Episodes

Bo Dean and Jvanete Skiba of Wilmington, North Carolina, join Michael Sapp, CEO of the Trauma Resource Institute, and Elaine Miller-Karas, host of Resiliency Within, to discuss valuable lessons learned to enhance the well-being of survivors from Hurricane Florence and other disasters. Their reflections and the interventions they have adopted offer crucial insights for the people of the Northeast United States, who are grappling with the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene. Hurricane Helene re...

Resiliency Within will highlight the Poor People's Campaign to get out the vote during this pivotal time in American politics. Every vote matters. The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is organizing in more than 40 states to get out the vote of poor, low-propensity voters across the country. Studies show that small increases in the number of these voters casting ballots for an agenda that addresses their needs and concerns can change the outcomes of elections. You’ll hear...

Chia-Ti will share her years of experience teaching movement, mindfulness, somatics, and resiliency building in New York City. She will address how she uses movement practices, including yoga (hatha, vinyasa, restorative) and qigong, which she offers to a wide range of age groups, including elders, adults, and teens, through community-based programs. Chia-Ti will share her personal journey of resilience - — from factors of developmental safety to learning how to move from anxious attachment to s...

Contemplative practices have been shared across cultures and spiritual traditions for centuries. These practices encompass methods such as meditation, prayer, and mindfulness, which focus on deep reflection and awareness. Their purpose is to foster inner peace, self-awareness, and personal growth. Additionally, they help individuals cultivate resilience, manage stress, and develop emotional balance. Christa Tinari, Director of the Contemplative-Based Resilience (CBR) Project at the Garrison Inst...

Resiliency Within is dedicated to remembering those affected by suicide. We want to bring to light those who work tirelessly to raise awareness and reach out to those suffering silently. My guests today are Dr. Jamie Gamboa and Social Worker Brian Stefan, who are returning to Resiliency Within to discuss their work with Spotlight on Suicide. They will also discuss the Suicidal Ideation Toolbox, a resource filled with accessible skills for helping professionals and individuals experiencing profou...

TV reporter David Tereshchuk will be our guest on Resiliency Within as he shares his personal journey chronicled in his memoir, A Question of Paternity: My Life as an Unaffiliated Reporter. He has traveled the world questioning perpetrators and victims of war and injustice. He spent decades honing his skills as a journalist, getting tyrants and the oppressed to divulge their secrets. But there was one secret that always eluded him—that of his own origins. His mother, Hilda—the one person who kne...

Dr. Joy Erlichman Miller returns to Resiliency Within to share her international work on resiliency. This year, on September 12, 2024, Dr. Miller invites the world to join her for RESILIENCY 2024 in spreading the word about how to develop and nurture well-being. This year, RESILIENCY 2024 will focus on the POWER of connections and explore the influence and healing power of connections. Dr. Miller's Resiliency events have had more than 35,000 participants from 112 countries around the globe. Resi...

Elaine Miller-Karas, the host of Resiliency Within, will interview Aziza Hasan, Executive Director, and Andrea Hodos, Associate Director of New Ground, a nonprofit dedicated to bridging divides and convening constructive conversations around challenging social issues. They will share their wisdom on how New Ground envisions an America where Muslims and Jews are empowered to create lasting partnerships and engage in authentic communication and mutual cooperation. This vibrant model of engagement ...

Dr. Peggy Rowe Ward and host Elaine Miller-Karas will explore the meaning of friendships, the joys and sorrows that come from loving relationships, and reflect on their nearly two decades of friendship. Recent research indicates that friends can strengthen our immune system, help us recover from illness more quickly, sharpen our memory, and help us live longer. This knowledge reassures us of the healing and life-extending benefits of friendships, filling us with optimism and a sense of security....

Dr. Phil Allen, Jr. returns to Resiliency Within to discuss his journey since the release of his documentary and his first book, Open Wounds: A Story of Racial Tragedy, Trauma and Redemption. In this episode, he will explore the themes of his second book, The Prophetic Lens: The Camera and Black Moral Agency, from Martin Luther King to Darnella Frazier, which examines the role of the camera in the fight for racial justice. Allen highlights both the prophetic potential of the camera and the conte...

Join Resiliency Within as Kate Sachs Leventhal, Chief Program Officer, and Steve Leventhal, CEO, share their experiences with WorldBeing and how WorldBeing's vision and inspired programs are changing the lives of youth -- and the systems that support them. WorldBeing (formerly CorStone) is an internationally recognized nonprofit organization that conducts innovative in-school wellbeing programs to empower vulnerable and marginalized youth in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). These progra...

Resiliency Within welcomes back John Kania and Laura Calderon de la Barca. Join this conversation with the Collective Change Lab team who are at the leading edge of shifting how organizations, movements, and collective system change efforts are evolving towards more healing-centered ways of working. John Kania is the Founder and Executive Director of Collective Change Lab. Laura Calderon de la Barca is a psychotherapist specializing in individual, intergenerational, and collective trauma, as wel...

A key component of personal growth and change is understanding the distinction between “White-Knuckle Change” and “Real Change.” White-Knuckle Change is trying to change behavior without addressing the underlying causes of the behavior. These causes may include health issues, interpersonal pressures, political conflict, and/or spiritual abuse. Real Change is changing behavior by virtue of addressing those causes. If you address the causes, behavioral change naturally follows suit. In this interv...

Elaine and Analiza will discuss the double-bind dilemma - damned if you do and doomed if you don't and how women and women of color can manage it. They also discuss how allies and organizations can support women of color.Because our culture has an unconscious bias of how each gender should be, women are caught in a double bind. When caught in a double bind, doing one thing we need to do will undercut another equally important thing. In this case, if we act in ways consistent with gender stereoty...

Shannon Biteng of the Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) is the Trauma Informed Organization Manager. She will share the development and implementation of the ODHS Trauma Aware Program. The program supports over 12,000 human services professionals dedicated to assisting 1.5 million Oregonians in accessing essential resources and enhancing their overall well-being. She will share how the Trauma Aware initiatives foster resilience, promote well-being, and strive to empower individuals affe...

Brendan Ozawa-de Silva will share the multifaceted concept of empathy, highlighting its various definitions in scientific literature. He expresses that most definitions of empathy overlook a crucial component: embodied joint action with others. From evolutionary and developmental perspectives, joint action emerges as pivotal to the function of empathy. Our nervous systems are inherently wired to resonate with one another, enabling us to synchronize our bodies by observing the intentions and move...

Media Executive Michelle Hord was no stranger to trauma. Having started her professional career as an award-winning producer on America’s Most Wanted, she expertly guided families through every facet of unthinkable crises. Later, she covered heartbreaking stories while working at The Oprah Winfrey Show and Good Morning America. She sat with survivors of the unimaginable. When the unimaginable struck at home, her world changed forever. In her memoir, The Other Side of Yet: Finding Light In The Mi...

Integrating the Community Resiliency Model (CRM) into the multifaceted landscape of higher education carries its own complexity. Under the guidance of Erica Coates, Virginia Tech’s CRM teachers are actively engaged in not only cultivating equilibrium within their own nervous systems but also disseminating Zone language and skills throughout their student body, faculty, and various departments. In our dialogue, we'll delve into the mental health needs of our transitioning young adults as they pur...

Across the globe, there exists a pressing demand for effective treatment of complex trauma. While a growing number of trauma-informed mental health professionals dedicate themselves to supporting individuals, relationships, communities, and systems, the daily confrontation with trauma can take a toll, leading to exhaustion and burnout. Who stands ready to provide support to these therapists and aiding professionals along their professional journey? Brad Kammer, a Somatic Psychotherapist, Educato...

Dr. Luissa Kiprono will share the wisdom she gained from her remarkable journey. She had the desire to help people inspired from a young age. Becoming a women’s physician—first OBGYN, then maternal-fetal medicine—allowed her to fulfill this desire. When she cared for patients of all ages, from all walks of life through residency and fellowship in academia, as a military doctor, and in private practice, she discovered a privilege incomparable with anything she had ever experienced: the power of d...

One of the most significant sources of suffering comes from our human tendency to avoid difficult emotions. We are not taught how to face these unpleasant, often daily inner experiences, so we tend to push them away, ignore them, or become unwittingly overwhelmed by them. Yet how we meet and greet these difficult emotions has everything to do with our well-being, resilience, and ability to connect with ourselves and others. Instinctually, we fight against our uncomfortable emotions. In doing so,...

Britt Frank, LSCSW, will share the key concepts and methods expressed in her book, The Science of Stuck, Breaking Through Inertia to Find Your Path Forward. Ms. Frank states that we all experience stuckness in our lives—in our relationships, careers, our bodies, addiction issues, and more. We know we need to move forward but don’t know how creating a loop of self-doubt that goes nowhere. The problem has been exacerbated by the isolation and setbacks of the pandemic, resulting in burnout, dissati...

Elaine Miller-Karas, the host of Resiliency Within, will turn the table and be interviewed during Women’s History Month by her colleague and friend, Dr. Michael Sapp. She will discuss with Dr. Sapp a concept that she calls the “Rebecca Effect.” The “Rebecca Effect is the empowerment and transformation possible for all of us who have been oppressed, marginalized, or shamed. Her ideas were sparked by the fictional character Rebecca Welton, the owner of the fictional Richmond football team in the T...

We all have many beliefs about why we may act out sexually or with drugs and alcohol in ways of which we are not proud. For those of us within certain religious communities, some of those beliefs may include personal weakness or a disconnection from God. With this theology, the more we act out, the more we see proof that we are unworthy of connection, both human and divine. From a neurobiological perspective, we may act out because we are managing difficult emotions like anxiety and depression. ...