A Quest for Well-Being

• Becoming A Warrior and The Passion Of A Dream

  — In the book Becoming a Warrior: Catherine Hand shares a heroine's journey that mirrors the heroine's journey in the award- winning young adult classic novel A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. From the early age of ten Catherine dreamt of making this young adult classic into a movie and fifty years later her childhood dream came true. She recounts her time spent with the legendary writer/producer Norman Lear and her 25-year-long conversation with L'Engle about the author's treasured book. Becoming a Warrior gifts us with lessons about acceptance of our differences, religion, science, free will, courage, hope and the power of love. In 2018, five decades after Hand first read A Wrinkle in Time, Walt Disney Studios released a major motion picture based on the award-winning classic. The movie was directed by Ava DuVernay, written by Jennifer Lee, and starred Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Chris Pine, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Storm Reid. Becoming a Warrior offers a treasure trove of wisdom and advice for anyone with who has a dream. Valeria interviews Catherine Hand — She is the author of  “Becoming a Warrior: My Journey to Bring A Wrinkle in Time to the Screen..” Catherine is the President and CEO of Catherine Hand Media. She was one of the two producers behind Disney’s 2018 film adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s award-winning classic, A Wrinkle in Time. Her memoir, Becoming a Warrior: My Journey to Bring A Wrinkle in Time to the Screen, was published on October 25, 2022. Hand began her career as a development executive for acclaimed writer-producer Norman Lear, where she played a key role in launching the national nonprofit People For the American Way. She later worked as a development executive for Francis Ford Coppola’s production company, American Zoetrope, before joining a boutique corporate video production firm, collaborating with major clients such as Apple and Hewlett-Packard. Throughout her career, Hand has produced numerous events, radio programs, and television projects. She served as executive producer for a multi-part cable TV series on healthcare that won the 2009 GRACIE Award for Best Public Affairs Programming. In 2004, she executive-produced a television adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time for ABC, which earned the Best Feature award at the Toronto Children’s Festival. She also served as executive producer for the Discovery Channel Health Awards and associate-produced the Emmy-nominated ABC television special I Love Liberty. Her contributions extend beyond film and television—she played a role in mounting the televised 1984 Democratic National Convention and served as Vice President of Embassy Pictures. In the public sector, Hand was a political appointee in the Obama Administration, serving as Deputy Director of Communications and Public Liaison at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). As part of the agency’s core leadership team, she helped shape communications and policy decisions impacting 1.8 million federal workers. During her tenure, she oversaw events, managed OPM’s intranet, and produced over 75 videos and webcasts. Currently, Hand serves as a consultant for Ann Hand LLC, a premier jewelry design firms. She is a member of the Cosmos Club in Washington DC and continues to inspire others, coaching individuals to become warriors in their own lives. To learn more about Catherine Hand and her work, please visit: catherinehand.com

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• What I Have Learned About Living By Facing Dying

  — Every year, 18 million people worldwide are diagnosed with cancer. If you, or your loved one, is one of them, you know exactly how overwhelming, scary, and confusing it is to navigate the journey through diagnosis, treatment, prognoses, and all their accompanying emotions. Entrepreneur, business leader, IRONMAN triathlete, and five-time cancer survivor Bill C. Potts has waged a 20-year battle against the disease. In his valuable patient and caregiver guide, he shares his personal cancer story, and those of others, outlining everything you need to know to take on this fight. With empathy and honesty, Potts explains exactly what to expect, and shares lessons and important tips you can put into action all the way from diagnosis, to treatment, to remission, to cure—and how to face setbacks on your road to recovery. You’ll learn how to advocate for yourself, how to pick and manage your care team, and how to care for yourself emotionally and mentally. You’ll find out how to make your treatment days more comfortable, manage side effects, and understand test results. You’ll also find important information on diet, exercise, wellness, and staying active, as well as insights on how treatment and disease affects your immune system. With special sections for people wanting to support a loved one with cancer, facing and making peace with death, and recalibrating your priorities to get the most out of the life you have now, you’ll gain the knowledge and tools you need to manage this journey—from someone who is walking the path alongside you. Valeria interviews Bill Potts  — He is the author of  “Up for the Fight: How to Advocate for Yourself as You Battle Cancer—from a Five-Time Survivor.” Bill C Potts has been married to his human for 32 years and is the father of 3 kids, including twin girls.  His sweet dog Pippa is by his side often!  He and his wife Kim are entrepreneurs and owned a Massage Envy and European Wax Center.  Bill was a C-level marketer with a fun and rewarding career. This included work at Fortune 500 companies, a start-up technology company, and the company behind the IRONMAN triathlon brand.  Bill owned a Marketing Agency later in his career.  His career highlight was working as the Chief Marketing and Revenue Officer of Clearwater Marine Aquarium, which was made famous by the two Dolphin Tale movies.  Bill and Winter, the dolphin, had a great relationship.  Bill even played hide and seek each morning with Hope, the dolphin. Bill loves to exercise, is an IRONMAN athlete, and plays tennis many times weekly. Bill is also the author of a book like “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” – but for cancer patients.  Bill is one of the world’s leading experts on cancer – from the patient’s perspective, as he has beaten cancer five times, with number six in progress.  He is very proud of his book “Up for the Fight.  How to Advocate for Yourself as You Battle Cancer – from a Five-Time Survivor.”  The book is changing and saving lives.  Guiding cancer patients and their families has become his life’s purpose.  He is busy doing it. To learn more about Bill Potts and his work, please visit: https://www.billcpotts.com/

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• Well-Being Post Natural Disaster

  — It has been our personal walk along the trail of life through challenges to our health and well-being that have cultivated and developed the programs and services we offer.  What matters most has become self-evident. Being well, living well, and doing well are the areas in which Sol Sanctuary has evolved its focus. We know from personal experience what carries us through and what creates lasting health, well-being, and supports a quality of life that is meaningful and fulfilling. When we choose to practice ways of being that improve the quality of life in our day to day, then we are able to inspire and ignite hope and possibility for others. If we can do it, if our family can weather it and cultivate more healthy relationships, so can you and yours. It is our collective dream now, a dream that belongs to the community that continues to grow and gather. We each are able to provide a safe harbor for others as they travel the difficulties and triumphs of life’s road. Valeria interviews Jen Jacobs — She is a humanitarian, visionary, coach, author, mother, and grandmother. As co-founder of Sol Sanctuary, a charitable organization, and a co-founder of Everyday Seven, a community of educators, practitioners and coaches, Jen’s life is devoted to improving the well-being of our human life and elevating our experience of human connectedness, which is a crucial component to how well we feel in our everyday life. She currently offers a workbook series that invites us to look at our life experiences as purposeful, and that each experience brings an opportunity for growth and remembrance of who we truly are. Her expertise is getting to the heart of the matter, assisting clients in developing authentic relationships with themselves as well as tools that create healthy relationship patterns with others. Jen’s focus is to foster and cultivate the development of individuals, families, and communities into regenerative relationships that create and sustain a symbiotic way of life for all.  She has worked with Dr. Deepak Chopra and the late Dr. David Simon of the Chopra Center; the late Dr. Jeremy Geffen, oncologist and author of The Seven Levels of Healing; Spiritual and Emotional Wellness Committee, post wildfire community care; Camp Fire Collaborative, post wildfire community support; Choice Humanitarian, an international poverty alleviation organization; executives with Keller Williams Real Estate; The Mike Ferry Organization; Bruce Cryer, former CEO of Heartmath Institute; and Gary Malkin, founder of Wisdom of the World. To learn more about Jen Jacobs and her work, please visit https://www.solsanctuary.org/ https://www.solsanctuary.org/donate https://learn.everyday7.com/

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  1:06:50
• Connecting to the Power of the Great Mother

  — We are not here on Earth to be alone, but to be part of a living community, a web of life in which all is sacred. Ceremonies and rituals are powerful tools that promote and sustain healthy changes as we move though life's passages. They help you release old patterns, call in healing energies, bring empowerment to new intentions, honor rites of passage, and connect you with a deeper sense of support and guidance from Spirit in your life. Sandra work with you to create ceremonies that best support your intentions, and to honor your life transitions in a meaningful and sacred way. As a non-denominational ordained Minister of the Foundation of the Sacred Stream and Shamanic Practitioner, Sandra works with clients from diverse cultural traditions, spiritual beliefs and practices. Valeria interviews Sandra Lloyd — She is Urban Shaman, Shamanic Hypnotherapist, Spiritual Midwife, Modern Alchemist, Ceremonialist, Badass Cosmic Mother, Shamanic Healer and Speaker. As a Certified Hypnotherapist through the Foundation of the Sacred Stream in Berkeley, CA, Sandra has received expert training in Depth Hypnosis, Shamanism, Buddhist Psychology, Energy Medicine and Hypnotherapy. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and Sociology. Sandra's path of healing service has been informed by two separate diagnoses and recoveries from cancer, as well her work since 2004 providing hands-on, unconditional support and advocacy for pregnant and birthing women navigating the complexities of the initiation of birth and passage into motherhood. Energetically "holding space" in the birth environment, and grounded in her connection with spiritual allies, she has been privileged to assist the safe and empowering passages of hundreds of new lives into this world.  In the summer of 2014, Sandra journeyed to Peru to join an expedition with Alberto Villoldo and Marcela Lobos of the Four Winds Society. Taking part in daily teachings and ceremonies, led by renowned medicine men and women, deepened her understanding of the ancient teachings of shamanism and of the Q'ero. She received the Munay-Ki rites of initiation directly from these master shamans and lineage keepers in ancient places of power in Peru's Sacred Valley. Since 2016, Sandra has continued her training in shamanic practices designed for spiritual evolution and healing with don Oscar Miro-Quesada, respected kamasqa curandero and altomisayoq adept from Peru, founder of the Heart of the Healer Mystery School and originator of the Pachekuti Mesa Tradition of cross-cultural shamanism. As a Shamanic Practitioner, Depth Hypnosis therapist, Ceremonialist and Birthkeeper, Sandra Lloyd/Urban Shaman brings ancient healing practices to guide her clients in addressing challenges that arise in relation to fertility, reproductive choice, pregnancy, miscarriage, labor, birth and the powerful initiation of Motherhood. She offers contemporary applications of shamanic practices (altered states/shamanic journey, regression, soul retrieval, power retrieval, removal of energetic interference) for releasing old patterns, uncovering and healing core woundings/trauma, and (re)connecting to one's authentic self. To learn more about Sandra Lloyd and her work, please visit: https://www.sandralloyd.net/

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  1:10:25
• The World Of Adoption: The Challenges, The Joy, & The Lessons

  — Charlyn Spiering has been along the adoption and foster parenting path many times with a variety of organizations and in several capacities. Since beginning her journey, she has learned a lot from her own mistakes and the experiences of adoptees and first mothers that have allowed her insight into their lives. Together we can look at the realities of what adoption and foster care is like today and see where you might fit in. As a coach, Charlyn walks alongside you and help you understand the process and the responsibility we have as adoptive and foster parents to the children and first families we interact with. Valeria interviews Charlyn Spiering  — She is  an adoptive parent, a former foster parent, and a former foster care volunteer.  In the last couple of years, Charlyn has been actively podcasting and writing about many topics from all sides of adoption and foster care. She has talked to adoptive parents and foster parents, but also adoptees, birth mothers, and others. Charlyn doesn’t just interview people about their personal stories, but she also gets their ideas to improve adoption and foster care. One goal of this strategy is to encourage creative conversations about how to make these institutions better for everyone involved. This has truly broadened her understanding of how the systems we have in place and the support we lack affect people within this community and beyond. Charlyn can only do so much to change the structure we have, but she feels she is in a unique position to work with individuals who have been touched by foster care or adoption, helping them build confidence and reach their goals. Most recently, Charlyn has become a professional life coach offering services to people touched by adoption or foster care. She thinks it is important when helping people within adoption and foster care move toward their desires that the person they work with understands common issues they may face and can compassionately help them find a way through. To learn more about Charlyn Spiering and her work, please visit: https://adoptgrowthcoaching.com/

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