Real Life Resilience

Writing love letters to her seven failed relationships was cathartic and a learning experience for author Kamala Chambers. She made each letter, and it's subsequent learned wisdom, into a chapter in her book Road to Love. Listen to discover how writing made her a better person.

Webster’s dictionary defines resilience as an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. Our lives are filled with change – it’s inevitable. So we, as human beings, might as well learn to be resilient. Strengthening our resilience will make us happier and healthier. We all want to bounce back from difficult experiences, don’t we?The Real Life Resilience podcast mission is to tell stories of recovery from life's most difficult trauma and provide tools for resiliency.

Make changes to your body and mind to gain the confidence to pursue your passion and live your dreams. Debi Silber, The Mojo Coach, has led thousands of clients to “get their mojo back” and transform into their personal and professional best. Her real-life examples will spark your own ideas.

What is your life theme? If you wrote a memoir, what would it be titled? Why should anyone write about their life? I posed these questions to participants at the Stories From The Heart Story Circle Conference. Their heartfelt answers provide a voyeur’s view into these women’s lives.

Only by taking better care of yourself can you improve your overall wellbeing. It’s important that you take action for nothing will change until you do. Kevin Bergen walks us through the Bergen protocol to help us understand how to get unstuck in life through expansion writing.

“We keep going through the things that hurt us because we fail to let go of the old and make room for new things in our lives.” Michael Neeley, the author of The Art of Forgetting, emphasizes that some of the negative patterns in our lives are from actions that we take subconsciously, without much thought going into the process.

According to research, 4% of the population are sociopathic and she married into the club. In this powerful story, we discover that truth is often stranger than fiction. Stacy unwittingly fell in love and married a man who appeared to be loving, caring and all that she ever wanted. She was painfully wrong.

“It’s so hard for people who share children with narcissistic individuals because sadly, most people don’t understand what they need to do in a shared-custody situation”. Kim Saeed, a No Contact Coach, shares her story of suffering and survival from emotional abuse at the hands of a narcissist husband.

Journaling about his everyday golf game turned into a book opportunity for former professional golfer Tom O’Stasik. Along the way, he discovered that writing helped him get through the emotional challenges of life and process his thoughts.

"For me the end goal is always to help people tell a story with their photos. I realized in the process of helping my clients do that, if they couldn't find their photos and they didn't know where they were, they couldn't even get to that next step." Cathi Nelson founded The Association of Personal Photo Organizers which aims to help clients organize important family traditions and memories that are captured through photos.

"If someone else can see themselves that much in my songs, then I kinda owe it to myself to share it; even if maybe just three other people get a little bit of healing from it." Shellee Coley a mother and singer-songwriter, continuously influences future artists in creating and molding music as a reflection of life and experiences. She shares the impact of music on personal growth and harmony.

“Stay yourself. I know that's so cliché but it means something…be yourself, stay yourself. Look how you want to look, sing how you want to sing, write how you want to write and just make your music and follow your dreams. Because that's why I've been doing and that what I'll continue to do. And it has done a lot for me.” This is how 16-year old Mia Z is making her mark as a singer-songwriter in the midst of the image conscious mindset that is pervasive in the music industry these days.

You have to get past your ego and find your shared experience with people. The things we’re most afraid to show people are the things we have most in common. Since I’ve come to understand that I’ve been able to write towards this common ground and connect myself with people and create an environment full of shared understanding. And I really think that’s the power of music.

“We have all of these weird urges or thoughts or ideas that don’t fit and you’re not allowed to say publicly. But if you can get that all out in not just a safe way, but a constructive way, you can use that to make something through stories,” says Author James Kennedy, creator of the 90 Second Newbery Award Film Festival. What's a vomelette? You'll have to listen to discover   90 Second Newbery Awards The 90-Second Newbery Film Festival is an annual video contest in which kid filmmakers create weird movies that tell the entire stories of Newbery-winning books in about 90 seconds. Every year, the best movies are shown at gala screenings all over the country—co-hosted by founder James Kennedy and other great children’s authors. The Film Festival is now entering its fifth year! James' book The Order of Odd Fish includes a villain based on a real-life person - The Belgian Prankster. It has been given high praise, including receiving recognition as the 2014 Young Adult Library Association Popular Paperbacks fo

On day one of self-employment, Nick Loper's website went down and his vision of hammocks and four hour work weeks disappeared. Google shut down his account and he realized the importance of diversification. Since then, he's written about his life as a side hustler, chronicling his experiments for the world to see. Lifestory Toolkit: Pro Writing Aid, Free Download: 5 Myths About Life Story Writing.

"Women have to put their foot forward and say I'm entitled. If I'm doing an equal job, I should be paid for it. For all the young women now who have never had to deal with these problems...I walked the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for you." When Norma Yaeger acquired her New York Stock Exchange license in 1962, she didn’t know of any other women in the industry. The Stock Exchange didn’t even allow women to step foot on its floor. But having just escaped poverty in NY’s Catskill Mountains, and determined to support her children, Norma wasn’t going to let the exclusionary traditions of the financial industry stop her from becoming a stockbroker.

Ann expects to die with an open notebook in her hand. In fact, her tombstone inscription is already prepared: Loved This World, Pen In Hand. This poet and has been writing since the fifth grade. She believes writers live life twice, and that's her favorite quote from Anais Nin. Listen as Ann shares how writing spurred her curiosity in life, and helped her get through depression. Lifestory Toolkit: Noticing The Details, Free Download: 5 Ways to Get Kids Writing and 1 Sure Way For Them To Enjoy It

Writer Kristi Willis started using Evernote by clipping and organizing her vast collection of recipes while watching football games. She shares some unique ways you can use Evernote (a virtual productivity tool) for all stages of writing, from sketching an outline of your idea, capturing audio notes and interviews, collecting research found on the internet, to putting it all together. Lifestory Toolkit: Headspace App. Free Download: 21 Ways to Capture Family History

"I believe everyone has a story and that story has the possibility of changing the world. It’s a high concept, I know. This doesn’t mean everyone will write a memoir or a piece of fiction. But, if we know how to read our stories we’re so much better off in articulating our purpose and knowing next steps. Sometimes, that purpose includes writing. Other times, it’s just decisions that leave us stumped. We can’t know our story unless we’ve allowed it room to breathe," Elora Nicole, author and coach.

Most people are trained to hold their own story at arm’s length. The goal of academic writing is to separate your own experience from what is objectively true. That lifelong training can make it very hard for people to write from their own heart and soul. The interesting thing is that when you get in the middle of a writing project, those lines start to blur. When you go on a writing journey, you discover a lot about who you are. That’s when it gets really interesting. When you reveal yourself, become vulnerable and show your passions, that’s what makes it exciting for the reader and that’s where the magic happens. Lifestory Toolkit: The Emotion Thesaurus. Free Download: Does Your Scrapbook Have a Story Arc? and Behind the Scenes of Writing a Book.