Who doesn't want a loving, happy and fulfilling life? Do I hear the HOW question? Listen in as Ken shares his learnings for catalyst ideas to help you along your journey.

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

https://www.facebook.com/ken.destefano.1

https://www.amazon.com/Will-See-You-Again-Hearts/dp/B0C63YSMWH

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

Do you wish you were carrying less emotional baggage? Listen in as Craig shares the things that have helped and are helping lighten his load from meeting Nancy Verrier and Ram Dass and much, much more.

Find out more about Craig at:

https://www.facebook.com/insideoutadoption

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

What if there's an inherent health within us that drives us? A Self that's untouched by trauma? How would knowing that make a difference to how we feel about ourselves? Listen in as Liam dives into his experience to reveal a finding overflowing with hope.

Liam O Mahony is an adoptee, an accredited Psychotherapist and Addiction Counsellor with over nine years of experience working with adults and adolescents. He is associated with the Centre for Self-Leadership Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS), a member of the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (IACP) and Addiction Counsellors of Ireland (ACI). He is a graduate of University College Cork and the Cork Institute of Technology with particular expertise in areas such as Trauma and Addiction.

His main interest is the related fields of Attachment, Neuroscience and Trauma and he is particular passionate about how research from these areas can be integrated into the work of psychotherapists and addiction counsellors.

More at:

https://pcpsi.ie/our-founders/

The book Liam mentioned on generational trauma is The Heart of Trauma by Dr. Bonnie Badenoch

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

Have you felt separate? Alone? Elizabeth felt so separate that she thought she was an alien. So how did she get to that visceral feeling of wholeness? A deep dive into healing. Because that's where the gems are.

Note from Elizabeth – I want to apologize for the incorrect usage of the phrase trauma bonding near the very end of the episode. I was looking for a way to describe adoptees commiserating with one another about a shared traumatic experience. Simon’s term of validation is more appropriate in this instance.

Here's a bit about Elizabeth from her website:

I’m an adult adoptee living in reunion with my birth family. Since 1999, I’ve known my birth mom, my birth dad and my eleven (!!!) brothers and sisters. And, in 2011, I adopted our daughter Riley. She is the love of my life.

I’m Elizabeth Barbour, M.Ed, Life & Business Coach, Shamanic Practitioner, Speaker, Retreat Leader, Author and Mom.

I see what’s possible for you when you can’t see it for yourself. I see your strengths, your beauty, your gifts, your talents and all that you can possibly be… and I help you step more fully into the truest version of you.

As a life and business coach, I help entrepreneurial and professional women find work/life balance–and sanity–in the chaos of daily living. It’s not unusual for clients to cry in their first sessions with me because they are just so relieved to find support.

As a shamanic practitioner, I utilize the power of shamanic journey work to access messages and information from the spiritual realms (sometimes referred to as non-ordinary reality) to help my clients cut through the stuck places and gain clarity fast. I’m passionate about helping my clients to design rituals and celebrations when big transitions are afoot (life and death, weddings and divorces, moves, etc.) My first book is tentatively titled Sacred Celebrations.

When teaching and speaking, I’m multi-passionate. I’m equally comfortable facilitating a teambuilding session in an corporate environment, inspiring a room full of entrepreneurs to become authentic networkers, preaching the value of self-care to a room full of overworked realtors or leading an intimate women’s retreat through a fire ceremony ritual to release their stress and to reclaim their balance.

https://elizabethbarbour.com/

https://www.facebook.com/elizabethbarbour

https://www.instagram.com/elizabthbarbour/

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

Trauma sits frozen in time within the part of us that experienced the trauma. For those relinquished at birth it's newborn who's lost their mother. Parts work (also known as Internal Family Systems IFS) heals those parts. Our Self is untouched by trauma. Our Self heals our parts. It does that by accepting, loving and giving them the recognition that they've never had before. Listen in as adoptee and IFS therapist Kathy shares how we heal all our parts.

Here's a bit about Kathy from her website:

Long before I became a therapist, I was adopted. My parents had two biological sons and were unable to have a third child and wanted a girl, so they adopted me. Even before then, though, I was relinquished.

I make the distinction between relinquishment and adoption, because those are two separate events, and I believe the root of many “adoption issues" lies with relinquishment and the experience of having been separated from one’s original parents, especially one’s first mom/birthmom. I was relinquished at birth, placed in foster care and then placed with my adoptive family when I was 10 weeks old. Even those of us who were relinquished at birth, before we developed conscious memory, lived through the experience, and our bodies remember, which often lead us to respond as though it is happening again—a post-traumatic response.

My personal experiences led me to become a therapist who specializes in helping other adoptees, and the people close to them. I work with adult adoptees, adopted children/teens, adoptive parents, first/birth parents, prospective adoptive parents and the partners of adoptees, as well as others who have had similar experiences for other reasons.

https://www.instagram.com/adopteetherapy

https://www.adopteetherapy.com/

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

Does healing seem like a journey to you? A long, arduous trip. What if wholeness were closer? Something we can see and feel sooner? Listen in as Yael and dive deep into revealing and reclaiming our wholeness.

Here's a bit about Yael:

"My personal experience as a bisexual Jewish woman, a practitioner of Mussar, an adoptee, a divorcee, a “bonus mom” and a “career transitionist” have given me a deep repository of strength and skills as well.

As a mindfulness-based coach, I help people who are at turning points in life get crystal-clear on who they are, what they need in the next chapter of their lives, and how to create it.

I help you develop the confidence to express yourself authentically and bring true closure to past chapters. Together, we discover your inner barriers to fulfillment. With support, you learn to rewrite old programming you didn’t realize you had.

My intention is to accompany you on your journey to living a life that is deeply meaningful to you with clarity, confidence, courage, and connection – whatever your identity, whatever your situation."

https://www.instagram.com/bechiracoaching/

https://www.facebook.com/yael.dennis.817/

https://bechiracoaching.com/

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

How's your healing evolving? Are we ever whole? Listen in as guest host Jude flips the script on me. Her questions on healing were great! They're well worth you asking yourself. Do my answers bring you an insight or two? There's only one way for you to find out...

I was adopted at 5 weeks old and told so young I don’t ever remember not knowing.

I didn't experience any conscious adoption trauma until 40 when I found out my childhood teddy bear was a gift from my birth mother.

This caused an eruption of anger, feeling rejected and unloved. That kickstarted a healing journey exploring trauma, my roots and who I am.

I've spent 16 years doing this and continues to be fascinated by it all and:

*working with 2,500 kids and parents in the UK and USA to increase kids’ confidence, self-esteem, resilience and ability to stop bullies upsetting them.

*conversations with over 400 global foster and adoptive parents, foster and adoption professionals, social workers and therapists as well as adults who were fostered or adopted. Many of these conversations have been for the Thriving Adoptees podcast https://thriving-adoptees.simplecast.com

*I've also run webinars for adoptees and resource parents in the UK, USA and Australia.

More at:

https://www.facebook.com/simonjbenn

https://www.facebook.com/thrivingadoptees

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

https://www.instagram.com/simonjbenn/

https://www.thrivingadoptees.com/

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

We only have to heal if we've been sick or damaged. But what if this perspective is off? Listen in as therapist and teacher Corie shares a fresh perspective on growth and change.

Find out more about Corie and her book at:

https://www.facebook.com/corieskolnick

https://corieskolnick.com/orfan/

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