Podcast Notes
Persistence U with Lizbeth Podcast
Podcast episodes are posted Wednesdays and include stories by and for survivors and strivers, all threaded together with a dose of persistence.
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Author and Martial Artist Cindy Villanueva Shares Her Unlikely Method for Maintaining Her Cool During a Rocky Divorce That Reshaped Her Life Forever
At 18, Cindy Villanueva was clearly on the fast path to success. Attending UCLA after an illustrious high school journey that included near- perfect grades, Cindy instead got pregnant and became a teen mom and college dropout. But even after three more children and a...
A Few Survival Skills Gained After My Daughters Were Kidnapped, and Why They Might Just Help You
Sometimes it feels as though life has it in for us. Since publishing my book and more recently, when that book became a movie, I've had the pleasure of connecting with so many people around the world, many experiencing crises similar to those I wrote about like abuse...
Christina Foxwell on Shedding Shame and the Need to Please In Order to Ignite Her Purpose
Christina Foxwell's early life in South Africa was with loving and strict parents. Her father was a Penecostal minister. It was during the age of apartheid, and Christina, a fair-skinned person of color, found herself longing to fit in and to be loved. Christina said...
Can You Forgive a Parent That You Have a Turbulent History With? Author Laura Davis Shares How She Did It, And Why It’s Not For Everyone
The bumpy relationship between bestselling author Laura Davis and her mom was well-documented long before her recent memoir The Burning Light Between Two Stars: A Mother-Daughter Story was published and resulted in a long period of estrangment. Yet where some of us...
Has Parenting Your Adult Kids Been a Challenge? Empowerment Life Coach Denise Drinkwalter Helps to Navigate the Relationships By Cutting the Cord, Not the Ties
Parenting books and experts have much to say on parenting kids during the early years. Then the information seems to stop. Denise Drinkwalter is a former educator who's helped scores of parents who are wrestling with issues of communications, expectations, and...
How Do We Navigate Differences Without Unfriending and Unfollowing? The Therapy Twins Share Their Secrets on How to Get Along
You might think that being a twin means you'll experience the world around you similarly. Not so, says identical twins and authors Joan and Jane, former therapists turned psychiatric entertainers. Perhaps it was their forced separation by medical staff when they...
How Cheryl Ilov Solved Her Chronic Pain Problems When Doctors Could Not and Became the Author of Forever Fit and Flexible.
After a diagnosis of arthritis in her spine created neverending pain, Chery Ilov was told to resign herself to the fact she'd need medication for life and wouldn't be able to dance or become a physical therapist as planned. The pain was just a part of aging. Today,...
How Her Son’s Addiction Issues Helped Colleen Elaine’s Family Come Clean
As a young man spiraling out of control with drug addiction, Colleen Elaine's son clearly had a problem. He wasn't the only one. Colleen Elaine shares lessons learned after her life unraveled, and the permanent changes made as her son and entire family inched forward...
The Most Important Lessons Learned on the Path to a New Life Across Country
It's been over nine months since I packed my few boxes, stuffed my cats in an airplane, and flew from Alaska to Tennessee to a home where I knew no one, leaving the place where I'd spent more than 5 decades of my life. [video width="1080" height="1080"...
An AA Meeting at 18 Saved Kerrie Atherton’s life. Four Decades Later, She’s Still Paying it Forward
While teens her age worried about the prom and high school graduation, Kerrie Atherton was planning to end her life. The weight of depression, trauma, and substance abuse had become too much. A meeting at Alcoholics Anonymous was the first important step toward...
When Dr. Allen Lycka was Misdiagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease, He Found the Secret to Living a Fantastic Life
What do you say when a doctor tells you that you've got six months to live? When you're Dr. Allen Lycka, you get a second opinion. And a third. And so on. Rather than close his practice down and get his affairs in order, Dr. Lycka followed his intuition and kept...
When Fiona Demark’s Family Told Her to Not Expect Too Much of Herself Due to Her Disability, She Found Support Elsewhere
Back when Fiona Demark was growing up in a small town in Australia, resources to help support her sight loss weren't readily available. Legally blind since birth, she worked hard in school and envisioned a future for herself that included a career. But her family...
When You’re Accused of a Crime You Didn’t Commit, What Can You Do? Author and Accused Infant Abuser Rachel Bruno Shares from Experience What Not to Do
Rachel Bruno responded openly when police at the hospital told her that they were there to help her. Her seven week old son had a serious traumatic brain injury, and might not survive the night. What happened next would turn her whole family's lives upside down, and...
Dr. Susan Landers Talks About the Importance of Being a Good Enough Mother
Dr. Susan Landers had it all. A brilliant career in neonatology in the NICU unit, a supportive husband, also a doctor, and three children. It was wonderful, and sometimes, it was far too much. Today, Susan is the author of So Many Babies: My Life Balancing a Busy...
When Stand-Up Comedian Karen Mills Found Something Funny in Her Belly
Karen Mills wrote off her tummy pooch as simply another sign of menopause. After all, what menopausal woman doesn't gain a bit of belly weight, or have trouble fully evacuating during urination ? When her doctor saw her for a routine appointment, she eventually...
The Pale-Faced Lie Author David Crow on Rejecting the Intergenerational Inheritance of Trauma
"We need to get rid of your mother," David Crows father told him when he was a young boy. He'd worried David would experience the mental health problems that she did, and insisted David help dispose of her to reduce the likelihood. What happened next became the...
Episode 73: Can Childhood Bullying Define Adulthood for Its Victims? She Blurbs Podcaster Brook Wright Refuses to Allow It
Bullying isn't a new problem. But with the advent of social media, it's one that children who are harassed at school no longer get a break from. Brook Wright was targeted at school many years ago, and when here fierce mother tried to intervene, things only got worse....
Episode 72: Author Frank Zafiro’s Long Journey to Becoming an Accidental Publisher
Frank Zafiro isn't afraid of a challenge. A police officer for many years before retiring as a captain, he'd long been a writer with a string of successes. But as the world of publishing changed, he found himself fighting to get his books into the hands of readers,...
Episode 71: Unfreezing Trauma Using EMDR With Author Mary Held
First, the diagnosis was epilepsy. Then, a host of other symptoms besides seizures were identified and treated. By the time Mary Held finally found a doctor who landed on the right intervention, she'd lost mobility and nearly all the ability to work and live as she'd...
Episode 70: Filmmaker/Writer Daniel Hess Shares Why He Couldn’t Afford to Delay Pursuing a Career That Mattered
Daniel Hess was just a little boy when his close-as-a -brother cousin died. Daniel himself was born with aortic valve stenosis, a heart defect that meant he couldn't play sports like other kids. He could have easily focused on the limitations, but from the beginning,...
Episode 68: Would You Trade Financial Security for Personal Passion? Actress Jinny Wong Shares How She Did It Responsibly
Jinny Wong was living the dream. With a supportive husband, a secure job with great benefits, and a growing family, what could be better? But she wasn't living her dream. Jinny wanted to pursue her passion of acting. But should she? How could she? What all was she...
Episode 67: When Can You Second-Guess Your Doctor? For Robyn Moore, the Answer Flipped an Internal Switch that Led to Big Change
When Robyn Moore's doctor told her she needed an 11th medication to manage her mental health, inwardly she balked. It took some encouragement to address her concerns directly, and the decision to do so spurred a series of other opinions that needed challenging. [video...
Minisode: The Book-to-Movie Journey, Mistakes Made, and Your Questions Answered, Pt 3
Welcome to this three-part miniseries about the book-to-movie process. This is episode 3. I'll be sharing some of what I learned when my memoir, Pieces of Me: Rescuing My Kidnapped Daughters, became Stolen By Their Father on Lifetime Television, and mistakes I made...
Minisode: The Book-to-Movie Journey, Mistakes Made, and Your Questions Answered, Pt 2
Welcome to this three-part miniseries about the book-to-movie process. Contrary to what I mentioned in the recording, the next two will be published this week! 🙂 I'll be sharing some of what I learned when my memoir, Pieces of Me: Rescuing My Kidnapped Daughters,...
Episode 66: Ed DiGangi Gave Himself The Gift Best Given as He Neared 70 and Found His Biological Mother
Ed Di Gangi wasn't an adopted person who'd always wondered about his biological family. His childhood had been a good one. That changed as he approached his 70th birthday, when Ed's curiosity was piqued by a trip to the graveyard. His journey to know his history is...
Minisode: Minisode: The Book-to-Movie Journey, Mistakes Made, and Your Questions Answered, Pt 1
Welcome to this three-part miniseries about the book-to-movie process. Contrary to what I mentioned in the recording, the next two will be published this week! 🙂 I'll be sharing some of what I learned when my memoir, Pieces of Me: Rescuing My Kidnapped Daughters...
Episode 65: LaTonia Edwards Talks Healing for Sexual Abuse and Military Sexual Assault, and the Signs She Saw in Herself that She’d Healed
For LaTonia Edwards, seeking help to heal from childhood abuse and, later, military sexual assault, wasn't something she learned from her family growing up. [video width="1080" height="1080"...
Episode 64: Stel Coombe-Heath Talks Beating Binge Eating and How Trying Less Can Lead to More
Stel Coombe-Heath sat in her home a few years ago, surrounded by the evidence of fast food and donuts she'd eaten, and realized it was her time to ask for help. She'd long taken her fitness and weight to punishing levels, depriving herself for period of time, followed...
Episode 63: How Village Life in Alaska Has Transformed this Ohio Native Educator
Ohio native Jacob Deskins was already an anxious young man when he finally graduated from college and got a job as a teacher. Then the pandemic came, and wiped away his sought-after opportunity. He and his wife faced a difficult choice. Move to Los Angeles, or to the...
Episode 60.5 The Truth About Happily Ever After and the Journey of Recovery (From Anything!)
Today is so very significant to me. Stolen By Their Father, the Lifetime Television movie based on my book, Pieces of Me: Rescuing My Kidnapped Daughters, premiers today. And it's 32 years to the day after leaving abuse behind, something to celebrate, indeed. [video...