We talk with Susan Hannifin MacNab about the sudden loss of her husband, and raising her young son on her own. In her journey to deal with grief and mourning, she fell back into her training as a social worker and began to work through her loss. In her work she came to began to work up the multi-award winning book called the A to Z Toolbox. 

You can find out more about her work with another group called Soaring Spirits, a group that works to help Widows and Widowers alike. You can look them up here - www.soaringspirits.org 

For more information on Susan and her award winning book, please go to her website - www.a2zhealingtoolbox.com - where you can find links for her book and an online copy of the toolbox for your immediate use. 

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Tonight we talk with Joy Gandell of the podcast - "Being with Joy". We will talk about her daughters cancer diagnosis, and how it affected the family mentally and emotionally. We will talk about the remission process, and how shes doing with her health now, but also how the family worked to become Focused on Forward through this process. We will for sure talk about Joys podcast, what she covers and how she got into podcasting.  Starting tonight at 8PM Eastern!

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This week we have a great conversation with the amazing Mel Butcher. Mels story starts in her youth, but didnt really bloom until the year 2009 when she made some major decisions in life - leaving her steady job, leaving an unhealthy relationship, and trying to figure out her next step. At the same time as this was going on, she lost both of her grandfathers ... 

Eventually Mel went back to school even though she was told that Science and Engineering wasnt for women. Im happy to say Mel proved them wrong ... Listen to her story here and then go to the following to find out more about Mel Butcher 

www.,melbutcher,.com 

Lead to Soar Podcast 

Underdogengineers.com 

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This is a replay of a discussion we had with Nancy Sovran. Nancy is the executive director of a very important charity called Wish Upon A Teen. She not only has a personal interest in the success of the charity, but she has a personal experience with her daughter Hope and how Wish Upon a Teen helped hope during an extended hospital stay. 

PLEASE go to www.wishuponateen.org and donate to help them offset the lack funding that 2020 & 2021 has brought them due to Covid shut downs. 

Also if you go tohttps://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/13102576-rswof?ref_id=22912&store_id=754465- 100% of merchandise profits go to Wish Upon A Teen.

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In this episode we have an open conversation with Jenny Marie about her relationship with her mother as she was growing up. The verbal, physical and mental abuse she endured were very trying and caused some issues along the way. But shes also very clear about how and why she chose to forgive her mother and how she is moving forward in life. 

Jenny is now a Life Coach and wants to help others to learn to overcome just as she has learned to overcome. If you are interested in learning more about Jenny - visit her website www.jennymariecoach.com

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5/28/21 Live Show 

Fellow podcaster and host of the Nowhere To Go But Up Podcast, Sean Dustin,  joins us to talk about his journey through life dealing with abuse, addiction and prison, how he made changes to that story, and what hes doing now.  Be sure to check out his show as well - Nowhere to Go But Up. You can find him on all your favorite podcast destinations!

Visit Sean on his website nowheretogobutuppod.com

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Larry Sprung lost his brother in law Keith Milano to suicide years ago, and since then, he and his wife have been working hard to raise suicide prevention awareness. In fact - Larry now sits on the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Board as a very active member. 

He champions mental health and advocates for those who do not yet know how to use their own voice. 

We have a discussion about losing loved ones, the difficulties suicide leaves on the everyone else around them, and how we may be able to prevent others from ever having to deal with this too. 

You can find out more about the Keith Milano Memorial here - https://keithmilano.org

and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention here - https://afsp.org

If you are in need of someone to talk with - PLEASE CALL 800-273-8255  - YOU ARE NEEDED! 

You can find out more about Larry Sprung on his podcast - The Mitlin Money Mindset 

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This week on our live show we sit down with the amazing voice actress Anna Graves ( Duchess Satine Kryze on Star Wars Clone Wars) to talk about being the parent of an autoimmune child, what that means in a COVID world, and how they have adapted their life to be "Focused on Forward"  If you have questions for Anna about her experiences with this topic - please include them in the comments, and we will do our best to include them onscreen!

For more information on Anna Graves and her voice over work - please look her up on IMDb or follow her on Twitter as @gravyvoice 

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Tracy Lowry is the host of the Mulitform PTSD podcast. I had the pleasure of being interviewed on her show (also released today - go check it out!) and talking about why I started this podcast. 

But here we talk with Tracy about being a survivor of sexual assaults and how that weighed upon her mind and spirit. We talk about her breakdown and the realization that she needed to do SOMETHING to confront her trauma head on. We talk about Tracy became Focused on Forward and how she became a podcaster! Wonderful and inspiring, thats how I would describe Tracy. Hopefully after this episode, you will too. 

For more on Tracy Lowry - please look her up by her name and see her podcast - Multiform PTSD. 

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On 5/14/21 at 8pm EST we will talk with Kate Wallinga - the host of the podcast "Ignorance Was Bliss". Kates podcast is about making just about anything sound normal, from PTSD to podcasting to serial murder. She also has her own story of overcoming after having broken her back in 2014.  So lets chat with Kate, about her journey through life with her careers in different fields, talk about her back and lessons learned in her recovery, and about her podcast.   Lets find out if Ignorance was Bliss?

You can find out more about Kate at IWBpodcast.com 

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