with Matana
In this short episode, Matana shares her joy at Hope To Recharge podcast reaching a new milestone of 50,000 downloads. In order to improve herself, and her work, she, as most people, require the time to reflect, recharge and focus, and will be going on a short break. Resuming in March with new content, it’s important for us all to pamper ourselves with needed rest to enjoy our growth.
Sari Dana tells us her story of how she chose to move away from dieting after a long struggle with binge eating. She chose to give her body unconditional acceptance and love, no matter what happened to her size, which put her in a much healthier place both mentally and physically than she had been before. Her passion to empower everyone involved in working with teens, including the kids themselves, is to retrain their minds to see themselves as a whole person, not just their bodies or any other part, and to love every part unconditionally. Once they have started that work in themselves, they can start to guide others as well.
Growing up, Nichole and her family knew she was different; something just seemed “off.” But she wouldn’t get diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder until she was 20 years old. As a young child, she assumed everyone was having a similar inner experience to hers, so she didn’t even think to ask for help. Her parents didn’t understand how much was going on in her brain. During a manic episode, Nichole left home and moved in with a boy several hours away. When the mania subsided, she found herself in the deepest depression of her life. She took herself to the hospital many times, and was turned away every time before finally getting admitted for attempting suicide and being taken home by her parents.
Laura Messner grew up in a typical home until her parents divorced when she was eight years old. After she became aware of how little she got to see her father, she began chasing after perfection in every way she could think of to “earn” his attention… until she developed an eating disorder and eventually attempted suicide. She came to learn self-love and to take responsibility for her own pain and healing journey. As a teenager, she resisted help because she was unwilling to admit that everything inside was not perfect. It wasn’t until her late twenties that she came to understand that her struggles stemmed from the pain she felt from seeing herself as a victim of her father’s abandonment.
Dr. Aviva Weisbord, PhD, was a gift to humanity. Her untimely passing this past week brought forth stories of an incredible individual, who harnessed her innate talent to help others challenged with struggles, mental health issues, personal problems and become a life long devotee to public health organizations, all with extreme humility. Her focus was not myopic. Her vision was broad. She undertook personal responsibility to helping those with no one to help them, providing a listening ear, word of comfort, sage advice, albeit peppered with deep, profound and sensitive wisdom.
As 2020 comes to a close, we continue discussing our ability to harness the power of resilience that can be accomplished when focusing with gratitude. It is crucial to learn how to shield ourselves and create boundaries from things that are harmful to us and to become aware of our triggers. We learn to say “no” things that will hurt us and give ourselves permission to ask, “Is what I’m going to do going to help me in my recovery, or is it going to set me back”.
Paul Cummings had a stroke three years ago and lost his speech, the ability to understand others, the ability to read and write and difficulty moving his muscles. Doctors told him he would never be able to write or speak again.
In this episode, we meet Brian Reynolds, a world record-holding runner, who also happens to be a double, below-the-knee, amputee. He shares his lifelong experiences growing up and overcoming. Sadly, Brian was born with a condition that made him very susceptible to illness. At just four years old he came down with meningitis, an infection that’s taken many lives. As a result of his illness, he woke up in the hospital without his legs. However, Brian isn’t the type of person to dwell on that and the sadness that could rightfully overtake and debilitate a person. To the contrary, he assures and inspires us how he is lucky that this is all he lost.
As the end of 2020 nears, Matana reflects back on the changes, growth and hurdles that we’ve seen and learned from. Inspired from the positive moments, we focus on the power of resilience and our commitment to keeping this attribute a constant thread in the fabric that weaves us.
In continuation of Part 1 of this episode, we are joined again with Miri Grunhaus & Fally Klein, who share with us their wisdom, insight and experience in the journey of mental health, and healing with gold. In this stunning interview with personal friends and collaborators Fally Klein, a women’s empowerment facilitator, and Miri Grunhaus, a fashion designer with purpose, we gain a newfound understanding of healing. Both women have experienced tremendous pain in their lives, but it is what they learned from their pain that gave them purpose, and ultimately brought them together. If we learn to sit with our pain rather than shy away from it, they share, we can catapult ourselves into lives of deeper joy and meaning than we ever thought possible.