The Teaching Journeys Podcast

Can pain really become a portal to beauty? What happens when you stop numbing and start feeling everything?In this episode of The Teaching Journeys Podcast, host Dave Roberts sits down with writer and self-healing advocate Alexis Leigh, author of Pain Is a Portal to Beauty — a transformative memoir about grief, authenticity, and the unconventional path to wholeness.Alexis opens up about losing her mother to addiction at age 11, spending decades numbing her pain, and the moment a voice in the woods in 2020 told her, "If you die today, your life will have been a tragedy" — a wake-up call that changed everything.In this episode, you'll learn:• Why conventional wisdom and gratitude practices can actually keep you emotionally stuck• How MDMA therapy and ayahuasca helped Alexis access grief that years of talk therapy couldn't reach• The difference between performative happiness and genuine emotional freedom• How processing childhood trauma reshapes your identity at every life stage• Why codependency may be blocking your ability to love yourself and others fully• What it means to truly surrender — to pain, to healing, and to life itselfThis is a deeply honest conversation about the courage it takes to feel everything, embrace the shadow side of who we are, and discover the beauty waiting on the other side of pain.Bio and Contact InformationAlexis Leigh is a writer and advocate for self-healing through unconventional methods, including psychedelics and deep inner work. With a background in finance and consulting, her personal journey led her away from the corporate world and into a life centered around authenticity and transformation. Pain Is a Portal to Beauty is her first book, a testament to the power of feeling deeply and embracing the unknown."📖 Pain Is a Portal to Beauty is available everywhere books are sold.🌐 Connect with Alexis at alexisleigh.comTo connect with Dave , go to davidrobertsmsw.com

What happens when a child's life ends too soon — and what can it teach us about love, consciousness, and what lies beyond death?In this deeply moving episode of the Teaching Journeys Podcast, host Dave Roberts welcomes Katy Gilbertson, founder of Hauora Wellness, for a raw and spiritually rich conversation about child loss, grief, and the survival of consciousness after death.Both Dave and Katy have lived through a parent's worst nightmare — Dave lost his daughter Jeannine to cancer at 18, and Katy lost her son Jaxon to leukemia just before his 10th birthday. Together, they explore the sacred and the human dimensions of these profound losses.In this episode, you'll discover:• The concept of sacred law vs. human law — and why a short life can still be a complete one• How Jaxon and Jeannine demonstrated advanced empathy and spiritual awareness beyond their years• Real accounts of shared-death experiences and signs from the other side• How consciousness survives physical death — and how to stay connected to loved ones who've transitioned• The waves of grief that resurface at unexpected milestones, and how to navigate them• How Katy transformed her experience into Hauora Wellness, guiding high-achieving women beyond burnout into embodied leadership• Why "once you learn how to die, you learn how to live"• This episode is for anyone navigating grief, curious about life after death, or seeking meaning after profound loss.Katy Gilbertson's Bio and Contact InformationKaty is the founder of Hauora Wellness, an expert in holistic wellness, embodied leadership, and human potential, guiding high-level women to expand their capacity and step into their next level of life, leadership, and business in a sustainable and deeply aligned way.Her work sits at the intersection of holistic health, nervous system regulation, human potential, identity transformation, energy work, and personal mastery. Blending a holistic and functional medicine lens with embodiment, leadership development, and transformational coaching, Katy guides women to reconnect with the deeper intelligence of their body, energy, and purpose so they can lead from alignment rather than exhaustion.At the heart of her philosophy is Hauora, the interconnected relationship between physical, emotional, spiritual, social, and environmental wellbeing. Her work is deeply shaped by lived experience. After navigating her own health challenges, chronic stress, periods of losing herself, and the profound journey of supporting her son through cancer and loss while continuing to lead in life and business, Katy’s understanding of resilience, regulation, grief, leadership, and human potential transformed entirely.These experiences became the foundation for the work she now shares through transformational immersions, private mentorship, embodied leadership experiences, and teachings devoted to sustainable expansion and self-mastery.Today, Katy supports high-level women, entrepreneurs, and leaders who know they are here for more, helping them move beyond overthinking, dysregulation, and survival-mode patterns so they can access deeper levels of vitality, clarity, creativity, leadership, and fulfillment.Through Hauora Wellness, Katy is building a movement devoted to embodied expansion, sustainable leadership, and helping women fully hold the mission they are here to lead.ConnectInstagram: @hauorawellnessFacebook: @hauorawellnessWebsite: www.hauorawellness.comEmail: katy@hauorawellness.comSubscribe, share, and leave a review — your support makes all the difference.

What does it take to break free from a lifetime of addiction, childhood abuse, and generational trauma? In this powerful episode of the Teaching Journeys podcast, host Dave Roberts sits down with internationally award-winning author, public speaker, and transformational mentor Shannan Kym to share her extraordinary journey from rock bottom to radical freedom.Growing up as the youngest of eight children in a home defined by alcoholism, mental illness, and abuse, Shannan endured unimaginable hardship — only to find herself trapped in a marriage to a narcissist and drinking up to six bottles of wine a day. Her story is raw, honest, and ultimately deeply inspiring.In this episode, you'll discover:•How childhood trauma and generational patterns fuel addiction — and how to break the cycle • What hitting rock bottom really looks like and the moment Shannan finally surrendered • Why traditional therapy and AA didn't work for her — and what did• The awakening that led to nearly 7 years of sobriety•How writing her award-winning book How in the Hell Did I Get Here? changed everything•The 10 Pathways to Self-Discovery . · •How she helps women ages 40–60 reclaim their identity, rebuild their lives, and step into their greatness Shannan's Bio and Contact InformationSHANNAN KYM grew up in a family where addiction, violence, and extreme dysfunction were normalized. Robbed of her childhood, she was forced to grow up at a very young age. After dropping out of high school and leaving her family, she was filled with self-loathing and shame. Suppressing her feelings, Shannan became an alcoholic. For years, she abused her body, gained excessive weight, and let herself be taken advantage of by toxic people, including marrying a narcissist. She experienced career highs and lows and suffered the loss of a child. Eventually, Shannan hit rock bottom; but on August 17, 2019, everything changed. That day, Shannan made up her mind to stop letting addiction control her life. She also made a decision to get real, let go of her past hurts, embrace forgiveness, and focus on living each day with gratitude, purpose, light, and love. Connect with Shannan Kym at shannankym.com or find her on all social platforms @shannankym.To connect with Dave , go to davidrobertsmsw.com

What if your biggest career crisis was actually your greatest creative breakthrough?In this episode of the Teaching Journeys Podcast, host Dave Roberts sits down with Dr. Tasha Golden — touring singer-songwriter turned behavioral scientist — for a fascinating conversation about creativity, mental health, and the power of the arts to heal.Dr. Golden was the first Director of Research for the International Arts and Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and her journey from performing on stage with her band Ellery (featured on ABC, Showtime, Fox, and Netflix) to earning a PhD in public health is anything but conventional.In this episode, you'll discover:• How music creates "safe spaces" that allow people to share what they've never told a doctor or therapist• Dr. Golden's 3-pillar Creative Mindset Framework (Deconstruction, Imagination, Action) and how to apply it in your work and life• Why "growth is on the other side of the questions we are not asking" — and how to start asking them• The science of talkability — why art makes difficult topics speakable• How Arts on Prescription is revolutionizing healthcare by prescribing cultural experiences to treat loneliness, depression, and anxiety• Inside Project Uncaged — a trauma-informed creative writing program for incarcerated girls driving real policy change• Why organizations get stuck solving the wrong problems — and how a creative mindset fixes that• Whether you're a leader, educator, healthcare professional, or creative, this conversation will challenge you to see the world — and your challenges — in an entirely new way.Tasha’s Bio and Contact InformationTasha Golden, PhD, is a touring artist turned behavioral scientist who speaks and consults globally on creativity, wellbeing, and change.Dr. Golden was the first Director of Research for the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, is adjunct faculty in the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine, and lead author of "Arts on Prescription: A Field Guide for US Communities". Named one of Fierce Pharma's "Fierce 50" for her work integrating arts and healthcare, she has published extensively on intersections of arts, behavior, and wellbeing.Golden's work emerged from her career in the arts. As singer-songwriter for the critically acclaimed band Ellery, she toured internationally, with songs in TV/film (ABC, SHOWTIME, FOX, NETFLIX). Her experiences on the road, and subsequently with burnout and depression, shaped her current work in arts and health. She is founder of Project Uncaged, a trauma-informed writing program for incarcerated girls, and developer of "How We Human”—a mental health training for creative professionals.Dr. Golden helps clients and audiences combine creativity and science to advance wellbeing, innovation, and impact.🔗 Connect with Dr. Tasha Golden:http://www.tashagolden.com/Visit tashagolden.com/teachingjourneys for free resources and information for Dave’s podcast audience.Subscribe to the Teaching Journeys Podcast for weekly conversations with extraordinary guests dedicated to passing knowledge across generations.To connect with Dave, go to davidrobertsmsw.com

Host Dave Roberts introduces the Teaching Journeys podcast and interviews grief coach Sylvia Wolfer, who works at the intersection of neuroscience, mindfulness, and movement, including Pilates. Wolfer shares a lifelong history of sudden losses—her father when she was seven, a younger brother at 17, an older brother in 2019, and later her mother—and describes carrying “unattended grief,” marked by outward functioning but internal bracing, triggers, sleep and digestive disruption, fatigue, and brain fog. She explains how grief is stored in the body and how “nailing the basics” (hydration, real food, sleep routine, daylight, breathing, and movement) can help regulate the nervous system before deeper emotional work. Wolfer also outlines a neuroscience view of grief as the brain recalibrating its map of time and space while closeness endures, emphasizing patience, sibling grief, and regaining agency so grief doesn’t “run the show.”Sylvia's Bio and Contact InformationSylvia Wolfer is a grief coach working at the intersection of neuroscience, mindfulness, and movement. Her work is shaped by both professional training and lived experience, having lost both parents and two brothers over the course of her life.After years of trying to “move forward” through grief using conventional approaches, it was the science of the brain and body that gave her a different kind of understanding — one that helped her regain a sense of stability and agency when everything felt disorienting. Alongside this, her long-standing practice of Pilates became a powerful anchor, helping her reconnect with her body and find a sense of steadiness from within.Today, Sylvia helps people who are outwardly functioning but internally struggling after loss to understand what grief is doing to their brain and nervous system, and to regain agency and rebuild capacity.Her work combines research-backed insights with a deeply human approach, offering digital courses, 1:1 support, and guided practices that meet people where they are.LinksWebsite: https://sylviawolfer.com/Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/_sylvia_wolfer_grief_support/Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/sylviawolfer/To find out more about Dave, go to davidrobertsmsw.com

Host Dave Roberts welcomes Mark Ruegg, a healing advocate and creator of the “Healing Recipe,” who shares his journey from a stage four pancreatic neuroendocrine carcinoma diagnosis (with metastasis to lymph nodes and liver and a prognosis of four to six months) to living with no evidence of disease. Influenced by the documentary “Heal” and Dr. Joe Dispenza’s “Blessings of the Energy Centers” meditation, Ruegg describes a transformative meditation experience followed by a PET scan showing the pancreatic tumor gone, later confirmed by repeated scans; a physician at Cedars called it a miracle and removed his stent. Ruegg explains his seven-ingredient framework—belief, meditation, spirituality, increased positivity, decreased stress, diet, and exercise—emphasizing calm, reduced stress, and “borrowing belief.”Nark's Bio and Contact InformationMark Ruegg is a healing advocate and the creator of The Healing Recipe, a simple, belief-centered framework focused on helping the body feel safe so it can heal.After being diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic neuroendocrine carcinoma and told he had months to live, Mark took an integrative approach—combining conventional treatment with meditation, lifestyle changes, and a deep focus on mindset and belief. Today, he is living with no evidence of disease.With more than 20 years working as a professional child wrangler in the entertainment industry, Mark developed a unique ability to break down complex ideas into simple, practical steps. He now shares what he’s learned to help others move from fear to hope—and understand how healing can begin.Connect with Mark Ruegg:Instagram: @MarkAllenRueggHealing Recipe on Substack (link in Instagram bio)To connect with Dave, go to davidrobertsmsw.com