Ryan says the biggest change in his life was letting go of the need to have it all together. He talks about what it took to stop hiding the messy parts, and how making peace with not always being okay is the thing that finally set him free.
Before the worst of it, there was an unsettling encounter with the neighbor next door. Ryan talks about how he and his wife handled feeling uneasy, and the small decisions we make when something just feels off.
Robin talks about what older kids in foster care are really up against, and the people and groups working to find them a family. Heartbreaking and hopeful at once. Out now. The Life Shift Podcast.
Ryan carried his story alone for fourteen years, sure that saying it out loud would break him. He talks about the first time he finally told all of it to another person, and the relief that came instead.
When his son was born in 2010, Ryan walked out of the hospital and realized that in his head it was still 2004. He talks about the disorienting jolt of losing six years, and trying to make sense of the time that had simply vanished.
No money and no map, and Robin still found her way from a hard start to living in Kenya in the early seventies. Her whole approach was simple, figure it out. She tells me how here. The Life Shift Podcast.
Ryan describes the strange, chilling moment when officers started asking about his wife's whereabouts, and the questions that hung in the air before he understood what was going on.
After 17 years away, Ryan went back to Texas, stood at his wife's grave, and came home changed. He talks about what that trip stirred loose, and how it gave him the push to finally write his story down.
From a children's shelter to finally feeling wanted, Robin shares how much it matters for a kid to know someone is glad they exist. A story about surviving and being seen. Listen now. The Life Shift Podcast.
Grief took more from Ryan than he realized. He talks about the memory gaps that swallowed whole stretches of his children's early years, and how he has learned to sit with the moments he simply cannot get back.
Ryan got honest about how close he came to dying. Down to 113 pounds with his liver failing, he was drinking himself toward a slow end. He talks about the choice to stop, and how that decision saved his life.
Robin witnessed a little girl sent back simply because of the color of her skin, and she has never forgotten it. A hard, honest look at what she saw inside the system as a kid. Out now. The Life Shift Podcast.
It started as a normal lunch break. Then Ryan got a call from his wife's coworker asking why she hadn't shown up for work. He walks through the panic of the next hour and the moment right before he understood what had happened.
February 2018, Ryan woke up in a jail cell at the lowest point of his life. He talks about the strange relief he felt sitting there, the difference between the lows that happen to us and the ones we cause, and why this was the night everything finally turned.
Robin describes the strange relief of foster care feeling safer than the home she came from. Sometimes leaving is the first moment a kid gets to breathe. She shares it here. The Life Shift Podcast.
Ryan hit his lowest point in a jail cell in early 2018. He talks about the desperate prayer he said there, the surrender in it, and how that moment became the start of the sobriety he still holds today.
For years Ryan's mind was a hard place to live. He talks about the slow shift from those darkest thoughts to actually being present, and how becoming a steadier father for his kids became the thing that pulled him forward.
Robin never had the parenting she needed, so she learned to give it to herself, and then to her own kids. We talk about what it means to re-parent yourself when no one modeled it for you. New episode out now. The Life Shift Podcast.
On an ordinary Tuesday, Ryan kissed his wife goodbye and went to work. By lunch she was gone, killed by the man who lived next door. Ryan walks through that morning and the moment his settled, quiet life came apart.
Maybe you know what it is to finally exhale. To reach a season where the noise quiets down, the plan starts to work, and for the first time you let yourself believe things might actually be okay. Ryan was 24 and living in Denver when he reached that place. He…
Ryan finally felt settled for the first time in his life at 24, until an ordinary Tuesday and a phone call at lunch changed everything, and this conversation is about the long road he walked back through grief, addiction, and recovery. Ryan had married young and moved constantly, and for…
Robin's father went as far as threatening her school to keep control of her. This is a hard one, and it is also about the long road back to believing you are worth something. Out now. The Life Shift Podcast.
Robin wrote her memoir for foster kids who need to hear that a hard beginning is not the whole story. There is a life on the other side of it, and she is proof. Full episode out now. The Life Shift Podcast.
Robin had no money for college, so she figured it out, and that same drive turned into a life of fundraising and helping other people get their shot. Her memoir grew out of all of it. Listen now. The Life Shift Podcast.
