Thriving Adoptees - Let's Thrive

Considering searching? Scared of rejection? Confused about the next step? Adoptee and Genetic Genealogist Gerri shares what she's learned riding her own emotional rollercoaster and helping 300 other adoptees do the same. It's insightful, powerful and empowering.Geraldine Berger, known as "The Genetic Genealogy Coach," is a professional genetic genealogist and author, specializing in helping adult adoptees and others with unknown parentage to identify and locate their birth parents, and other long-lost family members, via DNA testing. In addition, she accepts traditional family tree research projects, breaking though brick walls, using DNA evidence. An adoptee herself, "Gerri" has cracked hundreds of cases of unknown parentage and other family tree mysteries, including her own, and her successes have appeared in news outlets worldwide. She is also an experienced intermediary between adoptees and their biological family members. Gerri is the author of "Living In The Know: The Adoptee’s Quick Start Guide to Finding Family with DNA Testing,” a book about the importance of knowing the truth of your origins and solving cases of unknown parentage using DNA testing, released May 2021 (Amazon, Kindle, Nook, bookstores, libraries). As an adoptee rights activist, she is contributing author to various other media.A dynamic public speaker, Gerri lectures on the topic of genetic genealogy at historical and genealogical societies, libraries and other organizations. She earned a certificate in Genealogical Research from Boston University and has a Master’s degree in Psychology, from Fairleigh Dickinson University. https://www.facebook.com/geneticgenealogycoach/https://www.geneticgenealogycoach.com/https://twitter.com/TheGenGenCoach?lang=enhttps://www.amazon.com/Living-Know-Adoptees-Quick-Start-Finding/dp/1736720309Here's a link to the webinar replay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnz7I7V_IOQ 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.

Empathy helps us understand the important others in our lives - like our adoptive parents as well as people who may not be in our lives such as our birth mothers. Understanding them brings more peace for us as well as oiling our relationships. Listen in as we dive deep on how we can up our empathy game.Here's a bit about Danielle from her website:My name is Danielle and I am an Earth Citizen 🙂 .What I mean when I say that, is I have a sincere desire to see a healthier, happier and more peaceful world, and I believe it starts with me.I have dedicated my life to growing my own light by helping others to grow their light also. For this, I currently work as a Regional Manager of Body & Brain Centers in Seattle, WA., giving lectures and leading training and coaching sessions.My journey with this work and this path began over 20 years ago – when I started to seek healing for my own body, mind and spirit. I have created Healing Tree – the blog, and now the book – in order to share my stories and inspirations family, friends, my students, and anyone else who may be interested in the healing journey.It is a journey – and a long one at that! Sometimes it’s nice to know you have companions along the way, traveling down similar roads as you. It is my hope that the words you discover here become comforting friends for you, finding their way to your heart. Who knows, they may even turn on a small light in there 🙂 When my light, your light, and our lights shine bright together, what a beautiful world it will be! “Our adopted angel” – that’s what Danielle’s adoptive parents called her. She grew up adored, doted on, and unconditionally loved. It wasn’t until she was in college that she first felt a gnawing curiosity about her roots. From time to time, she would wonder: Where did this face come from? Where did this body come from? Where did this blood come from? Her search to find her biological parents had begun – one full of surprises and revelations.After reuniting with her birth mother – and uncovering the primal wound that lay deep within her – Danielle embarks on a twenty-year healing journey of self-discovery, reconciliation, and forgiveness.At once a heartfelt memoir and a guide to self-awareness, Healing Tree offers a compassionate exploration of self, family, and what it means to be whole. Rooted in her twenty-year practice in Body & Brain holistic mind/body techniques, Danielle offers an approachable eight-step method for anyone wishing to heal from emotional or psychological wounds. This method invites readers to cultivate a loving relationship with their authentic selves and charts a pathway to inner peace.For anyone who feels stuck, hurt, or rudderless in the sea of life, for anyone interested in doing the deep work of self-healing, becoming liberated, and realizing the potential to heal beyond themselves, Healing Tree is a source of direction, inspiration, and hope.Find out more at:https://www.daniellegaudette.com/https://www.facebook.com/DGhealingtreehttps://www.instagram.com/danielle.gaudette/ 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.

Many adoptees - myself included - delay the search for our birth mothers for fear of rejection. We don't believe we could handle it. We are still feeling the aftershocks of the initial rejection. Lori shares what she's learned about surviving rejection, underestimating our emotional resilience and ability to bounce back. We both loved this deep and profound conversation and hope you do too.Here's a bit about Lori and her book:Jakiela is a Professor of English/Creative Writing at The University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, where she directs the Creative & Professional Writing Program. She writes a monthly column, "Stories of Our Neighbors"–modeled on the work of the great oral historian Studs Terkel–for Pittsburgh Magazine, and is the recipient of multiple Golden Quill Awards from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania. She has taught in the graduate MFA program at Chatham University, in the undergraduate writing program at The State University of New York at Purchase, classes and workshops for Creative Nonfiction Foundation, and is currently on the adjunct faculty of the Doctor of Ministry program in Creative Writing at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. A former international flight attendant, she lives in her hometown, Trafford, PA, with her husband, the author Dave Newman, and their children. After her adoptive mother’s death, Lori Jakiela, at the age of forty, begins to seek the identity of her birth parents. In the midst of this loss, Jakiela also finds herself with a need to uncover her family’s medical history to gather answers for her daughter’s newly revealed medical ailments. This memoir brings together these parallel searches while chronicling intergenerational questions of family. Through her work, Jakiela examines both the lives we are born with and the lives we create for ourselves. Desires for emotional resolution comingle with concerns of medical inheritance and loss in this honest, humorous, and heartbreaking memoir.https://www.amazon.com/Belief-Its-Kind-Truth-Maybe/dp/1938769422https://twitter.com/lorijakielahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/lori-jakiela-2555716https://www.lorijakiela.net/ 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.

Oleg became an orphan at 9. But he's NOT a prisoner of the past. How has re-written his story to serve him? What has he learned that helps him thrive. Empowering and inspirational. Listen in with BIG ears.Here's Oleg's story from his website:I was nine years old when I became an orphan, but before I was an orphan, I grew up in a small, cold, and empty apartment in Russia with my older Sister, and an alcoholic Mother. We were born into poverty.Living without a Father and with an alcoholic Mother forced me to make difficult decisions at an early age. I needed to come up with creative solutions to everyday problems in order to survive, whether it was to bargain for food or to find a place to sleep. For me, developing an entrepreneurial mindset was not an option, but rather a necessity, even when I was only six years old. In 2005, I walked into a new family through adoption, in a new country, to start a new life.At the time I knew that adoption was a step closer to a better life, but I did not know the things I would have to give up in order to have that better life.Adoption taught me how to appreciate. I appreciated the warmth of home filled with love and respect that my parents offered me.The transition from poverty to affluence was more than an outer transformation; it required me to go through an inner transformation too. I had to become comfortable with change in order to survive.Children, who are adopted, have no option, but to change. They have no option, but to give up pieces of themselves, such as their birth name, their birth family, friends, their native language, culture and memories.With the love and support of my family, I was fortunate to overcome these changes. In fact, I was fortunate to experience two spectrums of life: from poverty to wealth. I was not only fortunate to be adopted by a caring loving family, but also to have the opportunity to graduate from both high school and college.I entered Kent State University with a passion to study Russian, as a way to keep in touch with my birth family in Russia. Though soon into my college career, I also gravitated towards entrepreneurship, with the realization that I was already an entrepreneur. On a broader scale, I realized that my life had a mission, a mission that required me to learn from my own journey, and to contribute to a greater cause. A cause that has helped me to discover my purpose in life, which is to help individuals live a better life, despite their hardship and misfortunes.At age 23, I finally decided to stand up and speak up. I realized that despite still being an orphan, I am no longer alone. I am no longer scared. I am no longer defined by a word.Overcoming struggles can be challenging, but I promise YOU, if you surround yourself with people who have gone through challenges, the process becomes much easier.I know this because I have done so.If my mission speaks to you, please join me in helping individuals around the world Stand Up & Speak Up. https://www.instagram.com/overcomingoddshttps://www.facebook.com/overcomingodds.todayhttps://twitter.com/_overcomingoddshttps://www.overcomingodds.today/ 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.

Transracial adoptee Matthew shares how he's found clarity and resolved confusion about who he is to find peace. There are insights aplenty on shame, feeling different and a host of other issues that can plague transracial adoptees.Here's the book I mention https://www.amazon.com/Power-vs-Force-Dr-David-R-Hawkins-audiobook/dp/B000KZRMCOMATTHEW SALESSES is the author of eight books, including The Sense of Wonder, which comes out in January 2023 from Little, Brown. Most recent are the national bestseller Craft in the Real World (a Best Book of 2021 at NPR, Esquire, Library Journal, Independent Book Review, Chicago Tribune, Electric Literature, and others) and the PEN/Faulkner Finalist and Dublin Literary Award longlisted novel Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear. He also wrote The Hundred-Year Flood; I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying; Different Racisms: On Stereotypes, the Individual, and Asian American Masculinity; The Last Repatriate; and Our Island of Epidemics (out of print). Also forthcoming is a memoir-in-essays, To Grieve Is to Carry Another Time.Matthew was adopted from Korea. In 2015 Buzzfeed named him one of 32 Essential Asian American Writers. His essays can be found in Best American Essays 2020, NPR Code Switch,The New York Times Motherlode, The Guardian, VICE.com, and other venues. His short fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, American Short Fiction, PEN/Guernica, and Witness, among others. He has received awards and fellowships from Bread Loaf, Glimmer Train, Mid-American Review, [PANK], HTMLGIANT, IMPAC, Inprint, and elsewhere.Matthew is an Assistant Professor of Writing at Columbia University. He earned a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston and an M.F.A. in Fiction from Emerson College. He serves on the editorial boards of Green Mountains Review and Machete (an imprint of The Ohio State University Press), and has held editorial positions at Pleiades, The Good Men Project, Gulf Coast, and Redivider. He has read and lectured widely at conferences and universities and on TV and radio, including PBS, NPR, Al Jazeera America, various MFA programs, and the Tin House, Kundiman, and One Story writing conferences.https://matthewsalesses.com/https://www.instagram.com/m.salesses 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.

Nicole pledged to herself that she'd search for her birth mother at the tender age of 4. Now in 60's she has been in reunion for over half her life. Like many of us she felt torn - lost in 'the space between'. She shares how she's found herself to feel comfortable in her own skin. Listen up for your own insights on navigating reunion and feeling comfortable in your own skin.Here's a bit about Nicole from her websiteAn adult adoptee, I'm the author of a reunion memoir, Swimming Up the Sun, which I've adapted as a stage play. I've given numerous presentations and workshops at conferences and advocate for adoptee human rights and adoption reform.Find out more about her and watch videos about adoption at https://www.nicolejburton.com/biohttps://www.facebook.com/ApippaPublishingCompany/https://twitter.com/nicoleburton 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.

Listen in as Melissa shares what she's learned after coming out of the fog and finding her true, authentic self. We go deep on higher self-esteem, spotting gaslighting and more. Profound and surprising. There's more to fog than adoption....Melissa is an adoptee and the host of Mind Your Own Karma-The Adoption Chronicles Podcast. She is passionate about educating the world about adoption after discovering so many adoptees hurting deeply by their relinquishment experiences. By inviting anyone in the adoption constellation to tell their stories on her show, she hopes to educate the world on the truths of adoption from all involved. She strongly believes that until the triad comes together in unity, there will be no positive change in the adoption narrative. Melissa says she is an adoption survivor and thriver now that she has discovered the key to coming out of the fog and living a life that she loves.https://www.instagram.com/mind_your_own_karma/https://www.facebook.com/mindyourownkarmahttps://www.facebook.com/melissaannbrunettihttps://linktr.ee/Mindyourownkarma 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.

This episode is all about one of the most dramatic turnarounds we've ever heard on the podcast. Lorah used to think that God hated her. That she was a demon. That her soul was shattered. Reunion shook her to the core. So what changed? Listen into her profound shifts. Let them catalyse shifts in you.Here's a link to the Rupert Spira video on trauma I mentioned https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7xz2GB89OcHere's more about Lorah from her website:Welcome! Here’s a little bit about me. I am The Adopted Chameleon on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Pinterest. I found writing and being creative was therapeutic. I started these pages when I was at a very low point until I found solace in the adult adoptee community. This group knows my pain and understood how I feel. I felt seen and heard for the first time. I had a language and was able to better express what I needed to heal. Being vulnerable and talking about my pain has helped me. Now I write to help myself as well as others. I am a trained Kundalini yoga instructor, TIYT-Trauma Informed Yoga Therapy, instructor, Reiki Master, and Intuitive. With my training in energy healing, trauma and breathe work training, I have studied methods that help with the healing process. Working with these tool I have learned to better understand my own trauma. I use my training to help myself and others. When we heal ourselves, we heal the world.Having worked for Whole Foods Market for almost 7 years as their Marketing Team Leader, I relearned what whole, unprocessed food was. I enjoyed hosting many cooking classes, healthy eating events and, in turn, cleaned up my own diet. When I was young, my adoptive parents and I grew our own food. Food is important to our physical and mental well-being. I learned what foods to eat for optimal health. I was born with abilities that allow me to see/feel/hear things that other people may not. I found out after reunion with my siblings, that a strong intuition ran in my genetic family on both sides, as well as with my adoptive mother. With my intuition and my training, I have come up with ways to help myself and offer to help others.Using all these tools, I have helped myself manage the trauma that adoption caused me. I had some life-changing events that have sent me on this path. This healing power lies within all of us. I will share my knowledge and training, to help you unleash your own healing power. I am an adoptee finding her way without her roots.https://lorahgerald.com/https://www.instagram.com/theadoptedchameleon/https://www.pinterest.com/lorahwg/the-adopted-chameleon/https://www.tiktok.com/@theadoptedchameleonhttps://twitter.com/adptdchameleonhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2Ov54pUZ-uUNrGoqmZd33g 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.

Kirsten never wanted to be stuck. So how did she become unstuck from her trauma? So she could heal, grow and move forward. How did she keep going when it got really scary and would have been easier to turn back. Listen in to a very powerful and empowering episode.Here's a bit about Kirsten and her book from her website: I was born and immediately relinquished for adoption in Pennsylvania in 1971. I have spent the last ten years unraveling what that means for me. It is a never-ending journey with no clear road map. I have been in reunion with my first mom since 2017.I currently reside in Montana with my husband and the two kids who still live at home. The other three kids are out adulting on their own, and I am lucky enough to have them all live nearby.“Finding My Way Home” is a journey. It is a journey across the ocean, across the country, and out of the adoptee fog. The roadmap that was hidden away by a 1970’s closed adoption is unearthed, and the trail begins to clear. It leads not only to place, but to people. The trip covers countless miles and spans years of time that eventually lead right back to the only person who was there for every step of the journey, the author herself. It is a tale of physical travel that parallels the personal quest many adoptees struggle to navigate, the pathway to knowing themselves.More at:https://nomoremisfit.com/https://www.instagram.com/nomoremisfit/ 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.

Feeling like an outsider. So many of us felt like that growing up. And that feeling has stayed with us into adulthood. Listen in as Leah shares her journey to feeling at home. Fitting in. Comfortable in her own skin. It's NOT a straight or straightforward. But there's insights aplenty. Listen in for your own. This episode is a real catalyst.Here's a link to Leah's interview with Haley https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/202Here's more about Leah's project for adoptees:BACKGROUND: In My Heart: The Adoption Story Project began in 2014 in collaboration with 200+ people in the adoption community sharing their true stories with Wonderlust Productions. In 2016, the play, written and directed by Alan Berks and Leah Cooper, was performed to enthusiastic, sold-out audiences at Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis, MN by a 34-member cast and live band, including professional actors and members of the adoption community.The graphic novel, adapted from the play, reflects a full spectrum of community perspectives ranging from adoptees to social workers, adoptive parents to birth parents, foster families, and beyond. Contributors span the ages of 14 to 80 and include voices from the African American, Native American, and Korean American communities. This book explores adoption and its complexities--examining concepts of family and intersecting with issues in society related to law, class, and identity.BOOK DESCRIPTION: Alice is getting married, and her sister Jen is returning from Korea to be with her. But when they meet Lewis's parents at the engagement party, the realities of adoption send them down the rabbit hole―where the feelings they've tried to ignore come to life in fantastical forms. Based on and including the true stories of adoptees, adoptive parents, birth parents, social workers, and siblings, In My Heart captures the delight and darkness of an experience that touches one in three people. It will change forever how you think about family.https://wlproductions.org/inmyheart/https://www.instagram.com/wonderlustprod/https://www.facebook.com/wonderlustproductions 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.

Shame is incredibly toxic. Birth mothers suffer, adoptees suffer. Listen in as we go deep into shame from birth mother Patricia's perspective. Some things lead us to change our mind, others lead to a change of heart. Others - like moving beyond shame -change our world. Listen in to one of our most profound episodes yet. Here's a link to the Primal Wound video I talk about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnz7I7V_IOQ&Here's a link to the podcast episode with the audio version of that https://thriving-adoptees.simplecast.com/episodes/whole-healing-my-primal-wound-webinar-recordingI was born the seventh of eight children to an Irish Catholic family living in the western suburbs of Chicago. When I got pregnant at fifteen, I was hidden in our home until I gave birth to a baby girl and signed the papers releasing her to adoption. I was to keep her birth a secret​In 1975 I married and four years later migrated to Oregon with my husband, Steve, and our four-year-old son. There we had two more children and I juggled child-raising with running a word processing business in Ashland, Oregon.That beautiful baby girl came back to find me. Hard as it was to deal with my own grief and shame and to break my silence about her, I was, and am, so glad she searched. I wanted her in my life, and we rewove our family to include her in whatever way she feels comfortable.In 1998 another change: My husband, Steve, and I bought land in Williams, Oregon, to start an organic farm and build a strawbale house. We did all that, and twenty-two years later we sold the farm and moved close to conveniences like grocery stores and doctors. Now I devote most of my time to freelance editing, and writing fiction, memoir, and poetry. If you are on the adoption journey, I hope you find A Life Let Go... helpful to you. And if you know someone on the adoption journey and they reach out for support, I hope you will offer them a cup of tea (or a glass of wine?) and a good listen. https://www.patriciaflorin.info/https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100046448443902&ref=hlhttps://twitter.com/pjflorin3 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.

Listen on as Alice shares how she found the patience and persistence on her quest to find and meet her birth mother. There are bags of insights, realisations, twists and turns. Buckle up for a rollercoaster of a ride.Here is a link to the publication Alice mentions https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b2nqk1B6XrYH1qRez_tryDW34Yv0qSmd/view?usp=sharingHere is a link to her profile and researchhttps://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/alice-diver/publications/Here's a link to the webinar video I mention https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnz7I7V_IOQ&t=224sHere's a link the webinar on another podcast episode https://thriving-adoptees.simplecast.com/episodes/whole-healing-my-primal-wound-webinar-recordingConnect with Alice on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-diver-b6939545 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.

Wisdom is a lot quieter than the negative voice in our heads. Listen in as Terrie and I explore finding truth and peace in that quieter place. From there's no need to try to numb or dismiss our painful feelings of loss, grief, shame and insecurity. There's no need to protect ourselves any more. A truly beautiful and healing conversation.Terrie Novak is an adoptee and privileged to a rare abundance of love shared with her bio kids, adoptive parents, first mother, and biological siblings. Terrie lives in Portland, Oregon.https://www.terrienovak.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrienovak/https://www.instagram.com/joycentered/ 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 can the anguish of losing our birth mothers become the belief that we are not good enough? Join Vin and me as we explore the origins and growth of adoptees' shame. The better we understand this, more time we spend exploring it, the more likely to see through it to a more positive view of ourselves. This is a fundamental shift in our perspective. Such shifts change lives. Listen in for your own shifts.Born in India, adopted at 10 months, raised in Australia, Vin is a true one off. Vin runs a Facebook group where adoptees and adopters can learn from one another in a friendly and no conflict environment.Connect with him at:https://www.facebook.com/CrZyPhOtOgRaPhErHere's the link I mention to Vin's earlier interview https://thriving-adoptees.simplecast.com/episodes/vin-adoptees-emotional-rollercoaster 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.

Julia Brewer Daily is a Texan with a southern accent. She has a B.S. in English and a M.S. degree in Education from the University of Southern Mississippi.She has been an educator, Communications Adjunct Professor at Belhaven College, administrator, and Public Relations Director of the Mississippi Department of Education and Millsaps College, a liberal arts college in Jackson, MS. She was the founding director of the Greater Belhaven Market, a producers’ only market in a historic neighborhood in Jackson, and even shadowed Martha Stewart.As the Executive Director of the Craftsmen’s Guild of Mississippi (300 artisans from 19 states) which operates the Mississippi Craft Center, she wrote their stories to introduce them to the public. She is an adopted child from a maternity home hospital in New Orleans.She searched and found her birth mother and through a DNA test, her birth father’s family, as well. She lives on a ranch in Texas with her husband Emmerson and two Labrador Retrievers, Memphis Belle and Texas Star.https://www.juliadaily.com/https://www.instagram.com/juliadailyauthor/https://www.facebook.com/JuliaDailyAuthor/https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-daily-1006ba7/https://twitter.com/jbdailyauthor 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.

This episode is a break from the norm as we go into what Karen has learned hosting adoptive parents in Ukraine and interviewing 63 adoptive families back home in the USA. We go deep on integrating biological and adoptive families from overseas and revealing the treasure in what Karen calls "the brokenness and beauty of adoption".A Pacific Northwest native, Karen Springs lived in Kyiv, Ukraine for over fourteen years advocating for orphaned and at-risk children and working with hundreds of adoptive families. Karen has managed humanitarian and child advocacy projects throughout Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East with Orphan’s Promise. Today Karen continues as an advocate for children in families around the world and is passionate about seeing nations collaborate in solving their orphan and vulnerable children crisis through the World Without Orphans global movement. This episode is a break from the norm as we go into what Karen has learned hosting adoptive parents in Ukraine and interviewing 63 families back home in the USA. We go deep on integrating biological and adoptive families from overseas to reveal the treasure in what Karen calls "the brokenness and beauty of adoption".Find out more about Karen at karensprings.com Connect at https://www.facebook.com/karen.springs1 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.

There's n othing more upsetting than seeing your child upset. Adopted kids can be more sensitive and easily upset. I'm adopted and bullies often made my young life a misery back in the 70's. Listen in as adoptee, birth mom and teacher Amanda and I explore how we can stop bullies upsetting your kids.Check out the book Amanda wrote with her mother at:https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Ann-Angel/dp/0980208165Replay of How To Prevent Bullies Upsetting Your Adopted Child webinarhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBsDhBu7eUY&t=1s 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.

Join us as we explore what adoptive mom Beth learned - and continues to learn - as her son struggles with addiction. It's raw, deep and profound.Here's a link to the book I refer to in the podcasthttps://www.amazon.com/Dying-Be-Me-Journey-Healing/dp/B09RY5S44RBeth Syverson is a mom, wife, musician, and as of 2021 a podcaster, activist, and public speaker.Since 2019, her son Joey has struggled with addiction to substances plus serious mental health issues. For the first year of that roller coaster ride, she and Joey were both derailed. Beth tried to “fix” Joey and her Supermom cape was tied on tight. But when nothing worked to “fix” him, she sought help for herself, which improved her own life and also her relationship to her wife Jan and to Joey.She and Joey created Safe Home Podcast in August 2021, with the purpose of helping other families avoid some of the pain we’ve experienced.“Pain that’s not transformed gets transmitted.”We are trying to transform our pain into practical guidance for other families with struggling teens.Beth adopted Joey from Japan when he was 7-1/2 months old. We now realize that his relinquishment trauma is the core issue that caused him to seek substances. Beth is a leader for other adoptive parents who are coming “out of the fog” and realizing that the adoption that created their family also created trauma for their child.Contact Beth directly by emailing [email protected]://www.facebook.com/UnravelingAdoption/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYoW-LxFFes2EX71ENcFVCQhttps://www.unravelingadoption.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.

Insights, epiphanies and aha moments. Our eyes open to reveal something different. We see the world differently, more clearly, better. And when we see better, we do better. Sometimes they save our lives. This episode is all about Lori's lifesaving insights. She delves deep into the tough stuff - grief, mental health and painful emotional wounds. We would both love you to listen to it and have your own insights. As a wife, adoptive, biological, and special needs mom, teacher, writer, and speaker, Lori’s heart is to help others unveil a hope-filled life while growing in faith and relationship with Christ. Wherever you find yourself today, through both Lori’s freelance writing and her blog found at www.LoriSchumaker.com, you can find tools to help you make sense of God’s love for you, strengthen your faith, and bravely learn to live a surrendered life. In her award-winning book, Surrendered Hearts, she weaves lessons of letting go, trusting, and living surrendered to Jesus through the telling of her family’s adoption story.Lori has been featured on Christian websites including iBelieve and Crosswalk. Her work can also be found in several devotional book compilations.Here's a bit more bout Lori's story from her website...One look into a pair of sparkling brown eyes, and Lori and Bryan Schumaker fell head-over-heels in love with a beautiful young girl in Bulgaria. Certain this was the child God intended for them, they stepped confidently into the adoption process they’d been preparing for. They thought they knew what to expect, and they did – but there was so much more.The application process moved smoothly ahead, and they began making plans for their daughter – only to be informed she’d been adopted by a family in Italy.Heartbroken, they struggled to move on, until, through a series of incredible events, they learned their daughter still languished in her Bulgarian orphanage. Turning heaven and earth, the Schumakers started over. Mix-ups, red tape, inexplicable delays, and a difficult judge threatened the adoption, but they were determined to bring their child home.In an award-winning true story of learning that trust means surrendering your version of how the story should unfold, Lori and Bryan finally let go – of their dream, of their daughter, of their fears and frustrations. And in that relinquishment, God began to move.Here's a link to one of her blog posts https://lorischumaker.com/10-tips-breathe-hope-adoption-storyFind out more:https://www.amazon.com/Surrendered-Hearts-Adoption-Story-Learning-ebook/dp/B07WLJXBG1https://www.facebook.com/searchingformomentshttps://www.instagram.com/lori_schumaker/https://www.pinterest.com/lschumaker/https://twitter.com/lori_schumakerhttps://www.youtube.com/c/LoriSchumakerhttps://lorischumaker.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.

Amanda felt alone and angry. But she refused to stay that way and went on a deep journey within. Listen in as she shares her biggest learnings on that journey - emotional safety, loving ourselves and much more. I hope you love listening to this as much as we loved our conversation. Deep and profound. Just the way you like your podcasts. Here's a bit about Amanda from her website:Coming out of the fog (unpacking my own adoption) was by far the hardest thing I have ever done. It broke me to the core, and I had to let part of myself die off. I wasn’t ready for that, and at one point I didn’t see how I would ever be the same again…The short version of my story is that I was born in Colombia, sometime in 1984. I don’t know anything about my first two years of life. Well into adulthood, I would tell you that I was not affected by my adoption and that it was all in the past. I was adopted to Sweden, as a baby, and from a young age, I knew I was going to move abroad. I left Sweden, for New York in 2005 and loved being in the big city. I have realized what a perfect match it was for me as an adoptee to be in a place where I got to remain anonymous, but always have people around me. Fast forward a few years and I had my first daughter at the age of 26. This was the first time I met a biological relative, and the first time lacking medical history started to bother me. A few more years, I had another daughter, moved from New Jersey to California, and in my early 30’s I started experiencing anxiety, and anger outbursts. This lead me to start asking questions, trying to figure out the root cause, and I landed on (you guessed it) my adoption. The following 5 years were heavy, dark, and at times very lonely. I was uncovering trauma, and deep-rooted fears and issues I had buried for my entire life. It truly was like opening Pandor’s Box and realizing too late that the only way to go was forward. I started This Adoptee Life, to share my story, and it became where I would work out my entire adoptee experience and much of my healing. With every post I would write and every thing I would share, I wanted to make sure other adoptees would know they are not alone. On social media and on the blog, you could follow my process of coming out of the fog, in real-time. The turning point came in 2020 when late in the year, I decided to take a break and spend some time away from This Adoptee Life. To re-charge. After 2 very intense years, it was the first break I had taken from showing up almost daily. During this time, I connected with some of the people who are my mentors, my support, and my coaches today. They taught me about trauma, about finding inner peace, about self-love, and what it means to be authentically yourself.This next chapter for This Adoptee Life has been one in the making since day one, but it’s only now that I have grown strong enough, confident enough, and peaceful enough, within, to dare step into my purpose, fully. And I am so grateful to you, for reading this, and being part of this with me. Thank you for being here, and for showing up for yourself and others. We are in this together.AMANDA MEDINATHIS ADOPTEE LIFEhttps://thisadopteelife.com/https://www.facebook.com/thisadopteelifehttps://www.instagram.com/thisadopteelife/https://twitter.com/thisadopteelife 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.

As adoptees our most overwhelming fear is that of another rejection. Ann and I explore the insights have helped her overcome this and other fears in life-changing moments. Join us as we dive deep into her biggest aha moments and listen in for your own epiphanies.Ann Kief and her husband live in the Florida panhandle. Her professional life was mainly focused on education, leadership and college administration. She taught at the university, college and grade school levels as well as in numerous parks and recreation settings. She has written professionally, as well as dabbled in writing children’s literature. She and her husband have also enjoyed pursuing their entrepreneurial interests in several businesses. Her greatest joy and fulfillment, however, has been as a wife, mother and grandmother.Ann Kief lived half of her childhood in Germany and the other half in Northern Virginia. She has a BS from Southern Illinois University and MS from Indiana University. She has written professional articles and co-authored a nationally distributed professional management aid book. She believes this is an inspirational book of amazing occurrences along the journey of discovery blending families and countries. Whether adopted or not, readers will be drawn into the twists and turns of the thought processes, relationships, and research.https://www.facebook.com/BlessedByAdoptionBook/https://www.instagram.com/blessedbyadoptionbook/https://www.linkedin.com/in/akief/https://blessedbyadoption.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.

Understanding WHY we do the things we don't want to do often initiates stopping doing them. So please stick with my lengthy set up this episode - it's well worth it. Lynn and I explore adoptees' concern for other people's thoughts about us including why it triggers are own insecurities. What's wrong with me is perhaps the most common questions we ask ourselves. Listen in for some more empowering questions in this profound episode.Here's the link to the book I mention in the podcast https://www.amazon.com/Missing-Link-Sydney-Banks-ebook/dp/B07FN6CYPBLynn Deiulis was placed on adoption at the age of nine months. Her adoptive parents were advised to raise her as their own and forget where she had come from. Her parents followed this advice, and adoption became an uncomfortable topic. Her mother would answer Lynn’s adoption questions, but the emotion in her mother’s eyes eventually made Lynn stop asking. Lynn grew up not knowing how or whom to ask her many questions. As an adult, Lynn found and met some of her paternal and maternal birth family members and was able to learn much about the genetic and familial information she grew up without. As a result, she has been able to piece together more of her story.Lynn holds a Bachelor of Arts in Child and Youth Care and enjoyed a twenty-five year career in adoption services. Lynn has worked with many members of the adoption triad (children, birth parents, adoptive parents) as well as foster care and kinship families. She co-facilitated support groups where adult adopted persons, and birth parents, could freely share their unique stories and learn how and where to get some of their questions answered.​Her personal and professional journey sparked a passion to write a book that offers an opportunity for children to learn the unique details of their adoption or kinship stories, and helps adults talk to children about how they came to be living together as a family or living with another family. She also hopes the book will help professionals who work with children living through all phases of the adoption or kinship journey. Lynn resides in Northern Ontario, where she enjoys spending time with her husband and family, especially her grandchildren.The relationship between the author and the illustrator has a unique quality. Krista Donnelly and Lynn are birth half sisters who met each other as adults in 2018. Separated by the adoption process, Krista and her three full sisters grew up not knowing that two older half sisters existed. When Lynn decided to write this book, she reached out to her “new sister” who is a talented graphic designer. Krista brought the book’s characters to life while building a relationship with Lynn at the same time. Krista learned about the impact on Lynn of growing up as an adoptee, while Lynn learned about the impact on Krista of discovering she had two birth half sisters she never knew existed! Their new mutual understanding of the impact of adoption has enriched this book. Lynn and Krista hope this book will help children and families talk about these unique stories long before the children become adults.Links to buy the book and more: https://www.whatisyourstorybook.com/https://www.facebook.com/whatisyourstorybookhttps://twitter.com/AuthorLynnDhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCampCrQmQomhUskZ8-9fzcg/featuredhttps://www.instagram.com/authorlynnd/ 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 experts talk about neuroplasticity as our brain's ability to change but they don't explain how to harness it. It's a lot simpler than it seems. Lightbulb moments start change. So how do have more lightbulb moments? By listening to other people's lightbulb moments. By remaining open as we listen. Being aware of when our old beliefs are blocking new ideas like bouncers block new people coming into a nightclub. Suni shares some of her lightbulb moments about her birth mother, forgiveness and understanding to catalyse lightbulb moments for you. Listen in and listen up. Here's a bit about Suni and her book:After ignoring her own adoption story for 50 years, SUNI MILLER ZMICH journeyed alongside the interviewees as they described their stories, connecting on an elemental level, her unanticipated reward was she could clearly see herself in the mirror for the first time in her life. She is the mother of two daughters, a retired accounting and finance manager, and a transient ex-army brat poised for the next adventure. Practically empty nesters, she and her husband, Kurt, live in Minneapolis. For Now. When I first started Through the Lens of Ourselves,I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to accomplish.​I am an adoptee. After conducting many interviews, my personal journey melded with the interviewees. I learned that ALL members of the adoption triad yearn for familial connection. In listening to the birth mothers, I was surprised at my own reaction. For years, I had harbored resentment about my own birth parents and would not fully invest myself emotionally with my adoptive parents. But after allowing myself to see through the lens of the birth parents in my book, I felt safe enough to become closer to my adoptive parents.My hope is that my book will bring peace to to those who are still traumatized by their adoption experience. I will forever be grateful to the individuals who were brave enough to share their stories with me. They nourished my soul and I hope their stories will feed the world.Listening to the stories of others touched by adoption healed me.My hope is that my book will also heal you.You know that quiet voice that whispers to you when you first wake up in that fuzzy space between sleep and full consciousness - where your dreams and reality collide? I would sometimes hear those little nudges to examine my adoption.Here's the link I to the Dragon story mentioned https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7stT4OQoFGUHere's links to her website with links to Amazon etc:https://www.sunimillerzmich.com/Here are links to her social media:https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068780925549https://www.instagram.com/sunimillerzmich/ 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.

The adoption world is trauma obsessed. I believe we should be trauma informed and healing obsessed. Michelle does too. We go deep on holding the energy to heal, allowing and expressing our emotions. There's a place underneath those emotions that's already and always whole, untouched by the trauma let's go there. And unveil who we truly are. Adoption is a spiritual journey. But not in a woo woo way, just a path that reveals who we are when we see that.Here's a bit about Michelle :This is my Foster Adoption Journey. One morning, sometime after my forty-third birthday I realized I wanted to be a Mom.In this book you'll hear about my foster children, how I had to let go, and whom I fell in love with.EXCERPT:Now I appreciate that you might think any normal woman would want kids in her twenties or thirties, but I didn’t really. My husband and I were busy with career, traveling and partying and, well, I just forgot to have kids. I never heard my biological clock ticking and now my alarm was ringing, and ringing loudly! ... My hubby and I decided to adopt through foster care, but had no idea what we were in for! This is my story.https://www.amazon.com/Bedrooms-Journey-Frustration-Parenting-Adoption-ebook/dp/B006SJN504?ref_=ast_sto_dphttps://www.facebook.com/michelle.vandepas 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.

In a first for the podcast this lovely couple provide an incredible insight into what goes on for birth parents, how they kept going (and together) despite being riddled with emotion and how our suffering connects us. We explore the deep insights they had along the way that have shifted their focus on to Michael. Because relationships start with us. How we are. Doing our own work makes us better.Find out more about their book and download it free: https://bertauski.com/expectations/https://www.amazon.com/Expectations-Adoption-Story-Bertauski-Tony/dp/1951432169 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 do we get through the toughest stuff? When a life-threatening medical condition, an alcoholic husband, and a traumatic special needs adoption shatter that dream, there are only two choices—crumble or change the narrative. We go deep on how we do that covering topics such as resilience, epiphanies and eye opening insights. Inspirational.A young girl dreams of the perfect life—marriage, children, and a career—her happily ever after. Valerie learned to embrace the unimaginable to create an extraordinary life.Valerie Cantella is an award-winning, multipassionate communications and public affairs professional living a life beyond her wildest dreams. She is the author of Off-Script: a mom’s journey through adoption, a husband’s alcoholism, and special needs parenting. She shares her journey as a mother of teens with mental health issues, the struggles of special needs parenting, the effect of alcoholism on a marriage, and how she learned to embrace the unimaginable to create an extraordinary life. Valerie calls herself a recovering perfectionist and is passionate about using her experiences to help others. She volunteers with organizations supporting those with mental health and substance abuse issues and serves on the County’s Behavioral Wellness Commission. Her love of writing began when her stubby little fingers learned to form letters, and those letters made words that crafted sentences. From those sentences, she wrote short stories, articles, poems, and even two books for her grade school author showcase. Valerie later turned to journalism and a career in communications. She is the mom of three adult children–a biological son, an adopted daughter, and a bonus son by marriage. Valerie and her husband Tom live in Santa Barbara with their exuberant yellow lab, Charlie. When she isn’t writing or speaking, you will find her walking at one of their beautiful beaches. Her mantra: I will look forward. I will trust God. Today is a new day. https://valeriecantella.com/https://www.facebook.com/vcantellahttps://www.instagram.com/valeriejcantellahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/valerie-cantella/ 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.

Conversations oil our understanding of other people's perspectives and our relationships with them. They also give us a comparison to our own perspective if we are brave enough to go there. Why does that matter? Because shifts in our perspective power the insights to help us to better lives with less anger and resentment. Listen in as we go deep on conversation, communication and much more.Julie Ryan McGue is an author, a domestic adoptee, and an identical twin. She writes extensively about finding out who you are, where you belong, and making sense of it.Julie’s debut award winning memoir Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging (She Writes Press) came out in May 2021. It is the story of her five-year search for birth relatives. Her weekly blogs That Girl, This Life and monthly column at The Beacher focus on identity, family, and life’s quirky moments. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Julie received a BA from Indiana University in Psychology. She earned a MM in Marketing from the Kellogg Graduate School of Business, Northwestern University. She has served multiple terms on the Board of the Midwest Adoption Center and is an active member of the American Adoption Congress.Julie splits her time between Northwest Indiana and Sarasota, Florida. She is the mother of four adult children and has three grandsons. If she’s not at her computer, she’s on the tennis court, or out exploring with her Nikon. Julie is currently working on a collection of personal essays.https://juliemcgueauthor.com/https://www.facebook.com/juliemcguewrites/https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-ryan-mcgue-a246b841/https://www.instagram.com/julieryanmcgue/https://twitter.com/juliermcgueHere's a link to the podcast episode I refer to https://thriving-adoptees.simplecast.com/episodes/primally-wounded-or-fundamentally-unwoundable-with-nick-mabeyHere's a link to another episode on the primal wound it's recording of a webinarhttps://thriving-adoptees.simplecast.com/episodes/whole-healing-my-primal-wound-webinar-recordingHere's a link to a video of that webinar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnz7I7V_IOQ&t=162s 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 comes after the fog? What helps us navigate that? What do we do to feel good? Adoptee Paul and I go deep for answers, because that's where the priceless gems are hidden. Those priceless gems are insights that move us to a better, happier place. We both loved this conversation and hope you love it too. If you don't we will give you your money back. Hold on a minute - we're giving you these priceless gems free! Enjoy....Here's a bit about Paul:Paul Kimball, a biracial adoptee, explores his own abandonment issues as he searches, and eventually reunites with his birth parents. After a seemingly joyous reunion, his birth mother, a Caucasian professional cellist, rejects him. This causes him to seek out his Armenian birth father, who along with his extended family, accepts him as one of their own.Paul's birthparents met at the Hollywood Methodist Church in 1961. Vahe had immigrated from Iraq to California, while Wendy gave cello concerts throughout the United States. After Wendy became pregnant, they decided to have an abortion in Mexico, and upon arrival, changed their minds. As directed by her parents, Wendy had her baby in secret in Fort Bragg. Vahe was told that the baby had been aborted.After one week with Wendy, Paul was given up for adoption. He was placed in foster care through Children's Home Society for four and a half months. Being biracial, Paul was considered a "Hard to Place" baby. The Kimballs, a wonderfully liberal Berkeley family, decided to adopt Paul. On Paul's first birthday, November 22nd, 1962, he was officially adopted three hours before the assassination of President Kennedy.Paul became a professional French Horn player, conductor and music teacher. He had always been deeply moved by the cello, especially the recordings of Jacqueline Du Pre. Music was his life, and cello his therapy.After marrying and becoming a father of two daughters, Paul searched for his birthmother. Upon learning that she was a cellist, he was even more determined to meet her. After several months and false leads, he found her name in the Musician's Union directory. This led to a three-hour phone call with birth mother, Wendy.Paul and Wendy met in L.A. and had a beautiful three-month reunion. That summer, she went to New York to play in an orchestra. While there, she made the decision to keep Paul a secret. She was afraid of being thought of as a "slut." She stopped all communication. When the horrors of 911 happened, Paul left one last message on her phone. This led Wendy to contact his mother in law, and let her know that Paul must never contact her again.In shock, Paul decided to search for his birth father. With some clues provided by Wendy, including his last name, Paul tracked down Vahe through his brother Vasken. On Christmas day, Vasken announced to his extended family that Vahe had an unknown son, much to their astonishment. That evening, Paul called Vasken who handed the phone to Vahe. The first words that Vahe said to him were "Son, I love you!"For twelve years, Vahe, Paul and the extended Armenian community got to know and love each other.Paul kept tabs on Wendy through her summer orchestra's website. One summer he noticed that she wasn't listed. He learned through a facebook message that Wendy had died a few years earlier.Paul found her gravesite, but no marker, just grass. He decided to design one for her. When the marker was completed, he visited it alone, in tears, while listening to cello music. Paul's adopted parents, and Vahe passed away. His adopted father committed suicide three days after his mother passed while looking at her pictures.Now that his parents were gone, Paul continued to contemplate his abandonment issues. The realization that we are all human beings, adopted or not, and that we are all a part of nature, has brought much comfort and healing.https://www.facebook.com/paul.kimball.14https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-All-Human-Beings/dp/1977236197 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.

Most of us adoptees tell ourselves a tough story about ourselves. A story that we are not good enough. Adoptee Lisa has taken what she's learned - and continues to learn - into helping fellow adoptees as a therapist. Listen in as she shares her learnings with great clarity and hope. Let Lisa guide you to the light at the end of the tunnel - being the hero in your own story.Here's a bit about Lisa from her website:Lisa Floyd, NCC, LMHC-AAdult Parent-Child RelationshipsAdoption Therapy SpecialistCertified Brainspotting TherapistIs your mom impossible to please? Is your dad emotionally unavailable? Do you feel like the outsider in your family? I specialize in Adult Parent-Child Relationships and how to find healing from dysfunctional relationships when you are an empath. I am a fellow empath, so I understand the challenges of feeling everything more deeply. I can guide you to see your sensitivities as gifts that can help you to develop stronger boundaries and healthier relationships.I employ a strengths-based approach in therapy which focuses more on your internal strengths and resourcefulness and less on weaknesses, failures, and shortcomings. I am a certified Brainspotting therapist. I am also informed about Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB). I enjoy working with those who have experienced relationship issues, emotional neglect, and codependency.As an adult adoptee, I am passionate about working with other adoptees and helping heal all members of the adoption constellation. I completed the National Adoption Competency Mental Health Training for Mental Health Professionals through Center for Adoption Support and Education. I have contributed to the books The Adoptee Survival Guide (2015) and Adoption Therapy: Perspectives from clients and clinicians on processing and healing post-adoption issues (2014). I have also been a speaker at the Indiana Adoptee Network Conference (2018).I completed my Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Indiana Wesleyan University. I currently hold an Associate License for counseling in Indiana, and I am pursuing becoming fully licensed. Feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]​https://www.greenhouseindy.com/lisa-floydhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-floyd-877503131/https://www.facebook.com/GreenHouseIndyCounseling/https://twitter.com/counselingattgh 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.

Shifts happen when we see through the story we've been innocently telling ourselves about ourselves. After setting the scene Vin and I go deep into self love in what's one of our most profound conversations here on Thriving Adoptees. We go deep because that's where the most valuable shifts happen. I'm loving that depth. Vin loves that depth. We love the fact that you do too. Shifts change lives. Listen in for your own shifts. Born in India, adopted at 10 months, raised in Australia, Vin is a true one off. He runs a Facebook group where adoptees and adopters can learn from one another in a friendly and no conflict environment.Connect with him at:https://www.facebook.com/CrZyPhOtOgRaPhErHere's the link I mention to Vin's earlier interview https://thriving-adoptees.simplecast.com/episodes/vin-adoptees-emotional-rollercoaster 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.

A m I stuck with the Primal Wound?W ill it ever heal?H ow do I live with the scars?W hat on earth do I do to be whole?I 've been searching for answers to these questions (and many more) since reading Nancy Verrier's book.What I've learned has brought me peace.I 'm rarely triggered.I know deep down that I'm ok.D on't get me wrong...I still have my moments.But those moments don't hurt as much or last as long.I've touched on my healing insights with over 200 guestsNow I 'm sharing much more on this crucial subject. 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.

The feeling of not being wanted haunts us adoptees. Being lied to exacerbates that feeling. The feeling moulds our thinking in a vicious circle that threatens to spin out of control. Or does so! Listen in as adoptee Joanne shares how the truth has helped her heal. There are insights, epiphanies and epiphanettes (like epiphanies only smaller) aplenty to speed you along your healing journey. Buckle up and listen in with big ears. This episode is packed with wisdom.Here's a bit about Joanne and her book"What if you found out that you were adopted and everything you thought you knew about your family, your security, was shattered? My Secret is about my 40 year quest for truth about who I am. But, more than that, this story is about overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles to achieve a goal.My undaunted determination led me from private detectives, online sources and social agencies to covert missions like trying to collect an aunt's DNA sample at a family gathering. There were rumors, innuendos, false leads and small steps forward and backward, all leading me to finally find my 82 year-old mother.I believe the reader will be drawn in by the intimacy of the journey"https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014N2OQ6Y 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.

Australian adoptee Susannah felt cut adrift. This episode is all about her journey back to home - finding herself. Listen into her wisdom for your own insights into healing, understanding who we are and seeing that we are (more than) enough. Poignant, powerful and very relatable to all adoptees.Here's more about Susannah, her story and her memoir:In 1965, Robin, unmarried and pregnant, comes to Melbourne to give birth and give her baby up for adoption, then returns to Perth to resume her life having never seen her baby. After 10 days alone, the baby, is taken home, named Susannah, and made part of a wonderful family that loves her. The adoption laws at the time guarantee that there can be no contact between birth mother and child. Ever.In 1984, the law is changed and sealed files can be opened. In 1989 Robin tries to make contact with Susannah who is now the same age as Robin was when she had her. Susannah replies to Robin in a letter, declining contact.In 2014, Susannah, at the same age Robin was when she wrote her first letter, writes Robin a different letter. The heartlines open. After nearly fifty years apart, a mother and daughter are reunited. But the path to a relationship is not smooth. Very few adoption reunions result in meaningful, long-term reconnection. The fragile relationships stumble and fall under the weight of years of repressed anger, hurt, grief and loss, different beliefs and of whole lives spent apart. A feeling of connection isn’t enough. You have to fight for a relationship.This is the story of two women who did. The raw openness of their writing and the breakneck speed of their reconnection is compelling. Heartlines is at once both unique and universal. It’s a story of courage and what can happen when you open rather than close your heart; when you decide to stay just as every fearful instinct tells you to run away.Heartlines is about connection and reconnection and why relationships are worth the fight. It is a piercingly honest and often hilarious story of what it takes to reconnect – and stay there – after a lifetime apart.Fast-paced, warm and funny, this is an adoption story that pulls the reader on to a wonderful if wobbly rollercoaster ride, exploring themes of family, motherhood, loss, belonging, hope, courage and the importance of never giving up.https://www.amazon.com/Heartlines-Year-Met-Other-Mother-ebook/dp/B01AV416QQhttps://www.susannahmcfarlane.com/https://www.facebook.com/susannahmcfarlane/ 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.

Amanda is an adoptee AND a birth mother. She's on the show with her mother Ann. That's a totally unique combination that we've never brought to you before! Listen in as we dive deep into grace, empathy, avoiding judgement and supporting others. They've learned a whole heap through their own lived experience and researching other people's experience for the books they've written.Check out the book they wrote together at:https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Ann-Angel/dp/0980208165Check out Ann's book at:https://www.amazon.com/Ann-Angel-ebook/dp/B00FJZAD6Mhttps://www.annangelwriter.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.

Finding out she was adopted at 57 left Carlyn feeling fragmented and deeply unsettled. Listen in as she shares how she put herself back together and found peace. We go deep in this very profound episode. The deeper we go, the more we learn and the clearer we see. And the more peaceful life is. Isn't peace what we all truly want?Carlyn Montes De Oca grew up surrounded by secrets. She never knew her dad was a Marine during World War II or that her grandmother hired kidnappers to bring her mother back home after her parents eloped. Her mom and dad took an even bigger secret to their graves… Carlyn’s identity.In 2019, at age 57, a consumer DNA test taken for fun revealed that Carlyn’s mom and dad, immigrants from Mexico, were not her biological parents and that most of her entire extended family, including 63 first cousins, all knew the truth but never told her. In that instant, the reality Carlyn had lived with her entire life shattered. This revelation fueled her year long journey to find the answers to “Who the hell am I and where do I belong?” Questions that led her to unearth a truth she could never have foreseen.Junkyard Girl explores the powerful impact of long-held secrets and the complex relationships between immigrant mothers and their native-born daughters. This is a coming-of-age story later in life, a tale about loss and discovery, betrayal and forgiveness, and the true meaning of an American family.https://animalhumanhealth.com/junkyardgirl/https://www.facebook.com/carlynmontesdeoca/https://twitter.com/carlynmdohttps://www.linkedin.com/in/carlynmdo/https://www.instagram.com/carlynmontesdeoca/https://www.youtube.com/user/carlyn555 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.

Flexing stops us breaking. Cate is an adoptive mum who's been through tough stuff herself. She's also an educational professional too who helped many adoptive parents pull back from breaking point. Relax and listen in for perspective changes that are going to make you and your family's easier and better.Cate Tumman has two adopted kids and is an experienced education profession with extensive special educational experience.I am a previous head teacher of an Therapeutic Independent school which was a project-correction passion to create and develop to its successful current position of having two consecutive Ofsted Good ratings in the six years it has been open.My educational career has been to focus on making education accessible for those young people that have a barrier to accessing it for any reason. In the most recent years this has been supporting young people who have experienced early life trauma. With a particular focus on being able to have trust in the educational system again and to feel “safe to learn” again.My values are to ensure that each and every child that crosses my path takes a little glimmer of positivity and belief that “they can” and that to restore a belief that adults can “keep you safe”. My passion and values are fuelled by my family, my two beautiful, adopted children and my husband, we travel an amazing journey together as a family and this allows me to understand the challenges that children and family’s experience from all angles and truly empathise.Then to relax …when there is time…you will find me crafting, knitting, crochet, bead art, baking. https://www.linkedin.com/in/cate-tumman-4211381b4/?originalSubdomain=uk 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.

Alice felt that there no was no place for people of mixed race like her. Adoption had destroyed her sense of identity. She felt fractured. Listen in as we explore the most important issues for adoptees who want to heal.About Alice Stephens - from her website: Born in South Korea to a Korean mother and an American soldier father, I became Alice Stephens when I was adopted at 9 months old into a white family from Philadelphia with three biological children.When I was four, we moved to Botswana, and ever since then I have been addicted to traveling the world.Besides wandering, I love writing, reading, hanging out with my family, walking my dog, eating spicy noodles, and swimming.My work has appeared in Urban Mozaik, Flung Magazine, Banana Writers, The American, and the LA Review of Books, among other places. Famous Adopted People is my debut novel.As a book reviewer, I strive to highlight marginalized voices, diverse authors, and books in translation. Additionally, I am a columnist for the Washington Independent Review of Books, a contributing editor to Bloom, a co-facilitator at Adoptee Voices Writing Group, co-founder of the Adoptee Literary Festival, and a member of The Starlings Collective.An adoptee before I was a writer, my mission is to merge the two, and make great literature while changing the the narrative around adoption.https://www.facebook.com/AliceStephensAuthor/https://www.famousadoptedpeople.com/https://twitter.com/AliceKSStephenshttps://www.instagram.com/alicestephensbooks/ 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.

I love meeting kindred spirits and interviewing them so they can share their learnings with you dear listener. Fellow adoptee Danielle is a total one off in the amount of time and effort she puts into healing and supporting others. We go deep into the truth of who we are in a way that's accessible and ultimately healing. We back this up with some practical pointers to help you along your healing journey.Here's a bit about Danielle from her website:My name is Danielle and I am an Earth Citizen 🙂 .What I mean when I say that, is I have a sincere desire to see a healthier, happier and more peaceful world, and I believe it starts with me.I have dedicated my life to growing my own light by helping others to grow their light also. For this, I currently work as a Regional Manager of Body & Brain Centers in Seattle, WA., giving lectures and leading training and coaching sessions.My journey with this work and this path began over 20 years ago – when I started to seek healing for my own body, mind and spirit. I have created Healing Tree – the blog, and now the book – in order to share my stories and inspirations family, friends, my students, and anyone else who may be interested in the healing journey.It is a journey – and a long one at that! Sometimes it’s nice to know you have companions along the way, traveling down similar roads as you. It is my hope that the words you discover here become comforting friends for you, finding their way to your heart. Who knows, they may even turn on a small light in there 🙂 When my light, your light, and our lights shine bright together, what a beautiful world it will be! “Our adopted angel” – that’s what Danielle’s adoptive parents called her. She grew up adored, doted on, and unconditionally loved. It wasn’t until she was in college that she first felt a gnawing curiosity about her roots. From time to time, she would wonder: Where did this face come from? Where did this body come from? Where did this blood come from? Her search to find her biological parents had begun – one full of surprises and revelations.After reuniting with her birth mother – and uncovering the primal wound that lay deep within her – Danielle embarks on a twenty-year healing journey of self-discovery, reconciliation, and forgiveness.At once a heartfelt memoir and a guide to self-awareness, Healing Tree offers a compassionate exploration of self, family, and what it means to be whole. Rooted in her twenty-year practice in Body & Brain holistic mind/body techniques, Danielle offers an approachable eight-step method for anyone wishing to heal from emotional or psychological wounds. This method invites readers to cultivate a loving relationship with their authentic selves and charts a pathway to inner peace.For anyone who feels stuck, hurt, or rudderless in the sea of life, for anyone interested in doing the deep work of self-healing, becoming liberated, and realizing the potential to heal beyond themselves, Healing Tree is a source of direction, inspiration, and hope.Find out more at:https://www.daniellegaudette.com/https://www.facebook.com/DGhealingtreehttps://www.instagram.com/danielle.gaudette/ 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.

Is it any wonder us adoptees crave love given the loss of the one who gave us life? Alex and I explore what he's learned on his journey to self love. He shares his recovery from pathological infatuations and a whole in his torso. My conversations for the podcast seem to be getting deeper as I talk to more adoptees. The deeper we go, the more healing we find. So listen in as we dig deep. I LOVED this one and am sure you will love it too.Find out more at:https://alexmfrankel.com/https://www.facebook.com/alex.m.frankelhttps://www.instagram.com/alexm.frankel/https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-m-frankel-5466621b/https://www.tiktok.com/@alexmfrankelhttps://twitter.com/alexmfrankelhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOk3xjp8aatHb7f0ke9jLSg 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.

When we know better, we do better. So what do adoptive parents need to know? Erin shares what she's learning raising her own kids adopted from foster care and helping other parents too. That professional perspective that backs up her personal one really makes this episode sing with clarity. We talk about understanding our own triggers, values and overwhelm which I know can be huge issues for you. Enjoy.Here's a bit about Erin from her website:My name is Erin Bouchard. Together with my husband, Joel I have been a foster parent since 2011. We adopted out of the foster care system in 2014. Over the years I have learned a lot through our experiences about early trauma. My goal is to help foster and adoptive parents learn about the impacts of early trauma. I teach and educate about connection and attachment. https://www.facebook.com/traumabasedparentinghttps://www.instagram.com/traumabasedparenting/https://www.instagram.com/erinchristinebouchardhttps://www.traumainformedfosterparenting.com/https://twitter.com/onceuponstrathhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/erinbouchard 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.

Adoptees born in Ireland can now access their birth information and apply for a tracing service. Listen in as Patricia Carey, CEO Adoption Authority of Ireland explains the background and services now available.The Adoption Authority Of Ireland's mission is to " To ensure the provision of the highest possible standards of adoption related services, throughout the lifelong adoption process, with the best interests of children as the first and paramount objective."The Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022 was signed into law on 30 June 2022. This landmark legislation provides a full and clear right of access to birth certificates, birth and early life information for all persons who were adopted, boarded out, the subject of an illegal birth registration or who otherwise have questions in relation to their origins. It also allows for access to information by next of kin in certain circumstances.The new law establishes a Contact Preference Register and a robust tracing service and, as well as a range of new bespoke measures to address issues arising for people affected by illegal birth registration.More at:https://aai.gov.ie/en/https://www.birthinfo.ie/ 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.

Here's a bit about Joy from her website :Adopted as a baby and raised by a devout Jehovah’s Witness family, Joy Castro is constantly reminded to tell the truth no matter what the consequences. Nevertheless, Castro finds this tenet to be the most violated. Here, in her very own Truth Book, Castro bears witness to a childhood lost but a life regained.Castro’s parents divorce after her father is excommunicated for smoking. She is twelve when her mother marries a “brother” in the church who, though exhibiting an impeccable public persona, is violent and controlling at home. For two years, Joy does not grow at all; in fact, she loses sixteen pounds in response to the physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse she suffers at his hands. Her battered mother does nothing to protect her, nor does her church. She is sustained by humor, books, and her protective love for her younger brother until their daring escape. This courageous personal account looks freshly at the disturbing effects of religious hypocrisy and the resilience of the human spirit.More at:https://www.joycastro.com/https://www.facebook.com/AuthorJoyCastro/https://twitter.com/_joycastro 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.

Shame seems to exist on a scale from mildly debilitating to totally wrecking adoptees' lives. Listen in as explore shame, where it comes from and coming to terms with it. This episode is all about how understanding the truth of who we are sets us free.Susan Beale was raised on Cape Cod, lived in Belgium and France, and now lives in the Wells, Somerset. Susan has worked as a journalist and editor in the US and Europe. She is a former competitive figure skater. She is a recent graduate of the Bath Spa MA in Creative Writing. The Good Guy - her first novel is inspired by Susan’s life. Susan was adopted as a baby and only reconnected with her birth mother several years ago. The inspiration for the book came from her adoption files. The papers include interviews with her mother, grandmother and one with her birth father. As well as helping Susan understand why she was adopted, the papers paint a portrait of America on the cusp of the sexual revolution. It’s a time of unprecedented prosperity and conformity. Young people enjoy new freedoms, but gender roles remain clearly defined and expectations of morality and purity are strictly, and sometimes cruelly, enforced. It’s a world about to be shaken to its core.Ted, a car-tyre salesman in 1960s suburban New England, is a dreamer who craves admiration. His wife Abigail longs for a life of the mind. Single-girl Penny just wants to be loved. After a chance encounter, Ted becomes enamoured with Penny and begins inventing a whole new life with her at its centre. But when this fantasy collides with reality, the fallout threatens everything, and everyone, he holds dear. The Good Guy is a deeply compelling debut about love, marriage, the pressure to conform, and what happens when good intentions and self-deception are taken to extremes.https://www.amazon.com/Susan-Beale/e/B07761GLTThttps://twitter.com/terminal_expat 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.

Adoptee Diane's search & reunion process was epic and, ultimately, rewarding. Listen in as we take a deep dive into faith, hope & perseverance that powered her through that process for insights galore for all adoptees.It is our human right to know who we are. After her adoptive parents passed away, Diane decided to take the DNA plunge to find her biological family. Learn how she found her biological family after years of wondering who she was and why she was born. With the help of a search angel, science and technology a lifetime of questions were about to be answered. Christmas, 2018 is just the beginning of her emotional journey to connect with her family.https://www.facebook.com/dianegrayauthorhttps://dianegrayauthor.com/https://www.amazon.co.uk/Faith-Hope-Perseverance-Adoptees-Biological/dp/1977226647 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.

Feeling unwanted is a central theme to many of adoptees' lives. We ache for connection. And it's a deep throbbing heartache that hurts like hell. Listen in as adoptee Laurie and I explore what she's learned to help you heal that heartache.What does it mean to belong? Laurie James spent most of her life wondering that same question. A lack of belonging and loneliness dictated how she spent most of her life. She rarely shared her secret with others—it was always hidden behind a carefree and can-do attitude. In her mid-forties, Laurie is sent down an unwanted path after her mother has a heart attack and her husband’s lawyer delivers some shocking news. She suddenly finds herself Sandwiched between caring for her parents, managing unruly caregivers, raising four teenage daughters, and trying to understand the choices of her husband she thought she knew. Sandwiched is a story about one woman’s struggle to do “it all” while facing the reality that the ideal life and family she believed she had created was slowly crumbling beneath her. As she tries everything to keep her family together, Laurie seeks therapy, turns to yoga, rediscovers nature, develops a strong female tribe and begins writing. As she explores the layers of her life and heals her past, she realizes that she’s the only one who can create the life she wants and deserves. Sandwiched, is a memoir debut about what it means to let go of the life you planned in order to find the life you belong to. https://www.instagram.com/laurie.james/https://www.facebook.com/laurie.james.79219754https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurie-james-8336a0168/https://www.laurieejames.com/Here's a another episode on the primal woundhttps://thriving-adoptees.simplecast.com/episodes/primally-wounded-or-fundamentally-unwoundable-with-nick-mabeyHere's a link to the event on 3 January 2023 about healing the primal wound https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/whole-healing-my-primal-wound-tickets-473258638327 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.

Transracial adoptee Thomas felt anger was stitched into him. Listen in as we explore how he saw through that to find peace and end his identity crisis. This is a particularly profound conversation which listeners are going to love.Here's a bit about Thomas and his book:An inspirational book detailing the profound changes in the life of a black child being left at a hospital after birth. Thirteen months into his life being adopted by a white couple that migrated from Europe before World War 2, who would later adopt over twenty children with different nationalities.The author writes of his emotional struggles from being abandoned and not knowing how to accept love to searching for answers to the pain and confusion that comes with growing up in white churches and schools while being black in the 1980s. Through anger, drugs, alcohol, jail, death, racism, and having the feeling there's no one to connect with to finding out who he is.The author takes you for a riveting ride through his life as he never gives up to find the answers he is looking for that haunted him throughout his life.Through life, love, hate, hurt, tears, and confusion, the author finds what he is looking for. But did he? An unbelievable ending to a lost soul that endured emotional trauma as in the end, he learns to love what he pushed away, learns to accept his life and who he is.https://www.facebook.com/people/AuthorThomasKirst/100063906433231/https://authorthomaskirst.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.

Resolving identity is often particularly tricky for transracial adoptees given the extra layer of complexity that race brings to adoption. Lucy felt different, saw lots of people who looked very different to her and was treated very differently too. Finding peace and ease with her identity took decades. Listen in as we explore the insights on the journey.Here's a bit about her from her websiteLucy Sheen Made in Hong Kong exported to the UK in the early 60s as a transracial adoptee. Brought up by a white family in the heartland of conservative England, next to the cucumber sandwiches, church spires and cricket on the village green. Lucy has over thirty years of professional experience as an actor. Lucy has always written, but it is only in the last five years that Lucy has become an active writer. Her work takes its inspiration from her own background. Much of what interests Lucy concerns identity. "Duality, the schism in thought and emotion when you are conflicted, when your heritage and culture is split. The loss of your roots the displacement from one culture to another." Lucy seeks to write and make sense of things that most British audiences will be unfamiliar with. What it feels like to be "the other", what it means to be a minority within a minority. To tell the tales of lives that have been overlooked, to make the invisible and forgotten visible and known.https://www.lucysheen.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucysheenhttps://www.instagram.com/lucysheenhttps://www.facebook.com/ActorLucySheen/ 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.

Taking our kids' behaviour personally stops us being the parents we need to be. So how do we become agents of healing? Listen in as therapist Catherine explores essential insights and steps to helping our kids heal.Here's some more about her from her website:Catherine Young, LMFT, is an author, trainer, consultant, clinical supervisor and child and family therapist. She has devoted over 25 years to helping children and families. She has worked in varied settings including public and private mental health agencies, children’s day treatment, children’s shelters, adoption agencies, early childhood mental health, and private practice.Over the years Catherine developed a therapy model for working with some of the most challenging children and their families: Multi-Modal Attachment Therapy (M-MAT). She is excited to be sharing this model in her book, M-MAT Multi-Modal Attachment Therapy: An Integrated Whole-Brain Approach to Attachment Injuries in Children and Families.She further applied the principals in M-MAT to attachment-based parenting. In her desire to bring healing to more children and families, she has recently authored a second book for parents: Understanding Attachment Injuries in Children and How to Help: A Guide for Parents and Caregivers.Catherine Young currently provides training and consultation in attachment theory and therapy, attachment-based parenting and care, and related topics.One of my first clinical jobs after graduate school was in a public mental health day treatment program for children 7 to 12 years of age. Many of these children were one step away from being removed from their homes due to their behavioral/emotional difficulties. Up to that point, the training I had received and the reading I had done in child therapy had been in non-directive play therapy and behavior therapy. I soon found that these children needed something much more. They needed more structure, more relationship focus, and more direction to help them move out of destructive patterns and cycles.I went in search of more effective therapies... ...I have taken elements of attachment-based play, other attachment-based therapies, cognitive behavioral therapy, narrative therapy, play therapy, solution focused therapy and, I am sure, other therapy modalities that I have absorbed over the years, and brought them together in a new, organized and systematic approach that I have found very effective in reaching these very challenging children.Because it needs a name, I call this approach Multi-Modal Attachment Therapy (M-MAT). I call it Multi-Modal Attachment Therapy simply because it integrates a variety of therapeutic modalities in a systematic way to treat children with significant attachment injuries.I have watched children transform from detached, angry, aggressive, emotionally disorganized, sometimes bizarre, sometimes withdrawn beings into loving, happy, emotionally connected children. These children have historically been so challenging to treat that I have had parents tell me that other professionals have told them not to expect too much of their child; not to expect too much love, too much growth, too much connection from these injured children.More at:https://www.m-mat.org https://www.facebook.com/MultiModalAttachmentTherapy 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.

Many of us adoptees struggle with identity. Christiana became Christina at 8. All of a sudden she was in a new country, in a new continent, with a new culture and her new name. Listen in as we unpack what she's learned about absorbing the most extreme identity shock we've ever discussed on this podcast.Christina Rickardsson was born in 1983 as Christiana Mara Coelho in Brazil in a town called Diamantina (Minas Gerais), where she lived with her mother in a cave. When Christina was around five years old they were kicked out of their home (their cave) and ended up having to move to the streets of a São Paulo, where Christina begged for food and money, and where she was subjected to several physical and psychological abuses. At the age of seven she was taken to an orphanage together with her youngest brother, and when Christina was eight years old they were adopted (against Christina’s and Christina’s mother’s will) and moved to Vindeln, a village located in the north of Sweden in a region called Västerbotten.Christina’s life changed when she moved to Sweden, but even though she was finally in a safe place, adapting to new country was not easy. There were several culture-clashes and in the beginning it was hard for her to feel at home because everything around her was new: the food, the nature, the people, and also the language spoken around her. Little by little Christiana became Christina, and this change helped her to adapt to the Swedish lifestyle.Christina wants her book to help increase people’s understanding about differences, prejudice and cultural conflicts, helping to promote dialogue, tolerance towards more open societies. She wants her own experience to become an example of how important it is to secure children’s rights, with Sweden and Brazil and a starting point.Christina wants her story to inspire governments, companies, organizations and people to work together effectively in multicultural settings.There are currently about seven million street children in Brazil, and Christina believes it is important to draw attention not only to the situation they are in, but also to the fact that these children have no voice of their own. The writer wants to help change this reality so that all children can live in a society where they can have a safe and happy childhood, and where they contribute to their own society when they become adults.https://christinarickardsson.se/en/https://www.facebook.com/rickardssonchristinahttps://www.instagram.com/christina_rickardsson/https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-rickardsson-02738884/ 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.

Check out my free event in January https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/whole-healing-my-primal-wound-tickets-473258638327 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.