Shenandoah Chefalo was our guest this week on the #LessStressInLife podcast. Shen is the author of Garbage Bag Suitcase, a memoir of her childhood with drug and alcohol addicted parents and life in the foster care system. We talked about why trauma awareness is important in bringing culture change and why it is an important part of healing the brokenness in the world. Listen to our conversation here

The best way to drive home a point is through the sharing of stories. This week on the Less Stress in Life Podcast, we finished a 4-part series on resilience. Physical resilience, emotional resilience, mental resilience, and spiritual resilience each had their own episode. You can click on this link or find it on your favorite podcast channel. As with all our series, we look for a story to share about someone’s experience with the to help our readers and listeners apply the concepts. Nicole...

How much gas is in your tank at the beginning of your day? Are you 100% charged and ready to go, or feeling depleted and wishing you could pull the covers over your head and catch a few more Zzz’s? The last few years of constant change, leading through fear, worry, and lack of staff has been taxing on our energy. Many of us feel drained. We know we can’t continue at this pace, yet we push through tasks and deadlines, and at the end of the day, we bring our leftovers to the people we love the...

One of the common statistics we hear often from the American Institute of Stress is, how many of our visits to a physician are stress related. Research says 75 to 90% of all the physical stuff we go to the doctor for is rooted in stress. We had already become numb to stress signals in pre-pandemic times. The constant rates of change and uncertainty have disconnected us even further from the signals our body is sending. Not listening, sets us up for doctor visits, costly testing, and dis-ease...

Scott Grant, MD., MPH joined us on the Less Stress in Life Podcast for a conversation on childhood trauma, how he approaches incorporating trauma-informed care into his practice, the transformational power of parenthood and his new Docs2Dads podcast. Dr. Grant is a Board-Certified pediatrician who works in primary care and hospital pediatrics in Southeast Michigan. Professionally, Dr. Grant is interested in learning how childhood adversity and toxic stress affect children into adulthood, and...

We had the opportunity to chat with Beck Thompson, author of Chasing Normal, a memoir about her complex childhood trauma experience, healing path and journey to feeling peace and a sense of normalcy in life. Now an educator, speaker and presenter, Beck uses her story to help other educators understand the effects of trauma and the importance of creating a safe and stable school environment. Download the podcast