly/bellyapple Our website: https://inourbelly.com David’s personal email: david@inourbelly.com Social Media (we’re open to help in these areas if you’d like to volunteer): Instagram.com/inourbelly  Twitter.com/inourbelly Linkedin.com/company/belly-of-the-beast-life-stories Facebook.com/inourbelly   GROWTH STORYTELLING ALLSTAY GROUP: David works with businesses and organizations to tell their stories in moments that matter to grow their business https://allstaygroup.com

Like rivers and streams filled with fragments of gold, there are nuggets of wisdom in the stories we hear.    Beyond the Belly is wisdom distilled from our stories to pure gold; simply listen and glimpse in to your own life journey.   This episode with our advisor and master healer, Artie Wu, reveals the overall pattern of transformation — the secret recipe of each personal Belly story. Once you hear the pattern - you’ll see it coming up in our podcast and with those around you.   Want to get exclusive episode updates and content?   Using your phone, listeners in the U.S. can text us at (360) 968-6867 with your name and email address to get new episode updates and receive exclusive access to episode content on our website.   Here’s an example of how to text us your information: David All david@inourbelly.com     EPISODE SUMMARY – The first stage of transformation is ‘forced change’ which is the event which triggers the process of transformation – We use Dr. Julian Gold’s diagnosis of cancer (Season 1) where he was diagnosed and days later was in the hospital for treatment – Artie notes that a health event is one category of forced change that “truly cannot be stuffed down anymore” – In the actual forced event itself — and in your own forced change in your life — understand the overall meaning in the event itself – Artie discusses allegory versus symbol; rise above why it’s happening and understand that it is happening and how will you respond to it – From forced change, the caterpillar goes into the cocoon stage, and we use an excerpt from Chip Conley’s story(Season 1) to illustrate the “dark, gooey stage” of life – Jobi Manson’s story(Season 1) is used to illustrate the role of surrender in the process – necessary as the final stage before climbing up into being a butterfly – Holocaust survivor Martha Sternbach’s story(Season 1) of erupting as a butterfly 50 years after the Holocaust ended is our example of emergence – Artie answers David's question “Will everyone become a butterfly?”   QUOTABLES “The question that’s more interesting and relevant to me and ultimately helpful in my experience is what is the overall meaning of this event [forced change that leads to transformation]?”   “The true transformative surrender is always forced. It always feels forced. If you willingly do it and try to maintain control, it’s not quite the real thing.”   “So when that transformation happens… Your narrative about your self changes. And then you, in your essence, also change.”   “I think the answer is the natural pattern is that yes, yes. You know, everyone is a caterpillar does go down to cocoon phase and does come up the butterfly. The process can be aborted, can be forced back backward even or like completely stalemated and halted. Because there are other forces within you that will say this entire shape is invalid. I reject this entire shape. I demand that I be a caterpillar and a damn good looking one driving a nice car for the rest of my life with no change whatsoever. All I want is no change. And those forces in a person can be very powerful as well to the point where they abort any cocooning that happens.“     GUEST RESOURCES Artie Wu’s healing center: http://bit.ly/presidelife Facebook community: http://bit.ly/PresideFB On Instagram: http://bit.ly/artieIG   LISTENER COMMUNITY RESOURCES Text your name and email address to (360) 968-6867 for episode updates and exclusive content  Write a fair review about this show: https://bit.ly/bellyapple Our website: https://inourbelly.com David’s personal email: david@inourbelly.com Social Media (we’re open to help in these areas if you’d like to volunteer): Instagram.com/inourbelly  Twitter.com/inourbelly Linkedin.com/company/belly-of-the-beast-life-stories Facebook.com/inourbelly   GROWTH STORYTELLING StoryGPS by David All to connect to your personal narrative: https://davidall.com ALLSTAY Group: Growth storytelling for business and organizations: https://allstaygroup.com

Like rivers and streams filled with fragments of gold, there are nuggets of wisdom in the stories we tell. Beyond is wisdom distilled to pure gold; simply listen and glimpse in to your own journey.   This inaugural episode unearths the origin story of Belly with our advisor, Artie Wu of Preside Life (http://bit.ly/presidelife).   Want more stories?   Using your phone, listeners in the U.S. can text us at (360) 968-6867 with your name and email address to get new episode updates and receive exclusive access to episode content on our website. Here’s an example of how to text us your information: David All david@inourbelly.com   EPISODE SUMMARY Artie Wu describes the origin of Belly of the Beast Life Stories from his perspective as a longtime friend and advisor to David All The meaning behind the term, “Belly of the Beast” Discussing the overall pattern of transformation using the metaphor of a caterpillar, down into her cocoon, and climbing up a butterfly Biblical story of Jonah and the Whale Modern examples of the Belly story pattern include Star Wars and The Matrix (films) The difference between grief and depression and why accepting the meaning of your pain matters   QUOTABLES “Belly of the Beast really is an allusion to some call it ‘hero’s journey.’ Some call it sort of transformations people go through over the course of their life cycles. And there are many ways to describe that.”   “There’s a natural shape of the transformation process in a person’s life in a phase they go through in nature. And, you know, one metaphor that comes up a lot is that of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.”   “And I don’t know if you’ve ever watched a video of a butterfly coming out of cocoon, it doesn’t look like fun. It comes out. It’s slimy, it’s struggling. Sometimes a wing breaks. And it needs to sit there totally vulnerable for some period of time for its wings to dry out before it can even fly away. It’s very precarious, dangerous, terrifying process.”   “And we always put our attention on the rainbows and unicorns aspect of being this butterfly.”   “It wasn’t a metaphor that the caterpillar died, the caterpillar did die because it is gone.”   “In the Bible story, [Belly of the Beast is] an allusion to Jonah and the whale.”   “And one day, Jonah is standing on the shore. And this whale, this leviathan, comes up from the depths and swallows him. And so he’s in the Belly of the Beast. But then the whale dives down underwater. Right. And the idea here is that when Jonah is down literally in the Belly of the Beast, he undergoes transformation. He’s like, well, I’m gonna die anyway here. I don’t know what happened. Everything I was afraid of losing — I’ve basically already lost.”   “And metaphorically speaking, at some point along your journey, a whale comes up and just literally takes you down. And the idea here from classical times is that You know, you get the call, and if you refuse the call, something will come up, grab you and drag you down anyway.”   “And what’s beautiful about hearing people’s individual stories from Martha Sternbach (Season 1, Ep.1)  to like everyone else is that even though we all have a fingerprint, each fingerprint is unique. And to hear that, you know, the incredible stories that you’ve brought out in this first season, it helps us see the shape of our own fingerprint.”   “In classic Star Wars, the belly of the beast is the trash compactor in the belly of the Death Star. In The Matrix, for instance, the belly of the beast is when Neo actually physically dies and then comes back completely transformed, knowing he has his powers.”   “Like for instance, when we talk about the difference between grief and depression. Grief is when you’ve had a loss and you actively, willingly sit with it and just sit with the pain of a loss and you don’t run away from the pain. You actively go down into the belly of the beast. You go down into grief, you go down into your cocoon phase. Depression is where you say, no, no, run away. Get away. Get away. Numb it with alcohol, numb it with drugs, with sex or whatever. And you keep running from this pain you know is coming. And eventually a hand comes up, grabs you and drags you down anyway. That’s the difference.” GUEST RESOURCES Artie Wu’s healing center: http://bit.ly/presidelife Facebook community: http://bit.ly/PresideFB On Instagram: http://bit.ly/artieIG   LISTENER COMMUNITY RESOURCES Text your name and email address to (360) 968-6867 for episode updates and exclusive content Write a fair review about this show: https://bit.ly/bellyapple Our website: https://inourbelly.com David’s personal email: david@inourbelly.com Social Media (we’re open to help in these areas if you’d like to volunteer): Instagram.com/inourbelly  Twitter.com/inourbelly Linkedin.com/company/belly-of-the-beast-life-stories Facebook.com/inourbelly   GROWTH STORYTELLING ALLSTAY Group: Growth storytelling for business and organizations: https://allstaygroup.com

This informational bonus episode covers a few key adjustments we're making: 1. Originally our theme for Season 3 focused on exploring the transformations in personal stories of folks that have faced the criminal justice system. With COVID, it's not safe to take this issue on the way we envision, so we're shifting. 2. The new theme for Season 3 will be a collection of personal stories by men. We'll explore the grieving and transformation in manhood by men that grew up fatherless. 3. If you have a "Fatherless" story you're willing to share with our community, reach out. (david@inourbelly.com) 4. We are merging 'Beyond the Belly' into this podcast, offering one stronger podcast with two distinct, but related streams of content. We'll re-release Beyond Episodes 1-3 in case you missed them. Thanks for listening. Warmly, David All p.s. And thank you all for rating and writing a fair review of this podcast on Apple iTunes. It helps other folks discover the stories. (bitly.com/bellyapple)

In our season 2 finale episode, Ashley Wayne shares her story of facing down her fear of being blind and becoming a mother. And now, she has two blind children and a newborn.   Full transcript available: https://inourbelly.com/season-2/ashley-wayne   Belly of the Beast Life Stories is a firsthand retelling of real life transformations, an oral history podcast by David All.   Season 2: For Love of My Child are true stories of a parent’s transformation when faced with acute challenges, chronic ills, and early endings of their child or children.   Give us soul juice: Subscribe, rate and write a fair review about this podcast so other heroes can find it, too. And please consider sharing this story with one person that it will inspire or better understand their life experience.   STORYTELLING FROM DAVID ALL + Life Stories Workshops: “What’s your story?” Can be an uncomfortable question. Life Stories Workshops by David All help folks thread the dots of their life story to gain clarity and mastery of their story. Watch a video and learn more at DavidAll.com   + Beyond the Belly: A new podcast connecting the dots and threading the patterns in Belly of the Beast Life Stories   EPISODE SUMMARY   Part I The gift of sight was always seen as a luxury to Ashley up until this moment She’s days from going to get her daughter in Bulgaria, the international adoption nearly realized In these early moment, a blind woman confronts being a blind mama to her blind daughter Ashley was blind at birth, two detached retinas, not even a perception of light The darkness hadn’t slowed her down, but the simple everyday tasks of changing diapers or taking her to a friend’s house to play seemed insurmountable “It was scary; when you’re suddenly put in charge of another human being it’s very sobering" Parenting brought her to her knees, Ashley had to realize it was OK to ask for help   Part II Ashley had spent a lifetime being independent, and thriving, as a blind person But the realities of being a mother changed her perception She shifted her mindset Day by day, Ashley was successful at doing the little things and life started to return to normal Normal enough to begin (and finish) the process of adopting their blind son, who had Cerebral Palsy Faith is everything to Ashley, and she elaborates on this fundamental aspect of her life A Grand Canyon experience through a blind families eyes Blind people don’t have superpowers like exceptional hearing Ashley has to be extremely present to experience special moments with her family 4-weeks ago, Ashley birthed her first biological son, that appears to be fully sighted Ashley still yearns to see, especially the little things like seeing what her infant is looking at and being fascinated by   Part III Ashley shares advice to her younger self just as she’s about to take on motherhood She writes a lot about the distancing she and her family experience being blind (see articles in the guest resources section) and urges folks just to treat them normal   QUOTABLES "It was a very emotional time. I remember as it got closer, feeling this immense weight and wondering, am I really going to be able to take care of her? I had done a lot of things as a blind person that I think many people would imagine would be pretty difficult.  But parenting felt like it was going to be this much more insane and immense task. And I really didn't know if I could do it, but we had obviously committed and were going to adopt her."   "And I didn't need sight, and I could get along just fine without it, and almost to the detrimental extreme of that end, you know, believing that sight wasn't necessary, and I was an amazing blind person who could do anything [Laughter]. I didn't need anyone's help, especially help from those the sighted people.  I think parenting really did bring me to my knees, figuratively and literally sometimes, just the realization that sight is a gift, and it would be not just nice to have, but would be preferred in a lot of cases when it comes to parenting, and that it was OK to admit that."   "You know, every little task, like I kind of dreaded every diaper change, like, am I going to get her clean enough?"   "You realize that things weren't quite as intense or frightening as I had originally thought. It doesn't mean that I still didn't need help or things weren't frustrating at points. But it began to feel less and less alien and yeah, just a bit more normal."   Regarding faith… “It’s everything. It's what I hope to... We hope and strive for, to teach our children that there is a God. And it's, we can know him through Christ."   "I've always had to rely more on my hearing. And just to dispel a myth, because I always have to take any opportunity to mention this, you know, blind people don't have super hearing."   Advice to a younger Ashley… "You will figure it out. Yeah, you'll make some mistakes, but nothing so horrible that neither you or her will be scarred for life. You will figure it out together and all the things will get done."   GUEST RESOURCES + Ashley’s Facebook: A Blind View   Here are a few of Ashley’s articles: + A blind mother’s courageous journey of parenting two blind children (profile piece) + Learning what it means to be a blind mother + I’m a blind mom raising blind kids, here’s what I’d like you to know   SHOW RESOURCES + Submit your story - Now curating Season 3: The Forgiven, stories bringing to life the transformational trial of the criminal justice system  + Belly of the Beast Life Stories website + @inourbelly on Instagram + @inourbelly on Twitter + /inourbelly Facebook Community + Beyond the Belly is David's new podcast connecting the dots and threading the patterns in Belly of the Beast Life Stories   + LIFE STORIES WORKSHOPS “What’s your story?” It’s my favorite question to ask, but is it your favorite question to answer? It will be. Life Stories Workshops by David All help folks thread the dots of their life story to gain clarity and mastery of their story. Watch a video and learn more at DavidAll.com.   DAVID’S WEEKLY  INSIGHTS, INSPIRATION & HEALING RESOURCES + “There has to be an openness which allows the unseen to become visible, the eternal to become immediate, and the transformation to become possible.” Michael Meade, Living Myth Podcast   + Belly Advisor and Master Healer, Artie Wu, is offering Live Sacred Space Sessions as a support resource of safe sacred space and emotional comfort during the pandemic crisis. They are 100% online and free and open to all. In case you missed David’s conversations with Artie, check out Beyond the Belly episodes 1-3.

Mathew Passy’s 4-month old daughter was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis, a rare but treatable disease, bringing immediacy to the role and responsibility of fatherhood.   Full transcript available: https://inourbelly.com/season-2/mathew-passy   Belly of the Beast Life Stories is a firsthand retelling of real life transformations, an oral history podcast by David All.   Season 2: For Love of My Child are true stories of a parent’s transformation when faced with acute challenges, chronic ills, and early endings of their child or children.   Give us some soul juice: Subscribe, rate and write a fair review about this podcast so other heroes can find it, too. And please consider sharing this story with one person that it might help inspire or better understand their life experience.   STORYTELLING FROM DAVID ALL + Life Stories Workshops: “What’s your story?” Can be an uncomfortable question. Life Stories Workshops by David All help folks thread the dots of their life story to gain clarity and mastery of their story. Watch a video and learn more at DavidAll.com. + Beyond the Belly: A new podcast connecting the dots and threading the patterns in Belly of the Beast Life Stories   EPISODE SUMMARY Part I •The story opens with Mathew and his wife taking their 4-month old daughter, Hailey, into the hospital with a fever that was later diagnosed as bacterial meningitis •Meningitis is a rare disease caused by viral or bacterial infection that moves into the cerebral spinal fluid and swells the thin membranes that cover the brain and the spinal cord •This meant that Hailey would be in the hospital for two weeks for treatment •Mathew had just started a new business •Mathew and his wife took turns being at the hospital •On his first night, his daughter has a seizure in his arms for an hour •This event “knocked” Mathew "for a loop" •He describes this moment as bringing the preciousness of life into immediacy; a scary experience where his mind was racing •A self-described “control person,” not having control of the situation was hard •Although not a “religious person,” Mathew wondered if he was being “punished"  •Mathew had a lot of fear about the health of his daughter, but also whether or not his business would survive  •This experience matured Mathew; from being an “older kid with kids” to a father responsible for a family   Part II •We learn more about how the experience changed Mathew •Hailey was released from the hospital but every time she cried or had a slight fever, Mathew and his wife were on the phones with the doctors •Mathew’s clients didn’t abandon him, in fact, they validated his “family first” decision and are still with him to this day •Being an entrepreneur has given Mathew more time to spend with his family and he has barriers, like stopping work at the end of the day to make dinner and spend the evening with the kids •Setting the health scare aside, Mathew wouldn’t take this experience back because he’s a better dad now   Part III •Mathew shares his advice to his younger self •Mathew now has a sense of calm in any situation knowing that he has what it takes to get through it because he’s doing it for them   QUOTABLES "And then to be in the situation in the hospital where something has to be done and you either can't get answers, or have no control over it, is so hard."   "And because I had just started my own business, I didn't really have a ton of money coming in, every dollar counted. And we had just bought the house earlier that year, so it felt like it could all just crumble very, very quickly, and the life that we were projecting to lead, just felt like it could have been snatched from us at any second."   "I think I was hyper-focused on Hailey and her care."   "I think this whole experience matured me. These are really fully matured, responsible adults and I'm sure to a lot of people that sounds like a bunch of nonsense, but it just changed me, and just made me realize that I can't go back to pretending I'm a kid anymore, that my life is now all about them, and providing, and setting an example and ensuring that they are prepared for the world."   "But my wife and I took control of the situation. And we...  you know, we dictated the terms. We had the plan. We were the ones who got through it and figured it out and and made sure that all the decisions were going through us, and it it no longer felt like we still needed our parents in the room to help us."   "Every time she had a fever, every time she cried that felt a little bit off kilter, we were on the phone with doctors."   "I wouldn't take it back. I think I'm probably a better Dad. I think I'm probably a more present Dad. More appreciative."   "But I also have this overwhelming sense of calm that just says, "You got this. Whatever this means, whatever they're throwing at you, you'll figure it out. You'll find the solution because it's what you have to do, and not for you, but for them."   GUEST RESOURCES + The Podcast Consultant + Podcast Me Anything + Causepods Check out this Causepods episode with Mathew and David All discussing Belly of the Beast Life Stories and Beyond the Belly; this was David’s first interview on someone else’s podcast.    SHOW RESOURCES + Submit your story David follows-up personally + Belly of the Beast Life Stories website + @inourbelly on Instagram + @inourbelly on Twitter + /inourbelly Facebook Community + Beyond the Belly is David's new podcast connecting the dots and threading the patterns in Belly of the Beast Life Stories   LIFE STORIES WORKSHOPS “What’s your story?” Can be an uncomfortable question. Life Stories Workshops by David All help folks thread the dots of their life story to gain clarity and mastery of their story. Watch a video and learn more at DavidAll.com.   DAVID’S WEEKLY  INSIGHTS, INSPIRATION & HEALING RESOURCES + “What heals us makes us whole.” Michael Meade, Living Myth Podcast + Belly Advisor and Master Healer, Artie Wu, is offering Live Sacred Space Sessions as a support resource of safe sacred space and emotional comfort during the pandemic crisis. They are 100% online and free and open to all. In case you missed David’s conversations with Artie, check out Beyond the Belly episodes 1-3.

Lorna Rose was three-months pregnant when a routine blood test revealed a genetic disorder in her unborn child which carried a high risk of miscarriage at any point in the pregnancy. The daily grieving led to finding her voice as a poet and writer.   Our conversation centers around a poem Lorna wrote about the experience of miscarriage titled, “Congratulations!”    “Congratulations!” by Lorna Rosa at Literary Mama.   Anne B. On our team who gets first listen to our stories offers this gem, "Lorna Rose is definitely inspiring. When life throws you lemons, make sure you get a lemonade factory out of the deal. Squeeze adversity for every last jewel!"   Full transcript available: https://inourbelly.com/season-2/lorna-rose     Belly of the Beast Life Stories is a firsthand history of real life transformations.    Season 2: For Love of My Child are true stories of a parent’s transformation when faced with acute challenges, chronic ills, and early endings of their child or children.   Subscribe, rate and write a fair review about this podcast so other heroes can find it, too.    And please consider sharing this story with one person that it might help inspire or better understand their life experience.     RELATED FROM DAVID ALL Life Stories Workshops: You live your calling, now tell your story. Learn more at DavidAll.com Beyond the Belly: David’s second podcast connects the dots and threads the patterns in Belly of the Beast Life Stories     EPISODE SUMMARY   Part I As an older mother, Lorna had a blood test three-months into her pregnancy to screen for any potential problems  The test came back positive for a genetic disorder, Turner’s Syndrome Lorna lives in a smaller town in the state of Washington, and the medically complex cases are sent to a larger hospital in Seattle In the week between the initial diagnosis and the first appointment in Seattle, Lorna wrote a powerful poem, "Congratulations!” She describes that week turning to grief almost immediately and even thinking that it could be best to miscarry so that the child wouldn’t have "special needs" Lorna and her husband went to Seattle for the appointment and had a deep ultrasound which did not show any markers of Turner’s Syndrome  Lorna went back three other times for the ultrasound and they never saw markers for Turner’s - this gave Lorna confidence that it would be a mild case of Turner's Anger, sadness, anxiety, you name it, Lorna felt those emotions all mashed together and intentionally sat with those feelings Having her son, who was 2.5 years old at the time, was helpful knowing that he was healthy Lorna would “hide her bump,” not even wanting people to know she was pregnant Lorna shares the critical insight that she had to live in “both worlds,” one where she could dream about a full life with her child, and the other hardened in the reality that it might not work out Miraculously, Lorna’s daughter was born healthy - the Turner’s Syndrome diagnosis was a false positive   Part II After six-months of believing that her daughter could miscarry, she was born healthy with no signs of any genetic abnormalities Lorna is speechless, so much “wow,” and relief, and crying in her family with joy in this moment Lorna wanted to feel ok for having every emotion, including feeling guilty, or even wishing that she would miscarry, and she wrote a lot about the experience and life in general Through her writing, Lorna felt connected to other women who had gone through the same experience Lorna is thankful for the experience in the sense that it helped her find her writing  Lorna sheds a tear thinking back to the “Golden Hour” first hour with her child and their special connection Lorna can’t undo the experience but recognizes that through it, she gained empathy and a connection to women who have gone through similar experiences Pregnancy is complex and doesn’t always end up like it does in the movies and Lorna is hopeful that her writings will help bring the conversation into the light There’s a mold for pregnancy that it’s all a happy, shiny story but things can go wrong and women need to know it’s okay and ordinary   Part III Lorna found her voice (poetry, writing) in the six darkest months of her life Her daughter is almost five years old now, and loves hearing stories, especially the story of her being born Lorna reflects on this weird, dark, strange time in her life and notes that it brought her and her husband closer because they went through it together This piece of advice shows up time and time again in our stories: Don’t Google it Lorna gives advice to her younger self     QUOTABLES  "But the result that was most devastating for me was Turner's carried a high risk of miscarriage at any point in the pregnancy. We just we didn't know anything for a week. And that's when I started that poem."   "I think I was in shock for a few days and then it turned to: how do I do this? Like, how do people get through this? I don't know, it was kind of like walking on eggshells, because I just... we didn't know anything. And then I just sort of moved through the process of grief, I guess, because it was a sort of grief. And having points of, "Well, gosh, maybe it is best if I just miscarry, you know, like maybe it's best if that really happens, because then she might she won't have all these medical special needs."   "I remember hiding my bump. I got a bump pretty early. Which happens with the second, subsequent pregnancies, you kind of start showing sooner. And I remember wearing, like, baggy shirts, long shirts, you know, things to hide the bump because I didn't want people to know I was even pregnant if I wasn't going to be for long. I think in our society, the mainstream is, you know, pregnancy is always a good thing. It's always happy. It's always good news, and in this case and in other cases, it's just, it's hard news, and it's not always happy. You know, it can be complicated."   "I allowed myself to still have those dreams and wishes for my kid. But they weren't untethered. I mean, they were very much checked with: "Well, this might not work out." And there's not a whole lot of gray area in that, like there's really no middle ground."   "I would say [goodbye] ended when she was born."   "And the more I wrote about this and then other experiences, I kind of, my theme within myself I think that comes out in my writing is, well, I can't be the only one. You know, I can't be the only one that's gone through this. In fact, I know that I'm not. I can't be the only one who has sort of lived between two worlds for months, and at one point, like I mentioned, wishes I would miscarry. I know that's happened to other women. And even though I don't know these other women, I just sort of felt this connection with them through my writing, and through this experience."   "I take a view, after everything was said and done, of: I don't take it back. I don't take this experience back, because I wrote a lot through this, and it helped me a lot. It was very affirming for me, that wouldn't have happened otherwise. I was able to explore feelings that I wouldn't have otherwise experienced."   "And just be together, and I remember that hour as the most special hour of my life, hands down. It was emotional. Oh, my God, I'm starting to cry just thinking of it. It was emotional. It was just happy. Just bliss. It was I don't know, just really, really special."   "And then also, I think at the end of the day, the experience, it just made me more human, if that makes sense? I mentioned before about being able to feel a connection with women who have experienced similar things, and sort of looking at a pregnancy maybe a little bit differently than other people do. You know, pregnancy, it's complicated. It doesn't always go as well as it does in the movies. I'd like to bring more of what I write about, in terms of my experience into the mainstream, you know, being able to talk about miscarriages, and stillbirths, and the death of a child because those things happen more... I think they're more common than people realize. And there's not really a script for talking about that stuff and I wish there were. I wish it was more accepted just as part of life, you know, that it was more part of the conversation."   "I reflect quite often about this sort of weird, strange, dark time in my life, and what came out of it for me, you know, experiencing this, for me as a future mom to my daughter, and then what came out of it in terms of of my marriage. Ultimately it brought us closer, I would say."   Advice to her younger self: "Dig deep. Dig into this stuff. Because it's not going away. Because this is, as hard as it is, and it's incredibly hard, this is your opportunity to get to know yourself on another level. This is your opportunity to become more human. This is your opportunity to feel whatever emotion you feel and learn that it's OK to feel it."     GUEST RESOURCES “Congratulations!” By Lorna Rose | Published at Literary Mama Website and blog: www.lornarose.com Twitter: @LornaARose Facebook: /bigthings2 President, Write On The River: www.writeontheriver.org   SHOW RESOURCES Submit your story - David follows-up personally Belly of the Beast Life Stories @inourbelly on Instagram /inourbelly Facebook Community   LIFE STORIES WORKSHOPS Getting clear and confident about the story of your life calling is an investment in a lifelong pursuit of impacting others. Exclusively for coaches, healers and conscious leaders. Watch a video at DavidAll.com.   “When a person is in touch with their own story they are an agent of creation and they are contributing something to the world.” - Michael Meade, Living Myth Podcast

Kip Morse's first daughter, Allison, was diagnosed with Down syndrome at birth and later, autism. Tremendous behavioral issues forced him into being the family's peacekeeper. Now he's finally finding peace as his daughter realizes her purpose.   To me, Kip has been a mentor and the leading example of a father’s impenetrable love for his daughter. The father of three daughters and husband to Leslie for more than 30 years, he was forced into being the servant leader of the family. Many times breaking it up and standing between his daughter and the rest of the family when things got out of control. And now, as his daughter finds her own way and purpose, relief and reconnection.   Kip is the president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Central Ohio which has been a client of mine for the past several years.   Season 2: For Love of My Child are true stories of a parent’s transformation when faced with acute challenges, chronic ills, and early endings of their child or children. What a season of life!   Belly of the Beast Life Stories is a firsthand history of real life transformations. If you were moved by this episode, please subscribe, rate and write a fair review about this podcast so other heroes can find it, too. Share it with one or two friends. And visit inourbelly.com to listen to more stories for free and to share your story with us.   MORE FROM DAVID ALL Underbelly Workshops: You live your calling, now tell your story http://inourbelly.com/underbelly  You already have what people seek in their own life: a calling, direction and purpose. Through hand-curated workshops, I am personally guiding intimate cohorts of coaches, healers and conscious leaders through my storytelling process. Get clear and confident about the story of your life calling and make a deeper impact.   Beyond the Belly: A podcast about the healing patterns of transformation http://inourbelly.com/beyond Our newest podcast, Beyond the Belly, unpacks wisdom in the patterns of transformation. Expert friends of mine join to discuss topics coming across all of the stories in Belly of the Beast Life Stories.   EPISODE SUMMARY We open our story at the breaking point for Kip and the entire family, including his oldest daughter, Alison. It’s Alli’s last night before she starts her journey away from the family. Tears streaming, mom and dad taking turns in the room with Alli, neighbors coming over to say bye, and even Alison is aware that her next move is the right move. At birth, Alli was diagnosed with Down syndrome, a crucial moment that forced the family to move back to Columbus, Ohio away from Florida In time, they realized that Alli’s Down syndrome was not typical, her behavior was extremely challenging Temper tantrums, lying on the floor of the supermarket, throwing things, taking his wife Leslie to the ground, pulling hair...  Later Alli was diagnosed with autism There was no local solution -- institutionalizing Alli was not ever an option The behavior caused a riff between Alli and the family Finally, they found a solution for Alli a few hours away in Cleveland - her behavior would not be an issue to the caregivers (Monarch Center for Autism) Alli went to Monarch and Kip and Leslie drove up every single weekend for two years The separation gave Kip and Leslie a chance to work on their relationship and the relationship with the other two daughters Kip realized that he had been enabling Alli’s behavior, in a way “Boy, it’s hard to get it right when you’re going through it.” Stress caught up with Kip - he nearly had a heart attack Being independent brought the fun and joy of Alli back A few years later, Alli came back to Columbus under the care of Ability Matters Looking back, Kip is glad he didn’t know what was ahead of him in life when his daughter was diagnosed with Down syndrome It’s purpose that lights Alli up the most these days -- that same truth has translated into the business world, as well   QUOTABLES “I recall it vividly because it was constantly having communications with my daughter and my wife, and consoling one another, and tears streaming down our faces. And it was this realization that, you know, twenty-three years of trying to get Allison to be at a point where she was happy, and she was independent, and where she could live a life with with a strong self-esteem and and purpose. And we hadn't gotten there, and it wasn't within our control anymore.  Your sisters all are in an apartment," and you'd see her brighten up because she wants to be just like her sisters. And so there's constantly those ups and downs with the understanding.”   “And so I rushed back, and that's when the doctor came in and said, "You know, we see signs that she has... she was born with Down syndrome." And you don't know anything about that. You just know you're just looking at your new baby girl with total love and devotion. And so, yeah, we were just kind of stunned. You know, you don't know what to what to think.”   “And so the diagnosis went from Down syndrome to all of these leading up to pervasive developmental disorder, which was kind of the interim period of time before they finally said that autism is such a vast spectrum that she's just on the spectrum of autistic, which carries the OCD and the anxiety and the mood disorder.”   “We wanted to get her to the point where she was independent. And she was high functioning, she's capable of incredible things. And so she knew that that's not what she wanted.”   “And then she would tell us, she goes, "I'll be all right when you leave. Just so you know, I'll be all right." She wanted to make sure that we weren't going to cry when we were leaving, because she understood that it was just as hard for us. And so she would always tell us, " I'm going be all right. I'll be all right. I'll see you next weekend."   “It was the first time away. And it was, you know, after a while, you know, you think it'll get to some sort of normal. But really, I don't know what normal is. But, you know, I have been seen as the one that spent more time with Alli, showcased more love for Alli, because I was always the one that was having to try to reduce the amount of stress on everybody else, and break up the fighting. And what that turns into is I'm enabling. And so it was another one of those, "Boy, it's hard to get it right when you're going through it."”   “And so the pain that she was feeling of leaving us, which we were feeling, she was also really excited, like any individual, like any child that's leaving to go to college or live on their own, it's like, "Finally I can live on my own." They just, you know, with with special needs, they just need a little bit more help and guidance and structure”   “I'd probably ask God to take that out of my memory, because I think I don't want to go into the biggest challenge, knowing what I have in front of me. So you know the old saying, "take it one day at a time," I mean, that's the way you've got to take it because you don't know what the next day's gonna be.”   “Well, I think that appreciating everybody's value, and respecting everybody is really critical to me.  If you feel as though somebody doesn't respect you or doesn't love you or doesn't care about what you're saying, then you feel minimized.”   “People in the business community need the same thing. They need to celebrate successes, and they need recognition, and they need to feel proud of the work that they put in meant something to somebody. And that's what, when we see that in her, especially in the last couple of years, it's just, everybody gets happy and everybody starts to feel for how much harder she's had to work to to get that recognition.”   TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/season-2/kip-morse   GUEST RESOURCES Kip Morse on Instagram @kipbbb https://www.instagram.com/kipbbb/ on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/kipm2 BBB of Central Ohio (Kip is president and CEO) https://www.bbb.org/local-bbb/bbb-of-central-ohio Ability Matters Ohio http://www.abilitymattersohio.com/ Monarch Center for Autism https://monarchcenterforautism.org/       RESOURCES Underbelly Workshops: You live your calling, now tell your story http://inourbelly.com/underbelly  You already have what people seek in their own life: a calling, direction and purpose. Through hand-curated workshops, I am personally guiding intimate cohorts of coaches, healers and conscious leaders through my storytelling process. Get clear and confident about the story of your life calling and make a deeper impact. Beyond the Belly: A podcast about the healing patterns of transformation http://inourbelly.com/beyond Our newest podcast, Beyond the Belly, unpacks wisdom in the patterns of transformation. Expert friends of mine join to discuss topics coming across all of the stories in Belly of the Beast Life Stories.   Belly of the Beast Life Stories http://inourbelly.com   @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly   Facebook Community http://facebook.com/inourbelly   @davidall (host) http://instagram.com/davidall - END -

Rachel Poysky’s greatest fears about the health of her son, Joel, were affirmed when she pulled into the driveway and her husband was waiting for her with news. Her husband, Dr. James Poysky, delivered the grave news that their son did in fact have Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). DMD is the most common fatal genetic disorder of childhood and it likely meant that their son wouldn’t live past high school. Rachel tells us about that day -- how they went from being a "normal family" to being a "special needs family."  But, that wasn’t the bottom for Rachel. A few years later, just as the family was regaining a sense of normalcy, their daughter was diagnosed with an even rarer disease, Kawasaki Disease. Rachel and her husband felt a calling with DMD, their family was uniquely positioned to make an impact, but Kawasaki Disease progressed rapidly and if it had not been diagnosed and treated, could have ended the life of their daughter within 24 hours. This was rock bottom. One of our teammates who helps on transcripts for this show said, “This one is another Tear-fountain! I can't imagine being in this woman's shoes!” What I found particularly insightful about this story was Rachel and James’ commitment to remaining aligned and supportive to one another as husband and wife. They gave each other space to grieve separately, but they were always together. Their relationship feels extraordinary to me. The Poysky family certainly answered the call. Dr. Poysky has been instrumental in a medical leadership role serving on national boards and authoring papers. And with Rachel’s brother Brad Todd, they created the non-profit Coach To Cure MD, a partnership between the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), a professional organization for over 10,000 college and high school football coaches and staff, and Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy, the largest national charity devoted exclusively to Duchenne muscular dystrophy.  Season 2: For Love of My Child are true stories of a parent’s transformation when faced with acute challenges, chronic ills, and early endings of their child or children. What a season of life! Belly of the Beast Life Stories is a firsthand history of real life transformations. If you were moved by this episode, please subscribe, rate and write a fair review about this podcast so other heroes can find it, too. Share it with one or two friends. And visit inourbelly.com to listen to more stories for free and to share your story with us. MORE FROM DAVID ALL Underbelly Workshops: Connect the dots, master your story http://inourbelly.com/underbelly  Bringing to life the wisdom in your transformation journey through a clear and compelling story is essential to building a conscious business. Whether you are meeting a potential customer for your coaching or healing practice, recruiting talent for your growing business, or sharing your message with a larger audience, your personal transformation story is your greatest asset. We guide you back to this experience, helping you connect the dots in the transformation pattern, and master your story.  Beyond the Belly: A podcast about the healing patterns of transformation http://inourbelly.com/beyond Our newest podcast, Beyond the Belly, unpacks wisdom in the patterns of transformation. Expert friends of mine join to discuss topics coming across all of the stories in Belly of the Beast Life Stories. EPISODE SUMMARY The story starts with Rachel first learning from her husband, Dr. James Poysky, that her son had been diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) At the time, her husband had been a neurosphychologist and suspected that it could be DMD because he had seen it in children before DMD is the most common fatal genetic disorder of childhood, but it’s still a rare disease since it affects less than 200,000 people Duchenne primarily affects boys but women can be carriers; and it can be spontaneous (genetic mutation) as was the case with Rachel’s family Rachel shares the “language of Duchenne” which is this entirely new vocabulary that comes with the territory of rare diseases It also means talking to your children about the disease so they have the “tools and knowledge to function” A week after the diagnosis, Rachel and her husband aligned on their purpose, that they were meant to join the Duchenne fight Two weeks after the diagnosis they aligned on the priorities that still guide their family to this day Rachel’s daughter Hallie was diagnosed with an even rarer disease, Kawasaki Disease A special needs family starts out in “survival mode” but Rachel consciously made the decision to live life with her family Rachel is an expert in grieving and discusses the idea that people don’t grieve and can’t be expected to grieve in the same way Rachel discusses the origins of CoachtoCureMD.org, the charity they created to help raise funds and awareness for DMD QUOTABLES “And it's almost that moment when I pulled into the driveway, I didn't even have to ask the question why he was there at 3:00 in the afternoon. And I walked up to the door and he met me at the door. And I just said, "Is it that?" And he said "Yes." And I said, "The really bad kind?" And he said, "Yes." And that was a moment when we went from being a normal family to a special needs family, just all of a sudden.”   “They're missing dystrophin which, this is simplistic, and a doctor would probably be horrified that I explained it this way, but basically dystrophin is the glue that hold your muscles together. And when you exercise, you tear your muscles and the dystrophin helps repair them. They don't have any dystrophin so their muscles can't repair, so scar tissue develops. And think about all the muscles in your body. Your tongue is a muscle. They lose strength in their tongue, the muscles around their lungs, around their heart, and eventually, you know, because their heart is a muscle that they die of cardiac failure.”    “And we always say, "The kids know something's going on. They may not have the language for what's happening, but you've got to give them the tools and the knowledge to function. And it's not your disease. It's their disease." So they need information for their disease.”   “And so that first week was terrible. But the week after, we looked at each other and I said, "I think we're supposed to be in this, I think we have purpose to fight this disease." And my husband agreed. You know, we sat down probably two weeks after Joel was diagnosed. We went out to dinner and we said, "What are our new priorities? What do we want to do?" And so we made just a list of, these were our priorities for our family, and it's priorities that actually guide our family even to this day.”   “And she was having these very strange symptoms, just high fever, throwing up. Her lymph nodes were so enlarged, you couldn't even see her neck. She... wherever she had a scratch, it had like blown up, just swelled. Just a little tiny scratch, had like blown up. And so we got to the hospital and spent a long time there. And they did a lot of tests. And it was really weird.”   “And something in that moment helped me just gain a newfound strength, and a feeling that I can fight for my children, I can fight for other children, and I can be this advocate for them. And that was so empowering for me, to realize, you know, I think we all need to get to that place where we can be empowered to be the strength for the people that we love.”    “And that is true for a special needs family. Your fight-or-flight is always up. And I don't know, we've just tried to not let that dictate our entire lives, to try to stop and have fun, and, you know, have humor about the situation.”   “I think it's just permission-giving for each person, and for your special needs child that's grieving. You know, they're grieving losses along with you.”   “So I'm just trying to find where I'm being offered grace and hope and unexpected things that for me are miracles.” TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/season-2/rachel-poysky   GUEST RESOURCES "Help Tackle" Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy: http://CoachtoCureMD.org Check out #coach2curemd hashtag on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/coachtocuremd/ Dr. James Poysky https://www.katychildpsychology.com/OurProviders.en.html RESOURCES Underbelly Workshops: Connect the dots, master your story http://inourbelly.com/underbelly  Bringing to life the wisdom in your transformation journey through a clear and compelling story is essential to building a conscious business. Whether you are meeting a potential customer for your coaching or healing practice, recruiting talent for your growing business, or sharing your message with a larger audience, your personal transformation story is your greatest asset. We guide you back to this experience, helping you connect the dots in the transformation pattern, and master your story.  Beyond the Belly: A podcast about the healing patterns of transformation http://inourbelly.com/beyond Our newest podcast, Beyond the Belly, unpacks wisdom in the patterns of transformation. Expert friends of mine join to discuss topics coming across all of the stories in Belly of the Beast Life Stories. Belly of the Beast Life Stories http://inourbelly.com   @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly   Facebook Community http://facebook.com/inourbelly   @davidall (host) http://instagram.com/davidall - END -

Now a mama to 10 kiddos, Laura Hernandez faced and met the overwhelming challenges when her family added three adopted children that would all eventually be diagnosed with intellectual delay (mental retardation) and fetal alcohol syndrome. After consulting friends and books and still not having the answers she needed, Laura created her own systems to manage the chaos and bring peace to her household. Laura realized a need for other mother’s facing similar challenges and started MamaSystems.net, a suite of coaching services, systems and tools to help families bring peace to their home. Season 2: For Love of My Child are true stories of a parent’s transformation when faced with acute challenges, chronic ills, and early endings of their child or children.  Belly of the Beast Life Stories is a firsthand history of real life transformations. If you were moved by this episode, please subscribe, rate and write a fair review about this podcast so other heroes can find it, too. Share it with one or two friends. And visit inourbelly.com to listen to more stories for free and to share your story with us. MORE FROM DAVID ALL Underbelly Workshops: Be the author of your life, master your story.  I’m called to help you reshape the narrative of your life. Learn more about Underbelly Workshops where I’ll personally guide you to your most healing and powerful story: http://inourbelly.com/underbelly Beyond the Belly: A podcast about the healing patterns of transformation. Be the first to grab our newest podcast, Beyond the Belly, which unpacks wisdom in the patterns of transformation. Listen for free at http://inourbelly.com/beyond   EPISODE SUMMARY Our story begins with Laura first learning that all three of the children that her family had adopted would ultimately be diagnosed with intellectual delay (formerly known as mental retardation) and fetal alcohol syndrome Laura and her husband adopted Andrew (4), Matthew (2 ½) and Hannah (18 mos.) after a long trial of first fostering Andrew, developing a relationship with the biological mother and her partner, and ultimately adopting all three siblings into their large family (5 biological children at the time) The overwhelm of adding three new “buddies” into the family was stressful, increasing the chaos and noise but also deeply relieving knowing that the kids were all safe and being taking care of “Ok Laura, you can do this,” was how most daily pep talks started For a long time there was distance, a feeling like the three adopted kiddos were strangers Special care and attention had to be given to the biological kids so their needs were met Tony, Laura’s husband, was able to work from home Faith has played a huge role in Laura’s decision to adopt (many signs from God) and carries her through difficult times The kiddos do feel attached now Part II opens back up with the diagnosis as both a moment of realizing the children would be dependent on them for the rest of their lives but also relief in finding out what was wrong This pattern of importance of the ‘diagnosis’ continues to emerge in our stories of a parent with children with special needs After reading book after book and still not having answers, Laura created systems to manage the chaos and bring peace to her household She founded Mama Systems, a coaching practice for mama’s and families in similarly overwhelming situations Laura has never regretted it -- it’s an obedience and commitment thing for her   QUOTABLES “I would just lay in bed at night wondering if they were safe, if they're being taken care of, if they had eaten that day. And now I knew that they were safe, and that they had been fed and had full bellies, and they were loved on, and nothing was going to happen in that room, like it was in my power. Nothing was gonna happen to them. They were gonna be safe in there.”   “And I think even today, when we have really hard days, that's what gets me through, because they can be really, really hard kids. And it can feel hard to love them, and it can feel hard to just keep going and being their Mama. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is what we were called to do.”   “And no book I read could fit all of our things in a nutshell, which was really frustrating at the time, because I'd read a book, and I'd be like I really like this, but you're acting like we're at home all day and don't have people coming in and out every five minutes. So it was just very tricky to find something that fit for our family. So I finally just kind of stopped reading everything, stopped listening to everything. And I said, ‘You know what? I just need to prioritize what's important to us and schedule our lives so that it works for us.’”   “‘OK, we can do this, we can thrive as a family. We've got this.’ And feeling confident in that and feeling confident as a Mama to all these people. And then shifting into not only that, but I think that I could help other people. I feel like that's that's the moment where you're like, ‘OK, I've arrived.’   “I started Mama Systems about a year and a half ago and I've been able to help over a hundred families with systems in their home. And it's been so life-giving to me to be able to help them, and to hear the life that comes back from them, and the peace that they feel in their homes because of these systems.”   “And so I continually go back to: it's an obedience thing, it's a commitment thing. It's not about how I'm feeling or whether I'm enjoying parenting them or not. That has nothing to do with it. It's all about my obedience to the Lord and my commitment I made to Him and to these children. So I just I stand in that whenever we have really hard days.”   “I wouldn't say that we're different, like, as in a ‘we're better than other families,’ by any stretch of the imagination; I would say that we're different in that we have been changed by this experience. I'm just realizing how much I can't do it on my own. It's been very humbling, and also very... it's created this vulnerable experience where I'm able to now freely say that, and not have fear of you judging me for not being a good Mom, or other people looking at us like we're crazy.”   “But now, having these really hard kids, and feeling that overwhelm, and feeling the, ‘I just want to cry, if we can get to the end of the day, that would be amazing,’ like having that state of, ‘we've just got to survive. We've just got to get to the end of the day,’ has really given me a lot of grace and compassion for Mamas, and to be able to understand that overwhelm and meet them in that space, and give them helpful tools to get out of that, has just been a beautiful gift.”   TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/season-2/laura-hernandez/   GUEST RESOURCES Mama Systems https://www.mamasystems.net/ Facebook (Mama Systems) https://www.facebook.com/mamasystems.net/ YouTube Channel (Mama Systems) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMF3OJ8iBA8vjvEabrJcccg/ Instagram (@mamasystems) https://www.instagram.com/mamasystems/   RESOURCES Underbelly Workshops: Become the author of your life, master your story.  I’m called to help you reshape the narrative of your life. Learn more about my Underbelly Workshops where I’ll personally guide you to your most healing and powerful story: http://inourbelly.com/underbelly   Beyond the Belly: A podcast about the healing patterns of transformation. Be the first to grab our newest podcast, Beyond the Belly, which unpacks wisdom in the patterns of transformation. Listen for free at http://inourbelly.com/beyond   Belly of the Beast Life Stories http://inourbelly.com   @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly   Facebook Community http://facebook.com/inourbelly   @davidall (host) http://instagram.com/davidall

Belly of the Beast Life Stories is a firsthand history of real life transformations. Please subscribe, rate and write a fair review about this podcast so other heroes can find it, too. Season 2: For Love of My Child are true stories of a parent’s transformation when faced with acute challenges, chronic ills, and early endings of their child or children.  Sharon Eisenhauer had to heal the wound of her relationship with her own mother before she could break out of the mold of motherhood to find joy in her relationship with her adopted daughter Sharon and her wife adopted their daughter and divorced a few years later. The relationship between Sharon and her daughter was joyous but also challenging and confrontational and she couldn't understand why. Sharon went to figure it out beginning a process of self-discovery and healing of her own childhood wounds with her own mother. Through distance and discipline, self-love and self-preservation, Sharon can now cherish her daughter because she cherishes herself first. And look, if you are moved by this episode, please subscribe, rate and write a fair review about this podcast so other heroes can find it, too. Share it with two friends. And visit inourbelly.com to listen to more stories for free and to share your story with us. Be the first to grab our newest podcast, Beyond the Belly, which unpacks wisdom in the patterns of transformation. Listen for free at http://inourbelly.com/beyond   EPISODE SUMMARY Our story begins in 2004 when Sharon and her former wife adopt a baby girl from Japan The first nine months were both joyful and hellish and when Sharon’s former wife would travel for work, she felt both abandoned and being left to care for another child Sharon never wanted to be a mother - at least not with the tools she was carrying But at the age of 42, both Sharon and her wife felt like they could raise a child together and that it was the next right thing to do A few years later, Sharon and her former wife get a divorce which yields a 50/50 child responsibility role  Sharon talks about things she “should do” as a mother like writing little notes in her daughter’s lunchbox and attending PTA meetings -- all things that felt unnatural A book by Dr. Christiane Northrup called Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom (https://amzn.to/2VoX2HZ) ultimately gave Sharon relief to drop so much of the guilt and shame she was carrying because she was not the mother society pressures her to be It takes a village to raise a child Sharon was in a new relationship with a man she called her “good Dad” Her daughter entering her teen years proved particularly challenging as Sharon further realized she wasn’t “the parent” or “the loving guide” Sharon decides that she needs to move and put distance between her and her daughter to reconnect with herself This space reinforced Sharon’s resolve to stand on her own, in her truth, to heal her past and what happened between her own mother and her In time, the healing process transforms Sharon and her relationship with her daughter improves Sharon can cherish her daughter because she cherishes herself   QUOTABLES “Well, the first formative nine months were pure hell. Our daughter, she was a joy, and she didn't sleep through the night.”   “I didn't recognize it at the time, but in the dynamic between my partner and myself, I was essentially the child. And so when she would leave, on an unconscious level, it felt as though, number one, I was being abandoned. And number two, I was being abandoned in the care of yet another child. So it was a child being left to take care of a child, even though I was 40-some years old.”   “Challenging. Confrontational. Heart-breaking. Joyful. Delightful.”   “It was almost as though the the poison had infected her. The poison of this feeling of not being lovable, of not being worthy of receiving love.”   “Well, when I was trying to be that mother, that society tells us we should be, that writes the lovely little notes in the lunchbox, and that makes late night snacks for her slumber parties, and hosts play dates, and does PTA and hosts the Girl Scout meetings, and all of those things, I thought I should be those things. I didn't know that there was any other concept of how to be a mother.And when I heard that, it gave me such a feeling of permission and it allowed me to drop away so much of the guilt and the shame I had been carrying about not being able to be the kind of mother that society told me I was supposed to be. . And coming back to the idea of it taking a village, it truly does, because to put all of that responsibility on one or two people is way beyond what we should have to carry.”   “She was coming into her teen years and, you know, doing the normal teen belligerent thing. And I hated the way I interacted with her, because I was like another teenager in there fighting with her. I wasn't the parent. I wasn't the loving guide. I wasn't the steady presence for her that I wanted to be, as a mother.”   “My daughter felt very abandoned by my moving away.It was about needing to be able to stand on my own, in my own truth, so that I could heal my past, my life, and ostensibly, heal what happened between my mother and me, and her mother and her, and generations before.”   “Now that I'm not pressuring myself to be a mom that I'm not, I've been able to grow in the truth of what I came here to this planet to do, which I am coming to know, is as this spiritual conduit, and teacher and guide, and I wasn't able to access that piece before.”   “And until I recognized my own lovability, I wasn't going to be able to do that with her, and now, I can cherish her because I cherish myself.”   “I would say, "Sweetheart, this is not about you. Your mother is clearly trying so hard and yet she doesn't have the tools herself. She never learned how to parent herself, and all of the rage and all of the unhappiness that you're experiencing today is part of an old, old, unhealed story. And one day my prayer is that you'll be able to come to a place of forgiveness of yourself, and your mother, and all of the other pieces and parts that tell us that we're not worthy, that we're not lovable, that we have to do something or be something to prove our worth, because none of that is true, that you are worthy and lovable just exactly as you are."   “Because that is where it all starts, is learning to nurture and nourish that kid that never got it as a child, because we can't give from an empty well.”   TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE   GUEST RESOURCES Living with Meraki - Sharon’s podcast https://www.livingwithmeraki.com/ Hire Sharon - Voiceover work https://www.sharoneisenhauervoiceover.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/livingwithmeraki Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharon-eisenhauer-9a52b268/ BOOK Sharon mentions: “Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom.” By Dr. Christiane Northrup https://amzn.to/2VoX2HZ   RESOURCES Hey heroes, a listener reached out to me and asked if I could provide some guidance and resources to help her understand and embrace her own Belly of the Beast pattern coming up in her own life. I’m going to do that through a live video workshop. There will be a fee to participate and your participation will directly support this podcast through. If you would like more details, email me at david@inourbelly.com or visit inourbelly.com/underbelly to sign-up.   Belly of the Beast Life Stories http://inourbelly.com   Beyond the Belly  https://inourbelly.com/beyond-the-belly/    Hire us to help build your brand strategy and purpose: http://onenineninety.com   @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly   Facebook Community http://facebook.com/inourbelly   @inourbelly on Twitter http://twitter.com/inourbelly   @davidall (host) http://instagram.com/davidall   END -

Our New Podcast: Beyond the Belly takes you beyond the personal narratives in Belly of the Beast Life Stories to bring to life the wisdom found in the overall patterns of transformation. * * BONUS EPISODE * * Please hop over to the Beyond the Belly website to subscribe, rate and review our new podcast: http://inourbelly.com/beyond  * * BONUS EPISODE * * Subscribe right now for free on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/beyondthebelly Subscribe for free at Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/beyondgooglepod * * BONUS EPISODE * * For our second episode, master healer Artie Wu of PresideLife.com helps unpack the pattern of transformation coming up across all Belly of the Beast Life Stories. We use a few excerpts from Season One to help bring the stages of transformation to life. By design, every episode in Belly of the Beast Life Stories follows this same pattern. Artie is a healer to more than 120,000 people throughout the world via PresideLife.com, and an advisor to both of my podcasts. He is a friend, and has been instrumental to help me develop these concepts and in helping me spiritually grow as a man. This is a brand new podcast -- ratings and reviews matter so much! If you are moved by this episode, please subscribe, rate and write a fair review about this podcast so other heroes can find it, too. Share it with two friends. And visit inourbelly.com to listen to more stories for free and to share your story with us. Belly of the Beast Life Stories is a firsthand history of real life transformations. Please subscribe, rate and write a fair review about this podcast so other heroes can find it, too.  Visit http://inourbelly.com Season 2: For Love of My Child are true stories of a parent’s transformation when faced with acute challenges, chronic ills, and early endings of their child or children.    EPISODE SUMMARY - In this episode we’re discussing the overall pattern of transformation which follows the same pattern in all Belly of the Beast Life Stories. - The first stage is ‘forced change’ which is the event which triggers the process of transformation - We use Dr. Julian Gold’s diagnosis of cancer where he was diagnosed and days later was in the hospital for treatment - Artie notes that a health event is one category of forced change that “truly cannot be stuffed down anymore” - In the actual forced event itself -- and in your own forced change in your life -- understand the overall meaning in the event itself - Artie discusses allegory (finger wagging -- forced change must be teaching me a lesson) vs symbol to rise above wny it’s happening and understand that it is happening and how will you respond to it - From forced change, the caterpillar goes into the cocoon stage, and we use an excerpt from Chip Conley’s story to illustrate the “dark, gooey stage” which for Chip was from ages 45 to 49 - Jobi Manson’s story is used to help show the surrender stage - necessary as the final stage before climbing up into being a butterfly - Holocaust survivor Martha Sternbach’s story of erupting as a buterfly 50 years after the Holocaust ended and once she told her story, she never stopped is used to discuss transformation - Artie recalls Chip’s story of spending five years in the cocoon phase and for Martha it was nearly 50 years -- but there is no judgement passed  - Artie answers the question “Will everyone become a butterfly?”   MENTIONED  BELLY OF THE BEAST LIFE STORIES Dr. Julian Gold: https://inourbelly.com/season-1/episode-2-dr-julian-gold/   Chip Conley: https://inourbelly.com/season-1/episode-13-chip-conley/    Jobi Manson: https://inourbelly.com/season-1/episode-11-jobi-manson/   Martha Sternbach: https://inourbelly.com/season-1/episode-1-martha-sternbach/   QUOTABLES by ARTIE WU “And I think that health, kind of issues, health conditions. In my experience and the people I've worked with that really sort of reaches that category of things that truly cannot be stuffed down anymore. And the one thing I want to say here is that a big sort of health diagnosis is just one of many different ways you can be triggered to go into the belly of the beast.”   “The question that's more interesting and relevant to me and ultimately helpful in my experience is what is the overall meaning of this event?”   “Part of you that is in cocoon phase. Even know the rest of your life, he didn't stop breathing, he didn't stop making money and living life, paying his taxes and being with people. To all outward appearances, life continued moving. But a part of him was in this cocoon stage and he knew it.”   “The true transformative surrender is always forced. It always feels forced. If you willingly do it and try to maintain control, it's not quite the real thing.”   “So when that transformation happens... Your narrative about your self changes. And then you, in your essence, also changes.”   “I think the answer is the natural pattern is that yes, yes. You know, everyone is a caterpillar does go down to cocoon phase and does come up the butterfly. The process can be aborted, can be forced back backward even or like completely stalemated and halted. Because there are other forces within you that will say this entire shape is invalid. I reject this entire shape. I demand that I be a caterpillar and a damn good looking one driving a nice car for the rest of my life with no change whatsoever. All I want is no change. And those forces in a person can be very powerful as well to the point where they abort any cocooning that happens.“   TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/beyond-the-belly-episodes/episode-2-pattern-of-transformation-with-artie-wu/   RESOURCES Artie's healing website:http://PresideLife.com Preside Life on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/presidelife @wu_artie on instagram:https://www.instagram.com/wu_artie/   SHOW RESOURCES This is a brand new podcast - a time when early reviews and ratings matter most. Please subscribe, rate and write a fair review of this podcast ♥️ so other heroes can find it, too!    My email: david@inourbelly.com   Beyond the Belly  https://inourbelly.com/beyond   Belly of the Beast Life Stories http://inourbelly.com   @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly   Facebook Community http://facebook.com/inourbelly   @inourbelly on Twitter http://twitter.com/inourbelly   @davidall (host) http://instagram.com/davidall   # # #

Belly of the Beast Life Stories is a firsthand history of real life transformations. Please subscribe, rate and write a fair review about this podcast so other heroes can find it, too. Season 2: For Love of My Child are true stories of a parent’s transformation when faced with acute challenges, chronic ills, and early endings of their child or children. Charlotte Austin-Jordan’s story is both unimaginable and remarkable. The day after Mother’s Day in 1988, her only daughter, Ja’Mee, was innocently murdered by five gang members at the age of 13. Then again in 1996, Charlotte’s 25 year-old son Corey was also killed by gang members who thought his blue work uniform represented a rival gang’s colors. Indeed Charlotte was dealt poison but made medicine going on a mission to first ensure that Ja’Mee’s killers met justice, then working through all levels of government to change criminal justice laws, notably being the catalyst and driver for the Victim’s Impact Statement which humanizes a victim at sentencing and California’s Three-Strikes Law. Charlotte has been a beacon of hope and love for her community, providing direct support and care to mothers who had lost children due to homicide; and hundreds of children consider her their mother, too. Charlotte addressed the root of the problem by creating a jobs programs for young at-risk youth to get off the streets and find meaningful work in the community. See “Guest Resources” to get in touch with Charlotte directly. And look, if you are moved by this episode, please subscribe, rate and write a fair review about this podcast so other heroes can find it, too. Share it with two friends. And visit inourbelly.com to listen to more stories for free and to share your story with us. Be the first to grab our newest podcast, Beyond the Belly, which unpacks wisdom in the patterns of transformation. Listen for free at http://inourbelly.com/beyond   EPISODE SUMMARY Our story begins in Los Angeles in 1988 Charlotte was a single mom to five children; four boys and one daughter Charlotte worked hard to make sure the family had dinner together every Sunday and maintaining a strong foundation for them as a single mom It was the day after Mother's Day in 1988 when Ja'Mee was killed Charlotte was preparing food for her youngest children when she heard multiple gunshots Physically she felt something drop from her - she believes it was Ja’Mee’s life leaving her body Ja'Mee and her friend Nikki had been killed by 5 gang members who had thought the two girls were the sister of a rival drug dealer that had duped them earlier Ja’Mee was hit 15 times with bullets including one through her head At the time, “drive by shootings” wasn’t a legal offense so the five murderers were being charged under a lesser misdemeanor crime that had a likely sentence of 18-months The death of Ja’Mee triggered a series of changes including having to find new homes for her foster children, fearing black men in her community, and losing her job; Charlotte’s life became a mission to represent her daughter and get justice In 1996, her son Corey was killed by gang members that thought he was wearing rival gang colors; Corey was wearing his work uniform In court, Charlotte’s daughter was referred to not by her name, but as her ‘toe tag’ which is assigned in the morgue; there was also no ‘victims impact statement’ where Charlotte could tell the jury who her daughter was, what her dreams were Charlotte is the catalyst and driver of several major criminal justice laws that are common today, including: Victims Impact Statement and Three Strikes Law Through loss she gained so much from the community - but she still misses her babies   QUOTABLES “So I built a strong foundation for [my children], even though I was single, you know.   “I got up and I went to the stove and I started preparing, warming up the meal that I had already prepared for the babies. And I heard all of this gunfire. And while I was standing at the stove, it was like a really strange feeling, like I had dropped something. And I always say it was her soul. It was like something fell for me. And I started looking for it to see what that was. at the funeral home, they said Ja'Mee had defensive wounds, and I didn't know what that was. They needed gloves. And the defensive wounds just because she saw them, and she put her hands up for protection. But that day was a horrible, horrible day for me. My only daughter. I had dreams, I was preparing for her to be a young woman, 18, the debutante balls, the classes, wanting her to be groomed, all of those things, and the life that I did not experience, I wanted to help her to be able to experience those things. And they cheated me. They cheated me. You know, it's 30 years, and it gets better, but it doesn't go away. I still miss my daughter.”   “Laws, we did not have any laws on the books that talked about drive-by shooting, not even assault rifles. They purchased those assault rifles earlier that day, fully armed and ready with ammunition to fire, and that was not... there was nothing in place to stop anyone from walking in to a hardware store that sold... or a surplus store that sold ammunition and guns to buy them, fully loaded and ready to go. The law... I think they were prosecuted under a... It was a misdemeanor, which that meant they would get 18 months for a murder as a drive-by. Carjacking. No, we didn't... We had horse stealing laws, if you stole somebody's horse, but they had any... they, stealing the car, but not shooting people from a moving car. That wasn't even a law.”   “I was paralyzed when I go in the house at eight o'clock at night. But I knew I had to do something to change the situation. Not... my children were gone, but I needed to protect the other children.”   “In court, we're going to court, and they're trying to call her by her toe tag, which is the day you were murdered, the month you were murdered, the day you were murdered and the time. That's not her name. She had a name. She had a family. She had people who loved her. I was not able to speak to the jurors before they did a verdict to tell them. We changed it to speak before the jurors before this... they go out for deliberation. But I was able to do it when my son died.  There is no Martin Luther King. There is no Captain Save-a-Person. There's only me.”   “That's why I was talking to Governor Wilson about the Three Strikes Law. We're like, playing baseball here. If my kid can make it to home plate, we got a home run, but you got criminals on every base. We need to take them off those bases to give our kids a clean shot at getting home safe.”   “It was times where I felt very depressed. I didn't want to be here anymore, but I had other children, and I had other things, and I had to focus on those things. And I took that poison that they gave me. And I used it for the betterment or medicine for my community. Holding rallies, bringing food to people, mothers on drugs, talking to them in the comfort of their home and helping them get off of those drugs. Going to AA meetings with them, talking to the young men in my community, showing them there is a better path. Giving people jobs, you know, not just sitting around talking about it, but be about it, 'bout it, be about it, 'bout it. Doing what I am supposed to do to help. Not myself. It's about others.”   “If you can get in a car and drive there, it's one community. We have to build a strong community and it takes a commitment from all of us.”   “It's kind of a double edged thing. Yes, I lost. I... that was my own child. And that was the most precious gift God could have gave me. But guess what? When I opened my school and I opened my community center and I opened up my house, I got that back. Chris Darden says, "That damn Charlotte, wants to be everybody's mom." You know, I got two hundred children, 200 girls that I deal with daily. Right? That I can pass those etiquettes to, those, how to dress, the fun things that Moms do. And that's how I treat them, like I'm their Mom. The boys, the same way. I lost Corey, but I gained hundreds of boys. And I don't feel like I was cheated out of the fact that those were my children. God gave them to me. And no one should have harmed them. But I also take great satisfaction in the fact that I was able, or am able to love many other children.”   “I am a servant first and foremost. And if I can help, that's what I do. I'm not a chicken, I don't run. Somebody told me I was a firefighter. You know, a firefighter runs to the fire, and everybody else run out, but I run towards the fire, whatever the issue is, whether... I'm heading straight to confront it.”   TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE  https://inourbelly.com/season-2/charlotte-austin-jordan/ GUEST RESOURCES Charlotte has asked that I share her contact directly in case you have lost a child and would like to talk about it. She is also available to publicly speak at your events. Reach her directly at:  - (323) 303-7574 and  charlotteaustin.jordan (at) gmail (dot) com   RESOURCES Belly of the Beast Life Stories http://inourbelly.com   Beyond the Belly  https://inourbelly.com/beyond-the-belly/    We sponsor our own work. Hire us to help build your brand strategy and storytelling: david@davidall.com   @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly   Facebook Community http://facebook.com/inourbelly   @inourbelly on Twitter http://twitter.com/inourbelly   @davidall (host) http://instagram.com/davidall   # END #   Dear Heroes: I'm David All, and thank you for discovering this message. I'm going to start communicating with you directly in this space. It's like passing a note in class - don't get caught! But look, this might surprise you. The other day I realized that I am not a podcaster. Rather, I am an oral historian that uses the podcast medium to collect and distribute firsthand historical accounts of real life transformations.  And while I'm new to podcasting, I've been creating stories and building platforms for folks to tell their story for decades. First as a speechwriter and master brand strategist for large brands and organizations, and then producing over 40 live storytelling events with a stage, lights and an audience. I'm proud of the work we are doing. If you listened to Season One, you are definitely noticing an overall boost in quality and refinement in our work. I am learning by doing - and your feedback has been meaningful to me. But the content, the stories, oh man they are always just so deep and powerful. Consider this note a wink, wink, nod, nod. It's an open invitation -- if you want to help out in a way that feels right to you, reach out. I could use a hand here and there and there are crucial stories we need to tell. Warmly, David My direct email is david@inourbelly.com. Reach out.  

** This is a bonus episode -- subscribe to our new podcast, Beyond the Belly, for future episodes of this podcast ** Episode 1: Origin and Meaning with Artie Wu Beyond the Belly takes you beyond the personal narratives in Belly of the Beast Life Stories to bring to life the wisdom found in the overall patterns of transformation. For our first episode, I've asked master healer Artie Wu of PresideLife.com to join me to discuss the origin story and meaning of Belly of the Beast Life Stories. Artie is a healer to more than 120,000 people throughout the world via PresideLife.com, and an advisor to both of my podcasts. He is a friend, and has been instrumental to help me develop these concepts and in helping me spiritually grow as a man. Subscribe, rate and review this podcast so that other heroes find it, too. And listen and subscribe to Belly of the Beast Life Stories for free wherever you get your podcasts.  Visit inourbelly.com to be a part of our community.   EPISODE SUMMARY - Artie describes the origin of Belly of the Beast Life Stories from his perspective as a friend and advisor to David - The meaning behind the term, “Belly of the Beast” - Discussing the overall pattern of transformation using the metaphor of a caterpillar, down into her cocoon, and climbing up a butterfly - Biblical story of Jonah and the Whale - Modern examples of the Belly story pattern include Star Wars and The Matrix (films) - The difference between grief and depression and why accepting the meaning of your pain matters   QUOTABLES “And the Belly of the Beast really is an allusion to some call it 'hero's journey.' Some call it sort of transformations people go through over the course of their life cycles. And there are many ways to describe that.”   “There's a natural shape of the transformation process in a person's life in a phase they go through in nature. And, you know, one metaphor that comes up a lot is that of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.”   “And I don't know if you've ever watched a video of a butterfly coming out of cocoon, it doesn't look like fun. It comes out. It's slimy, it's struggling. Sometimes a wing breaks. And it needs to sit there totally vulnerable for some period of time for its wings to dry out before it can even fly away. It's very precarious, dangerous, terrifying process.”   “And we always put our attention on the rainbows and unicorns aspect of being this butterfly.”   “It wasn't a metaphor that the caterpillar died, the caterpillar did die because it is gone.”   “In the Bible story, [Belly of the Beast is] an allusion to Jonah and the whale.”   “And one day, Jonah is standing on the shore. And this whale, this leviathan, comes up from the depths and swallows him. And so he's in the Belly of the Beast. But then the whale dives down underwater. Right. And the idea here is that when Jonah is down literally in the Belly of the Beast, he undergoes transformation. He's like, well, I'm gonna die anyway here. I don't know what happened. Everything I was afraid of losing -- I've basically already lost.”   “And metaphorically speaking, at some point along your journey, a whale comes up and just literally takes you down. And the idea here from classical times is that You know, you get the call, and if you refuse the call, something will come up, grab you and drag you down anyway.”   “And what's beautiful about hearing people's individual stories from Martha Sternbach (Season 1, Ep.1)  to like everyone else is that even though we all have a fingerprint, each fingerprint is unique. And to hear that, you know, the incredible stories that you've brought out in this first season, it helps us see the shape of our own fingerprint.”   “In classic Star Wars, All right. the belly of the beast is the trash compactor in the belly of the Death Star. In The Matrix, for instance, or the belly of the beast is when Neo actually physically dies and then comes back completely transformed, knowing he has his powers.”   “Like for instance, when we talk about the difference between grief and depression. Grief is when you've had a loss and you actively, willingly sit with it and just sit with the pain of a loss and you don't run away from the pain. You actively go down into the belly of the beast. You go down into grief, you go down into your cocoon phase. Depression is where you say, no, no, run away. Get away. Get away. Numb it with alcohol, numb it with drugs, with sex or whatever. And you keep running from this pain you know is coming. And eventually a hand comes up, grabs you and drags you down anyway. That's the difference.”   TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/beyond-the-belly-episodes/episode-1-origin-and-meaning-with-artie-wu/ RESOURCES Artie's healing website:http://PresideLife.com Preside Life on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/presidelife @wu_artie on instagram:https://www.instagram.com/wu_artie/   SHOW RESOURCES Subscribe, rate and write a fair review of this podcast ♥️ so other heroes can find it, too! Our team reads every review and fills us with soul juice. Email me (david@inourbelly.com) a screenshot of your review and your mailing address and I’ll send you some love back! Beyond the Belly website https://inourbelly.com/beyond-the-belly/ Belly of the Beast Life Stories podcast http://inourbelly.com Make a $5 donation https://www.patreon.com/bellyofthebeast Hire us to help build your brand: http://onenineninety.com @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly Facebook Community http://facebook.com/inourbelly @inourbelly on Twitter http://twitter.com/inourbelly @davidall (host) http://instagram.com/davidall # # #

Each Belly of the Beast Life Story illustrates the nature of transformation through the story of a real person. Season 2 is curated by the theme - For Love of My Child. All stories are by parents who have faced and overcome the unimaginable for the unconditional love of their child. We are still gathering stories to include in Season 2 which will start releasing in the near future. If you have a story to share, reach out to us via inourbelly.com. ~ Beyond the Belly ~ We have launched our next show - Beyond the Belly. In this show, I'll take you beyond any one individual Belly story to examine the overall patterns of transformation. I'll be joined by expert friends of mine who I personally know and trust to give us their wisdom. My goal is to help you live an even fuller life by being ever mindful of life's transitions. Subscribe to Beyond the Belly wherever you get your podcasts. And please rate and review the show so that other heroes can find it, too. http://inourbelly.com

Let me introduce you to Chip Conley. In business, the term disruptor is reserved for those individuals that completely change the rules in an industry so that every other person in that industry has to follow suit. Chip has done that twice. The first was at Joie de Vivre Hospitality (JdV), which he grew to become the second largest independent boutique hospitality group in the country. And then at AirBNB as the chief hospitality officer where he helped guide the rocket ship and provide all of the expertise around hospitality so that the company could become what it is today. Chip is a New York Times best selling author. His five books have made him a leading authority at the intersection of psychology and business. Conley picked up a nickname at AirBNB as their 'modern elder' and it stuck. In fact, he's running the Modern Elder Academy in Baja, Mexico, where folks ages 35 to 75 are finding out that being an elder is just as much about being curious as it is about being wise. Chip Conley, welcome to Belly of the Beast Life Stories. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255 EPISODE SUMMARY - Chip’s starts the story by noting that he felt the whole world was conspiring against him  - He was sitting in his car, ready to drive to the Golden Gate Bridge and press the ‘reset button’ on his life - In that moment, the song Amazing Grace comes on and it softens him, a tearful moment - Conley provides the back story on what was going on in his life during this period in time - Several male friends had all committed suicide - Conley felt a huge heavy blanket on top of him - he felt cursed in life - He felt suffocated by his business, his relationship wasn’t working out - Conley talks about wearing the ‘mask of the achiever’  - Conley gives advice on how to spot suicide among friends and family and how to provide unconditional love to support - Chip talks about his work at the Modern Elder Academy helping folks 35 to 75 make the ‘midlife edit’ and find happiness   QUOTABLES “I was at the stage in my life where it felt like everything was conspiring against me.”   “I just immediately had the full tearful reaction to the idea that I could have another choice. I didn't have to imagine committing suicide as a way of pressing the reset button on my life.”   “And you know, what we know about people today in their 40s is this is a very it's probably the hardest decade of adulthood. The U-curve of happiness, which has been studied by social scientists, shows that people between about age 45 and 50 hit the bottom of their happiness or satisfaction level in life.  I just didn't want to wake up each morning. I had this book, Viktor Frankl's book, 'Man's Search for Meaning' in my backpack.”   “So that was my solution from that day forward is on a daily basis I asked myself, what did I learn today? How do I have a sense of meaning or a sense of having created some wisdom in my life?”   “So what was happening inside of me is I felt just this heavy blanket on top of me. I felt very dark inside. I felt.... I think the word I felt when anything was cursed. I felt cursed. And to feel cursed is an awful feeling. I was running the second largest boutique hotel company in the US called JdV and I wasn't feeling much Joie de Vivre, which means joy of life in French. And I was really in a state of disbelief that I was supposed to somehow in a time where I felt completely ill equipped to even show up at work, to somehow be figuring out how to save a company of 3,500 employees while I was just like, frankly, on a an internal basis, just trying to figure out how to save myself.“   “Men are much more likely to successfully-- I hate to use that word-- commit suicide than women. Women actually try it not as much as men. I think about half as much as men, but are less likely to have it work, partly because men use guns more and women tend to use pills more and a gun is more lethal in a lot of cases.”   “And if it had been just purely my own life, that'd be one thing but trying to save this company and not have all my employees get fired because the company would go bankrupt was another element that was hard. I had more spaciousness to go inside and frankly, at the end of day the way I recovered from this was going inside.”   “Looking in the mirror at myself, I didn't see somebody I knew. I saw somebody who looked scared and defeated definitely. And more than anything, I think I saw someone who just wanted to press the reset button on my life, and yet I had been trying to.“   “Nature can be such a healing cathedral. And so in some ways, what I started to do was a combination from that point forward, developed a weekly inventory of my my meaning inventory, my wisdom inventory. What did I learn this week, what what did I get through? How is this experience making me a better person? And where did I see beauty?”   “I often talk about mask and masculinity. Some of it was a masculinity mask. Some of it was just my mask of the identity I'd given. I'd been portraying to the world. I was an achiever because to achieve meant I got love.But as much as I thought I was just living my own life in many ways, I was still on the treadmill of the admiration addict. And so I think the mask that was I was wearing was the mask of the achiever. I was portraying authenticity as opposed to being authenticity.And so but I know on a personal level, it did feel like a failure. I expected to run that company until I was 75 or 80, you know, selling at the bottom of the recession. But more than anything, the sense of freedom. The freedom from the mask, the freedom from the responsibilities. I started the company for creativity and freedom. And 22, 24 years into it, I didn't feel a lot of creativity or freedom.”   “So there's an element for me that, you know, the comeback kid, I guess, of how do I find myself in peril. Get through it. And then actually become stronger as a result of it. There's no doubt that this experience, which is really my worst experience in my life, helped me get to get to the other side.”   “And sometimes the trajectory feels like it's just unrelentingly down. At some point it started to feel like it was coming back.”   “So what would I suggest? First of all, look for the signs. Look for someone who's withdrawing more, who feels like they have lost an appetite for life. Look for someone who talks in sometimes quite tragic terms about their life and help them to know that you love them no matter what. I think that's the key. I think conditional vs. unconditional love is a big piece of this.”   “So I sold the company and then I said, I'm going to write this book called Emotional Equations because that equation 'despair equals suffering minus meaning' was a lifeline for me on a bad day. I would say that equation 30 or 40 times as just a reminder. “   “And so sometimes you have to actually open up space in your life to see what's going to emerge.”   “And so I ultimately wrote this book called 'Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder,' as a result of that. But while I was writing the book, I came to the conclusion that I have had a bunch of friends who committed suicide in midlife because they couldn't make sense of midlife, especially couldn't make sense of how to repurpose themselves, how to press the reset button. And so I decided to create the world's first midlife wisdom school called the Modern Elder Academy”   “And what it's really helped me to see is that we have an enormous gulf between the societal narrative on aging and the personal one. The societal one basically says you stumble into midlife, you have a crisis. And on the other side of that, if you can get through it, is decrepitude and death. Whereas the personal narrative as defined by the U-curve of happiness, which is hugely prevalent all around the world and been studied, shows that people actually do get happier in their 50s, 60s and 70s, partly because they do the 'great midlife edit.' And that's what we help people with down at the Modern Elder Academy. We help them to see what it's time to shed, whether it's a mindset and identity, responsibilities, certain kinds of friends or family. What is it that you're ready to let go of and evolve out of?”   “But my indicator of my emotional intelligence today is how am I cultivating and harvesting joy in my life, not just for myself, but for others as well.”   “I do know that that people in their 40s are really struggling. I think there's an emotional equation to describe the 40s, which is disappointment because expectations minus reality.”   TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/season-1/episode-13-chip-conley   RESOURCES National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255 Chip's website: http://chipconley.com Get Chip’s Best Selling Books Mentioned in Show: PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow https://amzn.to/2OZWoOT Emotional Equations: Simple Steps for Creating Happiness + Success in Business + Life https://amzn.to/32aLMCl Wisdom at Work: The making of a modern elder https://amzn.to/2u3u3Qp Get Man’s Search for Meaning (Viktor Frankl) https://amzn.to/2vH2tco Chip’s Facebook Community https://www.facebook.com/chipconleyauthor Modern Elder Academy http://modernelderacademy.org Chip Conley on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/chipconleysf/ @chipconley on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/chipconley/   SHOW RESOURCES Subscribe, rate and review this podcast ♥️ Thanks for listening! http://inourbelly.com to preview all episodes coming up and future seasons Become a Patron https://www.patreon.com/bellyofthebeast @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly @inourbelly on Twitter  http://twitter.com/inourbelly @davidall on instagram (host) http://instagram.com/davidall

Let me introduce you to Maximilian Acevedo. At 21, Max's story of growing up in a difficult childhood and surviving it is what has made him who he is today. He first pulled himself up and took control of his own life to become a fitness model. Now he's an actor in Los Angeles. In this interview, Max talks about a lead role he's up for, which he's since won and is now filming. Look for Max in Netflix's Babysitter 2 in 2020. Max Acevedo, welcome to Belly of the Beast Life Stories.   EPISODE SUMMARY - Max reflects on traumatic events from his childhood - Looking at his dad through the glass window when he visited him in jail - While his father was in jail, random men would physically and mentally abuse Max - Max recalls as a little child why he was even alive - At 14, Max took control of his life when he joined a gym  - He developed a strong work ethic and a passion for working out - They gym became Max’s escape from the fighting and abuse at home - Max was in a lot of fights in middle school - getting picked on and bullied for wearing vibrant clothes - High school Max gained muscle and decided not to bully or fight anyone - Max was participating in fitness competitions - In Reno after high school, Max was struck by a calling to entertain - to start acting - to move back to Los Angeles - His mother supported him and they made the move - Max’s acting career is taking off - he credits his formative childhood without blame or regrets - Max has many goals but one is making an impact for others through philanthropy   QUOTABLES “Well, you know, my mom at the time growing up, she'd try her best as well as my dad. You know, to the best of our abilities, whatever they thought was good at being good parents. But, you know, it probably wasn't really the right fit for them to have kids to begin with. And so in situations like that, then again, ask myself at times, and I was so young but it's crazy I would think like, why am I alive? Like, why am I going through this? You know, I don't get it. What did I do? And then when you're a little kid, you can't explain that also to anyone because you just don't even know how to but you're thinking it. You know, you're aware. Kids are very smart, intuitive, smarter than adults think.”   “[My dad] wasn't able to comprehend that kind of love and be proud of me for something, you know?”   “Unlucky. Sad. Happy, sometimes. Life changing. Traumatic. Lonely. Cold. Confusing. Scary. Mm mm mm.... Sometimes a blur as my mind would wanna block out everything toxic that was going around, so it would just be a big blur.”   “Like I started working out and then I started gaining major work ethic and that sense from my health and and physical look. And then that's when I just started realizing, you know, okay, now I'm slowly kind of starting to turn into a young man, you know, a young adult.”   “It was the control. Yeah me being able to, like, start controlling, like things about my life. Like now I'm being an adult, I'm not really a kid. You know my parents can't really say too much now about this, about that.I taught myself everything. I never once had a personal trainer. Everything was self-taught or research or other adults in the gym helped me out teaching me stuff.”   “Yeah. My parents would be fighting. You know, there'd be no money for food or the bills or whatever or even, you know, again, when my dad would be kind of not the best mentally abusing me a bit. Whatever, you know, I would leave. And no matter what it's just I had, this... just like the Rock says, like this iron paradise where I would go there. And I'm just out.”   “Now things are happening the way they should and and I still have to put in a lot of work and keep climbing up, but the climb as much prettier now and the view is getting a lot clearer and the fog has diminished from sight and I can see where I'm going.”   “Maybe Emmy Nominee. An Oscar nominee. MTV Movie Awards nominee, Motivational speaker. Traveller. Adventurer. World Changer. Founder of Foundations to help people of all ages, colors, different regions of the world. People that deserve the most help. To have a fighting chance to live the best lives they can for where they're from.”   TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/season-1/episode-12-maximilian-acevedo   RESOURCES Instagram @maxacevedoo http://instagram.com/maxacevedoo IMDb Profile https://www.imdb.me/Maximilian   SHOW RESOURCES Subscribe, rate and review this podcast ♥️ Thanks for listening! http://inourbelly.com to preview all episodes coming up and future seasons Become a Patron https://www.patreon.com/bellyofthebeast @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly @inourbelly on Twitter  http://twitter.com/inourbelly @davidall on instagram (host) http://instagram.com/davidall

Let me introduce you to Jobi Manson. At the age of 24, Jobi made a decision that would forever change the course of her life. An experienced surfer, she misjudged the location of a sandbar when she dove headfirst into the ocean, breaking her neck and spending the next moments facedown in the ocean, paralyzed. Like a scene out of a movie, Jobi survived and learned a valuable lesson that she had to break her neck to reconnect with herself. This discovery led her to start a coaching practice called Sefari (www.iamsefari.com) that takes place in the healing and centering powers of the ocean. Jobi Manson, welcome to Belly of the Beast Life Stories.   EPISODE SUMMARY - At 24, Jobi Manson was living and working in Venice Beach, CA - On a hot day in early July, a friend challenged Jobi to get in the ocean - You Only Live Once (‘YOLO’) - That moment she ran and dove in, misjudging the location of a sandbar - Jobi crushed a vertebrae in her neck and nearly died face down and paralyzed in the water but was able to will herself to move - Though she could move, severity of the injury wasn’t clear until the doctor told her she may be paralyzed for the rest of her life - The surgery was successful and Jobi was sent home a few days later - Family was around but it was primarily a traumatic experience that Jobi faced alone - She felt a deep shame for the accident - there’s no record of it ever happening - Several years after the accident, Jobi would finally heal the persistent pain in her neck with help from a dolphin whisperer and a dolphin that sent an energy wave through her body - Looking back, Jobi sees the accident as being anything but that -- it was a homecoming and a chance to live a different life   QUOTABLES “And I'll never forget this: I turned to one of my coworkers and I was like I'm just gonna sit this one out and she looks at me and she was like, Jobi 'You Only Live Once.' And as she said that, I ran and I dove headfirst into the ocean and nothing, I blacked out. My arms went above my head and I smashed into a sandbar. And I don't know how long I was blacked out, but I came to and I realized I couldn't feel anything beneath my neck. I was completely paralyzed and immobilized. And I was face down in the ocean.”   “And so as I lay there motionless in the ocean, my body was moving, but because of water, not from my own will. And I told myself that I had to get up. And I told myself that over and over and over again until about probably I imagined five, six, seven minutes later I was able to stand and I couldn't hold my head up. I've always been a bit physically reckless. But this was by far a threshold I had yet to breach.”    “And I was mortified. I was so embarrassed because everything that led up to that moment was me trying to prove myself.”    “You have seven vertebrae in your neck and you crushed number five. And you may, in fact, be paralyzed, even though you can move now.”   “And there's an overwhelming sense of: I am right here, right now. And it was such a humbling catapult into my body in a way that I think I had spent the first 24 years of my life running away from.”    “I thank, you know, the powers that be that it happened in this country. There have been many times in my life where I've been on beaches that are very remote. And I was extremely lucky to have that kind of accident happen when I was so close to the best possible medical care there could be. I used to feel very invincible. I don't anymore at all. And there was something very special that happened that day. It was probably the most important moment in my life.”    “The paralyzing fear of what life could look like without movement was and is not acceptable to me that I couldn't live that way. I'm sure I could. I wouldn't want to.”    “I love life. I love being out in the world with the elements, with nature, with people. To be, to have that taken away from me would be worse than death.”   “The ocean is my home. It's my family. It's where I go to be myself. It's where I have the best time being myself. It's where I play. It's where I work. It's where I love. I open my heart in the water.”    “There's such a pivotal learning experience to rest and to stillness and to patience and softness. But that wasn't part of the recovery. The recovery was sans medication, sans neck brace. I distracted myself into healing. And that was one way. That is not a way I would ever do again. That is not a way I would recommend to anybody else. But I chose to put my focus elsewhere other than on my pain. And that allowed me to in many ways to transcend it.”    “This experience was the catalyst to softening. But I was very, very, very tough in every sense of the word.”    “And I had to break my neck to reconnect to myself.”   “And I refuse to accept failure or what I thought failure was at that time. And so I think that feeling alone, without understanding truly what that meant, absolutely led to that accident, that moment. I don't believe it was an accident. I believe it was a homecoming. That was me being given the opportunity to live differently. And it was a second chance at a new kind of life.”    “And I would say my relationship to that now is that strength is softness. Strength is vulnerability. Strength is trust, strength is surrender.”    “Strength is softness.”   “But I would say that the Dolphins really helped me out with that recovery.”  TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/season-1/episode-11-jobi-manson   RESOURCES Instagram @JobiManson https://www.instagram.com/jobimanson/ Instagram @iamsefari (Jobi’s ocean healing practice) https://www.instagram.com/iamsefari/ Work with Jobi - Sēfari http://www.iamsefari.com   SHOW RESOURCES Subscribe, rate and review this podcast ♥️ Thanks for listening! http://inourbelly.com to preview all episodes coming up and future seasons Become a Patron https://www.patreon.com/bellyofthebeast @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly @inourbelly on Twitter  http://twitter.com/inourbelly @davidall on instagram (host) http://instagram.com/davidall # # #

Let me introduce you to Scotty Brown. Scotty lives near Los Angeles, but his story centers around his rough and tumble days in Chicago. At a very young age Scotty was a drug kingpin by day and a rock n roll partier by night. This lifestyle caught up with him and getting out wasn't as easy as it might seem. Several decades later and sober for that same amount of time, Scotty's story, and ongoing work in addiction and recovery, has touched thousands of lives. We are pleased that he's sharing it with us today. Oh, before we get started. Scotty Brown, welcome to Belly of the Beast Life Stories.   Listen responsibly: This episode contains explicit conversations about alcohol and drug use that could be triggering.   Let me introduce you to Scotty Brown. Scotty lives near Los Angeles, but his story centers around his rough and tumble days in Chicago. At a very young age Scotty was a drug kingpin by day and a rock n roll partier by night. This lifestyle caught up with him and getting out wasn't as easy as it might seem. Several decades later and sober for that same amount of time, Scotty's story, and ongoing work in addiction and recovery, has touched thousands of lives. We are pleased that he's sharing it with us today. Oh, before we get started. Scotty Brown, welcome to Belly of the Beast Life Stories.   Listen responsibly: This episode contains explicit conversations about alcohol and drug use that could be triggering.   EPISODE SUMMARY - Our story begins decades ago when Scotty Brown woke up in a mental institution - and we return to this moment later in the story as the moment of surrender - At an early age, Scotty Brown was involved with selling drugs, making a lot of money, and spending that money on toys like a condo in Chicago and a Mercedes in San Francisco - His condo in Chicago earned him the nickname ‘Downtown’ Scotty Brown because it was downtown - In his early 20s, the lifestyle started to catch up with him -- ultimately he moved from Chicago to San Francisco to live a ‘healthier’ life because the bars weren’t open all night and health food joints were everywhere.  - He grew up with some well-known mafia families and told us that he was  mobbed up. - Scotty was selling 50-pound bales of marijuana at a time. - He was selling and using and overdoing it - the lifestyle was catching up - Scotty was paranoid and not sleeping and had a psychotic break which led him to the mental institution - Over time, Scotty realized  that he had no control over people, places and things and all he could do was take care of himself which eventually led him to ask to be moved up to the drug rehab department -He wanted serenity and luckily he was rocketed into the ‘Fourth Dimension’ -- he was given a whole new lease on life - Recovery is a daily lifetime practice -- the wily Scotty Brown still wants to come out - 10 years ago Scotty battled cancer and many of the people he has helped through addiction and recovery told him how special he was to them - that he had saved their life - a spiritually fulfilling feeling - Scotty was a catalyst for the SOBA Recovery Center in Malibu, CA   QUOTABLES “I'm here to save you because at this moment in time in my life, I thought I was the savior of the world, the second coming. And that's never a good thing. That's a lot of stress, you know, trying to save the world. LOL. ”   “A couple of them [in the mafia] were pretty successful in the business like myself. I was a good salesman. So, yeah, I worked with them and, you know, I guess you could say we were all mobbed up. You know. You just fall into it by doing that enterprise. You know, criminal.”   “I always knew I drank and and used a lot, so I tried not to do it. What I thought was fun and games, you know, became a career. So that was a lot of fun... Until it wasn't. It all catches up to you. And asking... I'd be so high, God, help me, please bring me down, I'll never do it again. I know I said that last week. And like the third time, I'm like, man, I'm powerless over this.”   “I guess I'm part of the mob. You know, we're a group of guys that get together. Doesn't matter what nationality you are or anything like that. We're in a criminal enterprise and we don't want anyone to know and we're the mob.”   “You know, I wanted to change, that's where I pretty much bottomed out  when I realized where ever I went, there I was, I couldn't escape myself.”   “But my life was unmanageable, I didn’t want to accept it, and it just clicked. You know, like a light bulb went off man, and I told myself that's what I'm doing!! I'm running around trying to save the world and not taking a look at myself. All I do is take, take, take, I'm powerless over people, places and things. I was focusing on the outside world but then I realized, all  I can do is take care of myself . I went right up to the nurse and said, I'm a drug addict and an alcoholic, put me on the drug and alcohol ward,and they did. It was like the biggest weight lifted off my shoulders, that I don’t have to save the world. All I had to do is change me and maybe my life would get better.”   “I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired.”   “ I knew my life was over if I  didn’t change. It’s jails, institutions and death.”   “You know, I was very fortunate to be rocketed into the fourth dimension. I had a whole new lease on life. I saw and smelled flowers for the first time.   My life was so different and beautiful in every way.”   “I read my meditations for the day. Every day it says to me, you're not in charge. Take a backseat and enjoy the frickin journey. Quit trying to control it. Get in the action, suit up and show up and live the dream.   “I think everybody in life wants to be loved. And they think that maybe material things;  money, property & prestige will give them that. . That's not real love, you will never be satisfied. . When I got sick with cancer 10 years ago and people told me that I helped  save their life, that made me feel spiritually rich and I felt OK with dying if it was my time.”   “Delaying gratification is one of the main things I learned.. That drugs, alcohol and those things, are all instant gratification, you know. So I have to delay them if I -- delay gratification -- if I want the really good things, you know, and take care of me and become what I want in a relationship, put the work in that's been good so far. But it's a day at a time, you know, a lot of times I say it's a minute at a time, but God provides.”   “Oh yeah, a lot of shame when I came in. But what I realized was that alcoholism is  a disease that is trying to kill me. I read this pamphlet called The Devil and AA, it  helped me more than anything. What it said was The Devil/Disease is saying: now you're sober, now you have  to be hard on yourself, hard on your kids, now you've got to change your life, now you've got to go back to school, now you have  to get the career.... your parents always wanted you to have. it's all about being in your head, beating yourself up and there's no way to survive it without drinking, drugging  or killing yourself. . The pamphlet went on to say that the devil/disease is trying to get you to pick up and use again. . So easy does it, live and let live. Don't go in your head alone it is a dangerous neighborhood, pick-up the phone and call someone who is going through the same thing, someone you know who is armed with the solution, there is a solution. Trust God, Clean house and help others.    TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/season-1/episode-10-scotty-brown   RESOURCES Downtown Scotty Brown’s Facebook Community https://www.facebook.com/downtownscottybrown1   @ScottyBrown1 on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/scottybrown1/   @ScottyBrown on Twitter https://twitter.com/Scotty_Brown   IMDb profile https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0114644/   YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf_ijCIyUoS0sJ1sFT8cQPQ SHOW RESOURCES Subscribe, rate and review this podcast ♥️ Thanks for listening! http://inourbelly.com to preview all episodes coming up and future seasons Become a Patron https://www.patreon.com/bellyofthebeast @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly @inourbelly on Twitter  http://twitter.com/inourbelly @davidall on instagram (host) http://instagram.com/davidall   # # #

Let me introduce you to Zaid Gayle. Zaid was born in South Los Angeles. He was the son to social workers, a family that was instrumental in the early days of the Black Panther Party. Zaid's journey started out in the entertainment industry making films, but now he's back building peace in Compton as a leading youth advocate. Zaid is co-founder and executive director of Peace4Kids, a nonprofit that provides a safe space for youth in foster care to build meaningful relationships with each other and adults. As a volunteer there, I've spent time alone with Zaid listening to his story and sharing my own. I see why so many children look up to him.   EPISODE SUMMARY - Zaid is an L.A. native with a deep spiritual grounding - At the age of 27, Zaid’s relationship with his wife and his non-profit take a nose dive - A fertility doctor told Zaid it was his ‘fault’ they couldn’t have a baby - A vegan, Zaid didn’t want to take fertility drugs which have proved to cause multiple pregnancies, etc. - In this spiritual crisis, a member of Zaid’s board of directors invites him to take ‘earth medicines’ in Joshua Tree - The experience/trip opens new understandings about both his relationships and the future of his non-profit - Zaid pivots to the new relationship and she gets pregnant quickly - Through these difficult times, Zaid realizes the beauty in the fragility of life and shifts his life to focus less on control and more being present   QUOTABLES “And I woke up one day and she told me she was no longer interested in us being married. And it was hard for me to understand that from the perspective of what I've been taught in my spiritual training and my spiritual life.   “You grow up in this spiritual world and my interpretation of that was you suppressed all those emotional energies that don't represent joy and happiness and prosperity and abundance and all those things that we think we want to have an experience of in our life. We don't talk a lot about the shadow side and the depths and the darkness.    “The things that I've been taught to use weren't working and I didn't know how to ask for help. And so that spiral just got deeper and deeper and deeper. And I went in to this this solid well of depression where I was literally crying every day in and and unable to sleep.   “But in this situation, my son was like, that's the mother. If you want to bring me onto the planet, you need to connect with her.   “I say, look, I know it's going to sound crazy, but you're supposed to be the mother of my child. And she said, no, no, I'm down. And a month later, she was pregnant.   “When we think about what was happening to Peace4Kids at that time -- I had to walk into a board meeting and tell them that I had failed. And I was used to always winning and figuring it out on my own.   “And so, you know, in my life, I have all this this sadness and I'm failing in every aspect of who I believe I am as a human being. Right. This community leader who's leading an organization that serves youth in foster care. These people who are my staff were depending on me to do my job well so that they could feed their families. And I'm telling them all that I failed and feeling highly responsible because I've had to tell the same thing to my wife that I failed and I'm unable to create the family that we were committed to having.   “And this idea of me standing as this big figure, this looming figure in all of these areas of my life, and then looking at myself in the mirror and saying, you suck. None of these things that you think you are is who you are. And part of it for me was then to reflect like, how did I get to this identity of self? And that question became something that was really present for me. And that was the question that broke me down, you know? That was the question that made me have so many sleepless nights because I felt like I'd been lying to myself my whole life.   “And now I started a whole new chapter with someone else before the divorce papers are even signed.   “There's a lot of aspects to who we are and that your darkness, these places that we're afraid to go to can have a lot of light and have a lot of energy and transformation in them. And the more time we spend trying to defeat that shadow side without embracing it, the more fragile we become.   “You know, so there are all these things that I had to just kind of begin to adjust to the the messiness and the fragility of life and things that I could not control. And that actually became the thing that I held on to. Right. I was able to pick up that piece. And initially it was control. And then it was about recognizing the fragility of life and how magical that is. Right. That, you know, for all of us, anything can happen to us at any given moment that shifts the journey in a second. And if you can be present in mindful about that, then you stop worrying about what could happen and start enjoying what is happening.   “There are certain things that you can have a strategy and a plan for, but stay open to the fragility of the moment, because that's where the magic is.   “I had to recognize I wasn't serving these young people; these young people were serving me. And in that spiritual practice, connecting with another human being where they are is really what spirituality is about. It's about the oneness of the human condition and that suffering is a part of that.   “And so breaking yourselves from that identity is what I believe is important, and that's a very fragile state of being, to wake up every day and say, how can I be different? How can I embrace a different side of me that is not based on the expectations of others, but based on my spiritual identity about what's important to me in this moment.   TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/season-1/episode-9-zaid-gayle   RESOURCES @ZaidGayle on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/zaidgayle Volunteer and support Peace4Kidshttps://www.peace4kids.org/   SHOW RESOURCES Subscribe, rate and review this podcast ♥️ Thanks for listening! http://inourbelly.com to preview all episodes coming up and future seasons Become a Patron https://www.patreon.com/bellyofthebeast @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly @inourbelly on Twitter  http://twitter.com/inourbelly @davidall on instagram (host) http://instagram.com/davidall

Let me introduce you to Harsh Verma. Harsh was born and raised in Mumbai, India. He grew up in and around Bollywood filmmaking and worked as an assistant director for big feature films. He was also a professional soccer player, what he calls his first love. He played for junior clubs within India and International at AC Milan junior team in Leicester City Junior in England. After a knee surgery and a botched recovery, Harsh went searching for better medicine. In China, he surrendered to the famous Shaolin Temple and was later adopted as the first Indian and non-Chinese national warrior monk. Harsh Verma, welcome to Belly of the Beast Life Stories.   EPISODE SUMMARY - Harsh was an elite athlete and at an early age played pro soccer - Too much calcium led to a need for what should have been a rather typical knee surgery - During surgery, doctors discovered a large tumor that had to be removed - Harsh’s recovery post-surgery wasn’t working - A good friend pointed him in the direction of martial arts - Harsh landed on the world famous Shaolin Temple in China, known as both the founding place for Zen Buddhism and Kung Fu - Shaolin Temple is also an alternative medicine facility and Harsh decided it could help with his recovery - Shaolin’s roots point back to Bodhidarma, a famous Indian Eminent Monk and the 28th Patriarch of Buddha - Harsh had to use translation apps to figure out how to communicate in the beginning - At nine months, Harsh was fluent in Chinese Harsh spent a total of four years in Shaolin Temple- After feeling fully recovered in month 7, Harsh never considered going back to soccer or to make films in Bollywood - At 1.5 years, Harsh told the Temple that he had to leave because he couldn’t afford to stay; the abbot and others ultimately extended an opportunity to Harsh to stay and become a Warrior Monk - the first non-Chinese to be offered such an opportunity - Harsh discusses why he left the temple -- to spread the message and may ultimately take the monastery up on its offer to open an Indian branch of the Shaolin Temple QUOTABLES “And if I don't sweat, I don't feel good.”    “If you want to do something really different. If you want to be out there and make a change for your own self. You need to take that big risk.”   “ So Shaolin Temple is based on the three basic principles as called in Chinese we say, Chan, Wu and Yi. Chan is like Buddhism, the Zen part, the Zen Buddhism part. Wu is wushu. That's martial arts. And Yi is Yio, the medicine part.”   “ So when you start picturing yourself wanting to be somewhere, you're doing it already. That's the first step of getting there. That's the first thing I learned at Shaolin Temple. And the second thing I learned was listening.”   “ Basically, if there's no passion in what you're doing - doesn't make sense doing it.”   “ Nobody in this world has ever got this opportunity. I mean, after Bodhidharma, there has never been an Indian who was adopted by the temple to become a warrior monk.”    “I look back at it and I think about it as if that wouldn't have happened to me. I wouldn't be in the place that I am right now.”       TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/season-1/episode-8-harsh-verma   RESOURCES Indian in the Temple (short documentary about Harsh Verma) https://vimeo.com/284802786   Instagram - @shaolinwarrior_verma https://www.instagram.com/shaolinwarrior_verma/   Shaolin Temple http://www.shaolin.org.cn/en/ SHOW RESOURCES Subscribe, rate and review this podcast ♥️ Thanks for listening! http://inourbelly.com to preview all episodes coming up and future seasons Become a Patron https://www.patreon.com/bellyofthebeast @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly @inourbelly on Twitter  http://twitter.com/inourbelly @davidall on instagram (host) http://instagram.com/davidall # # #

Let me introduce you to Sam Malik. I met Sam in Ohio as this really smart marketing entrepreneur and a community organizer who had organized a TEDx in his hometown and who was showing up at the events that I was creating. But then we reconnected because he had moved to Los Angeles and he's been on a journey since then. And it was the story that he shared a while ago in Ohio through social media that I remember really being moved by and in a way even inspired this show because I see stories like this and I want to amplify them out into the world. I want people to be able to find them and take their healing power and their inspiration that people can get from them and just know that they're not alone. So I'm very honored that Sam is with us today. Sam Malik, welcome to Belly of the Beast Life Stories.   EPISODE SUMMARY - 21-year-old Sam Malik opens up about a childhood overcoming the challenges of being gay in a straight man’s world - Being an ‘over achiever’ was a mask to hide his sexuality - Difficulty of growing up in a family with cultural differences - Homophobia wasn’t always blatant, but was always present - Inferiority and feeling less than  - Butting heads with family and parents ultimately led to Sam coming out to them first - Coming out proved to be even more a challenge - now to live your truth - what the hell is that! - A series of events led to Sam coming out publicly - He had organized several laptops, all social media, emails, and text messages to post the announcement at once - And then he took a three hour ride on his bike and not looking at his devices - When he opened them up, he read things he had needed to see his whole life - that it was okay, that his best friends were with him no matter what, that he wasn’t alone - Sam makes recommendations to those still not out or thinking about coming out   QUOTABLES “Because at the time that that meant to me that I was less than, and when you grow up hearing the things that I heard and being told in the church that being gay is less than, inferiority is the biggest fear. It's the worst kind of scary monster you can imagine.”   “That was the culmination of me growing up in survival mode, walking on eggshells, wondering if I was gonna get bullied or policed for every little behavior and if I was gonna be less than.”   “When I came out I had been spending so much-- I put so much energy into hiding and masking who I was and doing that with achievements and with grades and leadership and a business that people say when you come out it's this huge weight off your shoulders. You start to be who you are and live your authentic truth, right? Like that's what they say. But the reality for me was, all of these walls had suddenly broken down and I was left sitting in the middle of it, feeling totally exposed, wondering who the hell am I?”   “And at that point I wasn't even emotionally confused anymore. I wasn't sad. I was fed the fuck up. I needed to stop living this lie.”   “And I had to go through and just flag apologies and get them out over and over again. And I had to remove every ounce of apologetic tone from this thing. And that took a lot of work. And I literally had an operation for this thing because I knew like this was the moment that I needed for myself and I was ready to own. And I was I was so ready for this. I had two laptops, and my phone, and on my phone I had an Instagram post loaded, that was the same thing as the Facebook post that was on my one laptop, and then my other laptop then had an email with two Gmail inboxes drafted to my grandparents because I wanted to tell them before them hearing from the general public. And then a couple text messages drafted to my best friends. And like within a matter of 30 seconds it was boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Send. Slammed those laptops closed. Put airplane mode on my phone. It's not going to be reversed. And maybe, just maybe, if there is hate, somebody who really needed to hear this is gonna get to hear it. And to me, that makes the whole thing worth it.”   “I'm proud of the person I am. I'm proud of the person I'm becoming. And I'm proud to be gay."   “I felt safe when I was alone. I felt safe when I was alone and like listening to music and and I felt safe when I was talking to like the less than a handful of either gay friends or a few more than a handful of like really amazing, incredible, supportive friends who truly thought no differently at me.”     TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/season-1/episode-7-sam-malik   RESOURCES Sam’s coming out post on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/BUpcEwpDI3t/   Troye Sivan coming out - YouTube video - mentioned by Sam as inspirational to him  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoL-MnXvK80   Book recommendation The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pains of Growing up Gay in a Straight Man’s World http://bit.ly/VelvetRagebyAlanDowns Malik Media https://www.malikmedia.co/   SHOW RESOURCES Subscribe, rate and review this podcast ♥️ Thanks for listening! http://inourbelly.com to preview all episodes coming up and future seasons Become a Patron https://www.patreon.com/bellyofthebeast @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly @inourbelly on Twitter  http://twitter.com/inourbelly @davidall on instagram (host) http://instagram.com/davidall # # #

Let me introduce you to Marcus Segal. The "dot com" bubble was a period of time when the Internet was booming and companies offering everything from pet supplies to streaming music went down the drain almost overnight. Marcus was an executive at eMusic, one of those startups. Marcus's story is one of becoming aware of the inner critic in our life that blames us for failing and limits our beliefs in what's possible in ourselves. He would later serve as chief operating officer for Zynga, helping take the gaming company from dozens of employees to thousands. Marcus Segal, welcome to Belly of the Beast Life Stories.   EPISODE SUMMARY - Marcus Segal had a successful career as a producer for TV shows on the History Channel and A&E when his estranged father’s death made him change gears - In 1998, Marcus was lured to Silicon Valley during the first ‘dot com bubble’  - He found a job and ultimately a path to career growth at eMusic.com which was the first legal streaming music platform - The company went public and when the VP of Human Resources left, Marcus was tapped; he had made it  - Napster, the pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing website that focused on music downloads, emerged and eroded eMusic.com’s value and relevance - Shares dropped to $0.99 but Marcus was promoted to Chief Operating Officer - Two acquisitions left the company on life support and Marcus was literally the last employee out of more than 400 and had to beg to be fired so he could move on - Finally the road ended and Marcus’ inner critic took over the wheel - Marcus had to get out of town to change his mindset and went to the Sahara Desert - A calm night after a sandstorm with a nomadic family triggered gratitude and purpose - Marcus returned to San Francisco with a renewed perspective, started a new startup, and began giving back to startups as a mentor   QUOTABLES “At the time this is 1998 and the dot com boom Web 1.0 was really kicking off. You were reading about Internet millionaires and these, you know, women and men changing the world. And I decided that I wanted to be a part of what was next, that I didn't want to continue to spend my life telling the stories of what other courageous people had done in the past in these documentaries that I wanted to be a part of what was next.”   “The company (eMusic.com) went public. A V.P. of human resources left and I was tapped to take on that role. So now, boom, I'm a tech executive, which is really incredible because I majored in English literature in college. I had never written a line of code and I was just hungry and I just worked all the time and I was just thrilled.”   “So at that moment, eMusic was selling lemonade and Napster was giving away beer.”   “My great job of being the COO of this tech company became a job of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”   “I had something to prove. I needed adoration and love and respect. And the way that you got something like that in my family. My family is just loaded with overachievers is to achieve.”   “The idea of work life balance work was my life, and in work I found my balance.”   “C.O.O. of a fifty thousand square foot empty building.”   “But the stink of dot.com failure was on me and the whole of the Internet all of the tech companies were starting to hit the wall.”   “It felt like my inner critic and karma got together and just decided to fuck with me.”   “Then the story I had told myself: Once you have the money, you'll figure it out. Then I had the money but I had no idea how to figure it out.”   “I felt like a failure. A clown. A fuck up.”   “Something clicked and I realized that this whole thing, this whole being alive thing is so special and miraculous. That I could have just as easily been born to this family. It's you know, we're just energy. I realized that I had an attitude problem. That I need to climb out of this. I realize that happiness is a choice. I realized that I needed to choose happiness, that I needed to change my perspective. I realized that I believed I had no options. Essentially, I realized that my inner critic was just an asshole and that asshole needs to be reckoned with. And that's when the healing began.”   “I think the most important thing, though, is really if you're going to beat yourself up, use a pillow, not a baseball bat, because it's not like you've been alive before.”    “Life is to be celebrated. Celebrate it all. Live it all. Drink from the fire hose.”    “I mean, that day out in the desert, I realized that I did not have a dream. I didn't have a dream for my life. I kind of had blinders on. I realized that I wanted to achieve. I wanted to work on things in my life that I cared about. And I hoped to earn enough money that I would be able to never have to work for a jerk and that I would be able to travel and these other things. But more than anything, I just wanted to be connected and love what I'm doing.”    TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/season-1/episode-6-marcus-segal   RESOURCES Follow Marcus on Linkedin linkedin.com/in/marcussegal   Who Dares Wins Watch Co. (Marcus’ watch company) https://wdwwatchco.com/   Wikipedia: Inner critic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_critic SHOW RESOURCES Subscribe, rate and review this podcast ♥️ Thanks for listening! http://inourbelly.com to preview all episodes coming up and future seasons Become a Patron https://www.patreon.com/bellyofthebeast @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly @inourbelly on Twitter  http://twitter.com/inourbelly @davidall on instagram (host) http://instagram.com/davidall # # #

Let me introduce you to Zawadi. After the loss of her 14 year life partner, Zawadi started her journey through abandonment, abuse, grief and homelessness. Through the Urban Possibilities Program, she found purpose, passion and her voice. Zawadi is now chief spokesperson for the Urban Possibilities Empowerment Program and uses her voice to help others see the light. Zawadi is a writer, spoken word poet, transformational speaker and published author. Zawadi, welcome to Belly of the Beast Life Stories.   EPISODE SUMMARY - In 2013, Zawadi’s life partner of 14 years died from cancer - With no place to turn, Zawadi found refuge with a narcissistic abuser - Zawadi finally escaped but with nowhere to go, ended up homeless - She lived for six months in a homeless shelter that felt more like a jail - At her lowest point and contemplating suicide, Zawadi met Eyvette Jones-Johnson and Urban Possibilties where she found her voice and purpose - The importance of having purpose when you’re homeless is crucial - Skid Row in Los Angeles was the ‘first level of hell’ - An old friend helped Zawadi learn about finances and more - Stigma of homelessness and media portrays wrong -- every time Zawadi goes to speak at corporate events someone tells her they are living in their car - Zawadi is grateful and living a meaningful, purpose-filled life   QUOTABLES “But from there I was looking for refuge and I ended up in the arms of a narcissist abuser. I was in such a dark place, but there was still a little bit of light, you know. And that journey let me into the belly. And so that's where purpose began in the belly.”   “Actually I've only been housed two years. And even that homeless journey was a nightmare. But here, through that whole process, the trauma that I went through. I lost my voice. I couldn't speak. Because of the trauma was so dark.”   “It was a homeless shelter, but it felt like we were in jail.”   “But what he didn't know that I was about to commit suicide. And because I'm a woman of my word and my integrity is very important to me. I went ahead and went to that writing class and that was the day that my life changed. Eyvette (Jones-Johnson) was up, she's the founder of Urban Possibilities. And she began to speak, and for the first time, it was like she was chipping at the reservoir. Was chipping at my heart. And that was the first time that I was able to let a little tears come out. I remember how the tears were burning my face. And that was the first light that I saw while in that belly.”   “Those three years of being homeless was very humbling. And it stripped every ounce of pride that I've ever had.”   “But part of me living in that shelter, I had to get up. I had to get up. I had to have purpose every day to get up. Because if not, I would still be there. You have to get up every day when you're in that situation. You have to have purpose. If you don't have a purpose you're not going to make it out. I was in survival mode. And I know what it feels like to be hungry. I know what it feels like to have to look on the ground for pennies to try to scrape up a dollar. And I know what it feels like to be judged. I had a lot of shame. A lot of shame. I will be on Facebook watching everybody else's lives. You know, this person is in Hawaii, this person's in London, Paris. And I'm in an abandoned building. Hungry. And no money. But I knew there was a purpose behind it. Skid Row is the first level of hell.”   “It was just a very humbling time, but it was just stripping me. I had to go through this transformation.”   “My transformation began when (my partner) died. My transformation began when I had to escape for my life. My transformation began when I was homeless. My transformation is.. I'm still transforming.”   “And now I'm light. I know I'm light. I'm light in dark places.”   “I'm on this quest of just being open and you know, just being available and surrendering. I'm in a place that's surrendering to the process. I just surrender.”   “But when we go out to speak in in corporate America, I'm always approached by someone that's working in corporate America that lives in their car.”   “But the beauty about it is that I got. And the beauty about it is that I wake up every morning kissing the sun. I wake up every morning knowing that I have purpose and I am destined for destiny.”   TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/season-1/episode-5-zawadi   RESOURCES Urban Possibilities - non-profit that empowered Zawadi https://urbanpossibilities.org/   Zawadi Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/zawadiartist   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zawadi_artist/   Zawadi’s 2015 Performance at Urban Possibilities https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXBs1Sjo078   SHOW RESOURCES Subscribe, rate and review this podcast ♥️ Thanks for listening! http://inourbelly.com to preview all episodes coming up and future seasons Become a Patron https://www.patreon.com/bellyofthebeast @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly @inourbelly on Twitter  http://twitter.com/inourbelly @davidall on instagram (host) http://instagram.com/davidall

Let me introduce you to Bill Barkeley. You could say that Bill lives an adventurous lifestyle. He has summited Mount Kilimanjaro, finished the Boston Marathon two times and hiked the 500-mile Camino de Santiago just to name a few. What's inspiring is that Bill has a rare disease called Usher Syndrome. He's both deaf and blind. Bill found his calling as a deaf-blind adventurer and co-founded a nonprofit, No Barriers, which embraces an ethos of finding purpose to get around obstacles in life, especially oneself.   EPISODE SUMMARY - Bill was profoundly deaf from the age of 5. - At the age of 28, Bill was married, working at Fortune 500 company, and had just had his first baby and living in San Francisco. - Several car accidents made Bill go to the eye doctor - thinking he needed glasses. - Eventually a specialist diagnosed him with a rare disease called Usher Syndrome - type II - the leading cause of deaf-blindness. - You can imagine this felt ‘like a death sentence’ to hear that you were going blind. - Bill surrendered on his first adventure - climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa - he let go and found himself - letting go of what he thought the world was expecting of him. - Bill’s adventures have deep meaning and purpose - but also fun and difficult. - Bill talks about his wife and the role of the spouse and caregiver. - Coping skills - accept yourself and surround yourself with the ‘rope team.’ - No Barriers USA - Bill’s non-profit helps folks get over the largest obstacle, 90 percent of the time it’s them.   QUOTABLES - “It just felt like a death sentence, even though I wasn't dying. It was really about the realization that life was not going to be necessarily on my terms.” - “If you go out to life it's great, but life isn't going to come to you.” -  “So the minute I let go of what I thought the world was expecting me to do that climb. Is the time, I said, you know, I'm going to do this. I can do it. I made it this far. And it's not about them. It's about me and about finding a new direction and new focus on my life.” - “Kilimanjaro... One of the insights that we've been talking about is finding yourself. But it's also about that time when you make the decision to live, you know that life is worth having and that you really can't imagine it not being there. “ - “You can call me a lot of things: A father, a son, a husband, a community member, a board member, you can call me some not so nice names. You can call me some good names. You can call me deaf. You can call me blind. They're just ways people describe me. But it doesn't have to define me. I define myself every day by what I do or where I go.”  - “Impact is powerful. We get great gifts by taking on challenges and adversity and mountains in our lives. We get the reward of knowing that we can make ourselves and other people on the human journey better, more satisfied, happier and fulfilled. So that's why I do adventures.” - “You know, it's important to just realize life doesn't come to you. We are tasked with the purpose of making the life.” - “So the coping piece of it is really comes around a number of different things. One is accepting yourself, realizing that you have your constraints and challenges. That's one piece. Another piece is surrounding yourself with what I call the rope team. I mean, people that really care about you. People that will listen to you. People that want to help in some way or capacity... have an emotional connection to you. And that you matter to them or you matter to life or things around you. That really means getting over yourself and saying, you know, I need help.”  - “To me, coping is realizing that it isn't going to come from just inside you. It's going to come from the world around you. And it's how you use the tools and resources and other people in the world around you that is going to define your ability to cope.”   TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/season-1/episode-4-bill-barkeley   RESOURCES http://billbarkeley.com/   Bill is the co-founder of No Barriers USA, a non-profit dedicated to helping others overcome obstacles in their life https://nobarriersusa.org/ SHOW RESOURCES Subscribe, rate and review this podcast ♥️ Thanks for listening! http://inourbelly.com to preview all episodes coming up and future seasons Become a Patron https://www.patreon.com/bellyofthebeast @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly @inourbelly on Twitter  http://twitter.com/inourbelly @davidall on instagram (host) http://instagram.com/davidall

Let me introduce you to Ryan Chen. This year Ryan was on stage at the prestigious Forbes 30 under 30 entrepreneurship event for the company he co-founded, Neuro. But a decade ago, at the age of 19, Ryan was being rushed to the hospital from a snowboarding accident that would ultimately paralyze him from the waist down. Ryan was forced to open his eyes to this new reality, learn to not blame himself and become comfortable with the uncomfortable. He learned to adapt, rekindle his love for athletics and ultimately build a successful business.   EPISODE SUMMARY - Ryan describes the snowboarding accident which instantly paralyzed him. - The complete shock he felt in the ambulance - and pain but fueled by adrenaline and a racing mind. - At the hospital, Ryan didn’t want anyone to know about the accident - didn’t want folks to worry. - Imagine the doctor telling you that you will never walk again. Ryan didn’t believe it. - Ironically, pain returning was a welcome sign but reality was setting in. - The very long and dark process included 2-3 years of opioid pain pills which Ryan gave up cold turkey but also a climb out by rekindling his love for athletics and racing in the LA Marathon. - Ryan would go on to race in seven marathons and met with the US Paralympic team; ultimately deciding he wanted to pursue other passions, like entrepreneurship. - Ryan co-founded Neuro with his longtime friend, Kent Yoshimura. - He was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list as a top entrepreneur. (Kent was 30 already so received an honorable mention.)   QUOTABLES - “It is a rollercoaster. I mean, you're still trying to figure yourself out and then you throw this in and it feels like your whole world stops. And for me, I think it took me two years of like really trying to figure out, well, not only like who I was, what I wanted to do, but like what was my purpose of living? Why did I survive this?” - “I never told anybody. I told friends not to tell anybody.“ - “Life is constantly changing, it's about adapting to that change.“ - “I think it's about being comfortable with being uncomfortable as kind of like something I always think about. There's always situations where you're like, you know, you're doing something for the first time, It's uncomfortable. And then you do it again and it feels a little bit more familiar. And then by the third time, you're like, I'm pretty comfortable with this.” - “You know, you're doing the best you can and be patient with yourself, because then you're going to come out on the other side and realize that that's part of your story. And that's that's going to shape who you are.“   TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/season-1/episode-3-ryan-chen/   RESOURCES Support Ryan’s company, Neuro https://neurogum.com/   Forbes 30 Under 30 Profiles https://www.forbes.com/profile/ryan-chen/#7afd0cb441d0   @ryan.ryc on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ryan.ryc/   Loma Linda University Medical Center - Level I Trauma Center https://lluh.org/locations/loma-linda-university-medical-center   Casa Colina for Rehab https://www.casacolina.org/   SHOW RESOURCES Subscribe, rate and review this podcast ♥️ Thanks for listening! http://inourbelly.com to preview all episodes coming up and future seasons Become a Patron https://www.patreon.com/bellyofthebeast @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly @inourbelly on Twitter  http://twitter.com/inourbelly @davidall on instagram (host) http://instagram.com/davidall # # #

A 30-year physician and two-time mayor of Beverly Hills, Dr. Julian Gold gained empathy and gratitude for community through his trial with cancer.   Dr. Julian Gold was 56-years-old when he was diagnosed with a deadly form of cancer, Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Then a 30-year physician, Dr. Gold was a member of the board of directors for Cedars-Sinai Hospital and one of the most respected medical professionals in Los Angeles. He had to learn quickly to ‘behave like a patient, not a doctor’ and focus on treatment. Dr. Gold established rules of recovery to stay positive and focused on getting better. A stem cell transplant procedure helped him survive -- but as you’ll learn being a ‘survivor’ is a tricky word when so many others don’t make it.   EPISODE SUMMARY - Dr. Julian Gold discusses how he discovered the pain which led to a diagnosis of Acute Myeloid Leukemia - Dr. Gold talks about efficacy of searching for answers on the internet and ultimately tells patients not to do it  - Discusses chemotherapy treatment, staying in hospital, good days and bad days - Stem Cell Transplant - urges everyone to get swabbed via ‘Be the Match’ program - Talks about important role of caregiver, family and community - Daily Rules of Recovery to stay positive and focused on getting better No matter how bad you feel, get up and out of bed  Take a shower and change clothes  Exercise as much as possible Stay engaged and relevant in your life outside hospital - routine is important - Life after - returning to normalcy, sweating the small stuff and loving it because the big stuff went away - Survivor is a ‘loaded word’    QUOTABLES - “Avoid the internet” if diagnosed. - “I had to behave like a patient, not a doctor.” - “This was like getting struck by lightning, I was fine one day and sick the next.” - “You have to take care of the caregiver.” - “Don’t sweat the small stuff unless it’s an indication of normalcy.” - “Recovery is not a straight line, expect good and bad days.” - “I got stronger for it.” Changed perspective on the world, greater appreciation for family and community, and greater sense of gratitude.    TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/season-1/episode-2-dr-julian-gold/   RESOURCES Dr. Julian Gold on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/goldjmd/   Be the Match https://bethematch.org/   City of Hope Cancer Treatment and Research https://www.cityofhope.org/

Martha Sternbach was a teenager in 1944 when she was forced to enter and work in the Nazi’s largest extermination camp, Auschwitz-Berkhana. But shockingly it was after the Holocaust that her nightmare began — when she first learned that her entire family had been killed. Now at 93, Martha looks back with a broken heart and a deep burden of guilt for surviving the Holocaust but grateful to be alive and to have survived.  Martha’s Birthday was on November 17 — marking 75 years since the Holocaust had ended for her. With reverence, we honor Martha by starting our podcast with her story, forever the candle to light the darkness ahead EPISODE SUMMARY - Martha was at Auschwitz-Berkhana from June-October 1944 - She had no idea the camp was a death camp; would later learn her entire family had been killed there - Surviving the Holocaust was a different kind of nightmare for Martha and led to a deep sense of ‘Survivors Guilt’ - For more than four decades, Martha hid her experience from her husband and family - Everyone must be kind to one another QUOTABLES “Hallelujah, I’m alive. Hallelujah, I’ve survived. "But Dear God I’m broken hearted and very very sad because evil men murdered my whole family and my friends, But I know that their soul is up with you in heaven. "So please Dear God take good care of them, and the day will come when my soul will be together with them, Then I’m going to sing Hallelujah again.” GUEST RESOURCES Martha’s recent testimony to the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust https://youtu.be/L5-XR1leg8k Martha’s 1994 testimony - her first time sharing the story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxQks_SWSMU MORE ABOUT US Website: http://inourbelly.com