Stories and Stanza
Welcome to Stories and Stanza! I am happy to have you here. I am a writer, and I created this podcast to bring out the real stories that make life as beautiful as poetry. I’ll take you on a journey through the human experience, sharing stories and conversations to uplift your spirit. Whether you’re a lover of literature, a writer, or simply someone who enjoys a good story, ”Stories and Stanza” is the place for you. I am working in three main segments - In Author’s Chair (discussion with authors), Fail With Me (failure and emotional intelligence), and Stories from Past (history).
Episodes
6 days ago
6 days ago
This episode of Stories and Stanza delves into the personal journey of renowned life coach Amanda Wakefield as she navigates life's challenges and transforms them into stepping stones to success. Despite obstacles such as failed marriages and battling cancer, she proves that it is possible to emerge stronger, wiser, and more resilient. A conversation about the concept of failure, Amanda's story provides encouraging narratives about normalising failure and shifting the societal perspective that negatively tags it.
As she shares tales of hardships and triumphs, Amanda underscores the importance of emotional support, community, and cultivating a tribe of people to stand with you. This episode also showcases her journey in becoming a life coach, where she found her calling in helping others manage their mental turmoil through her varied life experiences and perspectives.
One of the focal points of this episode is the discussion on emotional intelligence and mindfulness. Underscoring practical tips on understanding emotions, improving self-awareness, and developing reflective skills. Amanda shares mindfulness practices aimed at helping listeners mute external and internal noise.
Concluding the episode on a hopeful note, Amanda advocates the importance of aligning life with core values, the power of curiosity, and the need for self-forgiveness. Join us in exploring potent narratives about harnessing resilience and the relentless drive to evolve and improve.
About Amanda: Amanda, a former corporate executive, is a resilient life coach who has triumphed over significant life hurdles. From overcoming orphanhood to navigating divorce, battling cancer, and thriving in expat life, Amanda’s journey fuels her passion for resilience and embraces strength in adversity, stress management, and personal growth. Amanda shares practical wisdom on building mental fortitude and thriving through life’s storms. Inspiring & Empowering Cultivating Inner Resilience Mind Harmony Management Transform Your LifeEvery day is a new opportunity
6 days ago
6 days ago
This is another episode of the 'In Author's Chair' segment, where we interview writers about their work, motivation, and challenges. Please join me in welcoming Dr Bella Elwood Clayton for today's episode.
About the author:
Dr. Bella Ellwood-Clayton is an award-winning author. She has a BA from Concordia University in Montréal and a PhD from the University of Melbourne in sexual anthropology—and, yes, that makes for interesting dinner party conversations. Bella's nonfiction book, Sex Drive: In Pursuit of Female Desire, was published by Allen & Unwin in 2012. Bella has published short-stories and poetry and written for publications such as Huffington Post and Daily Life. She frequently appears on TV and gives talks, including a TEDx talk. Her work has been featured in a National Geographic documentary.
Married to a real-life superhero, she lives in Melbourne and has two spirited—eek—teens and a mini Maltese who truly believes he’s a pit bull. When she’s not on her laptop, you can find her downward dogging, pleading with her offspring to go outside, randomly blurting out, “Oh, that’s a good story idea,” and consuming too many vegetarian dumplings.
Book Summary:
Food photographer Rebecca, and her tween daughter, Willow, move from Alaska to Boca Raton, leaving behind their terrible secret about the death of Rebecca’s husband. They’re ready to start anew in the warmth of the sunshine state, hoping it will help vanquish Willow’s night terrors.As her daughter becomes controlled and bullied by the popular group, Rebecca is drawn closer to the charismatic head of the school, Mr. Brady. A hot and steamy—though uncertain—relationship begins. Soon, lies, deception, and secrets cause everything to spiral out of control, and both mother and daughter find themselves on the wrong side of their gated community with devastating repercussions.Full of dark twists and turns, Weekend Friends makes you grateful you’re no longer a tween…or the parent of one.
Amazon US
Amazon Australia
Sunday May 05, 2024
Fail With Me (8) - Our Relationship With Food
Sunday May 05, 2024
Sunday May 05, 2024
Welcome to Stories and Stanza! I am happy to have you here.
As a writer, I have always leaned towards poetry. I started this podcast to share honest, heartfelt, and evoking stories that make us see the beauty of life - which is where the show gets its name. In every episode, I will take you on a journey of human experience to uplift your spirit.
Today is another episode of the 'Fail With Me' segment, where we explore what failure truly is and link it with emotional intelligence in a supportive space. In a messy and imperfect world where we celebrate success and whisper about failure hushedly, "Fail with Me" flips the script.
Please join me in welcoming Megan Gaul as a guest speaker. She is a health coach and facilitator from Staten Island, New York. In this lively discussion, she has shared her incredible journey of weight loss, failing and then turning around, but most importantly, unpacking our relationship with food. She is such a fun and experienced person to talk to. Learn about her journey and how she is helping people in the weight loss space.
I hope you will like this episode. Feel free to share your comments.
Megan's Website
Thank you.
Sunday May 05, 2024
Fail With Me (7) - Exploring Men's Mental Wellness
Sunday May 05, 2024
Sunday May 05, 2024
Welcome to Stories and Stanza! I am happy to have you here.
As a writer, I have always leaned towards poetry. I started this podcast to share honest, heartfelt, and evoking stories that make us see the beauty of life - which is where the show gets its name. In every episode, I will take you on a journey of human experience to uplift your spirit. Today is another episode of the 'Fail With Me' segment, where we explore what failure truly is and link it with emotional intelligence in a supportive space. In a messy and imperfect world where we celebrate success and whisper about failure hushedly, "Fail with Me" flips the script.
Please join me in welcoming Simon Rinne as a guest speaker. Simon has lived with mental illness for a very long time, and he started Mindful Men in 2021 to share his story and help normalise discussions about mental health. He aims to encourage boys and men to open up, get vulnerable and deal with the issues troubling them.
In this episode, we look back at some of his failures, his realisations, and the turning point to wellness. Simon shares some valuable insights on Australia's mental health treatment landscape.
I hope you will like this episode. Feel free to share your comments.
Thank you.
Sunday May 05, 2024
In Author's Chair - Aimee Eddy
Sunday May 05, 2024
Sunday May 05, 2024
Welcome to Stories and Stanza! I am happy to have you here.
As a writer, I have always leaned towards poetry. I started this podcast to share honest, heartfelt, and evoking stories that make us see the beauty of life - which is where the show gets its name. In every episode, I will take you on a journey of human experience to uplift your spirit.
This is another episode of the 'In Author's Chair' segment, where we interview writers about their work, motivation, and challenges.
Please join me in welcoming Aimee Aidee for today's episode. Aimee Eddy is an insightful overcomer who advocates for other strugglers. After conquering mental illness, bullying, cancer, and more, she has the life experience to encourage others through her writing. Her memoir Escape to the Garage: Family Love Overcomes Bullying details her experiences with bullying. Her stories are in Change Your Life by Alexander Kovarovic. She serves as assistant to the director for the One Life Project. Aimee loves to woodburn, write, and spend time with her family.
Her journey is nothing short of a miracle - I am sure you will find her words deeply inspiring.
Wednesday May 01, 2024
Fail WIth Me (6) - Melting our ice blocks
Wednesday May 01, 2024
Wednesday May 01, 2024
Welcome to Stories and Stanza! I am happy to have you here.
Today is another episode of the 'Fail With Me' segment, where we explore what failure truly is and link it with emotional intelligence in a supportive space. In a messy and imperfect world where we celebrate success and whisper about failure hushedly, "Fail with Me" flips the script. Please welcome Eva Angvert as our guest speaker today.
She started her journey in Self-Awareness and Integrative Healing in 1990 after having to turn off her daughter Kristina's life support. She has now been in personal development and coaching for 33+ years. She is certified as an Integrative Coach, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, and EmRes Practitioner. Her training and personal experiences have created a wonderful mixture of awareness and expertise to support clients who suffer from early childhood trauma, domestic violence, rage, anger, psycho-somatic body pain, anxiety and internal stress, and addictive behaviours of all kinds.
I recently attended one of her workshops, which I previously discussed in an episode here. In this episode, she agreed to join as a guest and share more details about Body-Mind connectedness and wisdom. She introduced me to the fascinating concept of melting the inner ice blocks - and I am sure you will find this helpful.
I will leave Eva's coordinates here for anyone wanting to know more about it.
Tuesday Apr 30, 2024
Fail WIth Me (5) - Life story of a therapist
Tuesday Apr 30, 2024
Tuesday Apr 30, 2024
Welcome to Stories and Stanza! Today is another episode of the 'Fail With Me' segment, where we explore what failure truly is and link it with emotional intelligence in a supportive space. In a messy and imperfect world where we celebrate success and whisper about failure in a hushed tone, "Fail with Me" flips the script.
Please join me in welcoming Brandy Patterson Walker as a guest speaker. She is a therapist and an intuitive who has just started her own private practice (a long-time dream!). She has a big personal mission to help raise the frequency and consciousness of the planet (starting with her own). As a therapist, She takes a “psychodynamic, solution-focused” approach. She also teaches workshops to make concepts like inner child, shadow work, and past lives more accessible and digestible. Many therapies focus on helping people get from survival mode to a baseline of getting through the day. That’s very valid and important. Brandy believes there is this whole other side of the wellness spectrum—from baseline to THRIVAL—and she is interested in meeting people wherever they are and helping them remember their unique strengths and abilities so they might absolutely thrive.
This episode will discuss her struggles, turning things around, and her approach to helping people reach their survival goals. I hope you will like this episode. Feel free to share your comments.
Here are her contact details.
IG LinkedIn Website YouTube TikTok
Thursday Apr 25, 2024
In Author's Chair - Penny Bingham
Thursday Apr 25, 2024
Thursday Apr 25, 2024
Welcome to Stories and Stanza! I am happy to have you here. Please join me in welcoming Penny Bingham for today's episode.
Penny Bingham is an emerging writer, currently working on a hybrid memoir chronicling her seven years as a carer for her husband, who lived with Lewy body dementia. It is a warts-and-all account of the devastation a dementia diagnosis presents for the person with the disease, the carer and the family. Arising from her comprehensive journal of her husband's illness, the book leads the reader through the pain of watching the decline of a once proud, dignified, vibrant person as toxic proteins attack the brain, unravelling neural connections and giving rise to confusion, agitation, delusions, hallucinations and paranoia that are the hallmarks of this disease.
The book's title, A Gift of Grace, hints at how love flourished in an exquisitely painful experience and how dementia's profound lessons in patience, tolerance, and humility transcended resentment and despair to embrace grace and peace. It encapsulates the confluence of her experience as a carer, knowledge acquired through formal academic study, and stories shared by others she has been privileged to meet through her role as a dementia advocate.
Based on the belief the message is more significant than the narrative and grounded by her academic qualification, the work encompasses theoretical perspectives to inform others navigating the dementia labyrinth of the challenges and frustrations they are destined to encounter. It aims to reduce the stigma surrounding dementia. It challenges readers to re-think their perceptions of what Sally Magnusson, in her memoir, Where Memories Go, describes as 'one of the greatest social, medical, economic, scientific, philosophical and moral challenges of our times'.
Penny's entry, The Other Jenny, was short-listed in the Ada Awards 2021
About This Podcast
For those who don't know me, I am an average IT guy by day with a creative spree and the heart to make a difference. I live in Melbourne with my family and enjoy photography and creative writing.
Inspired by the quote from Rainer Maria Rilke, "If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it — blame yourself for not being poet enough to call forth its riches." I created this podcast to bring out the real stories that make life as beautiful as poetry. I'll take you on a journey through the human experience, sharing stories and conversations to uplift your spirit. There are three segments -
In Author's chair, where I talk to authors about their journey.
Fail With Me, where I explore what failure truly is and link it with emotional intelligence.
Oh! Past, speak out, where I talk about forgotten chapters of history.
If you are interested in my poetry, this is my Amazon author page.